DR. HORN: In justification of these violations one could point out that the articles concerned constituted a violation of the right of self-determination, on which the peace treaties were based. The outcome of the vote after the annexation at any rate clearly confirms the Austrian attitude of that time.
The clausula rebus sic stantibus could be considered as a further justification for the violation. One could refer to the statement of Under Secretary of State Butler in the House of Commons who, in reply to a question after the Anschluss, stated that England had given no special guarantee for the independence of Austria as laid down in the Treaty of St. Germain.
These legal evaluations would hardly do justice to the facts. Statute law always lags behind the ideal of justice. That does not only apply to domestic law but also to international law. Events show that if treaties fail to make provision for changes, time and events pass them by in order to rebuild them upon a new base. The question of whether the participation in such events can be legally evaluated must definitely be disputed. I shall refer later on to the general aspects of the adaption of the law to the strength of bare facts.
An Englishman once asserted the following: “We have to face the stubborn fact that Central Europe is populated by an almost solid block of 80 million people who are highly gifted, highly organized, and who are conscious of these achievements in the highest degree. The majority of these people have the strong and evidently incredible desire to be united in one state.”
The Anschluss of Austria and the nationalist theories of National Socialism had set in motion this artificially split-up block created by the peace treaties of 1919. No attentive observer could fail to notice the effect of the Anschluss upon the neighboring states.
It is not my intention to take up the time of the Tribunal with the particulars of the subsequent efforts by the various groups of Germans in the neighboring states for incorporation into the Reich. The facts which have now become history are only too well known. My task here is to examine whether these events are the results of a premeditated plan of one person or a group of persons, or whether not rather a long and artificially suppressed force was instrumental in accomplishing the objectives which were assigned to Herr Von Ribbentrop by Hitler at the time of his appointment.
The Anschluss of Austria was the signal for the Sudeten German Party to force the issue of an Anschluss now on their part too.
Herr Von Ribbentrop has been accused by the Prosecution of having, in his capacity as Foreign Minister, engaged in creating difficulties in collaboration with the Sudeten German Henlein. They further accuse him of having induced the Sudeten German Party to increase their demands step by step rather than enter the Czechoslovak Government and of thus having prevented a solution of the whole problem without making it appear that the German Government was setting the pace.
Document 3060-PS submitted by the Prosecution shows just the contrary. It is true that Herr Von Ribbentrop knew that the Anschluss efforts of the Sudeten Germans were encouraged by the Party. But he had no influence on this Party policy nor any thorough knowledge of it. Due to the difficulties which had arisen with the Czech Government on account of the separation efforts of the Sudeten Germans and their partly uncontrollable policy, Herr Von Ribbentrop considered it necessary to see to it that the realization of the Sudeten German aims was carried out within the limits of a responsible policy.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Horn, wouldn’t that be a convenient time to break off?