It is appropriate to take notice of this assurance at this point, and to note that for a complexity of reasons Von Papen suggested, and Hitler announced, a policy completely at variance with their intentions, which had been, and continued to be, to interfere in Austria’s internal affairs and to conclude an Anschluss.
There was then a temporary continuance of a quiet pressure policy.
On May 1, 1936, Hitler blandly in a public speech branded as a lie any statement that “tomorrow or the day after” Germany would fall upon Austria. I invite the Court’s attention to the version of the speech appearing in the Völkischer Beobachter, SD—that is South Germany—2 to 3 May 1936, Page 2, and translated in our Document 2367-PS.
Without offering that document, I ask the Court to take judicial notice of that statement in that well-known speech.
If Hitler meant what he said, it was only in the most literal and misleading sense, that is, that he would not actually fall upon Austria “tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.” For the conspirators well knew that the successful execution of their purpose required for a little while longer the quiet policy they had been pursuing in Austria.
I now offer in evidence our Document L-150, “Memorandum of Conversation between Ambassador Bullitt and the Defendant Von Neurath, on 18 May 1936” as Exhibit USA-65. This document unfortunately again appears in your document books in German. Due to an error, it has not been mimeographed in English. German counsel have the German copies.
I shall read from it and at the same time, hand to the interpreter reading the German, a marked copy of a German translation. I might read one sentence from the first paragraph:
“I called on Von Neurath, Minister of Foreign Affairs, on May 18 and had a long talk on the general European situation.
“Von Neurath said that it was the policy of the German Government to do nothing active in foreign affairs until the Rhineland had been ‘digested.’
“He explained that he meant until the German fortifications had been constructed on the French and Belgian frontiers, the German Government would do everything possible to prevent, rather than encourage, an outbreak by the Nazis in Austria and would pursue a quiet line with regard to Czechoslovakia. ‘As soon as our fortifications are constructed and the countries of Central Europe realize that France cannot enter German territory, all these countries will begin to feel very differently about their foreign policies and a new constellation will develop.’ ”