7 Dec. 45

"The French Ambassador addressed a similar letter to Baron Von Neurath at the same time."
The enclosure is the note of March 11th from the British Embassy to Defendant Von Neurath and it reads as follows:

"Dear Reich Minister

"My Government are informed that a German ultimatum was delivered this afternoon at Vienna demanding, inter alia, the resignation of the Chancellor and his replacement by the Minister of the Interior, a new Cabinet of which two-thirds of the members were to be National Socialists and the readmission of the Austrian Legion to the country with the duty of keeping order in Vienna.

"I am instructed by my Government to represent immediately to the German Government that if this report is correct His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom feel bound to register a pretest in the strongest terms against such use of coercion backed by force against an independent state in order to create a situation incompatible with its national independence.

"As the German Minister for Foreign Affairs has already been informed in London, such action is found to produce the greatest reactions of which it is impossible to foretell the issues."
I now offer Document 3287-PS, as Exhibit Number USA-128. This consists of a transmittal from the British Embassy, Berlin, to the British Foreign Office of Defendant Von Neurath's letter of response dated 12 March 1938. The letter is identified in the document with the letter "L".

First the Defendant Von Neurath objected to the fact that the British Government were undertaking the role of protector of Austria's independence. I quote from the second paragraph of his letter.
"In the name of the German Government I must point out here that the Royal British Government have no right to assume the role of a protector of Austria's independence. In the course of diplomatic consultations on the Austrian question, the German Government never left any doubt with the Royal British Government that the formation of relations between Germany and Austria could not be considered anything but the inner concern of the German people and that it did not affect a third power."
Then in response to the assertions regarding Germany's ultimatum Von Neurath set out what he stated to be the time version of events I quote the last two long paragraphs of the letter; in the English translation I start at the bottom of Page 1 of the letter: