29 Nov. 45
Ambassador in Paris, to the American Secretary of State on 23
November 1937.
Now, again, if the Tribunal please, we are embarrassed because
that document is not in the document book before the members of the
Tribunal. It has been furnished in German translation to the Defense
Counsel.
If the Tribunal will permit, I will read from the original
exhibit. On top is a letter from Ambassador Bullitt to the Secretary
of State, November 23, 1937, stating that he visited Warsaw, stopped
in Berlin en route, where he had conversations with Schacht and
Göring, among others.
On the conversation with Schacht, I read from Page 2 of the
report:
"Schacht said that in his opinion,
the best way to begin to deal with Hitler was not through political
discussion but through economic discussion. Hitler was not in the
least interested in economic matters. He regarded money as filth. It
was therefore possible to enter into negotiations with him ' in the
economic domain without arousing his emotional antipathy, and it
might be possible through the conversations thus begun to lead him
into arrangements in the political and military field, in which he
was intensely interested. Hitler was determined to have Austria
eventually attached to Germany, and to obtain at least autonomy for
the Germans of Bohemia. At the present moment he was not vitally
concerned about the Polish Corridor and in his"--that is
Schacht's-- "opinion, it might be possible to maintain the
Corridor, provided Danzig were permitted to join East Prussia, and
provided some sort of a bridge could be built across the Corridor,
uniting Danzig and East Prussia with Germany."
And for the Defendant Göring's statements to Ambassador
Bullitt, I read from the second memorandum, "Memorandum of
Conversation between Ambassador Bullitt and General Hermann
Göring," on Page 2 of that document, following a part of a
sentence which is underlined, just below the middle of the page:
"The sole source of friction between
Germany and France was the refusal of France to permit Germany to
achieve: certain vital national necessities.
"If France, instead of accepting collaboration with Germany,
should continue to follow a policy of building up alliances in
Eastern Europe to prevent Germany from the achievement of her
legitimate aims, it was obvious that there would be conflict between
France and Germany.