Afternoon Session
THE PRESIDENT: Before the Attorney General continues his opening statement, the Tribunal wishes me to state what they propose to do as to time of sitting for the immediate future. We think it will be more convenient that the Tribunal shall sit from 10:00 o’clock in the morning until 1:00 o’clock, with a break for 10 minutes in the middle of the morning; and that the Tribunal shall sit in the afternoon from 2:00 o’clock until 5:00 o’clock with a break for 10 minutes in the middle of the afternoon; and that there shall be no open sitting of the Tribunal on Saturday morning, as the Tribunal has a very large number of applications by the defendants’ counsel for witnesses and documents and other matters of that sort which it has to consider.
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: May it please the Tribunal, when we broke off I had been saying that the Nazi Government was intent upon aggression, and all that had been taking place in regard to Danzig—the negotiations, the demands that were being made—were really no more than a cover, a pretext and excuse for further domination.
As far back as September 1938 plans for aggressive war against Poland, England, and France were well in hand. While Hitler, at Munich, was telling the world that the German people wanted peace, and that having solved the Czechoslovakian problem, Germany had no more territorial problems in Europe, the staffs of his Armed Forces were already preparing their plans. On the 26th of September 1938 he had stated:
“We have given guarantees to the states in the West. We have assured all our immediate neighbors of the integrity of their territory as far as Germany is concerned. That is no mere phrase. It is our sacred will. We have no interest whatever in a breach of the peace. We want nothing from these peoples.”
And the world was entitled to rely on those assurances. International co-operation is utterly impossible unless one can assume good faith in the leaders of the various states and honesty in the public utterances that they make. But, in fact, within 2 months of that solemn and apparently considered undertaking, Hitler and his confederates were preparing for the seizure of Danzig. To recognize those assurances, those pledges, those diplomatic moves as the empty frauds that they were, one must go back to inquire what was happening within the inner councils of the Reich from the time of the Munich Agreement.
Written some time in September 1938 is an extract from a file on the reconstruction of the German Navy. Under the heading
“Opinion on the Draft Study of Naval Warfare against England,” this is stated:
“1. If, according to the Führer’s decision, Germany is to acquire a position as a world power, she needs not only sufficient colonial possessions but also secure naval communications and secure access to the ocean.
“2. Both requirements can be fulfilled only in opposition to Anglo-French interests and would limit their position as world powers. It is unlikely that they can be achieved by peaceful means. The decision to make Germany a world power, therefore, forces upon us the necessity of making the corresponding preparations for war.
“3. War against England means at the same time war against the Empire, against France, probably against Russia as well, and a large number of countries overseas, in fact, against one-third to one-half of the world.
“It can only be justified and have a chance of success”—and it was not moral justification which was being looked for in this document—“It can only be justified and have a chance of success if it is prepared economically as well as politically and militarily, and waged with the aim of conquering for Germany an outlet to the ocean.”
THE PRESIDENT: I think the Tribunal would like to know at what stage you propose to put the documents, which you are citing, in evidence.
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: Well, Sir, my colleagues, my American and my British colleagues, were proposing to follow up my own address by putting these documents in. The first series of documents, which will be put in by my noted colleague, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, will be the treaties.
THE PRESIDENT: I suppose that what you quote will have to be read again.
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: Well, I am limiting my quotations as far as I possibly can. I apprehend that technically you may wish it to be quoted again, so as to get it on the record when the document is actually put into evidence. But I think it will appear, when the documents themselves are produced, that there will be a good deal more in most of them than I am actually citing now.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Very well.
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: This document on naval warfare against England is something which is both significant and new. Until this date the documents in our possession disclose preparations for war against Poland, England, and France, purporting on the face of them at least to be defensive measures to ward off attacks which might result from the intervention of those states in the preparatory German aggressions in Central Europe. Hitherto aggressive war against Poland, England, and France has been contemplated only as a distant objective. Now, in this document for the first time, we find a war of conquest by Germany against France and England openly recognized as the future aim, at least of the German Navy.
On 24 November 1938 an appendix was issued by Keitel to a previous order of the Führer. In that appendix were set out the future tasks for the Armed Forces and the preparation for the conduct of the war which would result from those tasks.
“The Führer has ordered”—I quote—“that besides the three eventualities mentioned in the previous directive . . . preparations are also to be made for the surprise occupation by German troops of the Free State of Danzig.
“For the preparation the following principles are to be borne in mind.”—This is the common pattern of aggression—“The primary assumption is the lightning seizure of Danzig by exploiting a favorable political situation, and not war with Poland. Troops which are going to be used for this purpose must not be held at the same time for the seizure of Memel, so that both operations can take place simultaneously, should such necessity arise.”
Thereafter, as the evidence which is already before the Tribunal has shown, final preparations were taking place for the invasion of Poland. On the 3rd of April 1939, 3 days before the issue of the Anglo-Polish communiqué, the Defendant Keitel issued to the High Command of the Armed Forces a directive in which it was stated that the directive for the uniform preparation of war by the Armed Forces in 1939-40, was being re-issued and that part relating to Danzig would be out in April. The basic principles were to remain the same as in the previous directive. Attached to this document were the orders Fall Weiss, the code name for the proposed invasion of Poland. Preparation for that invasion was to be made, it was stated, so that the operation could be carried out at any time from the 1st of September 1939 onwards.
On the 11th of April Hitler issued his directive for the uniform preparation of the war by the Armed Forces, 1939-40, and in it he said:
“I shall lay down in a later directive future tasks of the Armed Forces and the preparations to be made in accordance with these for the conduct of war. Until that directive comes into force the Armed Forces must be prepared for the following eventualities:
“1. Safeguarding of the frontiers . . .
“2. Fall Weiss,
“3. The annexation of Danzig.”
Then, in an annex to that document which bore the heading “Political Hypotheses and Aims,” it was stated that quarrels with Poland should be avoided. But should Poland change her policy and adopt a threatening attitude towards Germany, a final settlement would be necessary, notwithstanding the Polish Pact. The Free City of Danzig was to be incorporated in the Reich at the outbreak of the conflict at the latest. The policy aimed at limiting the war to Poland, and this was considered possible at that time with the internal crises in France and resulting British restraint.
The wording of that document—and the Tribunal will study the whole of it—does not directly involve the intention of immediate aggression. It is a plan of attack “if Poland changes her policy and adopts a threatening attitude.” But the picture of Poland, with her wholly inadequate armaments, threatening Germany, now armed to the teeth, is ludicrous enough, and the real aim of the document emerges in the sentence—and I quote: “The aim is then to destroy Polish military strength and to create, in the East, a situation which satisfies the requirements of defense”—a sufficiently vague phrase to cover designs of any magnitude. But even at that stage, the evidence does not suffice to prove that the actual decision to attack Poland on any given date had yet been taken. All the preparations were being set in train. All the necessary action was being proceeded with, in case that decision should be reached.
It was within 3 weeks of the issue of that last document that Hitler addressed the Reichstag on the 28th of April 1939. In that speech he repeated the demands which had already been made upon Poland, and proceeded to denounce the German-Polish Agreement of 1934. Leaving aside, for the moment, the warlike preparations for aggression, which Hitler had set in motion behind the scenes, I will ask the Tribunal to consider the nature of this denunciation of an agreement to which, in the past, Hitler had attached such importance.
In the first place, of course, Hitler’s denunciation was per se ineffectual. The text of the agreement made no provision for its denunciation by either party until a period of 10 years had come to an end. No denunciation could be legally effective until June or July of 1943, and here was Hitler speaking in April of 1939, rather more than 5 years too soon.
In the second place, Hitler’s actual attack upon Poland, when it came on 1 September was made before the expiration of the 6 months’ period after denunciation required by the agreement before any denunciation could be operative. And in the third place, the grounds for the denunciation stated by Hitler in his speech to the Reichstag were entirely specious. However one reads its terms, it is impossible to take the view that the Anglo-Polish guarantee of mutual assistance against aggression could render the German-Polish Pact null and void, as Hitler sought to suggest. If that had been the effect of the Anglo-Polish assurances, then certainly the pacts which had already been entered into by Hitler himself with Italy and with Japan had already invalidated the treaty with Poland. Hitler might have spared his breath. The truth is, of course, that the text of the English-Polish communiqué, the text of the assurances, contains nothing whatever to support the contention that the German-Polish Pact was in any way interfered with.
One asks: Why then did Hitler make this trebly invalid attempt to denounce his own pet diplomatic child? Is there any other possible answer but this:
That the agreement having served its purpose, the grounds which he chose for its denunciation were chosen merely in an effort to provide Germany with some kind of justification—at least for the German people—for the aggression on which the German leaders were intent.
And, of course, Hitler sorely needed some kind of justification, some apparently decent excuse, since nothing had happened, and nothing seemed likely to happen, from the Polish side, to provide him with any kind of pretext for invading Poland. So far he had made demands upon his treaty partner which Poland, as a sovereign state, had every right to refuse. If dissatisfied with that refusal, Hitler was bound, under the terms of the agreement itself, “To seek a settlement”—I am reading the words of the pact:
“To seek a settlement through other peaceful means, without prejudice to the possibility of applying those methods of procedure, in case of necessity, which are provided for such a case in the other agreements between them that are in force.”
And that presumably was a reference to the German-Polish Arbitration Treaty, signed at Locarno in 1925.
The very facts, therefore, that as soon as the Nazi leaders cannot get what they want but are not entitled to from Poland by merely asking for it and that, on their side, they made no further attempt to settle the dispute “by peaceful means”—in accordance with the terms of the agreement and of the Kellogg Pact, to which the agreement pledged both parties—in themselves constitute a strong presumption of aggressive intentions against Hitler and his associates. That presumption becomes a certainty when the documents to which I am about to call the attention of the Tribunal are studied.
On the 10th of May Hitler issued an order for the capture of economic installations in Poland. On the 16th of May the Defendant Raeder, as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, issued a memorandum setting out the Führer’s instructions to prepare for the operation Fall Weiss at any time from the 1st of September.
But the decisive document is the record of the conference held by Hitler on the 23rd of May 1939, in conference with many high-ranking officers, including the Defendants Göring, Raeder, and Keitel. The details of the whole document will have to be read to the Tribunal later and I am merely summarizing the substantial effect of this part of it now. Hitler stated that the solution of the economic problems with which Germany was beset at first, could not be found without invasion of foreign states and attacks on foreign property. “Danzig”—and I am quoting:
“Danzig is not the subject of the dispute at all. It is a question of expanding our living space in the East. There is, therefore, no question of sparing Poland, and we are left with the decision to attack Poland at the earliest opportunity. We cannot expect a repetition of the Czech affair. There will be fighting. Our task is to isolate Poland. The success of this isolation will be decisive. The isolation of Poland is a matter of skillful politics.”
So he explained to his confederates. He anticipated the possibility that war with England and France might result, but a two-front war was to be avoided if possible. Yet England was recognized—and I say it with pride—as the most dangerous enemy which Germany had. “England,” he said, I quote, “England is the driving force against Germany . . . the aim will always be to force England to her knees.” More than once he repeated that the war with England and France would be a life and death struggle. “But all the same,” he concluded, “Germany will not be forced into war but she would not be able to avoid it.”
On the 14th of June 1939 General Blaskowitz, then Commander-in-Chief of the 3rd Army group, issued a detailed battle plan for the Fall Weiss. The following day Von Brauchitsch issued a memorandum in which it was stated that the object of the impending operation was to destroy the Polish Armed Forces. “High policy demands,” he said, “High policy demands that the war should be begun by heavy surprise blows in order to achieve quick results.” The preparations proceeded apace. On the 22d of June the Defendant Keitel submitted a preliminary timetable for the operation, which Hitler seems to have approved, and suggested that the scheduled maneuver must be camouflaged, “in order not to disquiet the population.” On the 3rd of July, Brauchitsch wrote to the Defendant Raeder urging that certain preliminary naval moves should be abandoned, in order not to prejudice the surprise of the attack. On the 12th and 13th of August Hitler and Ribbentrop had a conference with Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister.
It was a conference to which the Tribunal will have to have regard from several points of view. I summarize now only one aspect of the matter: At the beginning of the conversation Hitler emphasized the strength of the German position, of Germany’s Western and Eastern Fortifications, and of the strategic and other advantages they held in comparison with those of England, France, and Poland. Now I quote from the captured document itself. Hitler said this:
“Since the Poles through their whole attitude had made it clear that, in any case, in the event of a conflict, they would stand on the side of the enemies of Germany and Italy, a quick liquidation at the present moment could only be of advantage for the unavoidable conflict with the Western Democracies. If a hostile Poland remained on Germany’s eastern frontier, not only would the 11 East Prussian divisions be tied down, but also further contingents would be kept in Pomerania and Silesia. This would not be necessary in the event of a previous liquidation.”
Then this:
“Generally speaking, the best thing to happen would be to liquidate the false neutrals one after the other. This process could be carried out more easily if on every occasion one partner of the Axis covered the other while it was dealing with an uncertain neutral. Italy might well regard Yugoslavia as a neutral of that kind.”
Ciano was for postponing the operation. Italy was not ready. She believed that a conflict with Poland would develop into a general European war. Mussolini was convinced that conflict with the Western Democracies was inevitable, but he was making plans for a period 2 or 3 years ahead. But the Führer said that the Danzig question must be disposed of, one way or the other, by the end of August. I quote: “He had, therefore, decided to use the occasion of the next political provocation which has the form of an ultimatum . . . .”
On the 22d of August Hitler called his Supreme Commanders together and gave the order for the attack. In the course of what he said he made it clear that the decision to attack had, in fact, been made not later than the previous spring. He would give a spurious cause for starting the war. And at that time the attack was timed to take place in the early hours of the 26th of August. On the day before, on the 25th of August, the British Government, in the hope that Hitler might still be reluctant to plunge the world into war, and in the belief that a formal treaty would impress him more than the informal assurances which had been given previously, entered into an agreement, an express agreement for mutual assistance with Poland, embodying the previous assurances that had been given earlier in the year. It was known to Hitler that France was bound by the Franco-Polish Treaty of 1921, and by the Guarantee Pact signed at Locarno in 1925 to intervene in Poland’s favor in case of aggression. And for a moment Hitler hesitated. The Defendants Göring and Ribbentrop, in the interrogations which you will see, have agreed that it was the Anglo-Polish Treaty which led him to call off, or rather postpone, the attack which was timed for the 26th. Perhaps he hoped that after all there was still some chance of repeating what he had called the Czech affair. If so, his hopes were short-lived. On the 27th of August Hitler accepted Mussolini’s decision not at once to come into the war; but he asked for propaganda support and for a display of military activity on the part of Italy, so as to create uncertainty in the minds of the Allies. Ribbentrop on the same day said that the armies were marching.
In the meantime, and, of course, particularly during the last month, desperate attempts were being made by the Western Powers to avert war. You will have details of them in evidence, of the intervention of the Pope, of President Roosevelt’s message, of the offer by the British Prime Minister to do our utmost to create the conditions in which all matters in issue could be the subject of free negotiations, and to guarantee the resultant decisions. But this and all the other efforts of honest men to avoid the horror of a European conflict were predestined to failure. The Germans were determined that the day for war had come. On the 31st of August Hitler issued a top-secret order for the attack to commence in the early hours of the 1st of September.
The necessary frontier incidents duly occurred. Was it, perhaps, for that, that the Defendant Keitel had been instructed by Hitler to supply Heydrich with Polish uniforms? And so without a declaration of war, without even giving the Polish Government an opportunity of seeing Germany’s final demands—and you will hear the evidence of the extraordinary diplomatic negotiations, if one can call them such, that took place in Berlin—without giving the Poles any opportunity at all of negotiating or arbitrating on the demands which Nazi Germany was making, the Nazi troops invaded Poland.
On the 3rd of September Hitler sent a telegram to Mussolini thanking him for his intervention but pointing out that the war was inevitable and that the most promising moment had to be picked after cold deliberation. And so Hitler and his confederates now before this Tribunal began the first of their wars of aggression for which they had prepared so long and so thoroughly. They waged it so fiercely that within a few weeks Poland was overrun.
On the 23rd of November 1939 Hitler reviewed the situation to his military commanders and in the course of what he said he made this observation:
“One year later Austria came; this step was also considered doubtful. It brought about an essential reinforcement of the Reich. The next step was Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland. This step also was not possible to accomplish in one move. First of all the Western Fortifications had to be finished . . . . Then followed the creation of the Protectorate, and with that the basis for action against Poland was laid. But I was not quite clear at the time whether I should start first against the East and then in the West, or vice versa . . . . The compulsion to fight with Poland came first. One might accuse me of wanting to fight again and again. In struggle, I see the fate of all beings.”
He was not sure where to attack first. But that sooner or later he would attack, whether it were in the East or in the West, was never in doubt. And he had been warned, not only by the British and French Prime Ministers but even by his confederate Mussolini, that an attack on Poland would bring England and France into the war. He chose what he thought was the opportune moment, and he struck.
Under these circumstances the intent to wage war against England and France, and to precipitate it by an attack on Poland, is not to be denied. Here was defiance of the most solemn treaty obligations. Here was neglect of the most pacific assurances. Here was aggression, naked and unashamed, which was indeed to arouse the horrified and heroic resistance of all civilized peoples, but which, before it was finished, was to tear down much of the structure of our civilization.
Once started upon the active achievement of their plan to secure the domination of Europe, if not of the world, the Nazi Government proceeded to attack other countries, as occasion offered. The first actually to be attacked, actually to be invaded, after the attack upon Poland, were Denmark and Norway.
On the 9th of April 1940 the German Armed Forces invaded Norway and Denmark without any warning, without any declaration of war. It was a breach of the Hague Convention of 1907. It was a breach of the Convention of Arbitration and Conciliation signed between Germany and Denmark on 2 June 1926. It was, of course, a breach of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928. It was a violation of the Non-Aggression Treaty between Germany and Denmark made on the 31st of May 1939. And it was a breach of the most explicit assurances which had been given. After his annexation of Czechoslovakia had shaken the confidence of the world, Hitler attempted to reassure the Scandinavian states. On the 28th of April 1939 he affirmed that he had never made any request to any of them which was incompatible with their sovereignty and independence. On the 31st of May 1939 he signed a non-aggression pact with Denmark.
On the 2d of September 1939, the day after he had invaded Poland and occupied Danzig, he again expressed his determination, so he said, to observe the inviolability and integrity of Norway in an aide-mémoire, which was handed to the Norwegian Foreign Minister by the German Minister in Oslo on that day.
A month later, in a public speech on the 6th of October 1939, he said:
“Germany has never had any conflicts of interest or even points of controversy with the northern states, neither has she any today. Sweden and Norway have both been offered non-aggression pacts by Germany, and have both refused them, solely because they do not feel themselves threatened in any way.”
When the invasion of Denmark and Norway was already begun in the early morning of 9 April 1940, a German memorandum was handed to the governments of those countries attempting to justify the German action. Various allegations against the governments of the invaded countries were made. It was said that Norway had been guilty of breaches of neutrality. It was said that she had allowed and tolerated the use of her territorial waters by Great Britain. It was said that Britain and France were themselves making plans to invade and occupy Norway and that the Government of Norway was prepared to acquiesce in such an event.
I do not propose to argue the question whether or not these allegations were true or false. That question is irrelevant to the issues before this Court. Even if the allegations were true—and they were patently false—they would afford no conceivable justification for the action of invading without warning, without declaration of war, without any attempt at mediation or conciliation.
Aggressive war is none the less aggressive war because the state which wages it believes that other states might, in the future, take similar action. The rape of a nation is not justified because it is thought she may be raped by another. Nor even in self-defense are warlike measures justified except after all means of mediation have been tried and failed and force is actually being exercised against the state concerned.
But the matter is irrelevant because, in actual fact, with the evidence which we now possess, it is abundantly clear that the invasion of these two countries was undertaken for quite different purposes. It had been planned long before any question of breach of neutrality or occupation of Norway by England could ever have occurred. And it is equally clear that the assurances repeated again and again throughout 1939 were made for no other purpose than to lull suspicion in these countries, and to prevent them taking steps to resist the attack against them which was all along in active preparation.
For some years the Defendant Rosenberg, in his capacity as Chief of the Foreign Affairs Bureau—APA—of the NSDAP, had interested himself in the promotion of Fifth Column activities in Norway and he had established close relationship with the Nasjonal Samling, a political group headed by the now notorious traitor, Vidkun Quisling. During the winter of 1938-39, APA was in contact with Quisling, and later Quisling conferred with Hitler and with the Defendants Raeder and Rosenberg. In August 1939 a special 14-day course was held at the school of the Office of Foreign Relations in Berlin for 25 followers whom Quisling had selected to attend. The plan was to send a number of selected and “reliable” men to Germany for a brief military training in an isolated camp. These “reliable men” were to be the area and language specialists to German special troops who were taken to Oslo on coal barges to undertake political action in Norway. The object was a coup in which Quisling would seize his leading opponents in Norway, including the King, and prevent all military resistance from the beginning. Simultaneously with those Fifth Column activities Germany was making her military preparations. On the 2d of September 1939, as I said, Hitler had assured Norway of his intention to respect her neutrality. On 6 October he said that the Scandinavian states were not menaced in any way. Yet on the 3rd October the Defendant Raeder was pointing out that the occupation of bases, if necessary by force, would greatly improve the German strategic position. On the 9th of October Dönitz was recommending Trondheim as the main base, with Narvik as an alternative base for fuel supplies. The Defendant Rosenberg was reporting shortly afterwards on the possibility of a coup d’état by Quisling, immediately supported by German military and naval forces. On the 12th of December 1939 the Defendant Raeder advised Hitler, in the presence of the Defendants Keitel and Jodl, that if Hitler was favorably impressed by Quisling, the OKW should prepare for the occupation of Norway, if possible with Quisling’s assistance, but if necessary, entirely by force. Hitler agreed, but there was a doubt whether action should be taken against the Low Countries or against Scandinavia first. Weather conditions delayed the march on the Low Countries. In January 1940 instructions were given to the German Navy for the attack on Norway. On the 1st of March a directive for the occupation was issued by Hitler. The general object was not said to be to prevent occupation by English forces but, in vague and general terms, to prevent British encroachment in Scandinavia and the Baltic and “to guarantee our ore bases in Sweden and to give our Navy and Air Force a wider start line against Britain.” But the directive went on (and here is the common pattern):
“. . . on principle we will do our utmost to make the operation appear as a peaceful occupation, the object of which is the military protection of the Scandinavian states . . . . It is important that the Scandinavian states as well as the western opponents should be taken by surprise by our measures . . . . In case the preparations for embarkation can no longer be kept secret, the leaders and the troops will be deceived with fictitious objectives.”
The form and success of the invasion are well known. In the early hours of the 9th of April, seven cruisers, 14 destroyers, and a number of torpedo boats and other small craft carried advance elements of six divisions, totalling about 10,000 men, forced an entry and landed troops in the outer Oslo Fjord, Kristiansand, Stavanger, Bergen, Trondheim, and Narvik. A small force of troops was also landed at Arendal and Egersund on the southern coast. In addition, airborne troops were landed near Oslo and Stavanger in airplanes. The German attack came as a complete surprise. All the invaded towns along the coast were captured according to plan and with only slight losses. Only the plan to capture the King and Parliament failed. But brave as was the resistance, which was hurriedly organized throughout the country—nothing could be done in the face of the long-planned surprise attack—and on the 10th of June military resistance ceased. So another act of aggression was brought to completion.
Almost exactly a month after the attack, on Norway, on the 10th of May 1940, the German Armed Forces, repeating what had been done 25 years before, streamed into Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg according to plan—a plan that is, of invading without warning and without any declaration of war.
What was done was, of course, a breach of the Hague Convention, and is so charged. It was a violation of the Locarno Agreement of 1925, which the Nazi Government affirmed in 1935, only illegally to repudiate it a couple of years later. By that agreement all questions incapable of settlement by ordinary diplomatic means were to be referred to arbitration. You will see the comprehensive terms of all those treaties. It was a breach of the Treaty of Arbitration and Conciliation signed between Germany and the Netherlands on the 20th of May 1926. It was a breach of a similar treaty with Luxembourg of 11 September 1929. It was a breach of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. But those treaties, perhaps, had not derived in the minds of the Nazi rulers of Germany any added sanctity from the fact that they had been solemnly concluded by the governments of pre-Nazi Germany. Let us then consider the specific assurances and undertakings which the Nazi rulers themselves gave to these states which lay in the way of their plans against France and England and which they had always intended to attack. Not once, not twice, but 11 times the clearest possible assurances were given to Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. On those assurances, solemnly given and formally expressed, these countries were entitled to rely and did rely. In respect of the breach of those assurances these defendants are charged. On the 30th of January 1937, for instance, Hitler had said:
“As for the rest, I have more than once expressed the desire and the hope of entering into similar good and cordial relations with our neighbors. Germany has, and here I repeat this solemnly, given the assurance time and time again that, for instance, between her and France there cannot be any humanly conceivable points of controversy. The German Government has further given the assurance to Belgium and Holland that it is prepared to recognize and to guarantee the inviolability and neutrality of these territories.”
After Hitler had remilitarized the Rhineland and had repudiated the Locarno Pact, England and France sought to re-establish the position of security for Belgium which Hitler’s action had threatened. And they, therefore, gave to Belgium on the 24th of April 1937 a specific guarantee that they would maintain, in respect of Belgium, the undertakings of assistance which they had entered into with her both under the Locarno Pact and under the Covenant of the League. On the 13th of October 1937 the German Government also made a declaration assuring Belgium of its intention to recognize the integrity of that country.
It is, perhaps, convenient to deal with the remaining assurances as we review the evidence which is available as to the preparations and intentions of the German Government prior to their actual invasion of Belgium on the 10th of May 1940.
As in the case of Poland, as in the case of Norway and Denmark, so also here the dates speak for themselves.
As early as August of 1938 steps were being taken to utilize the Low Countries as bases for decisive action in the West in the event of France and England opposing Germany in the aggressive plan which was on foot at that time against Czechoslovakia.
In an Air Force letter dated the 25th of August 1938 which deals with the action to be taken if England and France should interfere in the operation against Czechoslovakia, it is stated:
“It is not expected for the moment that other states will intervene against Germany. The Dutch and the Belgian area assumes in this connection much more importance for the conduct of war in Western Europe than during the World War, mainly as advance base for the air war.”
In the last paragraph of that order it is stated:
“Belgium and the Netherlands, when in German hands, represent an extraordinary advantage in the prosecution of the air war against Great Britain as well as against France . . .”
That was in August 1938. Eight months later, on the 28th of April 1939, Hitler is declaring again:
“I was pleased that a number of European states availed themselves of this declaration by the German Government to express and emphasize their desire to have absolute neutrality.”
A month later, on the 23rd of May 1939, Hitler held that conference in the Reich Chancellery, to which I already referred. The minutes of that meeting report Hitler as saying:
“The Dutch and Belgian air bases must be occupied by armed forces. Declarations of neutrality cannot be considered of any value. If England and France want a general conflict on the occasion of the war between Germany and Poland they will support Holland and Belgium in their neutrality . . . . Therefore, if England intends to intervene at the occasion of the Polish war, we must attack Holland with lightning speed. It is desirable to secure a defense line on Dutch soil up to the Zuider Zee.”
Even after that he was to give his solemn declarations that he would observe the neutrality of these countries. On the 26th of August 1939, when the crisis in regard to Danzig and Poland was reaching its climax, on the very day he had picked for the invasion of Poland, declarations assuring the governments concerned of the intention to respect their neutrality were handed by the German Ambassadors to the King of the Belgians, the Queen of the Netherlands, and to the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg in the most solemn form. But to the Army Hitler was saying:
“If Holland and Belgium are successfully occupied and held, a successful war against England will be secured.”
On the 1st of September Poland was invaded, and 2 days later England and France came into the war against Germany, in pursuance of the treaty obligations already referred to. On the 6th of October Hitler renewed his assurances of friendship to Belgium and Holland, but on the 9th of October, before any kind of accusation had been made by the German Government of breaches of neutrality, Hitler issued a directive for the conduct of the war. And he said this:
“1) If it becomes evident in the near future that England and France, acting under her leadership, are not disposed to end the war, I am determined to take firm and offensive action without letting much time elapse.
“2) A long waiting period results not only in the ending of Belgian and perhaps also of Dutch neutrality to the advantage of the Western Powers, but also strengthens the military power of our enemies to an increasing degree, causes confidence of the neutrals in final German victory to wane, and does not help to bring Italy to our aid as brothers-in-arms.
“3) I therefore issue the following orders for the further conduct of military operations:
“(a) Preparations should be made for offensive action on the northern flank of the Western Front crossing the area of Luxembourg, Belgium, and Holland. This attack must be carried out as soon and as forcefully as possible.
“(b) The object of this attack is to defeat as many strong sections of the French fighting army as possible, and her ally and partner in the fighting, and at the same time to acquire as great an area of Holland, Belgium, and northern France as possible, to use as a base offering good prospects for waging aerial and sea warfare against England and to provide ample coverage for the vital district of the Ruhr.”
Nothing could state more clearly or more definitely the object behind the invasion of these three countries than that document expresses it.
On the 15th of October 1939 the Defendant Keitel wrote a most-secret letter concerning “Fall Gelb” which was the name given to the operation against the Low Countries. In it he said that:
“The protection of the Ruhr area by moving aircraft reporting service and the air defense as far forward as possible in the area of Holland is significant for the whole conduct of the war. The more Dutch territory we occupy, the more effective can the defense of the Ruhr area be made. This point of view must determine the choice of objectives of the Army, even if the Army and Navy are not directly interested in such territorial gain. It must be the object of the Army’s preparations, therefore, to occupy, on receipt of a special order, the territory of Holland, in the first instance in the area of the Grebbe-Maas line. It will depend on the military and political attitude of the Dutch, as well as on the effectiveness of their flooding, whether objectives can and must be further extended.”
The Fall Gelb operation had apparently been planned to take place at the beginning of November 1939. We have in our possession a series of 17 letters, dated from 7th November until the 9th May postponing almost from day to day the D-Day of the operation, so that by the beginning of November all the major plans and preparations had in fact been made.
On the 10th of January 1940 a German airplane force-landed in Belgium. In it was found the remains of an operation order which the pilot had attempted to burn; setting out considerable details of the Belgian landing grounds that were to be captured by the Air Force. Many other documents have been found which illustrate the planning and preparation for this invasion in the latter half of 1939 and early 1940, but they carry the matter no further, and they show no more clearly than the evidence to which I have already referred, the plans and intention of the German Government and its Armed Forces.
On the 10th of May 1940 at about 0500 hours in the morning, the German invasion of Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg began.
And so once more the forces of aggression moved on. Treaties, assurances, the rights of sovereign states meant nothing. Brutal force, covered by as great an element of surprise as the Nazis could secure, was to seize that which was deemed necessary for striking the mortal blow against England, the main enemy. The only fault of these three unhappy countries was that they stood in the path of the German invader, in his designs against England and France. That was enough, and they were invaded.
[A recess was taken.]
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: On the 6th of April 1941 German Armed Forces invaded Greece and Yugoslavia. Again the blow was struck without warning and with the cowardice and deceit which the world now fully expected from the self-styled “Herrenvolk”. It was a breach of the Hague Convention. It was a breach of the Pact of Paris. It was a breach of a specific assurance given by Hitler on the 6th of October 1939.
He had then said this:
“Immediately after the completion of the Anschluss, I informed Yugoslavia that from now on the frontier with this country will also be an unalterable one and that we desire only to live in peace and friendship with her.”
But the plan for aggression against Yugoslavia had, of course, been in hand well before that. In the aggressive action eastward towards the Ukraine and the Soviet territories, security of the southern flank and the lines of communication had already been considered by the Germans.
The history of the events leading up to the invasion of Yugoslavia by Germany is well known. At 3 o’clock in the morning of the 28th of October 1940 a 3-hour ultimatum had been presented by the Italian Government to the Greek Government, and the presentation of that ultimatum was immediately followed by the aerial bombardment of Greek provincial towns and the advance of Italian troops into Greek territory. The Greeks were not prepared. They were at first forced to withdraw. But later the Italian advance was at first checked, then driven towards the Albanian frontier, and by the end of 1940 the Italian Army had suffered severe reverses at Greek hands.
Of the German position in the matter there is, of course, the evidence of what occurred when, on the 12th of August 1939, Hitler had this meeting with Ciano.
You will remember that Hitler said then:
“Generally speaking, the best thing to happen would be to liquidate false neutrals one after the other. This process could be carried out more easily if, on every occasion, one partner of the Axis covered the other while it was dealing with an uncertain neutral. Italy might well regard Yugoslavia as a neutral of this kind.”
Then the conference went on and it met again on the 13th of August, and in the course of lengthy discussions, Hitler said this:
“In general, however, on success by one of the Axis partners, not only strategical but also psychological strengthening of the other partner and also of the whole Axis would ensue. Italy carried through a number of successful operations in Abyssinia, Spain, and Albania, and each time against the wishes of the democratic entente. These individual actions have not only strengthened Italian local interests, but have also . . . reinforced her general position. The same was the case with German action in Austria and Czechoslovakia . . . . The strengthening of the Axis by these individual operations was of the greatest importance for the unavoidable clash with the Western Powers.”
And so once again we see the same procedure being followed. That meeting had taken place on the 12th and the 13th of August of 1939. Less than 2 months later, Hitler was giving his assurance to Yugoslavia that Germany only desired to live in peace and friendship with her, with the state, the liquidation of which by his Axis partner, he had himself so recently suggested.
Then came the Italian ultimatum to Greece and war against Greece and the Italian reverse.
We have found, amongst the captured documents, an undated letter from Hitler to Mussolini which must have been written about the time of the Italian aggression against Greece:
“Permit me”—Hitler said—“at the beginning of this letter to assure you that within the last 14 days my heart and my thoughts have been more than ever with you. Moreover, Duce, be assured of my determination to do everything on your behalf which might ease the present situation for you. When I asked you to receive me in Florence, I undertook the trip in the hope of being able to express my views prior to the beginning of the threatening conflict with Greece, about which I had received only general information. First, I wanted to request you to postpone the action, if at all possible, until a more favorable time of the year, at all events until after the American presidential election. But in any case, however, I wanted to request you, Duce, not to undertake this action without a previous lightning-like occupation of Crete and, for this purpose, I also wanted to submit to you some practical suggestions in regard to the employment of a German parachute division and a further airborne division . . . Yugoslavia must become disinterested, if possible, however, from our point of view, interested in co-operating in the liquidation of the Greek question. Without assurances from Yugoslavia, it is useless to risk any successful operation in the Balkans . . . Unfortunately, I must stress the fact that waging a war in the Balkans before March is impossible. Hence it would also serve to make any threatening influence upon Yugoslavia of no purpose, since the Serbian General Staff is well aware of the fact that no practical action could follow such a threat before March. Hence, Yugoslavia must, if at all possible, be won over by other means and in other ways.”
On the 12th of November 1939, in his top-secret order, Hitler ordered the OKH to make preparations to occupy Greece and Bulgaria, if necessary. Apparently 10 divisions were to be used in order to prevent Turkish intervention. I think I said 1939; it should, of course, have been the 12th of November 1940. And to shorten the time, the German divisions in Romania were to be increased.
On the 13th of December Hitler issued an order to OKW, OKL, OKH, OKM, and the General Staff on the operation Marita, as the invasion of Greece was to be called. In that order it was stated that the invasion of Greece was planned and was to commence as soon as the weather was advantageous. A further order was issued on the 11th of January of 1941.
On the 28th of January of 1941 Hitler saw Mussolini. The Defendants Jodl, Keitel, and Ribbentrop were present at the meeting. We know about it from Jodl’s notes of what took place. We know that Hitler stated that one of the purposes of German troop concentrations in Romania was for use in the plan Marita against Greece.
On the 1st of March 1941 German troops entered Bulgaria and moved towards the Greek frontier. In the face of this threat of an attack on Greece by German as well as Italian forces, British troops were landed in Greece on the 3rd of March, in accordance with the declaration which had been given by the British Government on the 13th of April 1939; that Britain would feel bound to give Greece and Romania, respectively, all the support in her power in the event of either country becoming the victim of aggression and resisting such aggression. Already, of course, the Italian operations had made that pledge operative.
On the 25th of March of 1941, Yugoslavia, partly won over by the “other means and in other ways” to which Hitler had referred, joined the Three Power Pact which had already been signed by Germany, Italy, and Japan. The preamble of the pact stated that the three powers would stand side by side and work together.
On the same day the Defendant Ribbentrop wrote two notes to the Yugoslav Prime Minister assuring him of Germany’s full intention to respect the sovereignty and independence of his country. That declaration was just another example of the treachery employed by German diplomacy. We have already seen the preparations that had been made. We have seen Hitler’s attempts to tempt the Italians into an aggression against Yugoslavia. We have seen, in January, his own orders for preparations to invade Yugoslavia and then Greece. And now, on the 25th of March, he is signing a pact with that country and his Foreign Minister is writing assurances of respect for her sovereignty and territorial integrity.
As a result of the signing of that pact, the anti-Nazi element in Yugoslavia immediately accomplished a coup d’état and established a new government. And thereupon, no longer prepared to respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of her ally, Germany immediately took the decision to invade. On the 27th of March, 2 days after the Three Power Pact had been signed, Hitler issued instructions that Yugoslavia was to be invaded and used as a base for the continuance of the combined German and Italian operation against Greece.
Following that, further deployment and instructions for the action Marita were issued by Von Brauchitsch on the 30th of March 1941.
It was said—and I quote:
“The orders issued with regard to the operation against Greece remain valid so far as not affected by this order . . . . On the 5th April, weather permitting, the Air Forces are to attack troops in Yugoslavia, while simultaneously the attack of the 12th Army begins against both Yugoslavia and Greece.”
And as we now know, the invasion actually commenced in the early hours of the 6th of April.
Treaties, pacts, assurances, obligations of any kind, are brushed aside and ignored wherever the aggressive interests of Germany are concerned.
I turn now to the last act of aggression in Europe—my American colleagues will deal with the position in relation to Japan—I turn now to the last act of aggression in Europe with which these Nazi conspirators are charged, the attack upon Russia.
In August of 1939 Germany, although undoubtedly intending to attack Russia at some convenient opportunity, concluded a treaty of non-aggression with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. When Belgium and the Low Countries were occupied and France collapsed in June of 1940, England—although with the inestimably valuable moral and economic support of the United States of America—was left alone in the field as the sole representative of democracy in the face of the forces of aggression. At that moment only the British Empire stood between Germany and the achievement of her aim to dominate the Western World. Only the British Empire—and England as its citadel. But it was enough. The first, and possibly the decisive, military defeat which the enemy sustained was in the campaign against England; and that defeat had a profound influence on the future course of the war.
On the 16th of July of 1940 Hitler issued to the Defendants Keitel and Jodl a directive—which they found themselves unable to obey—for the invasion of England. It started off—and Englishmen will forever be proud of it—by saying that:
“Since England, despite her militarily hopeless situation, shows no signs of willingness to come to terms, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England and if necessary to carry it out. The aim is . . . to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the carrying on of the war against Germany . . . . Preparations for the entire operation must be completed by mid-August.”
But the first essential condition for that plan was, I quote:
“. . . the British Air Force must morally and actually be so far overcome that it does not any longer show any considerable aggressive force against the German attack.”
The Defendant Göring and his Air Force, no doubt, made the most strenuous efforts to realize that condition, but, in one of the most splendid pages of our history, it was decisively defeated. And although the bombardment of England’s towns and villages was continued throughout that dark winter of 1940-41, the enemy decided in the end that England was not to be subjugated by these means, and, accordingly, Germany turned back to the East, the first major aim unachieved.
On the 22d of June 1941 German Armed Forces invaded Russia, without warning, without declaration of war. It was, of course, a breach of the usual series of treaties; they meant no more in this case than they had meant in the other cases. It was a violation of the Pact of Paris; it was a flagrant contradiction of the Treaty of Non-Aggression which Germany and Russia had signed on the 23rd of August a year before.
Hitler himself said, in referring to that agreement, that “agreements were only to be kept as long as they served a purpose.”
The Defendant Ribbentrop was more explicit. In an interview with the Japanese Ambassador in Berlin on the 23rd of February 1941, he made it clear that the object of the agreement had merely been, so far as Germany was concerned, to avoid a two-front war.
In contrast to what Hitler and Ribbentrop and the rest of them were planning within the secret councils of Germany, we know what they were saying to the rest of the world.
On the 19th of July, Hitler spoke in the Reichstag:
“In these circumstances”—he said—“I considered it proper to negotiate as a first priority a sober definition of interest with Russia. It would be made clear once and for all what Germany believes she must regard as her sphere of interest to safeguard her future and, on the other hand, what Russia considers important for her existence. From this clear delineation of the sphere of interest there followed the new regulation of Russian-German relations. Any hope that now, at the end of the term of the agreement, a new Russo-German tension could arise is childish. Germany has taken no step which would lead her outside her sphere of interest, nor has Russia. But England’s hope to achieve an amelioration of her own position through the engineering of some new European crisis, is, insofar as it is concerned with Russo-German relations, an illusion.
“English statesmen perceive everything somewhat slowly, but they too will learn to understand this in the course of time.”
The whole statement was, of course, a tissue of lies. It was not many months after it had been made that the arrangements for attacking Russia were put into hand. And the Defendant Raeder gives us the probable reason for the decision in a note which he sent to Admiral Assmann:
“The fear that control of the air over the Channel in the Autumn of 1940 could no longer be attained, a realization which the Führer no doubt gained earlier than the Naval War Staff, who were not so fully informed of the true results of air raids on England (our own losses), surely caused the Führer, as far back as August and September”—this was August and September of 1940—“to consider whether, even prior to victory in the West, an Eastern campaign would be feasible, with the object of first eliminating our last serious opponent on the Continent . . . . The Führer did not openly express this fear, however, until well into September.”
He may not have spoken to the Navy of his intentions until later in September, but by the beginning of that month he had undoubtedly told the Defendant Jodl about them.
Dated the 6th of September 1940, we have a directive of the OKW signed by the Defendant Jodl, and I quote:
“Directions are given for the occupation forces in the East to be increased in the following weeks. For security reasons”—and I quote—“this should not create the impression in Russia that Germany is preparing for an Eastern offensive.”
Directives are given to the German Intelligence Service pertaining to the answering of questions by the Russian Intelligence Service, and I quote:
“The respective strength of the German troops in the East is to be camouflaged by . . . frequent changes in this area . . . . The impression is to be created that the bulk of the troops is in the south of the Government General and that the occupation in the North is relatively small.”
And so we see the beginning of the operations.
On the 12th of November 1940 Hitler issued a directive, signed by the Defendant Jodl, in which it was stated that the political task to determine the attitude of Russia had begun, but that without reference to the result of preparations against the East, which had been ordered orally.
It is not to be supposed that the U.S.S.R. would have taken part in any conversations at that time if it had been realized that on the very day orders were being given for preparations to be made for the invasion of Russia, and that the order for the operation, which was called “Plan Barbarossa”, was in active preparation. On the 18th of December the order was issued, and I quote:
“The German Armed Forces have to be ready to defeat Soviet Russia in a swift campaign before the end of the war against Great Britain.”
And later, in the same instruction—and I quote again:
“All orders which shall be issued by the High Commanders in accordance with this instruction have to be clothed in such terms that they may be taken as measures of precaution in case Russia should change her present attitude towards ourselves.”
Germany kept up the pretense of friendliness and, on the 10th of January 1941, well after the Plan Barbarossa for the invasion of Russia had been decided upon, Germany signed the German-Russian Frontier Treaty. Less than a month later, on the 3rd of February of 1941, Hitler held a conference, attended by the Defendants Keitel and Jodl, at which it was provided that the whole operation against Russia was to be camouflaged as if it was part of the preparation for the “Plan Seelöwe”, as the plan for the invasion of England was described.
By March of 1941 plans were sufficiently advanced to include provision for dividing the Russian territory into nine separate states to be administered under Reich Commissars, under the general control of the Defendant Rosenberg; and at the same time detailed plans for the economic exploitation of the country were made under the supervision of the Defendant Göring, to whom the responsibility in this matter—and it is a serious one—had been delegated by Hitler.
You will hear something of the details of these plans. I remind you of one document which has already been referred to in this connection.
It is significant that on the 2d of May of 1941 a conference of State Secretaries took place in regard to the Plan Barbarossa, and in the course of that it was noted:
“1. The war can be continued only if all Armed Forces are fed out of Russia in the third year of the war.
“2. There is no doubt that, as a result, many millions of people will be starved to death if we take out of the country the things necessary for us.”
But that apparently caused no concern. The “Plan Oldenbourg”, as the scheme for the economic organization and exploitation of Russia was called, went on. By the 1st of May 1941, the D-Day of the operation had been fixed. By the 1st of June preparations were virtually complete and an elaborate timetable was issued. It was estimated that, although there would be heavy frontier battles, lasting perhaps 4 weeks, after that no serious opposition was to be expected.
On the 22d of June, at 3:30 in the morning, the German armies marched again. As Hitler said in his proclamation to them, “I have decided to give the fate of the German people and of the Reich and of Europe again into the hands of our soldiers.”
The usual false pretexts were, of course, given. Ribbentrop stated on the 28th of June that the step was taken because of the threatening of the German frontiers by the Red Army. It was a lie, and the Defendant Ribbentrop knew it was a lie.
On the 7th of June 1941 Ribbentrop’s own Ambassador in Moscow was reporting to him, and I quote, that, “All observations show that Stalin and Molotov, who are alone responsible for Russian foreign policy, are doing everything to avoid a conflict with Germany.” The staff records which you will see make it clear that the Russians were making no military preparations and that they were continuing their deliveries under the Trade Agreement to the very last day. The truth is, of course, that the elimination of Russia as a political opponent and the incorporation of the Soviet territory in the German Lebensraum had been one of the cardinal features of Nazi policy for a very long time, subordinated latterly for what the Defendant Jodl called diplomatic reasons.
And so, on the 22d of June, the Nazi armies were flung against the power with which Hitler had so recently sworn friendship, and Germany embarked upon that last act of aggression in Europe, which, after long and bitter fighting, was eventually to result in Germany’s own collapse.
That, then, is the case against these defendants, as amongst the rulers of Germany, under Count Two of this Indictment.
It may be said that many of the documents which have been referred to were in Hitler’s name, and that the orders were Hitler’s orders, and that these men were mere instruments of Hitler’s will. But they were the instruments without which Hitler’s will could not be carried out; and they were more than that. These men were no mere willing tools, although they would be guilty enough if that had been their role. They are the men whose support had built Hitler up into the position of power he occupied; these are the men whose initiative and planning often conceived and certainly made possible the acts of aggression done in Hitler’s name; and these are the men who enabled Hitler to build up the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the war economy, the political philosophy, by which these treacherous attacks were carried out, and by which he was able to lead his fanatical followers into peaceful countries to murder, to loot, and to destroy. They are the men whose cooperation and support made the Nazi Government of Germany possible.
The government of a totalitarian country may be carried on without representatives of the people, but it cannot be carried on without any assistance at all. It is no use having a leader unless there are also people willing and ready to serve their personal greed and ambition by helping and following him. The dictator who is set up in control of the destinies of his country does not depend on himself alone either in acquiring power or in maintaining it. He depends upon the support and the backing which lesser men, themselves lusting to share in dictatorial power, anxious to bask in the adulation of their leader, are prepared to give.
In the criminal courts of our countries, when men are put on their trial for breaches of the municipal laws, it not infrequently happens that of a gang indicted together in the dock, one has the master mind, the leading personality. But it is no excuse for the common thief to say, “I stole because I was told to steal”, for the murderer to plead, “I killed because I was asked to kill.” And these men are in no different position, for all that it was nations they sought to rob, and whole peoples which they tried to kill. “The warrant of no man excuseth the doing of an illegal act.” Political loyalty, military obedience are excellent things, but they neither require nor do they justify the commission of patently wicked acts. There comes a point where a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his conscience. Even the common soldier, serving in the ranks of his army, is not called upon to obey illegal orders. But these men were no common soldiers: They were the men whose skill and cunning, whose labor and activity made it possible for the German Reich to tear up existing treaties, to enter into new ones and to flout them, to reduce international negotiations and diplomacy to a hollow mockery, to destroy all respect for and effect in international law and, finally, to march against the peoples of the world to secure that domination in which, as arrogant members of their self-styled master race, they professed to believe.
If these crimes were in one sense the crimes of Nazi Germany, they also are guilty as the individuals who aided, abetted, counselled, procured, and made possible the commission of what was done.
The total sum of the crime these men have committed—so awful in its comprehension—has many aspects. Their lust and sadism, their deliberate slaughter and degradation of so many millions of their fellow creatures that the imagination reels, are but one side of this matter. Now that an end has been put to this nightmare, and we come to consider how the future is to be lived, perhaps their guilt as murderers and robbers is of less importance and of less effect to future generations of mankind than their crime of fraud—the fraud by which they placed themselves in a position to do their murder and their robbery. That is the other aspect of their guilt. The story of their “diplomacy”, founded upon cunning, hypocrisy, and bad faith, is a story less gruesome no doubt, but no less evil and deliberate. And should it be taken as a precedent of behavior in the conduct of international relations, its consequences to mankind will no less certainly lead to the end of civilized society.
Without trust and confidence between nations, without the faith that what is said is meant and that what is undertaken will be observed, all hope of peace and security is dead. The Governments of the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth, of the United States of America, of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and of France, backed by and on behalf of every other peace-loving nation of the world, have therefore joined to bring the inventors and perpetrators of this Nazi conception of international relationship before the bar of this Tribunal. They do so, so that these defendants may be punished for their crimes. They do so, also, that their conduct may be exposed in all its naked wickedness and they do so in the hope that the conscience and good sense of all the world will see the consequences of such conduct and the end to which inevitably it must always lead. Let us once again restore sanity and with it also the sanctity of our obligations towards each other.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Attorney, would it be convenient to the prosecutors from Great Britain to continue?
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: The proposal was that my friend, Mr. Sidney Alderman, should continue with the presentation of the case with regard to the final acts of aggression against Czechoslovakia and that that being done, my British colleagues would continue with the presentation of the British case. As the Tribunal will appreciate, Counts One and Two are in many respects complementary, and my American colleagues and ourselves are working in closest cooperation in presenting the evidence affecting those counts.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Alderman, would it be convenient for you to go on until 5 o’clock?
MR. ALDERMAN: Yes. May it please the Tribunal, it is quite convenient for me to proceed. I can but feel that it will be quite anticlimactic after the address which you just heard.
When the Tribunal rose yesterday afternoon, I had just completed an outline of the plans laid by the Nazi conspirators in the weeks immediately following the Munich Agreement. These plans called for what the German officials called “the liquidation of the remainder of Czechoslovakia.” You will recall that 3 weeks after Munich, on 21 October, the same day on which the administration of the Sudetenland was handed over to the civilian authorities, Hitler and Keitel had issued an order to the Armed Forces. This document is C-136, Exhibit USA-104.
In this order Hitler and Keitel ordered the beginning of preparations by the Armed Forces for the conquest of the remainder of Czechoslovakia. You will also recall that 2 months later, on 17 December, the Defendant Keitel issued an appendix to the original order directing the continuation of these preparations. This document is C-138, Exhibit USA-105, and both these documents have already been introduced.
Proceeding on the assumption that no resistance worth mentioning was to be expected, this order emphasized that the attack on Czechoslovakia was to be well camouflaged so that it would not appear to be a warlike action. “To the outside world,” it said, and I quote, “it must appear obvious that it is merely an action of pacification and not a warlike undertaking.”
Thus, in the beginning of 1939 the basic planning for military action against the mutilated Czechoslovak Republic had already been carried out by the German High Command.
I turn now to the underhand and criminal methods used by the Nazi conspirators to ensure that no resistance worth mentioning would, in fact, be met by the German Army. As in the case of Austria and the Sudetenland, the Nazi conspirators did not intend to rely on the Wehrmacht alone to accomplish their calculated objective of liquidating Czechoslovakia. With the German minority separated from Czechoslovakia, they could no longer use the cry, “Home to the Reich.” One sizable minority, the Slovaks, still remained within the Czechoslovak state.
I should mention at this point that the Czechoslovak Government had made every effort to conciliate Slovak extremists in the months after the cession of the Sudetenland. Autonomy had been granted to Slovakia, with an autonomous Cabinet and Parliament at Bratislava. Nevertheless, despite these concessions, it was in Slovakia that the Nazi conspirators found fertile ground for their tactics. The picture which I shall now draw of Nazi operations in Slovakia is based on the Czechoslovak official Government Report, Document Number 998-PS, already admitted in evidence as Exhibit USA-91, and of which the Court has already taken judicial notice.
Nazi propaganda and research groups had long been interested in maintaining close connection with the Slovak autonomist opposition. When Bela Tuka, who later became Prime Minister of the puppet state of Slovakia, was tried for espionage and treason in 1929, the evidence established that he had already established connections with Nazi groups within Germany. Prior to 1938 Nazi aides were in close contact with the Slovak traitors living in exile and were attempting to establish more profitable contacts in the semi-fascist Slovak Catholic People’s Party of Monsignor Andrew Hlinka. In February and July 1938 the leaders of the Henlein movement conferred with top men of Father Hlinka’s party and agreed to furnish one another with mutual assistance in pressing their respective claims to autonomy. This understanding proved useful in the September agitation when at the proper moment the Foreign Office in Berlin wired the Henlein leader, Kundt, in Prague to tell the Slovaks to start their demands for autonomy.
This telegram, our Document Number 2858-PS, Exhibit USA-97, has already been introduced in evidence and read.
By this time—midsummer 1938—the Nazis were in direct contact with figures in the Slovak autonomist movement and had paid agents among the higher staff of Father Hlinka’s party. These agents undertook to render impossible any understanding between the Slovak autonomists and the Slovak parties in the government at Prague.
Hans Karmasin, later to become Volksgruppenführer, had been appointed Nazi leader in Slovakia and professed to be serving the cause of Slovak autonomy while actually on the Nazi payroll. On 22 November the Nazis indiscreetly wired Karmasin to collect his money at the German Legation in Prague, and I offer in evidence Document 2859-PS as Exhibit USA-107, captured from the German Foreign Office files. I read this telegram which was sent from the German Legation at Prague to Pressburg:
“Delegate Kundt asks to notify State Secretary Karmasin he would appreciate it if he could personally draw the sum which is being kept for him at the treasury of the Embassy.”—signed—“Hencke.”
Karmasin proved to be extremely useful to the Nazi cause. Although it is out of its chronological place in my discussion, I should like now to offer in evidence Document 2794-PS, a captured memorandum of the German Foreign Office which I offer as Exhibit USA-108, dated Berlin, 29 November 1939.
This document, dated 8 months after the conquest of Czechoslovakia, throws a revealing light both on Karmasin and on the German Foreign Office, and I now read from this memorandum:
“On the question of payments to Karmasin.
“Karmasin receives 30,000 marks monthly from the VDA”—Peoples’ League for Germans Abroad—“until 1 April 1940; from then on 15,000 marks monthly.
“Furthermore, the Central Office for Racial Germans”—Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle—“has deposited 300,000 marks for Karmasin with the German Mission in Bratislava”—Pressburg—“on which he could fall back in an emergency.
“Furthermore, Karmasin has received money from Reich Minister Seyss-Inquart; for the present it has been impossible to determine what amounts had been involved, and whether the payments still continue.
“Therefore, it appears that Karmasin has been provided with sufficient money; thus one could wait to determine whether he would put up new demands himself.
“Herewith presented to the Reich Foreign Minister.”—signed—“Woermann.”
This document shows the complicity of the German Foreign Office in the subsidization of illegal organizations abroad. More important, it shows that the Germans still considered it necessary to supply their undercover representatives in Pressburg with substantial funds, even after the declaration of the so-called Independent State of Slovakia.
Sometime in the winter of 1938-39, the Defendant Göring conferred with Durkansky and Mach, two leaders in the Slovak extremist group, who were accompanied by Karmasin. The Slovaks told Göring of their desire for what they called independence, with strong political, economic, and military ties to Germany. They promised that the Jewish problem would be solved as it had been solved in Germany; that the Communist Party would be prohibited. The notes of the meeting report that Göring considered that the Slovak efforts towards independence were to be supported, but as the document will show, his motives were scarcely altruistic.
I now offer in evidence Document 2801-PS as Exhibit USA-109, undated minutes of a conversation between Göring and Durkansky. This document was captured among the files of the German Foreign Office.
I now read these minutes, which are jotted down in somewhat telegraphic style. To begin with:
“Durkansky (Deputy Prime Minister) reads out declaration. Contents: Friendship for the Führer; gratitude, that through the Führer, autonomy has become possible for the Slovaks: The Slovaks never want to belong to Hungary. The Slovaks want full independence with strongest political, economic, and military ties to Germany. Bratislava to be the capital. The execution of the plan only possible if the army and police are Slovak.
“An independent Slovakia to be proclaimed at the meeting of the first Slovak Diet. In the case of a plebiscite the majority would favor a separation from Prague. Jews will vote for Hungary. The area of the plebiscite to be up to the March, where a large Slovak population lives.
“The Jewish problem will be solved similarly to that in Germany. The Communist Party to be prohibited.
“The Germans in Slovakia do not want to belong to Hungary but wish to stay in Slovakia.
“The German influence with the Slovak Government considerable; the appointment of a German Minister (member of the Cabinet) has been promised.
“At present negotiations with Hungary are being conducted by the Slovaks. The Czechs are more yielding towards the Hungarians than the Slovaks.
“The Field Marshal”—that is Field Marshal Göring—“considers that the Slovak negotiations towards independence are to be supported in a suitable manner. Czechoslovakia without Slovakia is still more at our mercy.
“Air bases in Slovakia are of great importance for the German Air Force for use against the East.”
On 12 February a Slovak delegation journeyed to Berlin. It consisted of Tuka, one of the Slovaks with whom the Germans had been in contact, and Karmasin, the paid representative of the Nazi conspirators in Slovakia. They conferred with Hitler and the Defendant Ribbentrop in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin on Sunday, 12 February 1939.
I now offer in evidence Document 2790-PS as Exhibit USA-110, the captured German Foreign Office minutes of that meeting:
“After a brief welcome Tuka thanks the Führer for granting this meeting. He addresses the Führer with ‘My Führer’ and he voices the opinion that he, though only a modest man himself, might well claim to speak for the Slovak nation. The Czech courts and prison gave him the right to make such a statement. He states that the Führer had not only opened the Slovak question but that he had been also the first one to acknowledge the dignity of the Slovak nation. The Slovakian people will gladly fight under the leadership of the Führer for the maintenance of European civilization. Obviously future association with the Czechs had become an impossibility for the Slovaks from a moral as well as an economic point of view.”
Then skipping to the last sentence: “ ‘I entrust the fate of my people to your care.’ ”—addressing that to the Führer!
During the meeting the Nazi conspirators apparently were successful in planting the idea of insurrection with the Slovak delegation. I refer to the final sentence of the document, which I have just read, the sentence spoken by Tuka, “I entrust the fate of my people to your care.”
It is apparent from these documents that in mid-February 1939 the Nazis had a well-disciplined group of Slovaks at their service, many of them drawn from the ranks of Father Hlinka’s party. Flattered by the personal attention of such men as Hitler and the Defendant Ribbentrop and subsidized by German representatives, these Slovaks proved willing tools in the hands of the Nazi conspirators.
In addition to Slovaks, the conspirators made use of the few Germans still remaining within the mutilated Czechoslovak Republic. Kundt, Henlein’s deputy who had been appointed leader of this German minority, created as many artificial “focal points of German culture” as possible. Germans from the districts handed over to Germany were ordered from Berlin to continue their studies at the German University in Prague and to make it a center of aggressive Nazism.
With the assistance of German civil servants, a deliberate campaign of Nazi infiltration into Czech public and private institutions was carried out, and the Henleinists gave full co-operation to Gestapo agents from the Reich who appeared on Czech soil. The Nazi political activity was designed to undermine and to weaken Czech resistance to the commands from Germany.
In the face of continued threats and duress on both diplomatic and propaganda levels, the Czech Government was unable to take adequate measures against these trespassers upon its sovereignty.
I am using as the basis of my remarks the Czechoslovak official Government report, Document Number 998-PS.
In early March, with the date for the final march into Czechoslovakia already close at hand, Fifth Column activity moved into its final phase. In Bohemia and Moravia the FS, Henlein’s equivalent of the SS, were in touch with the Nazi conspirators in the Reich and laid the groundwork of the events of 14 and 15 March.
I now offer in evidence Document 2826-PS as Exhibit USA-111. This is an article by SS Group Leader Karl Hermann Frank, published in the publication Böhmen and Mähren, the official periodical of the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, edition May 1941, Page 179.
This is an article written by one of the Nazi leaders in Czechoslovakia at the moment of Germany’s greatest military successes. It is a boastful article and reveals with a frankness rarely found in the Nazi press both the functions which the FS and the SS served and the pride the Nazi conspirators took in the activities of these organizations. It is a long quotation.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you going on with this tomorrow, Mr. Alderman?
MR. ALDERMAN: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you take the whole day?
MR. ALDERMAN: No, not more than an hour and a half.
THE PRESIDENT: And after that the British prosecutors will go on?
MR. ALDERMAN: Yes.