It was Hess who signed the law of the 13th of March, the next day, for the reunion of Austria with the German Reich; and the Tribunal will no doubt remember the occasion, which was described fully by Mr. Alderman, of the shocking celebrations which were held in anniversary of the murder of Dollfuss, the celebrations being held the 24th of July 1938, when the high-light of the occasion was a speech by Hess.
I would refer the Tribunal to a document which appears on Page 165 of the document book, which throws some light on his own words, both on his activity as far as Austria was concerned and also with Czechoslovakia. This was a speech he made on 28 August 1938 at the annual meeting of the Foreign Organization. It is Document Number 3258-PS. It is already in as Exhibit Number GB-262. I quote from the third to last paragraph on Page 165 of the document book:
“At the close of his talk Rudolf Hess recalls the days, last year, in Stuttgart, when German men and women, German boys and girls in their native costumes appeared here in Stuttgart aglow with enthusiasm for the ideal of greater Germany, passionately moved by National Socialism, but nevertheless outwardly ‘Volksdeutsche’ Germans of foreign citizenship.
“ ‘Today,’ Rudolf Hess continued, ‘they also stand openly in our ranks. Proudly and happily they will march in the formation of the National Socialist movement past their Führer in Nuremberg, this time with German citizens. With all our hearts we rejoice as we see them. They have fought a long and tough battle, a battle against a treacherous and mendacious enemy.’ ”—and so on.
And then on the next page, Number 166, where he turns to discuss the struggle of the Sudeten German:
“The German people look at the German racial comrades in Czechoslovakia with the profoundest sympathy for their suffering. No one in the world who loves his own people and is proud of his own people will find fault with us if from this place here we also turn our thoughts to the Sudeten German. If we say to them that, filled with admiration, we see how they are maintaining an iron discipline, despite the worst chicanery, despite terror and murder. If it had, in general, required a proof. . . .”
I don’t think, perhaps, it is necessary for me to read any more of that document; but it shows, as I say, his interest in Czechoslovakia; and by Document Number 3061-PS, which has already been put in as Exhibit Number USA-126, it has been shown that during the summer of 1938—that speech was made in August 1938—during the whole of that summer continuous conversations were being held between Henlein and Hitler, Hess, and Ribbentrop, informing the Reich Government of the general situation in Czechoslovakia. That document has been read into the Record; but, if anything condemns Hess as participating in this action, it is a letter dated the 27th of September 1938, which was a letter, it will be remembered, that the Tribunal has had before it. It was written by Keitel to Hess, asking for the Party’s participation in the secret mobilization, which was intended to take place without even issuing the code word for mobilization. It was on the 27th of September 1938 that that letter was written. It is Document Number 388-PS and has been put in as Exhibit Number USA-26, and it appears on Page 30 of the Tribunal’s document book.
I would refer the Tribunal to one short document on Page 120 of the document book, on which begins another speech by the defendant, a speech he made on the 7th of November 1938 on the occasion of the initiation of the Sudeten German Party into the NSDAP.
“If we have had to defend our rights, then they would have really got to know us, we, the National Socialist Germans. The Führer”—Rudolf Hess declared amidst the ringing cheers of the masses—“learned his lessons. He armed at a speed that no one would have believed possible. When the Führer has gained the power and, especially since the Führer has awakened the resolution of the German people to put their strength behind their rights, then Germany’s right will be conceded!”
One might wonder what all those rights were at that time, November 1938, when already Hitler had said on the 26th of September that he had no more territorial demands, at any rate, to make in Europe.