21 Nov. 45
already had detailed plans for the attack. We will lay before you
the documents in which these conspirators planned to create an
incident to justify their attack. They even gave consideration to
assassinating their own Ambassador at Prague in order to create a
sufficiently dramatic incident. They did precipitate a diplomatic
crisis which endured throughout the summer. Hitler set September 30th
as the day when troops should be ready for action. Under the threat
of immediate war, the United Kingdom and France concluded a pact with
Germany and Italy at Munich on September 29, 1938, which required
Czechoslovakia to acquiesce in the cession of the Sudetenland to
Germany. It was consummated by German occupation on October 1, 1938.
The Munich Pact pledged no further aggression against
Czechoslovakia, but the Nazi pledge was lightly given and quickly
broken. On the 15th of March 1939, in defiance of the treaty of
Munich itself, the Nazis seized and occupied Bohemia and Moravia,
which constituted the major part of Czechoslovakia not already ceded
to Germany. Once again the West stood aghast, but it dreaded war, it
saw no remedy except war, and it hoped against hope that the Nazi
fever for expansion had run its course. But the Nazi world was
intoxicated by these unresisted successes in open alliance with
Mussolini and in covert alliance with Franco. Then, having made a
deceitful, delaying peace with Russia, the conspirators entered upon
the final phase of the plan to renew war.
War of Aggression:
I will not prolong this address by detailing the steps leading to
the war of aggression which began with the invasion of Poland on
September 1, 1939. The further story will be unfolded to you from
documents including those of the German High Command itself. The
plans had been laid long in advance. As early as 1935 Hitler
appointed the Defendant Schacht to the position of General Deputy for
the War Economy (2261-PS). We have the diary of General Jodl
(1780-PS); the "Plan Otto," Hitler's own order for attack
on Austria in case trickery failed (C-102); the "Plan
Green" which was the blueprint for attack on Czechoslovakia
(388-PS); plans for the war in the West (375-PS, 376-PS); Funk's
letter to Hitler dated August 25, 1939 detailing the long course of
economic preparation (699-PS); Keitel's top-secret mobilization order
for 1939-40 prescribing secret steps to be taken during a
"period of tension" during which no " 'state of war'
will be publicly declared even if open war measures against the
foreign enemy will be taken." This letter order (1639A-PS) is in
our possession despite a secret order issued on March 16, 1945, when
Allied troops were advancing into the heart of Germany, to burn these
plans. We have also Hitler's directive,