The critical period between the Nazi seizure of power and the initiation of the first war of aggression was very short. This critical period of illegal preparation and scheming, which ultimately set the whole world aflame, covered 6 years, from 1933 to 1939. Crowded into these 6 short years is the making of tragedy for mankind.
A full understanding of these 6 years, and the 6 years of war that followed, requires that this period be divided into phases that reflect the development and execution of the Nazi master plan. These phases may be said to be six. The first was primarily preparatory, although it did involve overt acts. That phase covers roughly the period from 1933 to 1936. In that period the Nazi conspirators, having acquired government control of Germany by the middle of 1933, turned their attention toward utilization of that control for foreign aggression. Their plan at this stage was to acquire military strength and political bargaining power to be used against other nations. In this they succeeded.
The second phase of their aggression was shorter. As the conspiracy gained strength it gained speed. During each phase the conspirators succeeded in accomplishing more and more in less and less time until toward the end of the period, the rate of acceleration of their conspiratorial movement was enormous. The second phase of their utilization of control for foreign aggression involved the actual seizure and absorption of Austria and Czechoslovakia, in that order. By March 1939 they had succeeded in this phase.
The third phase may be measured in months rather than years, from March to September 1939. The previous aggression being successful and having been consummated without the necessity of resorting to actual war, the conspirators had obtained much desired resources and bases and were ready to undertake further aggressions by means of war, if necessary. By September 1939 war was upon the world.
The fourth phase of the aggression consisted of expanding the war into a general European war of aggression. By April 1941 the war which had theretofore involved Poland, the United Kingdom, and France, had been expanded by invasions into Scandinavia and into the Low Countries and into the Balkans.
In the next phase the Nazi conspirators carried the war eastward by invasion of the territory of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The sixth phase consisted of collaboration with and instigation of their Pacific ally, Japan, and precipitated the attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor.
The essential elements of the crime of aggressive war can be made out by a mere handful of captured German documents. These documents will leave no reasonable doubt concerning the aggressive character of the Nazi war or concerning the conspiratorial premeditation of that war. After the corpus of the crime has been demonstrated in this way, the documentary evidence will be discussed in subsequent sections, in a more or less chronological and detailed presentation of the relevant activities of the conspirators from 1933 to 1941.
Each of the ten documents which will be discussed in this section has been selected to establish the basic facts concerning a particular phase of the development of the Nazi conspiracy for aggression. Each document has met three standards of selection: each is conspiratorial in nature; each is believed to have been hitherto unknown to history; and each is self-contained and tells its own story.
A. 1933 to 1936.
The period of 1933 to 1936 was characterized by an orderly, planned sequence of preparation for war. The essential objective of this period was the formulation and execution of the plan to rearm and re-occupy and fortify the Rhineland, in violation of the treaty of Versailles and other treaties, in order to acquire military strength and political bargaining powers to be used against other nations.