Text: English     International Military Tribunal "Blue Series," Vol. 3, p. 206
		5 Dec. 45 can be drawn from it, but it is submitted that it at least shows the lines upon which the General Staff of the Air Force were thinking at that date. The Tribunal will remember that in February 1938 the Defendant Ribbentrop succeeded Von Neurath as Foreign Minister. We have another document from that captured microfilm, which is dated the 26th of August 1938, when Ribbentrop had become Foreign Minister, and it is addressed to him as "the Reich Minister via the State Secretary." It is a comparatively short document and one that I will read in whole: "The most pressing problem of German policy, the Czech problem, might easily, but must not, lead to a conflict with the Entente." — TC-76 becomes GB-31 — "Neither France nor England is looking for trouble regarding Czechoslovakia. Both would perhaps leave Czechoslovakia to herself, if she should, without direct foreign interference and through internal signs of disintegration due to her own faults, suffer the fate she deserves. This process, however, would have to take place step by step, and would have to lead to a loss of power in the remaining territory, by means of a plebiscite and an annexation of territory. "The Czech problem is not yet politically acute enough for any immediate action, which the Entente would watch inactively, and not even if this action should come quickly and surprisingly. Germany cannot fix any definite time when this fruit could be plucked without too great a risk. She can only prepare the desired developments." I pass to the last paragraph on that page. I think I can leave out the intervening lines, Paragraph 5. THE PRESIDENT: Should you not read the next paragraph, "For this purpose . . . ."? LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: "For this purpose the slogan emanating from England at present of the right for autonomy of the Sudeten Germans, which we have intentionally not used up to now, is to be taken up gradually. The international conviction that the choice of nationality is being withheld from these Germans will do useful spadework, notwithstanding the fact that the chemical process of dissolution of the Czech form of states may or may not be finally speeded up by mechanical means as well. The fate of the actual body of Czechoslovakia, however, would not as yet be clearly decided by this, but would nevertheless be definitely sealed. "This method of approach towards Czechoslovakia is to be recommended because of our relationship with Poland. It is 206
		Text: English     International Military Tribunal "Blue Series," Vol. 3, p. 206     Last modified: January 2, 1999 Copyright © 1998 The Mazal Library and The Holocaust History Project. All rights reserved. Technical/administrative contact: webmaster@holocaust-history.org Find a typo? Let us know.