“The Representative of the Armed Forces with the Reich Protector in Bohemia and Moravia.”—Signed—“Friderici, General of Infantry.”
With the permission of Your Honors, I should like to comment further upon some parts of this memorandum. First, I invite your attention to solution (a). This solution would have called for German infiltration into Moravia and the forcible removal of the Czechs from that area to Bohemia. As Your Honors know, Moravia lies between Bohemia and Slovakia. Thus solution (a) would have involved the erection of a German State between Bohemia and Slovakia, and would have prevented effective inter-communications between the Czechs and the Slovaks. In this manner, the historic desire for unity of these two groups of peace-loving people and the continued existence of their Czechoslovakian State would have been frustrated. Solution (a), it may be noted, was rejected because the surviving Czechs, even though compressed into a “residual Bohemia”, would have remained to plague the conspirators.
Solution (b) which involved the forcible deportation of all Czechs was rejected, not because its terms were deemed too drastic, but rather because a more speedy resolution of the problem was desired.
Solution (c), as shown in the exhibit, was regarded as the most desirable and was adopted. This solution first provided for the assimilation of about one-half of the Czechs. This meant two things: a. Enforced Germanization for those who were deemed racially qualified and b. deportation to slave labor in Germany for others. “Increased employment of Czechs in the Reich territory” as stated in the exhibit meant, in reality, slave labor in Germany.
Solution (c) further provided for the elimination and deportation “by all sorts of methods” of the other half of the Czech population, particularly the intellectuals and those who did not meet the racial standards of the conspirators. Intellectuals everywhere were an anathema to the Nazi conspirators, and the Czech intellectuals were no exception. Indeed, the Czech intellectuals, as the conspirators well knew, had a conspicuous record of gallantry, self-sacrifice, and resistance to the Nazi ideology. They were, therefore, to be exterminated. As will be shown in other connections, that section of the top-secret report which stated “elements which counteract the planned Germanization are to be handled roughly and eliminated” meant that intellectuals and other dissident elements were either to be thrown in concentration camps or immediately exterminated.
In short, the provisions of solution (c) were simply a practical application of the conspirators’ philosophy as expressed in Himmler’s speech, part of which we have quoted in L-70, already presented in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-308. Himmler said that “either we win over any good blood that we can use for ourselves . . . or we destroy this blood.”
I now turn briefly to the conspirators’ program of spoliation and Germanization in the western occupied countries. Evidence which will be presented at a later stage of this proceeding will show how the conspirators sought to germanize the western occupied countries; how they stripped the conquered countries in the West of food and raw materials, leaving to them scarcely enough to maintain a bare existence; how they compelled local industry and agriculture to satisfy the insatiable wants of the German civilian population and the Wehrmacht; and finally how the spoliation in the western occupied countries was aided and abetted by excessive occupation charges, compulsory and fraudulent clearing arrangements, and confiscation of their gold and foreign exchange. The evidence concerning these matters which will be presented in great detail by the Prosecutor for the Republic of France is so overwhelming that the inference is inescapable that the conspirators’ acts were committed according to plan.
However, it will not be until after the Christmas recess that the evidence concerning the execution of the conspirators’ plans in the West will be presented to this Tribunal. Accordingly, by way of illustration, and for the purpose of showing in this presentation that the conspirators’ plans embraced the occupied Western countries as well as the East, we now offer in evidence a single exhibit on this aspect of the case, R-114, which is Exhibit Number USA-314. This document was obtained from the U.S. Counter-Intelligence branch. This exhibit consists of a memorandum dated 7 August 1942 and a memorandum dated 29 August 1942 from Himmler’s personal files. The former memorandum deals with a conference of SS officers and bears the title, “Directions for the Treatment of Deported Alsatians.” The latter memorandum is marked secret and is entitled, “Shifting of Alsatians into the Reich.” The memoranda comprising this exhibit show that plans were made and partially executed to remove all elements from Alsace which were hostile to the conspirators and to germanize the province. I quote from Page 1, lines 21 to 31, of the English text entitled, “Directions for the Treatment of Deported Alsatians.” These extracts contained in the German text at Page 1, the last 8 lines, and Page 2, lines 1 to 5. I now quote:
“The first expulsion action was carried out in Alsace in the period from July to December 1940; in the course of it 105,000 persons were either expelled or prevented from returning. They were in the main Jews, gypsies and other foreign racial elements, criminals, asocial and incurably insane persons, and in addition Frenchmen and Francophiles. The patois-speaking population was combed out by this series of deportations in the same way as the other Alsatians.