previous agreement, again without telling us beforehand. Previously it had been agreed that these Sudeten-Germans were to join the Reserve Army.
Around about that time political discussion had already started. The first one at the Berghof had already started. Benes ordered mobilization in Czechoslovakia, and only beginning with that time and in accordance with political discussions, did the military action against Czechoslovakia commence.
purpose in the event that Czechoslovakia would not submit to an agreement which we had made with the western powers, since the Fuehrer had clearly expressed that he would only act if France and England would not intervene politically or militarily.
Q. You made two more entries in your diary on the 22nd and 26th of September, which prove that you were worried at the time. These, incidentally, are in the first volume of my document book, on page 34, excerpts from PS-1780, dated 22 September:
"The Chief of the Foreign Department, Captain of the Navy Buerkner, report that according to an intercepted long-distance telephone conversation between Prague and the loval Czech Legation Councillor the German Embassy in Prague was just about to be stormed. I am immediately initiating liaison by telephone and wireless with Prague through Colonel Juppe. At 1030 hours, Buerkner reports that the report has not been confirmed. The Foriegn Office has spoken with our Embassy.
"At 1035 hours I establish liaison with Prague and with Toussaint. To my question as to how he is getting alone, he replied, 'Tanks; excellently.' The Commander-in-chief of the Air Force who had been informed of the first report with the suggestion to think over what measures would have to be taken if the Fuehrer requests an immediate bombardment of Prague is informed through Counterintelligence about the false report which may have had the purpose of causing us to perform a military act."
Then, on the 26th of September, it says:
"It is important that because of false reports we do not permit outselves to be induced to perform military actions before Prague replies." decided on as the date for aggression. Will you tell me what significance that date, the 1st of October 1938 had for Operation Green?
A. I have already said that at the beginning. I have already explained that the new mobilization year had started, and that in no order was there a date fixed for the beginning of the campaign against Czechoslovakia.
Q. Did you believe that the conflict might be localized?
A. I was certainly convinced of that, because I couldn't imagine that the Fuehrer would, in such a situation as the one we were in, start a conflict with France and Britain which would have had to lead to our immediate collapse.
Q. And the entries in your diary probably show your concern.
A. Yes. In my diary on the 8th of September there is mention of a conversation with General Stuelpnagel, and that contained the statement that Stuelpnagel was at the moment quite worried that the Fuehrer might depart from that basis which he had so often quoted, and might decide to allow himself to be dragged into military actions. There was the danger that France and Britain would become our opponents. was also worried about the same thing.
DR.EXNER: This is an entry which the Tribunal will find on page 26 of the first volume of my document book. Once again, it is an extract from PS-1780, and it is the entry of the 8th of September 1938. BY DR. EXNER:
Q. You have already said, haven't you, what your worries were?
A. Yes. Well, it was out of the question that with five fighting divisions and seven reserve divisions we should have held western fortifications which were nothing other than a large building site, and that we should have held out against one hundred French divisions.
Q. On the 24th of August, in a latter addressed to Schmundt, you referred to the importance of an incident for the tasks of the armed forces in this Operation Green. You have been accused of that, and I want you to tell me what the significance of that statement is.
DR. EXNER: It is PS-388, and it is on page 35 of the third volume. It is an extract from the often-quoted Document PS-338. It is a report dealing with the time of the X Order, and the measures to be introduced in that connection. BY DR. EXNER:
Q. Please, will you state what you intended when you prepared this work?
A. The Fuehrer's order of the 30th of May, which I have already explained, left no choice whatever.
If such a case were to come about, then one would have to attack on a previously decided date. This could only happen on the basis of an incident, because without a cause, this wasn't possible, and after such a long period of extension, it wasn't to be. fortifications, required four days of preparation. If nothing happened after those four days, then military preparations could no longer be kept secret, and the surprise did not come off. There was, therefore, no other possibility than either to have an instantaneous incident with Czechoslovakia, which would then, four days later, be the cause of military action, or that date had to be definitely decided on previously. In that case, and during those four days which the army required for its taking up of position, an incident had to happen.
The Fuehrer's demands, from the point of view of the General Staff, could, in fact, not be solved in any other way. This emergency was the cause of my letter, which was meant to explain the situation to the Fuehrer.
At that time, these incidents occurred every day. May I remind you that since the first partial mobilization in Czechoslovakia the Sudeten Germans, who were subject to being called up, had in the majority escaped the call-up. They escaped over the border into Germany, and the Czechoslovak border police shot at them. Daily the bullets made hits on the German side. All together, more than 200,000 Sudeten Germans crossed the border in that manner.
As far as that was concerned, the conception of an incident wasn't anything mean and criminal as I would describe it if, for instance, one considered such a thought with reference to peaceful Switzerland. If I said, therefore, how keenly interested we would have been in such an incident, then that was meant to express that if one took military action at all -- there are always such theoretical considerations, of course -- one might use just such an incident as the causus belli
Q. And how do you explain that remark of yours about counter-intelligence not being ordered to handle this incident in any case? That is on page 38 in the second paragraph, at the end of page 38. It is an extract from PS-388.
tary history not to know that the question of the first shot was not the deeper cause of the war, but the deeper cause of the war, in each war and on each side, played a more important part, but that the outbreak of the war is always attributed to the enemy is something which I think is not a typically German habit, but it was characteristic of all European motions who have ever been at war with one another. As far as the case of Zcechoslovakia is concerned, the deeper cause of the war was quite apparent. I need not describe this condition of three and a half million Germans who were supposed to be used to fight against their own people. I can only say that I watched the tragedy from the closest distance, in my own house. In this case, the deeper cause of the war, is, there fore, a fact, and Lord Runseran who was the attache from London, left no doubt about it whatsoever. In such a situation I would, of course, not have any moral qualms about extending one of those incidents, and by means of a counter action one might reply closely to the Checks, and as I said, extend such an incident, and provided the political situation allowed it, and England and France would not interfere, one might, therefore, in this connection find the obvious and visible reason for an action.
DR. EXNER: Gentlemen of the Tribunal, there is one point I want to draw your attention to. In my opinion, it is once more a mistake of the translation. I refer to the second and last paragraph on page 36. That is the report about the incident, the second and last paragraph on page 36 states in German "that the Operation Green may be set in motion as a result of an incident in Czecho Slavakia, which will give Germany the 'cause' for military intervention." The translation in English of these last words is a "provocation", should it be "cause" or "provocation"?
PRESIDENT: What are you saying? What is the alteration?
DR. EXNER: I believe that the translation is correct. I am not absolutely certain but I want to point out to the Tribunal I am referring to the word "cause", and "provocation" in the English and it should be "cause" as far as we know.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner, there is no difference in the meaning of the words, whether it is provocation or whether it is cause.
DR. EXNER: It sounds a bit different, doesn't it? I just want to call your attention to it. In the German it is "cause" and not "provocation". Now the prosecution are calling these considerations which we have just talked about criminal thoughts as to the supposedly planned murder of the German Ambassador in Prague. They planned that matter so as to have a cause for the marching into Czechoslovakia. What do you have to say to that? the Fuehrer used in his talks with Field Marshal Keitel, that the German Ambassador had been murdered by the people of Prague. That wasn't even known to me. General Keitel did not even tell me. I only read it here. Apart from that, I think it is useless to go on discussing it, but apart from that we did exactly the opposite way, we gave the order to General Toussaint to protect the German Ambassador in Prague and to protect the lives of it's inhabitants, because in fact at one stage it had been seriously threatened. document, page 200, and refers to the interrogatory of General Toussaint, who was a military attache in Prague at that time, the third question is as follows:
"Q Is it true or not that in the summer of 1938 you received the order to defend the German Embassy at Prague and to protect the lives of all the Germans in the Embassy?"
And his answer is:
"A. Yes, it is true. I remember this order was given to me by telephone probably in September, 1938" and so on and so forth, and then in question No, 4 THE PRESIDENT:
The witness has already said once it was so.
DR. EXNER: Then I shall only refer to the testimony other than wherein it has been said that the incident had been stage by us.
We need not 30 into that in detail. BY DR. EXNER:
Q Did the incident really happen? nor was it necessary. Incidents happened day after day, and the solution was a political one and quite an entirely different one at that. repeatedly, that remained purely theoretical, did it?
A It was a train of thought which wasn't really necessary at all.
Q Has that already been described?
A I don't know. At the time the political discussions started I naturally made efforts to achieve the fact that the provocation on the port of the Czechs were apparently desired, that they were not to be the cause of any military measures on our part. the pact at Munich, did they know we were militarily prepared? the distinct impression as one and only one side out there in the autumn of 1938 at Munich, but that is quite out of the question. These people knew of the calling up of the age groups in Czechoslovakia in September. The whole world knew of the total mobilization on the 23rd of November. A political correspondent of "The Times" wrote on the 28th of September on article against this Czechoslovakia mobilization. Nobody was surprised, that we immediately, after the signatory in Munich, on the 1st of October, mobilized. plan for action to be used against each area after the 7th of July, a new plan for action? my own initiative I prepared a secret plan for all of the German borders. It was so prepared that the borders were to be closed off, and that the army was to be centralized in the center of Germany.
That design was mentioned during my interrogation and it seems to have been available. It is now no longer contained in Document 388 P S, but it was that plan. tract from PS 388. It states at the very end the following: "There must be the possibility of having a straight-out concentration and --- I have already also said it will be important that the air force will take care of and protect the German territory in this matter of newly acquired lands and that the power of the air force will remain at our disposal."
separately, the various branches. cause of that? slovakia would be superfluous, then we had no plan for any campaign at all. And since no other intention of the Fuehrer was known to me, I made a plan for that particular campaign which could be applied to any possible cause; and I did that on my own initiative. agreement, to even go further and occupy Bohemia and Moravia?
A No, I hadn't any idea of that. I know his speech of the 26th of September or August. Ithink it was September.
Q All right. Let us assume it was September. us which must be solved. during these days of on or about the 10th or 11th of September I suggested to Field Marshal Keitel that he should ask the British troop to come to Iglau in Moravia, because there were Germans who were living there who had been threatened by Armed Czecho-Slovakian Communists. This of course was a suggestion which I would never have made had I any idea that the Fuehrer had any other intentions regarding attacking Moravia. of October '38. Did you still experience that in the OKW?
A No, I didn't. I didn't see it. I only saw it here in this court room; that is to say, rather, during my preliminary interrogations.
Q Now, you were being transferred to Vienna, and as what?
Q That was the end of October, wasn't it?
Q Then how did you imagine everything military? Although of course you have already answered that.
I can certainly say peace.
Q And your personal fate, how did that work out? Vienna. I moved to Vienna with my furniture; something I would never have done if I had had as much as any imagination of a pending war. Because I knew that in the event of a war it had been planned that I should become the chief of the leader staff of the armed forces which would have meant my return to Berlin. I asked General Keitel that he should assist my to become the commander of the 4th Mountain Division in Reichenhall on the 1st of October '39, a request which again I would not have thought of if I had guessed the things which were coming to us. you were there did you have contact with the OKW?
A No, none at all. I had no connections withthe OKW. I didn't receive any military documents from the OKW during all that period.
Q And who informed you about the position at that time?
A Nobody. During that time I knew nothing about what was going on or what was intended, no more than every lieutenant in my artillery.
Q Did you have private exchange of letters with them?
A I received one letter from General Keitel. It was I think at the end of July 1939. He personally gave me the happy news that quite probably I would become the commander of the 4th Mountain Division in Holland on the 1st of October and that as the chief of the armed forces command staff now staffed for peace there would be General von Zodenstern, on the 1st of October. remaining part of Czecho-Slovakia?
A No, I did not participate. First of all, as this occupation went on I remained in Vienna and afterwards temprarily I occupied the position of Chief of Staff of the 8th Army Corps at Vienna. On the other hand, later on, together withthe entire 44th Division I was transferred to Bruenn in Czecho-Slovakia.
Q When did you hear about the whole thing?
A That action in March, March of 1939. It was then through order of my divisional staff that I heard of it two or three days previously. plan which you had originally drafted, the plan "Green?"
A No. It had nothing whatever to do with that any more. There were completely different units, for instance. Not even half of the troops were there which marched into Czecho-Slovakia in 1939 in comparison to those that had been planned for in 1938. May 1939 you had a conference or there was a conference with the Fuehrer which has often been quoted here regarding the disregard of clarity, and all that sort of thing. There it says repeatedly that Warlimont was supposed to be present as your representative. What is the situation there, was he your representative?
Warlimont took part in the conference, who was the representative or even close assistant of Jodl. There is no question of that. He was my successor but not my representative. And if you repeat that again and again, it still does not come true. He was my successor.
Q You had left the OKW, hadn't you?
A Yes, I had completely left the OKW. The fact that quite accidentally Warlimont became my representative, my deputy, that has nothing whatever to do with the facts of May 1939.
Q When did you hear of this meeting for the first time, in May 1939? Socialists?
A No, not in the least at that time; nobody.
Q Or with these defendants here?
A No. Not either. once. I think they were there two days. Did you have to report to him on that occasion? and on that occasion I spoke to Keitel, General Keitel, for a brief period, but not to the Fuehrer.
Q You weren't presented to him?
Q What about your war service regulations? the head of the Army leader staff.
Q What about your private personal plans for that summer? journey into the eastern Mediterranean.
Q On the 23rd of September 1931? and I had even paid for the tickets.
Q When did you buy the ticket, by the way?
Q Then when did you return to Berlin? it was on the 23rd or 24th of September -- I mean August, of course. Because of a telegram which surprised me, on Bruenn.
Q Well, if you hadn't received that telegram,when would you have had to go to Berlin in that case? in any case.
Q And did you now have to report to the Fuehrer in Berlin?
A No, and I didn't report to him, either. I only reported, of course, to General Keitel and to the chiefs of the General Staff of the Army, the Air Force, and the Naval Command.
DR. EXNER: Mr. President, I have now completed that subject and I thought that this would be a convenient time to adjourn.
THE PRESIDENT: Can you tell us how long you are likely to be?
DR. EXNER: I very much hope, certainly it will be in the course of tomorrow morning, but shall we say after lunch-time?
DR. STEINBAUER: Mr. President, as Counsel for Dr. Seyss-Inquart, I have to submit the request from my client to you for him to have permission to be absent from the session for two days,to prepare his defense.
THE PRESIDENT: Certainly.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 5 June 1946, at 1000 hours).
THE MARSHAL: If it please the Tribunal, the report is made that defendant Seyss-Inquart is absent.
PROF. KRAUS: (Counsel for Defendant Schacht) Mr. President, in agreement with the prosecution, I beg to be permitted to submit the memorandum of Hitler referring to the Four Year Plan, which is dated 1936. It is a certified copy, certified by a British officer. I have given it the number Schacht Exhibit No. 48.
In the afternoon session of May 1, my friend, Dr. Dix, referred to this memorondu, which could not them be incorporated into the record. Dr. Schacht quoted a few passages from that memorandum, and the President stated that we could present the memorandum later, provided, of course, that we agreed about it with the prosecution and the prosecution acquiesced.
Furthermore, I offer a number of English translations. Unfortunately I have not yet been able to provide translations in the other languages, and I therefore request permission to supply these translations later.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kraus, until the other translations are actually rendered, the documents will not become part of the record.
PROF. KRAUS: The English translations are available, and the others will be completed. May I submit it later?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly. And it will then become part of the record.
PROF. KRAUS: Yes, quite. I will have them for the record; they will be available.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Dr. Exner.
BY DR. EXNER: the Armed Forces Operational Staff and that your main task was operational plans which you had to make; that is correct, is it not?
Q Then where did the plans come from? Who decided which plans you had to make?
A My case was the same as that of any other military officer. In this case, the Fuehrer himself made the decisions, mastered the details, led troops into Poland; and that is where my work began. He said I was to submit the messages in military form, such as they were needed for the entire operations of the armed forces. which were never actually carried out. constructions, I actually know of only one that for certain was carried out, and that was the operation against Yugoslavia. For other plans, there was a long interval before it finally developed whether they were actually carried out or not. As examples of operational plans which had been drafted in every detail but which were not carried out, let us take the invasion of England, the march into Spain, the capturing of Gibraltar, the capturing of Malta, the capturing of the peninsula, near Petsimo, a winter attack on a point near the Murmansk Railway. were they not? theaters of war as such at all. The Fuehrer's orders referred only to general forces for the armed forces, and the navy, and the air forces. Only after the Norwegian campaign did the state of affairs develop for the first time that the Army Command staff was responsible for a certain theater of war. And this condition changed completely when at the beginning of 1942 the Fuehrer himself assumed supreme command of the army.
Kesselring has already been asked, but he did not answer. However, it is obvious that the Fuehrer as supreme commander of the armed forces, with the assistance of Jodl, could not give orders to himself in his capacity as commander in chief of the army, which then were to be carried out with the assistance of Colonel General Keitel.
Consequently, there was that dividing line. And from that moment, he, with the General Staff of the army, was responsible for the entire eastern front, and the Army Command Staff became responsible for the general staff work of all the remaining theaters of war.
court room that the OKW had been responsible for the order to held Stalingrad and the Press outside has, in fact, accused Keitel and Jodl repeatedly of having been responsible for that unfortunate order; is that true?
A No, that is not true. This witness, for whom I feel the deepest friendship and with whom I have worked as excellent comrades, couldn't know the facts at all; and the fact is this: The decision, in the first instance when the danger threatened, that Stalingrad was to be held, was made by the Fuehrer during a personal discussion which he had alone with Colonel General Zeitzler and contrary to the suggestions made by Colonel General Zeitzler. He told me so himself when he came back from that conference At a later stage, when the blizzards were raging across the towns of the Don territory, there was the question of breaking out of the garrison of Stalingrad again. There Field Marshal Keitel and Colonel General Zeitzler and I myself were present.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner, I don't quite see how that is relevant although Field Marshal Paulus may have said something about it. I mean he may have given some evidence on the fighting at Stalingrad, and he undoubtedly did, but I don't see how it bears upon the case before us or how it bears upon the case for Jodl.
DR. EXNER: Mr. President, the matter is already settled. There was the desire to rectify the error made by the witness Paulus, but the matter is now at an end. Berlin from Vienna. Whatwas the situation you found when you came to Berlin impenetrable. Nobody knew what was serious, what was bluff. The pact with Russia was keeping all our hopes alive that peace would be maintained, a hope which was increased tremendously and strengthened even more when the attack which had been ordered for the 26th of August was surprisingly cancelled. No one among the members of the armed forces to when I talked expected a war against the Western powers at that time. Nothing had been prepared when the attack against Poland came, which was all that was prepared. There was only a defensive situation on the Western wall. The forces which had been stationed there were so weak that we couldn't even man all the emplacements.
All the efforts for the preservation of peace, such as I have heard about when the Reichsmarshal spoke in this court room, the name Dahlerus, all these negotiations remained unknown to me unless they were published by the Press. But there is one thing I can say in conclusion, and that is that when the declaration of war was received from Great Britain and France, that impressed us soldiers who had been in the last war like a terrible stroke. Through General Staff I heard confidentially, though it isn't confidential today, that the Reichsmarshal suffered the same shock.
Q Do you know when Poland mobilized?
A That I cannot say. I only know that at the moment when I arrived in Berlin and was only then put in the picture by General Stuelpnagel regarding the situation and our own strength, a Polish operation along the Don was already in progress, just like the German operation of taking up positions. in the Trial Brief, namely, turning against Poland, had you made a plan for a campaign against Poland?
A No. I didn't participate with a single stroke of the pen in the operation against Poland. was no plan for the campaign against Poland?
Q And when you returned to Berlin the plan was ready? the report was confirmed?
Q When did you hear of that report?
Q Do you remember a meeting in the Fuehrer's special train on the 19th of September, '39, which has been mentioned by General Lahousen here? Can you remember that?
Q What was talked about as long as you were in that special train? Marshal Keitel, Canaris and Lahousen were present; then Canaris made a brief oral report regarding the news he had from the West and he expressed the thought that a French attack in the Saarbruecken sector was pending. The Fuehrer contradicted and I also did. Apart from that, nothing also was talked about.
Q So that Lahousen's statement on this point is correct, namely, that you were only present during that part of the conference; is that right?
AAs far as I am concerned, I have no objections to Lahousen's testimony. It is absolutely correct. has been repeatedly mentioned. Were you a participant when these orders were given?
A Yes, I was a participant insofar as these facts occurred. When the Commander in Chief of the Army applied to the Fuehrer to allow artillery bombardment, and after artillery positions had been occupied, the Fuehrer turned down that request and he said: "That is insane, what is going on here through these Poles." He ordered me to draft newpamphlets, new leaflets, which of course I did, personally and at once, and these leaflets were again to be dropped on Warsaw. Only when this renewed demand to stop the useless resistance had no success at all did he permit artillery bombardment and air attacks on the fortress Warsaw -- and I emphasize the word "fortress". Russian operations?
A Yes. When we were about three days march away from the River Weichsel I was informed, much to my surprise, by I think the representative of the Foreign Office to the Fuehrer headquarters, to the effect that Soviet Russia -
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant, if it is convenient to you, I think you might speak a little bit faster.
A The Polish territories east of a certain/demarcation line were to be occupied at a suitable moment by Soviet Russian troops. When this demarcation line, which was shown to me on a map, was approached by us -that was, incidentally, the line of theEast Prussian Lithuanian frontier along the Weichsel -- I telephoned Moscow. I talked to the Military Attache and I informed him that quite probably we would reach the line at certain points in the course of the following day.