Then there is a footnote, an order of the Führer to the German Armed Forces of the same date, in which the substance is that they are told to march in, to safeguard lives and property of all inhabitants, and not to conduct themselves as enemies, but as an instrument for carrying out the German Reich Government’s decision.
I put in, as GB-8, the decrees establishing the Protectorate, which is TC-51.
I think again, as these are public decrees, the Tribunal can take judicial knowledge of them. Their substance has been fully explained by Mr. Alderman. With the permission of the Tribunal, I won’t read them in full now.
Then again, as Mr. Alderman requested, I put in, as GB-9, British Document TC-52, the British protest. If I might just read that to the Tribunal—it is from Lord Halifax to Sir Neville Henderson, our Ambassador in Berlin:
“Foreign Office, March 17, 1939.
“Please inform the German Government that His Majesty’s Government desire to make it plain to them that they cannot but regard the events of the past few days as a complete repudiation of the Munich Agreement and a denial of the spirit in which the negotiators of that Agreement bound themselves to co-operate for a peaceful settlement.
“His Majesty’s Government must also take this occasion to protest against the changes effected in Czechoslovakia by German military action, which are in their view, devoid of any basis of legality.”
And again at Mr. Alderman’s request, I put in as GB-10 the Document TC-53, which is the French protest of the same date, and if I might read the third paragraph: