DR. DIX: What did you know about Hitler’s plans against Austria?
SCHACHT: I never knew anything about plans against Austria. Nor did I know in detail the plans Hitler had for Austria. I only knew—like the majority of all Germans—that he was in favor of an Anschluss of Austria with Germany.
DR. DIX: What did you know about his plans against Czechoslovakia?
SCHACHT: I knew nothing of his plans against Czechoslovakia until about the time of the Munich Conference.
DR. DIX: Did you, after the Munich Conference, that is to say, after the peaceful, so far peaceful settlement of the Sudeten question, hear a remark of Hitler’s about Munich which was of importance in your later personal attitude toward Hitler? Will you tell the Tribunal the remark which you heard?
SCHACHT: May I say first that, according to my knowledge of conditions at that time, Hitler was conceded in Munich more than he had ever expected. According to my information—and I expressed this also in the conversation with Ambassador Bullitt at that time—it was Hitler’s purpose to gain autonomy for the Germans in Czechoslovakia. In Munich the Allies presented him with the transfer of the Sudeten-German territories on a silver platter. I assumed, of course, that now Hitler’s ambition would be more than satisfied and I can only say that I was surprised and shocked when a few days after Munich I saw Hitler. I had no further conversation with him at that time, but I met him with his entourage, mostly SS men, and from the conversation between him and the SS men I could only catch the remark: “That fellow has spoiled my entry into Prague.” That is to say made it impossible.
Apparently he was not satisfied with the great success which he had achieved in foreign politics, but I mentioned when I spoke about it yesterday the fact that I assumed from that remark that he lacked the glory and a glamorous staging.
DR. DIX: And what were your feelings in regard to your whole political attitude towards Hitler after Munich?
SCHACHT: In spite of the foreign political success I regretted very deeply, and so did my close friends, that by this intervention on the part of the Allied Powers, our attempt to remove the Hitler regime was ruined for a long time to come—we did not know at that time of course what would happen in the future—but, naturally, at that moment we had to resign ourselves to it.
DR. DIX: What did you know about Hitler’s plans against Memel?