France and Italy worked actively in southeastern Europe to counter German moves, as I said yesterday. France made attempts to promote an east Locarno pact and to foster an economic accord between Austria and the other Danubian powers. Italy’s effort was to organize an economic bloc of Austria, Hungary, and Italy. But Germany foiled these efforts by redoubling her promises of loot, by continuing her armament, and by another very significant strategy, that is the Fifth-Column strategy; that the Nazis stirred up internal dissensions within neighboring countries to disunite and weaken their intended victims.
I read now from Page 7 of the English copy of the second Messersmith affidavit, Document 2385-PS, Exhibit USA-68, the paragraph beginning in the middle of the page:
“At the same time that Germany held out such promises of reward for cooperation in her program, she stirred up internal dissensions within these countries themselves, and in Austria and Czechoslovakia in particular, all of which was designed so to weaken all opposition and strengthen the pro-Nazi and Fascist groups as to insure peaceful acquiescence in the German program. Her machinations in Austria I have related in detail, as they came under my direct observation, in a separate affidavit. In Czechoslovakia they followed the same tactics with the Sudeten Germans. I was reliably informed that the Nazi Party spent over 6,000,000 marks in financing the Henlein Party in the elections in the spring of 1935 alone. In Yugoslavia she played on the old differences between the Croats and the Serbs and the fear of the restoration of the Hapsburg in Austria. It may be remarked here that this latter was one of the principal instruments, and a most effective one, which Nazi Germany used, as the fear in Yugoslavia in particular of a restoration of the Hapsburg was very real. In Hungary she played upon the agrarian difficulties and at the same time so openly encouraged the Nazi German elements in Hungary as to provoke the Government of Hungary to demand the recall of Von Mackensen in 1936. In Hungary and in Poland she played on the fear of communism and communist Russia. In Romania she aggravated the existing anti-Semitism, emphasizing the important role of the Jews in Romanian industry and the Jewish ancestry of Lupescu. Germany undoubtedly also financed the fascist Iron Guard through Codreanou.
“Such ‘diplomatic’ measures reinforced by Germany’s vast rearmament program had a considerable effect, particularly in Yugoslavia, Poland, and Hungary, and sufficient at least to deter these countries from joining any combination opposed to German designs, even if not enough to persuade them actively to ally themselves with Nazi Germany.
“Important political leaders of Yugoslavia began to become convinced that the Nazi regime would remain in power and would gain its ends, and that the course of safety for Yugoslavia was to play along with Germany.”
I shall not take the time of the Tribunal to read into evidence the detailed official dispatches which Mr. Messersmith sent to the American State Department, showing that Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Poland were beginning to follow the German line.
As for Italy, Germany’s initial objective was to sow discord between Yugoslavia and Italy, by promising Yugoslavia Italian territory, particularly Trieste. This was to prevent France from reaching agreement with them and to block an east Locarno pact. On that I quote again from Document 2385-PS, Exhibit USA-68, the second Messersmith affidavit, in the middle of Page 21 of the English version:
“While Italy openly opposed efforts at Anschluss with Austria in 1934, Italian ambitions in Abyssinia provided Germany with the opportunity to sow discord between Italy and France and England, and to win Italy over to acceptance of Germany’s program in exchange for German support of Italy’s plans in Abyssinia.”
That, if the Tribunal please, paved the way for the Austro-German Declaration or Pact of 11 July 1936; and in the fall of 1936 Germany extended the hand of friendship and common purpose to Italy, in an alliance which they called the “Rome-Berlin Axis.” This, together with Germany’s alliance with Japan, put increasing pressure on England and greatly increased the relative strength of Germany.
And so by means of careful preparation in the diplomatic field, among others, the Nazi conspirators had woven a position for themselves, so that they could seriously consider plans for war and begin to outline time tables, not binding time tables and not specific ones in terms of months and days, but still general time tables, in terms of years, which were the necessary foundation for further aggressive planning, and a spur to more specific planning. And that time table was developed, as the Tribunal has already seen, in the conference of 5 November 1937, contained in our Document Number 386-PS, Exhibit USA-25, the Hossbach minutes of that conference, which I adverted to in detail on Monday last.