The Tribunal may have noticed that the methods of execution of aggression by the Hitlerite conspirators nearly always followed the same pattern. In all cases, lightning speed and suddenness of military attack were considered indispensable. They endeavored to attain the element of surprise by giving the prospective enemy treacherous and hypocritical assurances of their sincerely peaceful intentions. Simultaneously, wide use was made of the foul system of bribery, blackmail, provocation, financing of various kinds of pro-fascist organizations, and using as paid agents unprincipled politicians and downright traitors to their respective countries.
Mr. Alderman began his presentation of documents by giving several examples of this nature. He told the Tribunal in detail and proved by documentary evidence that the representatives of the so-called Slovak autonomous movement were bought with German money—that is, one Hans Karmazin, and the same also applies to Deputy Prime Minister Durcanski, to the notorious Tuka, and many other leaders of the Hlinka Party.
It was presented to you that at the beginning of March 1939, that is, immediately prior to the day planned for the final entry of the Nazis into Czechoslovakia, the activity of the Fifth Column reached its climax.
I believe I should present to the Tribunal certain facts about the Hitlerite organizations established for the purpose of subversive activity, and also about the part played by the SS official, Lorenz, whose name I shall mention later on in connection with the action against Czechoslovakia.
Himmler, the holder of several offices, combined in his person the position of Reichsleiter of the security units (SS) and of Reich Commissioner for the Preservation of German Nationality (Reichskommissar für die Festigung des deutschen Volkstums). As such, he was charged with the leadership of all State and Party organs within Germany, which, in turn, controlled the German settlements, the work among the Germano-fascist minorities in other countries and the remigration of Germans into Germany. In this field his executive apparatus was the so-called Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle. The leader of this organization, and therefore the actual deputy of Himmler, in this special sphere, was SS Obergruppenführer Lorenz, who will be discussed later.
There was also another criminal organization. I have in mind the foreign organization of the NSDAP (Auslands-Organisation der NSDAP), abbreviated to AO. It played an important part in creating the Fifth Column in countries which were later subjected to Hitlerite aggression.
AO united such Germans who were members of the Nazi Party living outside Germany. Apart from the wide propaganda of fascism, AO was engaged in political and other kinds of espionage. Germans living in other countries received material help through AO and maintained contact with various pro-German and espionage groups of the country in which they lived.
The sub-branches of the Hitlerite party abroad were under the guidance of German diplomatic missions. For this purpose the leader of AO, Gauleiter Ernst Wilhelm Bohle, was installed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the rank of State Secretary.
There are several appendices to the official Czechoslovak report. One of them is registered under Document Number 3061-PS. It contains excerpts from the testimony of Karl Hermann Frank, former deputy of the Reich Protector. I submit this document to the Tribunal and, without reading it in its entirety, I wish to refer briefly to those parts of the document which deal with question of the Fifth Column.
At the interrogation of 9 October 1945—the Tribunal will find the passage quoted in Volume I, Part 1, Page 185 of the document book—Frank declared that in his opinion the Henlein Party received money from Germany from 1936 onwards. In 1938 it received funds from the so-called Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle in Berlin, through the German Minister in Prague. Frank confirmed that, together with Henlein, he several times visited the German Minister in Prague, who handed him and Henlein money for the Party. Frank admits that the acceptance of this money was incompatible with the duties of a Czechoslovak citizen. Frank further admitted that he visited the German Legation in Prague several times, alone, informed the German Minister of the inner political situation in Czechoslovakia and thus, considering the character of the information communicated, committed high treason.