These assertions of the defendant are confirmed by the statements of the witness von Holleben in the questionnaire answered by him -- doc. book V Nr. 156 -- of the witness Dr. von Burgsdorf, as well as by the letter of the defendant to Baroness Ritter - as literally quoted by the latter in her affidavit - doc. bock Nr. 3. And the defendant has actually succeeded in carrying his point, as proven by the report of his conversation with Hider submitted by the prosecution. Germanization of the Czech nation, the defendant has even prohibited the discussion of this entire question, as proven by document 3862-PS submitted by the prosecution. By this prevention of any division of the Protectorate territory and of any more or less of Reich planned Germanization of the Czech nation, it is actually provedn, in the clearest possible manner, how sincere the aims and endeavours of the defendant were to save and to keep the Czech nation and its nationality in its national unity and character, true to his principles and designs, as stated publicly in his article reproduced by the Frankfurter Zeitung of March 30th 1939 -- doc. book V. Nr. 143 -- concerning the new order of central Europe, as forming the rule of conduct for the accomplishment of his duty.
He himself defines in this article his task as a fine one, but as a difficult one too.
How difficult it really was, how nearly inpossible, was to be proved unfortunately but a little while later. only the full power in the Protectorate had not been transferred to him, that never - quite aside from his subordination under Hitler had he received a solely decisive and overruling position, but also that his competences and power were not defined sharply enough. It is true that Hitler's decree of March 16th 1939 establishing the Protectorate, and the supplementing decree of March 22nd 1939 doc. book. V. No. 144 and 145 - had decreed that the Reichsprotektor was put under the control of the Fuehrer and Reich chancellor, that be was to be the Fuehrer's and the Reich government's sole representative and was to receive his directives from the Fuehrer and from Reich chancellor. But at the same time not only certain administrative branches, such as Wehrmacht, communications, postal, telegraphic and telephone services, were from the beginning, placed out of his competence, but also the he Reich government and the Reich itself had been given the right to take under their own administration, as Reich administrations - so-called "reichseigene" - independent of the Reichsprotektor, admininistrations which actually were Reichsprotektor offices, and to establish, if necessary, Reich offices, which did not fall under the Reichsprotektor's competence. The Reich had also received the right to take measures necessary to Maintain security and order in the Protectorate, every the head of the Reichsprotektor himself. Furthermore - and this is the most important point of all -, the right was granted to every one of the many supreme Reich authorities, i.e., not only to the Reich ministrios, but, e.g., to the Reichsbank, the hour Year Plan, the Council of ministers for Reich Defense and others, to decree laws and organizational measures on their own authority quite independently of the Reich protector, and therefore to interfere in branches of the administration which, by their nature, belonged to the competence of the Reich Protector, without the Reich Protector having either the right or the possibility to protest against, or prevent such decrees or measures should they be in opposition to his own decrees, measures and policy.
On the contrary it was his duty not only to publish them in the protectorate if asked to do so, but also to supervise their execution. Therefore the position of the Reich protector was using an example as explanation - by no means the same as, e.g., that of the British Viceroy in India, but corresponded far rather though to outward appearances a somewhat higher level - to the position of a Reich Governor or the President of a province. This position therefore did not correspond to what had hitherto been understood constitutionally by a protectorate, nor could it, because this so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia belonged, according to Article 1 of the above mentioned decree of 16 March 1939 and to this I wish to draw particular attention here, - to the territory of the German Reich, that is to say it was a part of the German Reich. And it only possessed a certain amount of selfadministration and a limited autonomy within the Reich as a part of it, whereby the introduction of laws and regulations valid in the rest of the territory of the Reich was a priori understood. It is self-evident that the greatest difficulties were bound to result very soon from this so vague and indefinite delimitation of the powers and competence of the Reich-protector - difficulties not only for a homogeneous points of view and guiding lines, but also for the defendant himself as Reich Protector in governing in the way he wished and which he had embarked upon difficulties and resistances which become more and mere acute in the course of time. On the other hand it also follows from the above that the responsibility of the defendant can only be judged from this point of view i.e. only by taking into account these various competences of all kinds of other authorities. He Can never be made responsible for decrees, measures and actions which he did not decree or order himself which, on the contrary, were decreed without his co-operation, without his knowledge, even against his will, by authorities or other offices outside his sphere of power and influence - decrees, measures and actions which he had neither the right nor the power to prevent and for which he was at most a transit office.
attributed to him by the Czech prosecution (USSR 60-a) for all the actions of Hitler and of the Reich Government before and after the creation of the Protectorate. The assertion which forms the foundation and presupposition for this - the prosecution assertion that Herr v. Neurath, after having given up his post as Reich Foreign Minister, remained a member of the Reich Government - is factually wrong. I have already proved elsewhere beyond doubt that he was not a member of the Reich government, neither as a minister without employment now as president of the Secret Cabinet Council. And he was just as little a member of the Reich government as Reich Protector. That, too, is certain and has never been claimed by the prosecution before this court. Therewith any part-responsibility of the defendant for any actions or measures which preceded or prepared the setting up of the Protectorate, is out of the question. I have also already proved elsewhere that his statement to the Czechoslovak Ambassador on 12 March 1938, which he has been reproached with here again as being such a preparatory action, was not false, not deceitful, and was therefore not an action preparing the March in to Czechoslovakia. Article 5 of the above-mentioned decree of 16 March 1939, that, as Reich Protector, he was responsible without distinction for every thing that occurred in the Protectorate during the time he was in office, i.e. from 17 March 1939 to 27 September 1941, this conclusion is also factually wrong and false, in view of the actual position with regard to competence in the Protectorate, as explained above. There is no system of law in the world according to which one can charge a person with criminal responsibility for occurrences and acts by third persons, in which he did not participate, or cooperate or which even occurred against his will. of exchange between the Reichsmark and the Czech crown, because this rate had already been fixed when he took over office; he neither had any hand in fixing it nor had he the power or right to change tic rate of exchange; we can here very well leave aside the question whether, as the prosecution maintains without proofs, the rate of exchange was detrimental to the Czech people or not.
That, by the way, even if the letter were the case, this would not be a crime according to the charter - and only as such would it be punishable hardly needs to be stressed. of the customs union and its execution. This had already been laid down in Article 9 of the decree of 16 March 1939, which says literally: "The Protectorate belongs to the customs area of the German Reich and is subject to its sovereignty as regards customs." This regulation was a natural consequence of the already stressed fact that the Protectorate was a part of the territory of the German Reich. However I would like to draw special attention here to the feet that the defendant, because he regarded the absorption of the Protectorate into the customs area, the customs sovereignty of the Reich, as detrimental and harmful to Czech economy, managed to postpone the execution and realisation of this absorption for a year and a half, till 1st October 1940 in spite of all the urgings of the Reich Finance Minister, Which is clear proof that the defendant put the interests of the Czech people who had been confided to him, above the interests of the German Reich. He had absolutely nothing to do with the economic measures consisting in the alleged transfer of Czech banks and industrial enterprises and the alleged filling of the keypositions in them with Germans. These measures were taken by other offices, especially by the Reich bank and the Plenipotentiary for the Four Year's Plan, behind his back and without his collaboration. Resides, they were the natural result of the circumstance that already in earlier times very important German Capital had been invested in these banks and enterprises, and this capital increased after the occupation, because the credits given by other countries were withdrawn by them and taken over by German firms.
Lastly, he had nothing whatever to do with Jurisdiction. The latter was under exclusive control of the Reich Minister of Justice.
He alone established the German courts including summary courts and prosecuting authorities, he only appointed judges and prosecutors. Herr v. Neurath himself had nothing to do with this and still loss with the jurisdiction of the courts, as is clearly shown by the ordinances and decrees which established them, especially the decree concerning the execution of criminal jurisdiction of April 14th 1959 - Doc. Book, Vol. No. 147. the economic measures nor the establishment of German courts in the Protectorate, which was a part of the German Reich, even remotely fall under the category of crimes punished by this Charter. Just as little do fall under these crimes the alleged intrusions into Czech school organization, the appointment of German school inspectors, measures with which the defendant has been charged in the Czech indictment, and measures also were not taken by him, but by the German Reich Ministry of Education and instruction. And the closing of a large number of Czech secondary schools has not been ordered by the defendant at all, nor by the German Reich ministry, but actually by the Czech government itself, according, it is true, to a suggestion made by the defendant. This measure turned out to be useful and in agreement with the interests of the Czech youth and, therefore, of the Czech intelligentsia and people, by preventing the formation and growing of a large educated proletariat. This danger had become acute because, after the incorporation of the Sudeten German territory into the German Reich in the autumn 1938, a very large number of Czech officials and members of the free professions had streamed into the territory of the Protectorate, which, in conjunction with the already existing overcrowding of all higher professions, and in view of the diminution of the Protectorate territory owing to the separation of the Sudeten territory and Slovakia still mere diminished the possibilities for getting employment and remuneration for the up growing pupils in secondary schools.
Additionally to this came the closing of universities, in the middle of November 1339, according to a personal order of Hitler.
The Czech government could not deny the truth of such considerations of the defendant, and decreed itself the closing of quite a number of schools. The defendant did not exorcise any pressure on the Czech government. This had been proven by the evidence.
tions however, was done without knowledge or participation of the defendant, by the police, which was not controlled by him, neither did the confiscation and the use of their assets. It is not even certain, by the way, whether this dissolution has taken place while the defendant was holding office or after his departure. The dissolution of the Sokol, it must be said, was a real necessity for the government, to protect German interests, and moreover a measure which was taken in the interest of the pacification and reconciliation of the Czech nation tee, as the Sokol was, beyond doubt, the focus of anti-German efforts and of the incitement to the Czech people toward an active resistance against everything which was German. other administrations and offices on the administration of the Protectorate, and, accordingly, the difficulties and resistances against a Uniform policy of the defendant. These were, however, by no means removed, but on the contrary, aggravated by the decree of September 1st 1939 concerning the organization of administration and of the German Security Police -- document book V No. 149-. This decree has been issued, without any previous contact being made with the defendant, by the Council of Ministers for the Reich defence. Especially in its first part, it is absolutely obscure and misleading. True, it placed all German administration offices and their officials in the Protectorate under the control of the Reichprotector, but this subordination was an administrative one only, i.e. a purely external one, but not at the same time an actual one with a view to the administrative duties which they had to perform. power of the supreme Reich offices according to article 11 of the decree of March 16th 1939 and of the ordinance of March 22nd 1939. The difference was only that from now on all administrations and offices established or to be established by other offices were formally attached to the Reichsprotektor's office and were officially to be known as departments of the administrative designation "The Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia". However, this did by no means ensure that such attached departments were put, in fact, under control of the Reichsprotektor himself, i.e. the defendant, that they received from him their actual directives and orders and had to work according to his views and following his directives.
On the contrary, they received their instructions, just as before, from their original Reichoffices and had to observe and to obey only these. For instance, the so-called transportation department constituted accordingly at the Reichsprotektor's, which dealt with the communication - system already taken out of the Reichsprotektor's jurisdiction by ordinance of March 16th 1939 - was controlled, just as before, by the Reich Ministry of Communications, and not by the Reichsprotektor, and had to get instructions not from him but from the Ministry in Berlin. And the same applied to other sectors, also concerning purely interior administration. Ministers for the Reich defence, and not, as the Czech prosecution erroneously contends, by a decree of the defendant, a new division of the Protectorate territory was created, into Oberlandratsbezirke with an Oberlandrat at their head, which official is, according to para. 6 of the ordinance, the competent administrator for all administrations of interior administration, and subordinate to the Reichsprotektor in an administrative sense; as such he is invested with far-reaching authority, and also controls the Czech authorities in the Protectorate, and this, not by the order of the Reichsprotektor, but of the concerned Reich Ministry in Berlin. This tee was bound to cause very serious differences and oppositions between the measures taken by these Oberlandraete according to the directives issued to them by the Reich Ministry of the Interior in Berlin and the policy pursued by the defendant. Insofar this latter affected and influenced the Czech administrative offices, can remain out of consideration, as this decree tee and its result, the switchingin of Reich German officials into the activity of the Czech administration, is no crime punishable according to the Charter of this Tribunal. This decree tee is but a result of the belonging of the Protectorate to the Reich. the police within the Protectorate territory, as well of the political as of the security police.
This question was quite unsettled until the decree came into force and had led to differences and inconveniences between Herr von Neurath and his Secretary of State Frank, from the first day of the former's activity on. Protectorate, he had according to the defendants testimony, assured him of a great plentitude of power, especially for the protection and fullest assistance in such policies of the defendant as were intended to achieve conciliation and balancing of the radical aspirations of the party and other shauvinistic circle The defendant deduced from this, that as the representative of the Fuehrer in the protectorate he must and will have a decisive influence in the activity of the police also. According to his own testimony he could not visualize at that time that by the fact that the police had not expressly and from the beginning been subordinated to him, a large part of the sphere of activity expected by him became illusory from the beginning. By simultaneously appointing Frank -who had just been made higher SS and police Fuehrer in the Protectorate -- to the position of Under Secretary and as such subordinating him to the defendant, he could however derive Hitler's intention to centralise power of authority over the police, if not in his own person, at least under his jurisdiction e.g. his Under Secretary. In practive however this relation worked out entirely differently since Under Secretary Frank had not the slightest intention to include his superior, the defendant, into the sphere of activity of the Police an recognised only the jurisdiction and power of authority of Himmler, respectivel of the Main office for security of the Reich (Reichssicherheitshauptamt), his superior as SS and Police Fuehrer. 1939:
For this decree unequivocally expresses that the German Security Police, and thereby also the Gestapo, was not subordinated to the Reich Protector. This is already evident purely outwardly from the fact that the decree completely separates both departmental spheres - Administration and police - by dealing in part 1 with the building up of a German administration in the Protectorate subordinated to the Reich Protector and dealing in part 11 completely separately with the German Security Police. This Security police is not under the juris diction of the Reich Protector but, as was already reserved in Article V, par 5 of the decree of 16 March 1939, is taken over by the administration of the Reich itself, that is to say, it receives its orders direct from the Chief of Police in Berlin, i,e. Himmler and in part also by the interpolation of the highest SS and Police Chief in Prague. For the relations of the police with the Reich Protector, the second sentence of paragraph 11 is authoritative. Its wording is as follows: "The organs of the German Security police are to collect and exploit the results of their investigations, in order to notify the Reich Protector and his subordinated offices accordingly about important events and to keep him informed and Reich him suggestions." influence the activities of the police in any form whatsoever. He could not oppose their orders, wmanating from Berlin, prior to their execution: quite a page from the fact that he never got to see them and had no authority to oppose them either. He had but one claim and that was to be subsequently informed by the police about measures already taken by them and even that happened - as was proved by the evidence - only in the rarest cases. He did not have the right or the possibility to Issue orders to the police himself. different attitude of Frank as compared to Herr v. Neurath's the sharpest diffences and contradictions were inevitably bound to result. For Frank, as a Sudet German and one of the leaders of the Sudeten Germans was filled with hatred and revenge against anything that was Czech. He did not want to hear of a reconcile tion or an undrstanding between the German and the Czech peoples, and gave free rein to this anti-Czech frame of mind of his from the first day of his activity.
activity of the police was actually slight, so that these opposing viewpoints were not so apparent. Herr v. Neurath could consequently assume that this opposition would gradually diminish and that Frank would conform to his wishes and aspirations and would show himself to be accomodating and he, the defendant, did not yet recognize the necessity of exerting a lawfully founded influence upon the police through Frank, when, however, he finally had to realize - from the gradually increasing activity of the police and their excesses - that his expectations were not being fulfilled, he protested to Hitler orally and by letter, time and time again - as confirmed by the testimony of the witnesses Dr. Voelckers and von Holleben - and implored him to alter this ominous state of affairs and to subordinate the police to him, and him only.
However, all Hitler's promises and assurance proved false, and the subordination of the police to Herr von Neurath did not take place.
Yet, he did not want to reliquish the fight so soon, nor despair of the task taken over by him. Now more than ever he wanted to try to impose his ideas and policy, and, should he have been successful, at least to diminish and alleviate subsequently the consquences and harshness of the measures taken by the police in general and individually. That, for this purpose, he had the most detailed account given to him personally in all cases of measures and action taken by the police, such as arrests and othe excesses in so far as he recieved information about them, mostly from Czech sources, and that, wherever he could, he exerted his influence for the release of arrested persons and other mitigations is evidence from the testimony of all witnesses produced by me, above all, from the testimony of Dr. Voelckers, who, as Head of the defendants Office, was continually engaged in receiving such complaints. themselves, such as the notes of the defendant about his conference with President Hacha of 26 March 1940 - App.5 to supplemtn No. 1 USSR 60 - and even from the testimony of Bienert, added to the special accusation, who himself was arrested by the police and again released in a very short time upon the intervention of the defendant. submitted during the hearing of evidence, the testimony of all witnesses corresponds on the question of responsibility of the defendant for the measures taken by the police.
At his interrogation on 30 May 1945 - Doc book V Mr. 153 Frank said, quote: "The police, however, was not under the control of the Reich Protectorate. Both, Gestapo and Security police, received their directions and orders directly from the Reichssicherheitshauptamt in Berlin. Frank's statement of 5 May 1945 concerning the students' riots - Doc. book V No. 152 - is also typical for the manner in which the police received its instruction directly from Berlin leaving out the Reichprotectorate. Frank speaks therein of the report about the first demonstrations, he had sent to Berlin and in which he had asked for instructions and had received them directly from the Fuhrer's headquarters through the Security Police in Prague, to Which they were sent by Berlin directly and he, Frank, received them from there.
There is no mentioning whatever of the person or even of the office of the Reich Protectorate during the entire proceedings, it is an internal affair of the police taking in Frank, the leader of the higher SS and police. Because of the importance of this point, I would like to refer explicitly to the statements, made by the witnesses von Burgsdorff and Voelckers, who both were, on the basis of their official position, thoroughly conversant with this question during the entire time the defendant was in office, Burgsdorff testified that the police was under Frank, who received his orders directly from Himmler. Voelckers said that the defendant had no influence on Frank 's activities, and thereby on the police. In practice, the police and, therefore, also Under Secretary Frank were from the beginning completely independent from the defendant, This was legally sanctioned later through the order of 1 September 1939.
All witnesses, also in their written testimonies, testify that the relations of the defendant Frank had been as bad as imaginable. Security Police should have been active as political adviser to the defendant. The defendant cannot at all remember a decree from May 1933 about the appointment of this man to which reference is taken in the document by the chief of Security Police (USSR 487). In any case, according to his definite statement, he never carried out any function. The document, USSR 487, therefore does not appear to have any proof of evidence. The copy submitted to me by the Tribunal is dated 21 July 1943. That alone proves that the appointment of the SD leader, if it occurred at all, was not given any effect during the defendant's entire time in office. Aside from the date, however, the result is that, in "Reference to the letter...", this appointment does not at all concern a political adviser to the Reich Protector in person but the Under Secretary for the Security Service namely Frank. The address "Dor Herr Reich-Protector" is to be understood, in a way that it does not mean the person but rather the office. In German Government circles it was customary to speak of the Herr Reichminister etc., even though he was not meant personally but any department of his office. It is entirely credible and probable that the SD leader was appointed political adviser to the Under Secretary, who at the same time was Under Secretary to the office of the defendant and independent Under Secretary to the Security Service. the Tribunal reproached my client it can be seen how he himself felt about the ways and means of easing the minds of the population and to hinder, that is, prevent violence and insubordination. According to his sworn testimony, the defendant thereby succeeded in discouraging the population from committing acts of violence and especially to prevent acts of sabotage, which were to be expected in this time of political high tension before the war and thus in preventing harsh police and legal measures which would embitter the population even more. It is doubtlessly more human to issue such a warning and thereby to prevent the committing of crimes instead of letting crimes be committed without previous warning and afterwards to give severe punishment. That acts of sabotage, if it was impossible to prevent them, were severely punished in those times, would certainly have been acknowledged also in any other country and is a matter of course.
As the defendant testified, the warning had fulfilled its purpose. No special punishments were threatened or determined; it contained no special threats of punishment whatever, but referred, as the wording proves, to crimina law already in force. only the culprit but the entire Czech population, is, of course, concerned only with the moral responsibility and not the legal one, as was also confirmed by the defendant. would be taken in the respective territories, as for example, earlier curfew, ban on going out or general stoppage of traffic or electric current, under which the entire population would have to suffer. A collective responsibility in the legal sense would have to be formulated much more concretely. It was expressly mentioned at the beginning of the proclamation that everyone who committed the cited crimes thereby proved himself to be an enemy of the Reich and would be punished accordingly. This sentence especially shows that the legal treatment of such sabotage acts would have been carried out individually. of the idea to decree a general punishment, or even, as the Prosecution asserte without any evidence whatever, to establish the hostage system. In this connect ion I also wish to refer to the statements made by the witness von Holleben Document book von Neurath 158, in which he states: "Neurath therefore always refused to make a person responsible for acts, committed by somebody else". ant von Neurath cannot be made responsible for the arrests made at the time of the occupation of the Czech territory nor for the arrests of, as the Prosecution asserts, 8000 promenent Czechs as hostages and their being taken to concentrate camps, ot their execution at the outbreak of the war.
These arrests, according to the defendant's testimony, with which Frank's testimony agrees were made on direct order from Berlin without knowledge and information of not only the defendant, but also of Frank himself.
Bienert's contradicting testimony presented by the Prosecution is objectively incorrect and is based on completely illogical and false deductions, his deduction that this entire action was under the defendant's direction because his order for Bienert's release had been issued already four hours after his arrest is without any logic and is objectively wrong. the defendant is not responsible for the order to shoot nine students and to arrest approximately 1200 students during the night from the 16th to the 17th November 1939; that tie so measures actually to be called terror actions had been ordered during his absence from Prague without his knowledge by Hitler personally and had been carried out on his direct order by Frank, and that also the proclamation of 17 November 1939, announcing it, was neither issued nor signed by him; that on the contrary his name under it had been misused. himself, and by that of the witness Dr. Voelckers, who accompanied the defendant on his trip to Berlin on 16 November 1959, the day of the students' riot, and had returned from Berlin to Prague with him together but on the afternoon of the 17th, furthermore by the written testimony of Mr. von Holleben and finally by the affidavit of the defendant's secretary, Miss Friedrich (document Book V, No. 159) and of the Baroness Ritter, the defendant was in the night of the 16 to 17 November, when the shootings and arrests took place, not even in Prague but in Berlin and the publication of these incidents was already posted on the house walls of Prague when the defendant returned to Prague. atrocities. The order for it as well as the simultaneous order for the closing of the universities had, on the contrary, been given direct to Frank by Hitler in Berlin and this, as the witness Voelckers expressly affirms, in the absence and without the knowledge of the defendant.
What value can, in contrast to that, be ascribed to Dr. Havelka's testimony, presented by the Prosecution, is self-evident. other Czech testimony submitted by the Prosecution, must in general be examined with the very greatest caution. They are sublet from the first to two very serious objections. Firstly, all these witnesses are members of the former autonomous Czech government, i.e. the so-called collaborationists who are in jail today for this reason and are awaiting sentence. It is humanly only too readily understandable if today they not only see the conditions obtaining then in a different light, judge then differently from what they really were and involuntarily mix in their memory the terrible things which happened after Herr von Neurath had left Prague with the events while he was there. This results in a haziness of their memory. We must, also, not overlook, the fact that, in a quite natural effort, they hope by incriminating Herr von Neurath to clear themselves. Added to this is the fact, which is almost more important still they no knowledge whatsoever and could have none of the internal factual and legal conditions within the office of the Reichsprotector and that they therefore are not able to judge to what extent the defendant himself was really the man who issued the individual decrees and orders or brought then about. One example shows this very clearly.
In the witness Kalfus' testimony it is allowed that the defendant was responsible for the customs union between the Protectorate and the German Reich. I hereby wish to refer only to the fact that already in Hitler's decree of 16 March 1939 it had been expressly announced that the Protectorate belonged to the customs district of the Reich The witness Bienert further assorts that it was Herr von Neurath who subordinated to the Germans the political administration of Bohemia and Moravia, which means state as well 24 July A LJG 16-3a as communal administration.
This is, however, also objectively wrong. As I have already proven, this subordination was ordered by the decree of 1 September 1939 which was not issued by the defendant but by the ministerial council of ministers for the defense of the Reich. all these testimonies are and how little the witnesses were informed about the actual organization and competences within the office of the Reichsprotector. many other measures of force by the Gestapo against the Czech population was done on the order or instruction of the defendant personally is, for example, either a deliberate falsehood or proof of their ignorance of even the published official decrees which were announced in the Czech official gazette. the command of the defendant, the conclusions from this for the credibility of the witnesses are self evident. It is obvious that in contrast with it the sworn testimony of the defendant and of the witnesses, presented by me, together with the pertaining decrees submitted deserve much mere credibility. on which, it is based that Herr von Neurath, in the middle of November 1939, ordered the closing of the universities has thus been disproved as objectively wrong. In fact, the closing of the universities took place on the express order of Hitler. As the evidence has shown beyond any doubt, the defendant his immediately protested to Hitler and succeeded in obtaining his promise to reopen the universities after one year instead of only after three years. The defendant cannot be blamed for the fact that Hitler then did net keep his promise. His efforts for the revocation of the closing of the universities prove, however, how much he was interested in maintaining the educational standard and the intellectual class of the Czech nation.
And just as in this case, the defendant worked whereever he could for the Czech nation in its entity and for the individual.
This applies expecially to the harmful activity of the police and the Gestapo as for as he received information about it. According to his own testimony, which is confirmed by that of the witness Dr. Voelckers, he had, immediately after the arrest of the students in the middle of November 1939, used all his influence with all energy and continually for their release, and, as we have heard here, not only out of his own mouth, but also from Dr. Voelckers, he succeeded in obtaining the release of almost all the students up to the time he left Prague on 27 September 1941.