THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.
DR. STEINBAUER: Witness, when and where were you born?
SEYSS-INQUART: I was born in 1892 in Iglau, situated in what was up to now a German-speaking enclave in Moravia. Moravia, at that time, was a crown province of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. There and in the German-speaking enclave Olmütz, also in Moravia, I lived until the age of 15, when with my parents I moved into the vicinity of Vienna where I completed my studies at the Gymnasium and the legal faculty of the University of Vienna. In August 1914 I enlisted in the Army.
DR. STEINBAUER: Were you in the Army during the whole of the war?
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes. I served with the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger and saw fighting in Russia, Romania, and in Italy. On a furlough during the war I passed my final examinations, and in 1917 I received my doctor’s degree. I was wounded once, decorated several times, three times for bravery in the face of the enemy.
DR. STEINBAUER: What impressions of importance for your later life did you retain from the time of your youth?
SEYSS-INQUART: Relevant to my case is, I think, only the experience of the struggle between the nationalities in Moravia, between the Germans and the Czechs. The Germans in those days were in favor of a unified Austrian state, while the Czechs pursued a predominantly nationalistic policy. It is, however, not without significance that a language compromise was agreed upon in Moravia.
DR. STEINBAUER: What lasting impressions did you retain from your service in the war?
SEYSS-INQUART: Apart from the experience of comradeship at the front, I remember especially the discussion toward the end of the war on the Fourteen Points of President Wilson.
DR. STEINBAUER: Their essential content being the people’s right of self-determination?