3
Dec. 45
"Question
4: Frontier protection in the West."
As
I say, those questions were answered in detail
by the OKW and initialed by Colonel Zeitzler of
Jodl's staff.
As a precaution against
French and British action during the attack on
Czechoslovakia, it was necessary for the Nazi
conspirators to rush the preparation of
fortification measures along the western
frontier in Germany. I refer you to Item 8, at
Page 12 of the Big Schmundt file, a telegram
presumably sent from Schmundt in Berchtesgaden
to Berlin, and I quote from this telegram. It
is, as I say, Item 8 of the Schmundt file, Page
12 of Document 388-PS: "Inform Colonel
General Von Brauchitsch and General Keitel."
And then, skipping a paragraph: "The Führer
repeatedly emphasized the necessity of pressing
forward greatly the fortification work in the
West."
In May, June, July, and
August of 1938 conferences between Hitler and
his political and military advisors resulted in
the issuance of a series of constantly revised
directives for the attack on Czechoslovakia. It
was decided that preparations for X-Day, the day
of the attack, should be completed no later than
1 October. I now invite the attention of the
Tribunal to the more important of these
conferences and directives.
On 28 May
1938 Hitler called a conference of his principal
advisors. At this meeting he gave the necessary
instructions to his fellow conspirators to
prepare the attack on Czechoslovakia. This fact
Hitler later publicly admitted. I now refer and
invite the notice of the Tribunal to Document
2360-PS, a copy of the Völkischer
Beobachter of 31 January 1939. In a
speech before the Reichstag the preceding day,
reported in this newspaper, reading now from
Document 2360-PS, Hitler spoke as follows:
"On
account of this intolerable provocation
which had been aggravated by a truly
infamous persecution and terrorization
of our Germans there, I have determined
to solve once and for all, and this time
radically, the Sudeten-German question.
On 28 May I ordered first: That
preparation should be made for military
action against this state by 2 October.
I ordered second: The immense and
accelerated expansion of our defensive
front in the West."
Two days after this conference, on 30 May 1938,
Hitler issued the revised military directive for
Case Green. This directive is Item 11 in the Big
Schmundt file, Document 388-PS. It is entitled,
"Two front War, with Main Effort in the
Southeast," and this directive replaced the
corresponding section, Part 2, Section II, of
the previous quote, "Directive for Unified
Preparation for War," which had been
promulgated by Von Blomberg on 26 June 1937,
which I have already introduced in evidence as
our Document C-175, United