If I may interrupt for a moment, that passage I just alluded to was read into the record at Page 581 (Volume II, Page 424).
Similarly, Göring played an important role in the attack on Czechoslovakia. In March of 1938, at the time of the Anschluss, he had given a solemn assurance to the Czechoslovakian Minister in Berlin that the developments in Austria would in no way have a detrimental influence on the relations between Germany and Czechoslovakia and he had emphasized the continued earnest endeavor on the part of Germany to improve these relations. In this connection Göring had used the expression, “Ich gebe Ihnen mein Ehrenwort” (“I give you my word of honor”).
That expression was read previously into the record at Page 962 (Volume III, Page 192).
On the other hand, in his address to German airplane manufacturers on the 8th of July 1938, which I have already mentioned, he made his private views on this subject, which were hardly consistent with his solemn official statements, abundantly clear.
On the 14th of October 1938, shortly after the Munich Agreement, at a conference in the Air Ministry, Göring stated that the Sudetenland had to be exploited with all means and that he counted upon a complete industrial assimilation of Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile, as proof before the Tribunal shows, he was deceiving the representatives of the puppet Slovakian Government to the same end.
In the following year, with the rape of Czechoslovakia complete, Göring frankly stated what Germany’s purpose had been throughout the whole affair. He explained that the incorporation of Bohemia and Moravia into the German economy had taken place, among other reasons, in order to increase the German war potential by exploitation of the industry there.
Göring was also a moving force in the later crimes against the peace. As the successor designate to Hitler, chief of the air forces and economic czar of Greater Germany, he was a party to all the planning for military operations of the Nazi forces in the East and in the West.
In the Polish affair, for example, it was Göring who, on the 31st of January 1935, gave assurances to the Polish Government through Count Czembek, as revealed in the Polish White Book, of which I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice, that “there should be not the slightest fear in Poland that on the German side it”—meaning the German-Polish alliance—“would not be continued in the future.” Yet, 4 years later, Göring helped to formulate plans for the ruthless invasion of Polish territory.
In respect to the attack upon the Soviet Union, the documents already introduced prove that plans for the ruthless exploitation of Soviet territory were made months in advance of the opening of hostilities. Göring was placed in charge of this army of spoliation, whose mission was that of “seizing raw materials and taking over all important concerns.”
But these specific instances cited are merely illustrative of Göring’s activities in the field of aggressive war. On Pages 20, 21, and 22 of our brief there appears a list of documents—by no means exhaustive—previously offered by the Prosecution, which demonstrate Göring’s knowledge of and continued participation in the Nazi war program.