“We need not be afraid of a blockade. The East will supply us with grain, cattle, coal, lead, and zinc. It is a big aim, which demands great efforts. I am only afraid that at the last minute some ‘Schweinehund’ will make a proposal for mediation.
“The political aim is set farther. A beginning has been made for the destruction of England’s hegemony. The way is open for the soldier, after I have made the political preparations.”
And, again, the very last line becomes significant later:
“Göring answers with thanks to the Führer and the assurance that the Armed Forces will do their duty.”
We pass from the military-economic preparations and his exhortations to his generals to see how he was developing the position in the diplomatic and political field.
On the 23rd of August 1939 the Danzig Senate passed a decree whereby Gauleiter Forster was appointed head of the State of the Free City of Danzig, a position which did not exist under the statute setting up the constitution of the Free City. I put in the next document, which is taken from the British Blue Book, only as evidence of that event, an event that was, of course, aimed at stirring up the feeling in the Free City at that time. That is TC-72, Number 62, which becomes GB-50.
At the same time, frontier incidents were being manufactured by the Nazi Government with the aid of the SS. The Tribunal has already heard the evidence of General Lahousen the other day in which he referred to the provision of Polish uniforms to the SS forces for these purposes, so that dead Poles could be found lying about the German side of the frontier. I refer the Tribunal now to three short reports which corroborate the evidence that that gentleman came and gave before you, and they are found in the British Blue Book. They are reports from the British Ambassador in Warsaw.
The first of them, TC-72, Number 53, which becomes GB-51, is dated 26th of August.
“A series of incidents again occurred yesterday on German frontier.