“To begin with DURKANSKY (Deputy Prime Minister) reads out declaration. Contents: Friendship for the Fuehrer; gratitude, that through the Fuehrer 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 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 favour 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 Fieldmarshall 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.” (2801-PS)
In mid-February 1939 a Slovak delegation journeyed to Berlin. It consisted of Tuca, 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 Ribbentrop in the Reichs Chancellery in Berlin on Sunday, 12 February 1939. The captured German Foreign Office minutes of that meeting read as follows:
“After a brief welcome Tuca thanks the Fuehrer for granting this meeting. He addresses the Fuehrer with ‘My Fuehrer’ 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 Fuehrer 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 Fuehrer 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 economic point of view.” (2790-PS)