My Lord, I hope that there is no difference of the paging—72 of mine.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes; it is 74.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes, it is 74. I am sorry, My Lord.
[Turning to the defendant.] Now, it is the second paragraph there. After saying that he had a talk with you, he says:
“Von Neurath said that it was the policy of the German Government to do nothing active in foreign affairs until ‘the Rhineland had been digested.’ He explained that he meant that until the German fortifications had been constructed on the French and Belgian frontiers, the German Government would do everything possible to prevent rather than encourage an outbreak by the Nazis in Austria and would pursue a quiet line with regard to Czechoslovakia. ‘As soon as our fortifications are constructed and the countries of Central Europe realize that France cannot enter German territory at will, all those countries will begin to feel very differently about their foreign policies and a new constellation will develop...’ ”
You agree you said that?
VON NEURATH: Yes, yes, certainly. Yesterday or the day before I testified in detail about what that was supposed to mean. Moreover, it does not make any difference.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I would like to see if you agree with the meaning I suggest. That is that as soon as you had got your fortifications in sufficiently good order on your western frontier, you would proceed to try and secure an Anschluss with Austria and to get back the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. Isn’t that what it means?
VON NEURATH: No, no, not at all. That is quite clear in the document. What I meant by this and what I expressed was that these countries, particularly Czechoslovakia and France, would change their policy toward Germany, because they could no longer march through Germany so easily.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You appreciate, Defendant, what I am putting to you? I think I made it quite clear—that at the time that you were facing the Western Powers with the remilitarization of Germany and the Rhineland—that is in 1935 and 1936—you were then giving assurances to Austria, which Hitler did in May 1935, and you made this treaty in 1936. As soon as you had digested your first steps, you then turned against Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938. I am suggesting, you see, that you were talking the exact truth and prophesying with a Cassandra-like accuracy. That is what I am suggesting—that you knew very well that these intentions were there.