COL. POKROVSKY: That is why I am asking you, since you have said that you received reports on the arming of the Henlein Free Corps when it arrived on German territory. That is why I asked you, an officer of the General Staff, were these weapons of German origin or not? You must know that.
JODL: Henlein’s Free Corps—which was formed near Hof, and in the district to the North, on 17 September—received, in my opinion, former Austrian, or even German, arms. I think they were Austrian weapons, but I do not know that for certain.
COL. POKROVSKY: Then it is not necessary. We only need definite information and definite facts. You will now be handed a photostatic copy of the Case Green folder.
[The folder was submitted to the defendant.]
You will look at the passage which has been marked. The marked passage says, “For the success of the operation, the penetration into Sudeten Germany with parachute troops will be of great value.” The Defendant Keitel, on 6 April 1946, when questioned regarding this part of the document, said that it is precisely you who could give the requisite explanations with regard to this document.
JODL: With reference to this paragraph I have to say that, in the preparation for a possible war, the Army had a notation inserted to the effect that fortifications would have to be penetrated quickly or would have to be opened up from the rear and that for the success of this joint action the co-operation of airborne troops, together with the border population and the Sudeten Germans who deserted to us, might be of value. For, of course, it was a fact that among the Germans who had been drawn into the ranks and who numbered about 100,000, not one would have turned his weapon upon us but would have deserted on the spot. They wrote that to me personally while in Czech uniform. These Germans would have deserted on the spot. That, of course, we expected and had taken into account in our military calculations.
COL. POKROVSKY: I fear that you have not understood me quite correctly or that you did not wish to understand the question which I put to you.
Defendant Jodl, I am interested in something else. Do you confirm the fact that prior to the attack on Czechoslovakia you had planned diversionary activity on the territory of Czechoslovakia proper. That is what I am interested in. Yes or no?
JODL: First, there was no attack upon Czechoslovakia at all; that is a historical untruth. Second, this was General Staff work, which was prepared for a possible war; and there is nothing else to be said about that.
THE PRESIDENT: That is not an answer to the question. The question was whether you planned before the war—or the possible war—diversionary activity in Czechoslovakia. Did you plan that? Can you answer that?