3
Dec. 45
As the
German forces entered the Sudetenland, Henlein's
Sudetendeutsche Partei was merged with the NSDAP
of Hitler. The two men who had fled to Hitler's
protection in mid-September, Henlein and Karl
Hermann Frank, were appointed Gauleiter and
Deputy Gauleiter, respectively, of the
Sudetengau. In the parts of the Czechoslovak
Republic that were still free the
Sudetendeutsche Partei constituted itself as the
National Socialistic German Worker Party in
Czechoslovakia, NSDAP in Czechoslovakia, under
the direction of Kundt, another of Henlein's
deputies.
The Tribunal will find these
events set forth in the Czechoslovak official
report, Document 998-PS.
The stage was
now prepared for the next move of the Nazi
conspirators, the plan for the conquest of the
remainder of Czechoslovakia. With the occupation
of the Sudetenland and the inclusion of
German-speaking Czechs within the Greater Reich,
it might have been expected that the Nazi
conspirators would be satisfied. Thus far in
their program of aggression the defendants had
used as a pretext for their conquests the union
of the Volksdeutsche, the people of German
descent, with the Reich. Now, after Munich, the
Volksdeutsche in Czechoslovakia have been
substantially all returned to German rule.
On
26 September, at the Sportpalast in Berlin,
Hitler spoke to the world. I now refer and
invite the notice of the Tribunal to the Völkischer
Beobachter, Munich edition, special edition
for 27 September 1938, in which this speech is
quoted. I read from Page 2. Column 1, quoting
from Hitler:
"And
now we are confronted with the last
problem which must be solved and will be
solved. It is the last territorial claim"
. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Is this document in our
documents?
MR. ALDERMAN: No. I am
asking the Court to take judicial notice of
that.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
MR.
ALDERMAN: It is a well-known German publication.
"It
is the last territorial claim which I
have to make in Europe, but it is a
claim from which I will not swerve and
which I will satisfy, God willing."
(Document Number 2358-PS.)
And further:
"I
have little to explain. I am grateful to
Mr. Chamberlain for all his efforts, and
I have assured him that the German
people want nothing but peace; but I
have also told him that I cannot go back
beyond the limits of our patience."