5
Dec. 45
"In
the early morning hours of 15 March,
after the announcement of the planned
entry of German troops, German men had
to act in some localities in order to
assure a quiet course of events, either
by assumption of the police authority,
as for instance in Brünn, or by
corresponding instructions of the police
president. In some Czech offices men had
likewise, in the early hours of the
morning, begun to burn valuable archives
and the material of political files. It
was also necessary to take measures here
in order to prevent foolish destruction
. . . . How significant the many-sided
and comprehensive measures were
considered by the competent German
agencies follows from the fact that many
of the men either on March 15 itself or
on the following days were admitted into
the SS with fitting acknowledgment, in
part even through the Reich leader of
the SS himself or through SS Group
Leader Heydrich. The activities and
deeds of these men were thereby
designated as accomplished in the
interest of the SS . . . .
"Immediately
after the corresponding divisions of the
SS had marched in with the first columns
of the German Army and had assumed
responsibility in the appropriate
sectors, the men here placed themselves
at once at their further disposition and
became valuable auxiliaries and
collaborators."
I
now ask the Court to take judicial notice under
Article 21 of the Charter of three official
documents. These are identified by us as
Documents D-571, D-572, and 2943-PS. I offer
them in evidence, respectively, D-571 as Exhibit
USA-112; D-572, Exhibit USA-113; and 2943-PS,
which is the French Official Yellow Book,
at Pages 66 and 67, as Exhibit USA-114.
The
first two documents are British diplomatic
dispatches, properly certified to by the British
Government, which gave the background of
intrigue in Slovakia — German intrigue in
Slovakia. The third document, 2943-PS or Exhibit
USA-114, consists of excerpts from the French
Yellow Book, principally excerpts from
dispatches signed by M. Coulondre, the French
Ambassador in Berlin, to the French Foreign
Office between 13 and 18 March 1939. I expect to
draw on these three dispatches rather freely in
the further course of my presentation, since the
Tribunal will take judicial notice of each of
these documents, I think; and therefore, it may
not be necessary to read them at length into the
transcript. In Slovakia the long-anticipated
crisis came on 10 March. On that day the
Czechoslovakian Government dismissed those
members of the Slovak Cabinet who refused to
continue negotiations with Prague, among them
Foreign Minister Tiso and Durcansky. Within 24
hours the Nazis seized upon this act of the
Czechoslovak