“For the middle of July a conference is planned where details on the execution will be discussed. Time and place will be ordered later on. Special requests are to be communicated to Third Army Group before 10 July.
“I declare it the duty of the Commanding Generals, the divisional commanders and the commandants to limit as much as possible the number of persons who will be informed, and to limit the extent of the information and ask that all suitable measures be taken to prevent persons not concerned from getting information.
“The Commander-in-Chief of Army Area Command
“(signed) F. Blaskowitz.”
“Aims of Operation ‘Fall Weiss’
“1. a. The operation, in order to forestall an orderly Polish mobilization and concentration, is to be opened by surprise with forces which are for the most part armored and motorized, placed on alert in the neighborhood of the border. The initial superiority over the Polish frontier-guards and surprise that can be expected with certainty are to be maintained by quickly bringing up other parts of the army as well to counteract the marching up of the Polish Army.
“Accordingly all units have to keep the initiative against the foe by quick action and ruthless attacks.” (2327-PS)
Finally, a week before the actual onslaught, when all the military plans have been laid, The General Staff and High Command Group all gathered in one place, in fact all in one room. On 23 August 1939 the Oberbefehlshaber assembled at Obersalzberg to hear Hitler’s explanation of the timing of the attack, and to receive political and diplomatic orientation from the head of the State (798-PS). This speech, the second of the two examples referred to in the initial affidavits by Halder (3702-PS) and Brauchitsch (3703-PS), was addressed to the very group defined in the indictment as the General Staff and High Command Group.
(d) The War Period, September 1939-June 1941: Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Yugoslavia, Greece. On 1 September 1939 Germany launched the war. Within a few weeks, and before any important action on the western front, Poland was overrun and conquered. German losses were insignificant.
The “three principal territorial questions” mentioned in the Blomberg (3704-PS) and Blaskowitz (3706-PS) affidavits had all been solved. The Rhineland had been reoccupied and fortified, Memel annexed, and the Polish Corridor annexed. And much more too. Austria had become a part of the Reich, and Czechoslovakia was occupied and a Protectorate of Germany. All of western Poland was in German hands. Germany was superior in arms, and in experience in their use, to her western enemies, France and England.