5
Dec. 45
"These
national groups, to counteract the
renewed attacks against their freedom
and life, have now broken away from the
Prague Government. Czechoslovakia has
ceased to exist.
"Since
Sunday at many places wild excesses have
broken out, amongst the victims of which
are again many Germans. Hourly the
number of oppressed and persecuted
people crying for help is increasing.
From areas thickly populated by
German-speaking inhabitants, which last
autumn Czechoslovakia was allowed by
German generosity to retain, refugees
robbed of their personal belongings are
streaming into the Reich.
"Continuation
of such a state of affairs would lead to
the destruction of every vestige of
order in an area in which Germany is
vitally interested particularly as for
over 1,000 years it formed a part of the
German Reich.
"In order
definitely to remove this menace to
peace and to create the conditions for a
necessary new order in this living
space, I have today resolved to allow
German troops to march into Bohemia and
Moravia. They will disarm the terror
gangs and the Czechoslovakian forces
supporting them, and protect the lives
of all who are menaced. Thus they will
lay the foundations for introducing a
fundamental re-ordering of affairs which
will be in accordance with the
1,000-year-old history and will satisfy
the practical needs of the German and
Czech peoples."
—
Signed — "Adolf Hitler,
Berlin, 15 March 1939."
Then
there is a footnote, an order of the Führer
to the German Armed Forces of the same date, in
which the substance is that they are told to
march in, to safeguard lives and property of all
inhabitants, and not to conduct themselves as
enemies, but as an instrument for carrying out
the German Reich Government's decision.
I
put in, as GB-8, the decrees establishing the
Protectorate, which is TC-51.
I think
again, as these are public decrees, the Tribunal
can take judicial knowledge of them. Their
substance has been fully explained by Mr.
Alderman. With the permission of the Tribunal, I
won't read them in full now.
Then
again, as Mr. Alderman requested, I put in, as
GB-9, British Document TC-52, the British
protest. If I might just read that to the
Tribunal — it is from Lord Halifax to Sir
Nevile Henderson, our — Ambassador in
Berlin:
"Foreign
Office, March 17, 1939.
"Please
inform the German Government that His
Majesty's Government desire to make it
plain to them that they cannot but
regard the events of the past few days
as a complete