Morning Session
COL. POKROVSKY: May I continue with my statement?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, please.
COL. POKROVSKY: The end of the session prevented me yesterday from quoting a brief excerpt from a very secret, a very important state document, dated 22 September 1938. I propose to begin today’s work as from this point, and to read into the record the first six lines of the document submitted as Exhibit Number USSR-267 (Document Number USSR-267), which you will find, Your Honors, in Volume I, Part 1, Page 202 of your document book. This brief excerpt shows with absolute clearness the questions about the meaning of the so-called Sudetendeutsche Freikorps, the existence of which was briefly referred to in former sessions.
I quote the first six lines from notes made after a telephone conversation which took place in Berlin between one of the leaders of the so-called Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the Government in Berlin, at 1900 hours on 22 September 1938. Permit me to read these six lines into the record:
“Herr Schmidt, from the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, telephoned at 1900 as follows:
“The Command of the Sudetendeutsche Freikorps has just communicated the following:
“First Lieutenant Köchling transmitted the following Führer order: ‘Freikorps has to carry out the occupation of regions evacuated by the Czechs. Large-scale operations, however, may be executed only with the Führer’s personal approval.’ ”
The rest of this document, signed by Von Stechow, is of no interest and I will not read it into the record.
As far as I can judge, the minutes of Hitler’s reception of the Czech Minister for Foreign Affairs, Chvalkovsky, on 21 January 1939—that is shortly before the complete occupation of Czechoslovakia—are of great interest. Hitler’s mendacious and pompous statements with respect to the independence of small nations, statements recorded in the document I am about to quote, are characteristic of his perfidious tactics.