VON NEURATH: To prevent these problems which were the cause of this memorandum from arising again and again, namely the problem of individual parts of the Protectorate being torn away and added to the lower Danube or the Sudeten country with a general resettlement. That was the purpose of my report to the Führer, as I explained yesterday, so as to put a stop to that discussion once and for all.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: But you also—you particularly prohibited, did you not, any public statements addressed to the Czech population? Well, let us look at the document.
It is Document Number 3862-PS, My Lord. Your Lordship will find it at Page 126 of Document Book 12a. My Lord, it becomes Exhibit GB-522.
[Turning to the defendant.] It is for distribution through your various offices and you say:
“For the motive stated I order that in the future, when arrangements and publications of any kind concerning the German-Czech problem are made, the views of the whole population are more than ever to be directed to the war and its requirements while the duty of the Czech nation to carry out the war tasks imposed on it jointly with the Greater German Reich is to be stressed.
“Other questions concerning the German-Czech problem are not suitable subjects for public discussion at the present time. I wish to point out that, without detriment to my orders, administrative handling and treatment of all questions about the German-Czech problem are to be in no way alluded to.”
Then the last paragraph:
“Requisite public statements about the political questions of the Protectorate and in particular those addressed to the Czech population are my business and mine alone and will be published in due time.”
Why did you want to prohibit so severely the addressing of any public statements to the Czech population?
VON NEURATH: That is addressed not only to the Czech population, but especially to the Germans, and just for this reason—that was some special event which I no longer remember—it says here “for the motive stated I order that”—when there was again a discussion about the future of the Protectorate or something was published. That was the reason and I pointed out that that is why it was forbidden.