28 Nov. 45
that the German people will be with them
when they want to use force and when they feel that they have the
necessary means to carry through their objects ....' "
One further sentence following that I quote:
"Military preparation and psychological preparation were
coupled with diplomatic preparation designed so to disunite and
isolate their intended victims as to render them defenseless against
German aggression."
In 1933 the difficulties facing Germany in the political and
diplomatic field loomed large. France was the dominant military power
on the continent. She had a system of mutual assistance in the West
and in the East.
"The Locarno Pact of 1928,
supplemented by the Franco-Belgian Alliance, guaranteed the
territorial status quo in the West. Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and
Romania were allied in the Little Entente and each, in turn, was
united with France by mutual assistance pacts. Since 1922 France and
Poland had likewise been allied against external aggression. Italy
had made plain her special interest in Austrian independence."
Nazi Germany launched a vigorous diplomatic campaign to break up
the existing alliances and understandings, to create divisions among
the members of the Little Entente and the other eastern European
powers.
Specifically, Nazi Germany countered these alliances with
promises of economic gain for cooperating with Germany. To some of
these countries she offered extravagant promises of territorial and
economic rewards. She offered Carinthia in Austria to Yugoslavia. She
offered part of Czechoslovakia to Hungary and part to Poland. She
offered Yugoslav territory to Hungary at the same time that she was
offering land in Hungary to Yugoslavia.
As Mr. Messersmith states in his affidavit--that is 2385-PS, on
Page 5:
"Austria and Czechoslovakia were the
first on the German program of aggression. As early as 1934, Germany
began to woo neighbors of these countries with the promises of a
share in the loot. To Yugoslavia in particular they offered
Carinthia. Concerning the Yugoslav reaction, I reported at the time:
"
The major factor in the internal situation in the last week has
been the increase in tension with respect to the Austrian Nazi
refugees in Yugoslavia... There is very little doubt but that
Göring, when he made his trip to various capitals in