THE PRESIDENT: You are giving it a number, are you?
DR. STEINBAUER: Document Number Seyss-Inquart-92. The witness says in it that Hitler would probably have incorporated the presidency of Austria in his own person, that he, the witness, was told by Frick to draft a law to that effect, but that he was then suddenly ordered to Linz...
THE PRESIDENT: Wait just a minute, Dr. Steinbauer.
DR. STEINBAUER: In the Dutch matter also, there are a few affidavits which have not yet arrived or which have just come in. Perhaps it would be more expedient to submit these documents when they have been translated.
THE PRESIDENT: The Prosecution will have the affidavit, I suppose?
DR. STEINBAUER: Yes, the Prosecution already have the affidavits.
If I may continue, he says that to his surprise he was told by Hitler in Linz to draft a law providing for the direct, total Anschluss, that is, providing for Austria’s status as a province, a Land, of the German Reich, like Bavaria and the other German Länder. He worked out this law, as he had been instructed to do, flew to Vienna, and submitted it for approval to the ministers who were assembled there.
I should like to establish in three documents the impression which the Anschluss made on the population. First, Document Number Seyss-Inquart-30. This is the celebration at which the Viennese welcomed the Führer in the biggest square in Vienna, the Heldenplatz. On that occasion, on 15 March, the witness welcomed the Führer and said:
“The goal for which centuries of German history have battled, for which untold millions of the best Germans have bled and died, which has been the final aim of fierce struggle, the last consolation in the bitterest hours—has today been reached. Austria has come home.”
Hitler now ordered that this Anschluss Law subsequently be sanctioned by a plebiscite of the Austrian population. Documents showing the results of this plebiscite have already been submitted to the Court. I should just like to point out, in addition, the attitude of the Catholic bishops toward the plebiscite—that is Document Number Seyss-Inquart-32, Page 73—and the attitude at that time of the present Federal President, Dr. Karl Renner—that is Document Number Seyss-Inquart-33, Page 76. On the attitude of the other powers to the Anschluss question I shall quote from testimony of the witness Schmidt, who as the then Foreign Minister was the qualified man; but I should like to submit one document on it, namely Document Number Seyss-Inquart-38, Page 89. That is the House of Commons speech of Chamberlain, who was Prime Minister at the time. In reply to a question regarding the Anschluss he said: “...nothing could have stopped this action by Germany unless we and others had been ready to use force to prevent it.”