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military forces. One of the departments of the SS Supreme Command — the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle — which is represented on the chart by the third box from the top at the extreme right — was a center for Fifth Column activity. The Tribunal may recall the secret meeting between Hitler and Henlein in March 1938, described in notes of the German Foreign Office, Exhibit Number USA-95, at which the line to be followed by the Sudeten German Party was determined. The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle was represented at that meeting by Professor Haushofer and SS Obergruppenführer Lorenz. And when the Foreign Office, in August 1938, awarded further subsidies to Henlein's Sudeten Party, the memorandum of that recommendation for further subsidies contained the significant footnote "Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle will be informed ... "I refer to Exhibit Number USA-96, our Document 3059-PS, which was read into the record by Mr. Alderman, at Pages 789 and 790 (Volume III, Pages 75 and 76).

When at last the time came to strike, the SS was ready. I quote from the National Socialist Yearbook for 1940, our Document 2164-PS, Exhibit Number USA-255, on Page 1, Paragraph 2, of the translation, Page 365 of the original, Paragraph 3:

"When the march into the liberated provinces of the Sudeten land began, on that memorable 1st of October 1938, the emergency forces" — Verfügungstruppe "as well as the Death's Head Units" — Totenkopf Verbände — "were along with those in the lead."

I omit the balance of the paragraph and continue with the next paragraph:

"The 15th of March 1939 brought a similar utilization of the SS when it served to establish order in the collapsed Czechoslovakia. This action ended with the founding of the Protectorate Bohemia-Moravia.

"Only a week later, on the 22d of March 1939, Memel also returned to the Reich upon basis of an agreement with Lithuania. Again it was the SS, here above all the East Prussian SS, which played a prominent part in the liberation of this district."

In the final act in setting off the war-the attack on Poland in September 1939 - the SS acted as a sort of stage manager. The Tribunal will recall the oral testimony of Erwin Lahousen with relation to the simulated attack on the radio station at Gleiwitz, by Germans dressed in Polish uniform-what Lahousen referred to as one of the most mysterious actions which took place in the Abwehr. Describing his task of getting the Polish uniforms and equipment together, he said at Page 620 of the transcript (Volume II, Page 450):