SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes, certainly, if you like.
VON RIBBENTROP: I said once before that the Sudeten German Party was unfortunately not under my control. Moreover, it is and was my view that it was the fundamental right of the Sudeten Germans, according to the law of the sovereign rights of peoples which had been proclaimed in 1919, to decide themselves where they wanted to belong.
When Adolf Hitler came, this pressure to join the Reich became very strong. Adolf Hitler was determined to solve this problem, either by diplomatic means or, if it had to be, by other means. That was obvious, and became more so to me. At any rate, I personally did everything to try to solve the problem diplomatically. On the other hand, however, in order to bring about a situation such as eventually led to Munich, I naturally tried my utmost to surround Germany with friends in order to make our position as strong as possible in the face of such a problem.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You knew perfectly well, did you not, that the Fall Grün and Hitler’s military plans envisaged the conquest of the whole of Czechoslovakia? You knew that, didn’t you?
VON RIBBENTROP: No, I did not know that. As far as the Sudeten-German problem is concerned, the British Government themselves concluded the agreement at Munich by which the entire problem was solved in the way I always strove to achieve it by German diplomacy.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Witness, I am not going to argue politics with you on any point. I only remind you of this: That the Fall Grün and Hitler’s plans on this matter had been known to His Majesty’s Government only since the end of the war, when it came into our possession as a captured document. What I asked you was—you say that as the Foreign Minister of the Reich, you did not know of these military plans, that the conquest of the whole Czechoslovakia was envisaged? You say that? You want the Tribunal to believe that?
VON RIBBENTROP: I repeat again that I read about Fall Grün and the conception of Fall Grün here for the first time in the documents. I did not know that term before, nor was I interested. That the Führer envisaged a more far-reaching solution became, of course, clear to me later in the course of the subsequent developments and by the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Just a moment. We will get to that in a moment. I just want you to look at the final act of preparation which you were doing, and I am suggesting for this clear aggression; if you will look at Page 45 in the book in front of you, you will see a note from the Foreign Office to the Embassy in Prague.
“Please inform Deputy Kundt, at Konrad Henlein’s request, to get into touch with the Slovaks at once and induce them to start their demands for autonomy tomorrow.” (Document Number 2858-PS)
That was your office’s further act, wasn’t it, in order to make things difficult for the Government in Prague? You were getting your friends to induce—to use your own word—the Slovaks to start an advance for autonomy, is that right? Is that what your office was doing?