I would emphasize the submission of the Prosecution as to this part of the case and that is that the whole question of Danzig was, indeed, as Hitler has himself said, no question at all. Danzig was raised simply as an excuse, a so-called justification, not for the seizure of Danzig, but for the invasion and seizure of the whole of Poland, and we see it starting now. As we progress with the story it will become ever more apparent that that is what the Nazi Government were really aiming at—only providing themselves with some kind of crisis which would provide some kind of justification for walking into the rest of Poland.
I turn to the next document. It is again a document taken from the Polish White Book, TC-73, Number 45, which will be GB-27 (b). TC-73 will be the Polish White Book, which I shall put in later. That document sets out the instructions that Mr. Beck, the Polish Foreign Minister, gave to Mr. Lipski to hand to the German Government in reply to the suggestion put forward by Ribbentrop at Berchtesgaden on the 24th of October. I need not read the first page. The history of Polish-German relationship is set out, and the needs of Poland in respect of Danzig are emphasized. I turn to the second page of that exhibit, to Paragraph 6:
“In the circumstances, in the understanding of the Polish Government, the Danzig question is governed by two factors: The right of the German population of the city and the surrounding villages to freedom of life and development, and the fact that in all matters appertaining to the Free City as a port it is connected with Poland. Apart from the national character of the majority of the population, everything in Danzig is definitely bound up with Poland.”
It then sets out the guarantees to Poland under the existing statute, and I pass to Paragraph 7:
“Taking all the foregoing factors into consideration, and desiring to achieve the stabilization of relations by way of a friendly understanding with the Government of the German Reich, the Polish Government proposes the replacement of the League of Nations guarantee and its prerogatives by a bilateral Polish-German agreement. This agreement should guarantee the existence of the Free City of Danzig so as to assure freedom of national and cultural life to its German majority, and also should guarantee all Polish rights. Notwithstanding the complications involved in such a system, the Polish Government must state that any other solution, and in particular any attempt to incorporate the Free City into the Reich, must inevitably lead to a conflict. This would not only take the form of local difficulties, but also would suspend all possibility of Polish-German understanding in all its aspects.”
And then finally in Paragraph 8:
“In face of the weight and cogency of these questions, I am ready to have final conversations personally with the governing circles of the Reich. I deem it necessary, however, that you should first present the principles to which we adhere, so that my eventual contact should not end in a breakdown, which would be dangerous for the future.”
The first stage in those negotiations had been entirely successful from the German point of view. They had put forward a proposal, the return of the City of Danzig to the Reich, which they might well have known would have been unacceptable. It was unacceptable, and the Polish Government had warned the Nazi Government that it would be. They had offered to enter into negotiations, but they had not agreed, which is exactly what the German Government had hoped. They had not agreed to the return of Danzig to the Reich. The first stage in producing the crisis had been accomplished.
Shortly afterward, within a week or so of that taking place, after the Polish Government had offered to enter into discussions with the German Government, we find another top-secret order, issued by the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, signed by the Defendant Keitel. It goes to the OKH, OKM, and OKW and it is headed, “The First Supplement to the Instruction Dated the 21st of October 1938”:
“The Führer has ordered: Apart from the three contingencies mentioned in the instructions of that date of 21 October 1938, preparations are also to be made to enable the Free State of Danzig to be occupied by German troops by surprise . . . .