6
Dec. 45
would
be assured the retention of railway and
economic facilities there. Poland would
agree to the building of an
extraterritorial motor road and a
railway line across Pomorze (northern
part of the corridor). In exchange Von
Ribbentrop mentioned the possibility of
an extension of the Polish-German
Agreement to 25 years and a guarantee of
Polish-German frontiers."
I
do not think I need read the following lines. I
go to the last but one paragraph:
"Finally,
I said to Von Ribbentrop that I could
see no possibility of an agreement
involving the reunion of the Free City
with the Reich. I concluded by promising
to communicate the substance of this
conversation to you."
I
would emphasize the submission of the
Prosecution as to this part of the case and that
is that the whole question of Danzig was,
indeed, as Hitler has himself said, no question
at all. Danzig was raised simply as an excuse, a
so-called justification, not for the seizure of
Danzig, but for the invasion and seizure of the
whole of Poland, and we see it starting now. As
we progress with the story it will become ever
more apparent that that is what the Nazi
Government were really aiming at — only
providing themselves with some kind of crisis
which would provide some kind of justification
for walking into the rest of Poland.
I
turn to the next document. It is again a
document taken from the Polish White Book,
TC-73, Number 45, which will be GB-27 (b). TC-73
will be the Polish White Book, which I
shall put in later. That document sets out the
instructions that Mr. Beck, the Polish Foreign
Minister, gave to Mr. Lipski to hand to the
German Government in reply to the suggestion put
forward by Ribbentrop at Berchtesgaden on the
24th of October. I need not read the first page.
The history of Polish-German relationship is
set out, and the needs of Poland in respect of
Danzig are emphasized. I turn to the second page
of that exhibit, to Paragraph 6:
"In
the circumstances, in the understanding
of the Polish Government, the Danzig
question is governed by two factors: The
right of the German population of the
city and the surrounding villages to
freedom of life and development, and the
fact that in all matters appertaining
to the Free City as a port it is
connected with Poland. Apart from the
national character of the majority of
the population, everything in Danzig is
definitely bound up with Poland."
It
then sets out the guarantees to Poland under the
existing statute, and I pass to Paragraph 7:
"Taking
all the foregoing factors into
consideration, and desiring to achieve
the stabilization of relations by way of