“The Czech problem is not yet politically acute enough for any immediate action, which the Entente would watch inactively, and not even if this action should come quickly and surprisingly. Germany cannot fix any definite time when this fruit could be plucked without too great a risk. She can only prepare the desired developments.”
I pass to the last paragraph on that page. I think I can leave out the intervening lines, Paragraph 5.
THE PRESIDENT: Should you not read the next paragraph, “For this purpose . . .”?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: “For this purpose the slogan emanating from England at present of the right for autonomy of the Sudeten Germans, which we have intentionally not used up to now, is to be taken up gradually. The international conviction that the choice of nationality is being withheld from these Germans will do useful spadework, notwithstanding the fact that the chemical process of dissolution of the Czech form of states may or may not be finally speeded up by mechanical means as well. The fate of the actual body of Czechoslovakia, however, would not as yet be clearly decided by this, but would nevertheless be definitely sealed.
“This method of approach towards Czechoslovakia is to be recommended because of our relationship with Poland. It is unavoidable that the German departure from the problems of boundaries in the southeast and their transfer to the east and northeast must make the Poles sit up. The fact is”—I put in an “is” because I think it is obviously left out of the copy that I have in front of me.—
“The fact is that after the liquidation of the Czech question, it will be generally assumed that Poland will be the next in turn.
“But the later this assumption sinks in in international politics as a firm factor, the better. In this sense, however, it is important for the time being, to carry on the German policy, under the well-known and proved slogans of ‘the right to autonomy’ and ‘racial unity.’ Anything else might be interpreted as pure imperialism on our part, and provoke resistance by the Entente at an earlier date and more energetically than our forces could stand up to.”