I turn to Document USSR-36, (Exhibit Number USSR-36) under which number I offer in evidence the Official Report of the Yugoslav Government.
The first section, entitled “The Systematic Preparation of the Conspiracy for the Enslavement and the Destruction of Yugoslavia,” contains a series of valuable information. I wish to cite that excerpt from this document which you will find on Page 355 of the document book, Paragraph 4 on Page 3 of the Russian text, 3rd paragraph from the top reads:
“The Government of the Third Reich and the Hitlerite Party secretly organized the German minority. Settled in Yugoslavia by the Austrian emperors over a century ago, the Germans enjoyed as brothers full rights and a cultural autonomy. They had their own schools and their representatives in parliaments as well as in the local government. They numbered half a million (that is about three percent of the total population). From 1920 they had their mass organization—the Swabian-German Cultural Union—‘Kulturbund’ for short. And out of this very organization and through it, as well as out of all the Germans in Yugoslavia, the Nazi Party created a political and military organ for the destruction of Yugoslavia.”
I believe I can skip several lines without loss and quote further:
“In Yugoslavia, the Nazi Gaue were secretly formed and Gauleiter appointed. Under the guise of various physical training and sport associations, Hitlerite units were organized half a million strong. Numerous ‘tourists,’ ‘travellers,’ ‘businessmen,’ and ‘relatives’ came from the Reich—in reality they were Nazi instructors and organizers.”
I skip a number of details which can be disregarded, and pass to the second paragraph of the same section on Page 4—that would be Page 356 in your document book—where the manner is described in which the Fifth Column was further strengthened. I now shall read into the record Paragraph 2, beginning with the second subparagraph:
“The Hitlerites drew into their orbit all the separatist and chauvinistic elements, as for instance, Pavelich’s Ustasha; the Zbor, a movement headed by Ljoteč; the MFRO (the Macedonian fascist movement), headed by Vanca Mihajlovič; and organized them as terrorist organizations with headquarters in Berlin. On the other hand, acting through their agents, Prince Paul, Stojadinovič, Cvetkovič, and Ćincar-Marcovič, they attracted the pan-Serbian centralists and turned them into a terrorist group which, from the vantage points of governmental authority, was ‘peacefully’ to deliver Yugoslavia into slavery by adhering to the Tripartite Pact.”
Further, the report emphasizes the fact that, while organizing numerous branches of the Fifth Column, the Hitlerites continually gave newer and more perfidious assurances about their ostensibly friendly intentions with regard to Yugoslavia. This is discussed in Paragraph 3 on Page 5 of the Russian text; our Document Number USSR-36. You will find this passage, Your Honors, on Page 357 of the document book:
“3. At the time when both the Hitlerite Government and the Party were so thoroughly and with such versatility preparing their conspiracy to invade and occupy Yugoslavia, Hitler seized every opportunity to declare to the whole world, on behalf of the same Government, the same Party, and the whole of Germany, that Yugoslavia could count on them as devoted friends.”
On 17 January 1938, that is, some weeks before the occupation of Austria, Hitler had a meeting with the then Prime Minister of Yugoslavia at which the Defendants Göring and Von Neurath were present. The original document from which I shall quote certain passages was submitted to the Tribunal as Document Number TC-92. The extract which I shall quote further on as documentary evidence, is dated 4 December 1945. You will find it on Page 411 of the document book.