On 28 May 1938 Hitler called a conference of his principal advisors. At this meeting he gave the necessary instructions to his fellow conspirators to prepare the attack on Czechoslovakia. This fact Hitler later publicly admitted. I now refer and invite the notice of the Tribunal to Document 2360-PS, a copy of the Völkischer Beobachter of 31 January 1939. In a speech before the Reichstag the preceding day, reported in this newspaper, reading now from Document 2360-PS, Hitler spoke as follows:
“On account of this intolerable provocation which had been aggravated by a truly infamous persecution and terrorization of our Germans there, I have determined to solve once and for all, and this time radically, the Sudeten-German question. On 28 May I ordered first: That preparation should be made for military action against this state by 2 October. I ordered second: The immense and accelerated expansion of our defensive front in the West.”
Two days after this conference, on 30 May 1938, Hitler issued the revised military directive for Case Green. This directive is Item 11 in the Big Schmundt file, Document 388-PS. It is entitled, “Two-front War, with Main Effort in the Southeast,” and this directive replaced the corresponding section, Part 2, Section II, of the previous quote, “Directive for Unified Preparation for War,” which had been promulgated by Von Blomberg on 26 June 1937, which I have already introduced in evidence as our Document C-175, United States Exhibit Number 69. This revised directive represented a further development of the ideas for political and military action discussed by Hitler and Keitel in their conference on 21 April. It is an expansion of the rough draft submitted by the Defendant Keitel to Hitler on 20 May, which may be found as Item 5 in the Schmundt file. It was signed by Hitler. Only five copies were made. Three copies were forwarded with a covering letter from Defendant Keitel to General Von Brauchitsch for the Army, to Defendant Raeder for the Navy, and to Defendant Göring for the Luftwaffe. In his covering memorandum Keitel noted that its execution must be assured—I quote: “As from 1 October 1938 at the latest.” I now read from this document, which is the basic directive under which the Wehrmacht carried out its planning for Case Green, a rather lengthy quotation from the first page of Item 11, Page 16 of the English version:
“1. Political prerequisites. It is my unalterable decision to smash Czechoslovakia by military action in the near future. It is the job of the political leaders to await or bring about the politically and militarily suitable moment.
“An inevitable development of conditions inside Czechoslovakia or other political events in Europe, creating a surprisingly favorable opportunity and one which may never come again, may cause me to take early action.
“The proper choice and determined and full utilization of a favorable moment is the surest guarantee of success. Accordingly the preparations are to be made at once.
“2. Political possibilities for the commencement of the action. The following are necessary prerequisites for the intended invasion: