“On Goering’s question, the Fuehrer decided that:
“a. The armed forces determine what shall be built.
“b. In the shipbuilding program, nothing is to be changed.
“c. The armament programs are to be modeled on the years 1943 or 1944.
[Schmundt certified this text.]” (L-79)
These minutes demonstrate that the Nazi conspirators were proceeding in accordance with a plan. They demonstrate the cold-blooded premeditation of the assault on Poland. They demonstrate that the questions concerning Danzig, which the Nazis had agitated with Poland as a political pretext, were not true questions, but were false issues, issues agitated to conceal their motive of aggressive, expansion for food, and Lebensraum.
Just one week prior to the launching of the attack on Poland, Hitler made an address to his chief military commanders, at Obersalzberg, on 22 August 1939. [Three reports of this meeting are available: (L-3; 798-PS; and 1014-PS). The first of the three documents (L-3) was obtained through an American newspaperman, and purported to be original minutes of the Obersalzberg meeting, transmitted to the newspaperman by some other person. There was no proof of actual delivery to the intermediary by the person who took the notes. That document (L-3) therefore, merely served as an incentive to search for something better. The result was that two other documents (798-PS) and (1014-PS) were discovered in the OKW files at Flensberg. These two documents indicate that Hitler on that day made two speeches, one apparently in the morning and one in the afternoon. Comparison of those two documents with the first document (L-3) led to the conclusion that the first document was a slightly garbled merger of the two speeches, and therefore was not relied upon.]
On this day of 22 August 1939, Hitler addressed the supreme commanders of the three branches of the armed forces, as well as the commanding generals, (Oberbefehlshabers) as follows:
“I have called you together to give you a picture of the political situation, in order that you may have insight into the individual element on which I base my decision to act, and in order to strengthen your confidence. After this, we will discuss military details.
“It was clear to me that a conflict with Poland had to come sooner or later. I had already made this decision in Spring. [Apparently this referred to (L-79).] But I thought I would first turn against the West in a few years, and only afterwards against the East. But the sequence cannot be fixed. One cannot close one’s eyes even before a threatening situation. I wanted to establish an acceptable relationship with Poland, in order to fight first against the West, but this plan which was agreeable to me could not be executed, since essential points have changed.