5
Dec. 45
can be
drawn from it, but it is submitted that it at
least shows the lines upon which the General
Staff of the Air Force were thinking at that
date.
The Tribunal will remember that
in February 1938 the Defendant Ribbentrop
succeeded Von Neurath as Foreign Minister. We
have another document from that captured
microfilm, which is dated the 26th of August
1938, when Ribbentrop had become Foreign
Minister, and it is addressed to him as "the
Reich Minister via the State Secretary." It
is a comparatively short document and one that I
will read in whole:
"The
most pressing problem of German policy,
the Czech problem, might easily, but
must not, lead to a conflict with the
Entente." — TC-76 becomes
GB-31 — "Neither France nor
England is looking for trouble regarding
Czechoslovakia. Both would perhaps leave
Czechoslovakia to herself, if she
should, without direct foreign
interference and through internal signs
of disintegration due to her own faults,
suffer the fate she deserves. This
process, however, would have to take
place step by step, and would have to
lead to a loss of power in the remaining
territory, by means of a plebiscite and
an annexation of territory.
"The
Czech problem is not yet politically
acute enough for any immediate action,
which the Entente would watch
inactively, and not even if this action
should come quickly and surprisingly.
Germany cannot fix any definite time
when this fruit could be plucked without
too great a risk. She can only prepare
the desired developments."
I
pass to the last paragraph on that page. I think
I can leave out the intervening lines, Paragraph
5.
THE PRESIDENT: Should you not read
the next paragraph, "For this purpose . . .
."?
LT.
COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: "For this
purpose the slogan emanating from
England at present of the right for
autonomy of the Sudeten Germans, which
we have intentionally not used up to
now, is to be taken up gradually. The
international conviction that the choice
of nationality is being withheld from
these Germans will do useful spadework,
notwithstanding the fact that the
chemical process of dissolution of the
Czech form of states may or may not be
finally speeded up by mechanical means
as well. The fate of the actual body of
Czechoslovakia, however, would not as
yet be clearly decided by this, but
would nevertheless be definitely sealed.
"This method of approach towards
Czechoslovakia is to be recommended
because of our relationship with Poland.
It is