5
Dec. 45
"Germany
neither intends nor wishes to interfere
in the domestic affairs of Austria, to
annex Austria, or to attach that country
to her. The German people and the German
Government have, however, the very
comprehensible desire, arising out of
the simple feeling of solidarity due to
a common national descent, that the
right to self-determination should be
guaranteed not only to foreign nations,
but to the German people everywhere. I
myself believe that no regime which is
not anchored in the people, supported by
the people, and desired by the people,
can exist permanently."
The
next document which is TC-22, and which is on
the next page, I now hand in as Exhibit GB-20.
It is the copy of the official proclamation of
the agreement between the German Government and
the Government of the Federal State of Austria
on 11 July 1936, and I am almost certain that
Mr. Alderman did read this document, but I refer
the Tribunal to Paragraph 1 of the agreement to
remind them of the essential content:
"The
German Government recognizes the full
sovereignty of the Federal State of
Austria in the sense of the
pronouncements of the German Leader and
Chancellor of the 21st of May 1935."
I
now have three documents which Mr. Alderman
asked me to hand in with regard to
Czechoslovakia. The first is TC-27, which the
Tribunal will find two documents further on from
the one of Austria, to which I have just been
referring. That is the German assurance to
Czechoslovakia, and what I am handing in as
GB-21 is the letter from M. Masaryk, Jan
Masaryk's son, to Lord Halifax, dated the 12th
of Mardi 1938. Again I think that if Mr.
Alderman did not read this, he certainly quoted
the statement made by the Defendant Göring
which appears in the third paragraph. In the
first statement the Field Marshal used the
expression, "ich gebe Ihnen mein Ehrenwort,"
which I understand means, "I give you my
word of honor," and if you will look down
three paragraphs, after the Defendant Göring
had asked that there would not be a mobilization
of the Czechoslovak Army, the communication
continues:
"M.
Mastny was in a position to give him
definite and binding assurances on this
subject, and today spoke with Baron Von
Neurath — that is the Defendant Von
Neurath — who, among other things
assured him on behalf of Herr Hitler
that Germany still considers herself
bound by the German-Czechoslovak
Arbitration Convention concluded at
Locarno in October 1925."
So
there I remind the Tribunal that in 1925 Herr
Stresemann was speaking on behalf of Germany in
an agreement voluntarily concluded. Had there
been the slightest doubt of that, here is the