3
Dec. 45
in the
German press. Goebbels called Czechoslovakia a "nest
of Bolshevism" and spread the false report
of Russian troops and airplanes centered in
Prague. Under direction from the Reich, the
Henleinists maintained whispering propaganda in
the Sudetenland which contributed to the
mounting tension and to the creation of
incidents. Illegal Nazi literature was smuggled
from Germany and widely distributed in the
border regions. The Henlein press, more or less
openly, espoused Nazi ideology before the German
population in the Sudetenland.
(e)
Murder and terrorism. Nazi conspirators provided
the Henleinists, and particularly the FS, with
money and arms with which to provoke incidents
and to maintain a state of permanent unrest.
Gendarmes, customs officers, and other Czech
officials were attacked. A boycott was
established against Jewish lawyers, doctors, and
tradesmen.
The Henleinists terrorized
the non-Henlein population and the Nazi Gestapo
crossed into the border districts to carry
Czechoslovak citizens across the border into
Germany. In several cases, political foes of the
Nazis were murdered on Czech soil. Nazi agents
murdered Professor Theodor Lessing in 1933, and
engineer Formis in 1935. Both men were
anti-Nazis who had escaped from Germany after
Hitler came to power and had sought refuge in
Czechoslovakia.
Sometime afterwards,
when there was no longer need for pretense and
deception, Konrad Henlein made a clear and frank
statement of the mission assigned to him by the
Nazi conspirators. I offer in evidence Document
Number 2863-PS, an excerpt from a lecture by
Konrad Henlein quoted in the book Four
Fighting Years, a publication of the
Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and I
quote from Page 29. This book has been marked
for identification Exhibit USA-92, but without
offering it in evidence, I ask the Tribunal to
take judicial notice of it. I shall read from
Page 29. This lecture was delivered by Henlein
on 4 March 1941, in the auditorium of the
University of Vienna, under the auspices of the
Wiener Verwaltungsakademie. During a thorough
search of libraries in Vienna and elsewhere, we
have been unable to find a copy of the German
text. This text, this volume that I have here,
is an English version. The Vienna newspapers the
following day carried only summaries of the
lecture. This English version, however, is an
official publication of the Czech Government and
is, under the circumstances, the best evidence
that we can produce of the Henlein speech.
In
this lecture on "The Fight for the
Liberation of the Sudetens" Henlein said:
"National
Socialism soon swept over us Sudeten
Germans. Our struggle was of a different
character from that in