4 Dec. 45

French-Czechoslovak Treaty provided for assistance only in the event of an "unprovoked" attack, it would take a day or two for France and England, and I suppose for their legal advisors to decide whether legally the attack had been unprovoked or not, and consequently a Blitzkrieg, accomplishing its aims before there could be any effective intervention by France or England, was the object to be aimed at.

On the same day an Air Force memorandum on future organization was issued, and to it there was attached a map on which the Baltic States, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland were all shown as part of Germany, and preparations for expanding the Air Force, and I quote, "as the Reich grows in area," as well as dispositions for a two-front war against France and Russia, were discussed. And on the following day Von Ribbentrop was being minuted about the reaction of Poland towards the Czechoslovak problem. I quote: "The fact that after the liquidation of the Czechoslovakian question it will be generally assumed that Poland will be next in turn is not to be denied," is recognized, but it is stated, "The later this assumption sinks in, the better."

I will pause for a moment at the date of the Munich Agreement and ask the Tribunal to remind itself of what the evidence of documents and historical facts shows up to that day. It has made undeniable both the fact of Nazi aggressiveness and of active and actual aggression. Not only does that conference of 1937 show Hitler and his associates deliberately considering the acquisition of Austria and Czechoslovakia, if necessary by war, but the first of the operations had been carried through in March of 1938; and a large part of the second, under threat of war —a threat which as we now see was much more than a bluff — a threat of actual and real war, although without the actual need for its initiation, secured, as I said, a large part of the second objective in September of 1938. And, more ominous still, Hitler had revealed his adherence to the old doctrines of Mein Kampf — those essentially aggressive doctrines to the exposition of which in Mein Kampf, long regarded as the Bible of the Nazi Party, we shall draw attention in certain particular passages. Hitler is indicating quite clearly not only to his associates, but indeed to the world at this time, that he is in pursuit of Lebensraum and that he means to secure it by threat of force, or if threat of force fails, by actual force — by aggressive war.

So far actual warfare had been avoided because of the love of peace, the lack of preparedness, the patience, the cowardice — call it what you will — of the democratic powers, but after Munich the question which filled the minds of all thinking people with acute anxiety was "where will this thing end? Is Hitler now satisfied as he declared himself to be? Or is his pursuit of Lebensraum going