29 Nov. 45
cerning the so-called equal rights of Austrian National
Socialists in Austria, 18 February 1938, Dokumente
derDeutschen Politik, Volume 6, I, Page 128, Number 21-d.
That communiqué announced that pursuant to the
Berchtesgaden conference, the Austrian National Socialists would be
taken into the Fatherland Front, the single legal political party of
Austria.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you tell us what exhibit numbers those two
documents were?
MR. ALDERMAN: I am sorry, Sir; Document 2469-PS.
THE PRESIDENT: We haven't had that yet. We have had 2461-PS,
which is exhibit what?
MR. ALDERMAN: Well, I hadn't read it in. I was asking the
Tribunal to take judicial notice of this as an official
communiqué.
THE PRESIDENT: You are not going to give it an exhibit number?
MR. ALDERMAN: No, Sir. THE PRESIDENT: Nor 2469?
MR. ALDERMAN: No, Sir.
In actual fact, great pressure was put on Schuschnigg at
Berchtesgaden. The fact that pressure was exerted, and pressure of a
military nature involving the threat of the use of troops, can be
sufficiently established from captured German documents.
I have our Document 1544-PS, a captured German document, which I
offer in evidence as Exhibit USA-71.
This document consists of the Defendant Von Papen's own notes on
his last meeting with Schuschnigg, on February 26, 1938. I quote the
last two paragraphs of these notes. This is Von Papen speaking, in
his own notes:
"I then introduced into the
conversation the widespread opinion that he"-that is,
Schuschnigg-"had acted under 'brutal pressure' in Berchtesgaden.
I myself had been present and been able to state that he had always
and at every point had complete freedom of decision. The Chancellor
replied that he had actually been under considerable moral pressure;
he could not deny that. He had made notes on the talk which bore that
out. I reminded him that despite this talk he had not seen his way
clear to make any concessions, and I asked him whether without the
pressure he would have been ready to make the concessions he made
late in the evening. He answered: 'To be honest, no.'"
And then Von Papen says:
"It appears to me of importance to
record this statement.