 |
  |
IMT02-T346 MAZAL LIBRARY |
 |
27 Nov.
45 by a Treaty of Alliance between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union exactly parallel in form. In accordance with the fundamental right of a nation to secure its frontiers and ensure its possibilities of defense, the German Government has today restored the full and unrestricted sovereignty of Germany in the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland." The whole matter of the German reoccupation of the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland caused extensive international repercussions and study. As a result of the protests lodged with the League of Nations, the Council of the League made an investigation and announced the following finding, of which I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice, as being carried in the League of Nations Monthly Summary, March 1936, Volume 16, Page 78; and it is also quoted in an article by Quincy Wright, in the American Journal of International Law, Page 487, 1936. The finding is this: "That the German Government has committed a breach of Article 43 of the Treaty of Versailles by causing, on March 7, 1936, military forces to enter and establish themselves in the demilitarized zone referred to, in Article 42 and the following articles of that Treaty, and in the Treaty of Locarno." At the same time, on 7 March 1936, as the Germans reoccupied the Rhineland in flagrant violation of the Versailles and Locarno Treaties, they again tried to allay the fears of other European powers and lead them into a false sense of security by announcing to the world: "We have no territorial demands to make in Europe." That appears in this same speech of Hitler's, which I have offered in evidence as Exhibit USA-56, which is Document 2289-PS. The language will be found on Page 6, Column 1: "We have no territorial claims to make in Europe. We know above all that all the tensions resulting either from false territorial settlements or from the disproportion of the numbers of inhabitants to their living spaces cannot, in Europe, be solved by war." Most of the acts set forth in the paragraph of the Indictment which I have been discussing, I think do not need judicial proof because they are historical facts. We have been able to bring you a number of interesting documents illuminating that history. The existence of prior plans and preparations is indisputable from the very nature of things. The method and sequence of these plans and their accomplishment are clearly indicative of the progressing and increasingly aggressive character of the Nazi objectives, inter- |
 |
|