This last fact must be stressed. It is of general importance. In all Jodl's military preparatory work, whether he was making plans for wars, or drafts of decrees or memoranda, the point is not only whether he knew or suspected that this war or that decree were contrary to law, but it is decisive whether he knew that by his co-operation, by his actions he was doing something wrong. That Jodl did not have a bad conscience clearly follows; it seems to me, from the fact that before his capture, he had 3 weeks time in which to burn most of these documents, but did not do so, because he was quite convinced that he had nothing to conceal.
When drawing up this order, he was not conscious of wrong-doing. He could not be if only for two reasons: partly because he left himself bound by the Fuehrer's orders, partly because - regardless of any concrete orderhe was convinced that in his position as Chief of the Operational Staff of the Armed Forces he was in duty bound to act in this way.
Let us look into this more closely: About the order and its legal meaning I will not speak any further. One point, however, appears to me to be in need of elucidation. Mr. Jackson quoted paragraph 47 of the German Military Penal Code to prove that, accordoing to German law, an order by a superior officer does not excuse the subordinate. British-American law is used, whereas, in the case of this order, German law is drawn on -- in each case according to which ever is the less favourable to the defendant. I do not know, however, whether Mr. Jackson would have referred to para.47 of the Military Penal Code, if had he known how it was interpreted by the Supreme Military Courts and what was therefore the real legal position in Germany. 47 there stands the principle: "Should, by the execution of an order on official business a criminal law be infringed, the superior officer issuing the order is alone responsible." And now comes the exception which practice has cut down to the absolute minimum for the sake of maintaining military discipline. It is based on the point of view that a subordinate is subject to punishment as a participant only if the order was not binding on him because, for instance, owing to its nature it did not come within the framework of Wehrmacht tasks and, if the subordinate was aware that the action ordered had a crime or an offense as its aim, the offense must thus be directly intended by the person issuing the order and the subordinate must be certain of this.
That he could and should have realized this is not sufficient. And, even if the subordinate is responsible, in case of slight guilt punishment may be waived. courts, havelimited its validity, in order to cover the obedient soldier as much as possible. Actually, a punishment of cases in this kind occurred very rarely. Jodl does not remember a single case in his 30 years of service.
I must insert something here, since a few days ago Mr. Jackson presented a document subsequently, which concerns this problem (PS-3881). These are statements which Dr. Freisler, made as President of the People's Court, during the trial of those who took part in the attempt of the 20 July 1944. Freisler was always considered in Germany as a caricature of the judge. His unworthy shouts in that murder trail were produced here before us by the prosecutors a few months ago in a sound film. This legal expert, so far as thesense of his remarks, torn from the general context, is recognizable meant: When an officer ordered a subordinate to give assistance in murdering Hitler, this order did not justify the one who obeyed.
In order to establish this, Freisler's "authority" was not required in any case. If ever a military order was issued which went outside the competence of the Wehrmacht and was therefore not binding, and did not therefore serve as an excuse, it was the order to murder the head of this very Wehrmacht. But how an order by some officer or other to murder the head of the State can be compared with the order of the Head of the State to commit an act contrary to international law, is incomprehensible, to me.
I am not, however, dwelling further on this idea. No understanding of Jodl's position can be achieved and no correct judgement of his actions formed if we do not look at the two men who faced each other here.
The prosecution have made it easy for themselves. Were Hitler still alive, he, as the head of the major war criminals would sit in the first place on the defendant's bench and would be considered as the base and source of all terrible events.
Now that he is dead, his person is minimised when judging the other defendants, and their conduct is treated almost as if he had never existed at all.
This man of force, this infernal power, as Jodl called him, cannot be passed ever as a negligeable quantity when the question is to do justice to the commissions and omissions of his immediate entourage. During these months, I have again and again had to think of the connection between genius, madness and crime which was once shown by the perspicacious Cesaer Lembroso. In history it is success that has the last word on the worth and worthlessness of men. That is why the judgment of history on Hitler will perhaps be a crushing one. But one must not forget his beginnings when Germany's position at about the end of 1932 is compared with that at the end of 1938, one is not surprised at the incomparable prestige which he had at the very time when Jodl came into close contact with him.
Jodl now stood opposite this man. Jodl, an honest soldier, extraordinarily gifted, but never striving for anything else but to be a conscientious soldier, with a prosaically realistic mind, ill-disposed towards all diplomacy, all political machinations, grown up in accordance with the ideals of the German officer corps bravery, faithfulness, obedience - trained according to the 100 year old tradition of the German General Staff, which know only fulfilment of duty, selfless work and more work.
That this man, who was working at Adolf Hitler's side, was bound to come under his influence is self - evident. One must consider - the time at which this took place. A relation of confidence could not grow out of it, of course, but Jodl was also not the man to submit without opposition. There were enough clashe and explosions. Jodl was regarded as the man who dared to oppose the Fuehrer more than anybody else. He could, as Kesselring reported, oppose him with a sharpness which at times reached the limits of what is militarily permissible. obedience which can make us appreciate fully Jodl's behaviour during these years.
fulfilment of duty: complete devotion to what had been allotted to him as his task at a critical time. One should realize and appreciate the situation in which Jodl found himself. His country battle for existence, the demands of the war which was continually becoming more horrible, and at the same time the view of his Supreme Commander-in-Chief which deviated from all tradition about what was permissible and not permissible in a war. It becomes quite clear that Jodl was bound to come into conflicts, int conflicts with Hitler and into conflicts with himself.
Permit me to make a comparison: You, Your Honours, feel yourselves bound by the Charter of this Tribunal, as you have already informed ut. Perhaps some of you have been assailed by doubts as to whether all the conditions of this Charter conformed to the international law at present valid and to be generally recognized legal principles. But you have rejected such doubts, since you, as judges, consider yourselves bound by the rules which your four governments have agreed upon. felt himself bound, in a similar way, to assist in the orders of his supreme Commander-in-Chief even if doubts regarding their admissibility in international law may have assailed him here and there. But he considered himself bound by his office to draw up plans for war without examining whether and under what conditions they were carried out; he had to formulate and issue thousands of orders, even if he disagreed on some of them. Where neither remonstrances nor delaying,tactics had any effect, he had to submit. As a General Staff officer he had a purely assistant function. That he might be doing wrong while fulfilling this function according to the best of his knowledge and conscience never even occurre to him.
It is said now: Jodl should not have taken any part in this or that affair under any circumstances. What should he have done?
that one must be in a position to state what action would have been right in that situation.
This would of course have been an easy way out. It could be taken in peace time, but in war time it was quite different. to the front but in vain. Applications for resignation were altogether futile unless they were desired by the Fuehrer, as in the case of v. Brauchitsch and v. Loeb. In war time, he strictly forbade his generals to apply to resign. That was desertion, he said. The private in the front line could nit resign when he fou things were unpleasant. The general also had to remain at the post where he was put. In 1944 this order was repeated in writin with all possible emphasis and reasons were given. If a general wanted to quit for reasons of conscience, he was to know that the Fuehrer himself bore full and sole responsibility for his orders and that the generals' sole duty was to be responsible for their strict execution. Resignations on such grounds were not soldierlike and were criminal. Therefore, Jodl could not resign.
Should he perhaps have faked an illness? This also is desertion and, in wartime, a crime punishable by death. Is it possble seriously to expect an officer brought up in the good old traditions to betray his country in time of need like a coward his country, to which he had devoted all his life, the effect of which would be that he would no longer be able to look any new recruit in the face. I do not believe so.
There was therefore only the third solution: Murder and revolution. In peace time this world at the same time have meant civi war, in wartime the immediate collapse of the front and the end of the Reich. Was he then supposed to cry: "Fiat Justia percat patr an attitude was to be demanded from the defendants. An astonishin idea: Whether murder and treason can ever be justified ethically had better be left to moralists and theologians to dispute ever.
For lawyers, at any rate, something like that cannot be a subject for discussion. To be obliged on pain of punishment to murder the head of the State? And, what is more, as a solider? And in war-time? People who commit such crimes have always been punished but to punish them for not doing so would be something new. too, but in dilemnas which offer only this kind of solution, the old saying applies: Ultra posse nemo obligatur.
Jodl was no rebel. His conscience told him: The Fatherland is a need. Everybody at his post: Jodl's place was at the head of the operational staff of the armed forces. He did not got this post voluntarily, he did not keep it voluntarily. It was a hard duty. He fulfilled the task which this post imposed on him according to the best of his ability and conscience - unto the bitter end. Your Honours; which throws mere light on Jodl's personality. his uncle, the philosopher Friedrich Jodl, in Vienna. There I had a conversation with him on education for a career as an officer. What the young captain said about it was of such moral earnestness and so far from anything that could be called militarism that I have always retained it in my memory. I had no more contact with him of any sort until last autumn when I received the surprising summons to defend him here. My first thought was: "This gallant soldier must be helped." But I doubted whether I should undertake this, since I am not a professional attorney. Still, when I met him in the court building for the first time, he said something to me which scattered all doubts: "Rest assured, professor", he said "if I felt a spark of guilt in me, I would not chose you as my defense counsel." speaks thus. I ask that the Colonel General Alfred Jodl be acquitted
THE PRESIDENT: I call on Dr. Steinbauer for the defendant SeyssInquart.
DR. STEINBAUER: Mr. President, members of the Tribunal: German nation but also to the world one of its most deeply significant painters, Albrecht Duerer, an unsurpassed sculptor, Veit Stoss, and the mastersinger Hans Sachs, has, on her ruins, become the stage for the greatest criminal trials which legal history knows. Nuernberg has seen within her walls not only the pomp of the old emperors, but the rallies of the NSDAP also took place there, year after year, as a part of that propaganda machine which understood how to put into motion millions of people by a gigantic, but also diabolical stage management, with flags and standards, drums and fanfares under the slogan of German equality rights in order finally, in the extravagance of its aims, to lead a nation which has given humanity so much that is good and beautiful to the verge of ruin. way that some men had conspired to conquer the peaceful world by the waging of wars of aggression. It was said that the waging of these wars not only violated the treaties which were supposed to prevent war, but furthermore the rules for a humane conduct of the war, and had also trodden under foot the basic rights of humanity in the most contemptible way. Justice Jackson's passionate opening speech will go down into the history of this world trial like the speech of a Cicere against the conspirator Catalina. We saw for months, how mountains of documents and a long chain of witnesses were supposed to confirm the Indictment, and, on the other hand, how the Defense as keeper and servant of the law was striving to help the Tribunal discover the truth. But in the gallery the representatives from all parts of the world were seated, and only too often the whole world hold its breath, when there was a break in the dark fog banks and again and again made a glimpse into the depths of unsuspected crimes possible. But outside, before the gates of the Courthouse, stand the deeply moved German people, among whose former leaders the defendants after all belong. But regardless of how the trials will end, the Defense must be given credit for one thing, namely that, with regard to the question of the guilt of the German people, one will neveragain be able to talk about complicity or collective guilt, perhaps rather about collective disgrace, because they were German men, under whose leadership crimes of the most horrible kind were committed.
The curtain now rises once more on the final act of this world tragedy, in order to lend an eara gain to the Defense, and then to pronounce a sentence which must not only correspond to fundamental legal principles but also ensure that crimes, such as the Prosecution describes, will forever be avoided. stated that these trials are of great importance for millions of people in the whole world. For this reason, he said, everybody participating in them has the solemn responsibility of fulfilling his duty without fear and without favor for anybody, and according to the principles of law and justice. not because of the extent of the material for the trials, not because of the abundance of legal questions which often were of a completely new kind, but because things were revealed here which are so monstrous and abysmally degraded that a normal brain will not even believe the possibility of such happenings. In so saying, I am not thinking of the prepared human skin, of the pieces of soap made out of human fat which were shown to us; I am not thinking of the systematic way in which millions of innocent people were tormented, tortured, slain, hanged or gassed. No, I am thinking of the many touching individual pictures which have made the deepest impression on me personally and probably also on every else. Once more, I shall continue on page 4.
Auschwitz alone was devoured 3 1/2 million people, men, women, and children. That is really the most terrible weapon of the Indictment, that the spirits of all these innocent victims stand beside the prosecutor, admonishing and demanding revenge. But I do not stand alone, either. The many innocent war victims on the German side, women and children who have fallen victim to the terror attacks which violated international law, in Freiburg, in Cologne, in Dresden, in Hamburg, Berlin, and Vienna, and in almost all other German cities, step by my side. My comrades from the Wehrmacht who, as honest and decent soldiers, have sacrificed their lives for the fatherland by the hundred thousand young and old, faithful to their oath of allegiance stand by my side.
Judges, then it is even more my sworn duty as lawyer to stand helpfully by his side and to be his shield and defense, and considering the abundance of the indicting material, to call to you, honorable judges: "Do not Judge in wrath, but rather search, like our Austrian poet Wildgans who was a Judge himself, has written in the album of a young Judge: "It is the flower (Edelreis) which blooms under thorns." like to sketch a short picture of the personality of the defendant. Schiller' words in Wallenstein, the drama, apply to him, too: "Distorted by the hate and favor of the parties, his character portrait wavers in history." calculating, political opportunist who had a mission before his eyes. It is more than obvious that he misused his position as Minister, in order to deliver Austria to the conspirators by his double dealing. He has committed atrocitie in Poland and in the Netherlands, in cold blood, and has trampled upon the rights of small nations to religious and political freedom of thought, unconcerned by constitutional obligations.
George S. Messersmith judges similarly in 1760-PS when he says that Dr. Seyss-Inquart, with whom he himself had little personal contact (the defendant denies ever having met Messersmith) had been completely insincere towards his friend, Chancellor Schuschingg, according to reliable information h (Messersmith) received. The statement that Schuschnigg and Seyss-Inquart were friendly is moreover incorrect. Messersmith had left Vienna in the spring of 1937. As all witnesses testify Dr. Schuschingg had at that time only just become acquainted with Syess-Inquart. But Messersmith added literally, that there is only one thing which may be said in favor of SeyssInquart at that time, namely that he may have believed the German protestations which were made to him, namely that Austrian independence would be respected. this is also easy to explain. His immediate home is the old mining town of Iglau, a German language enclave in the Slavonic sea.
At an early age he learned what a small-scale fight means between two nations facing each other in enmity. He was deeply moved to learn that time's storms last year also swept ever his immediate home and that Iglau, which had been German for 800 years, will be so no more. Therefore, in judging the defendant, we should take account of the fact that it was the Germanic Borderlands that have at all times experienced the greatest national distress and felt more strongly and fervently the idea of the great German Fatherland than the nationals of the rest of the Reich, lulled into self-sufficiency born of self-confidence. Thus it is no accident that leading men in the Anschluss movement, whose names stand out in my Document Book, came from the Sudetenland. Doctor Otto Bauer, the late leader of the Socialists, comes from Reichenberg, and State President Dr. Karl Renner likewise comes from Untertannowitz in Moravia, that is from German Sudetenland. until I met him here again in prison, I have asked one of his collaborators in Holland, who also enjoys the respect of the Dutch and who was no NationalSocialist, and as Judge of the High Court, a position he held in former times, can be relied on, for an objective opinion on the personality of Dr. SeyssInquart. He writes: he fully applied his many-sided talents in carrying out his duties struck me at once."
I continue at the bottom of the page:
"It is the great tragedy of his life and work that in the person of Hitler and several persons aamong those who were his closest co-workers, elements crossed his path which were stronger than he. As an intellectual and a mentally cultivated person he became immediately suspect to the main persons in power in the Party bureaucracy surrounding Hitler, Bormann and in the SS administration Himmler, although to were the golden bade of honor of the party and occupied a high honorary rank in the SS, he continued to be the young Party member who came from the ranks of the intellectuals and were always regarded with mustrust. For these elements, however, he was too 'soft'. Altogether, however, it was his hope that he might increasingly prevent independent sections in the Reich from trying to work their way into his sphere of action as he himself gradually won the Fuehrer's confidence to an over greater extent.
His relation to the Fuehrer was to become fateful to him, as I already mentioned.
"However, I am firmly convinced that in such manner he, as well as a great portion of our people, unwillingly, as they were, became a sacrifice, a willing tool of the demoniacal power of Hitler....." endeavor thus to forge a ring around the defendants which is to combine them all in one common responsibility. My learned colleagues have already spoken of the concept conspiracy and its consequences in this trial. To repeat these statements would be to carry coals to Newcastle. But because this is the leading theme for the trial which has ascribed responsibility for the worldshattering events, above all to my client, I should like to submit to the Court a few additional ideas on that subject. speaking of men who combined for the overthrow of a ruler who was disliked, or a system that was hated, and for them to seize power. All these cases were listed under the superficial, collective term "conspiracies". In the book he published in Paris, entitled "The Technique of the State Plot", Malaparte, an Italian, tried to describe the technical methods applied in conspiracies and revolutions, beginning with the time of Catilina down to Hitler and Mussolini. Even this survey of technique will be sufficient to show how unjustified it is to dub all these undertakings conspiracies, if it is intended to embrace within this term a definite concept such as known in penal law. In any case it is certainly not possible to simply classify all these things, in popular terminology briefly termed conspiracy, under the caption of conspiracy, according to the concept of the Prosecution. When Guy Fawkes and his comrades, at the time of James I, tried to blow up the English Parliament in the so-called "Gunpowder Plot", perhaps this was a real conspiracy. Up to now, the English nation on the 5th of November of every year, celebrates with fireworks and and bonfires and the burning of a straw dummy, the anniversary of the day which saw the happy prevention of the plot.
It would be a mistake, however, to simply term any kind of cooperation for political purposes a conspiracy, because and it is particularly important to repeat and stress this, thanks to the vagueness of colloquial usage, it became always possible again to use the word "conspiracy" in political fights in order to justify thereby, because of lack of adequate legal grounds, the process of defaming and destroying political opponents.
For the French prosecutor I should like to cite from the history of his country, France, of an evidently erroneously termed case of conspiracy.
Louis XVI was accused of conspiring against the nation and was found guilty. Citizen Doseze, on 26 December 1792, in the first year of the Republic at the bar of the National Convention, served as his defense counsel. His pleading was probably one of the most moving legal pleadings ever delivered, a discourse in which the defense counsel directed himself at the same time against another foe of criminal justice, a foe for political reasons or because of political passion, namely against a violation of the legal principle nullen crimen et nulla poena sine lege. Undaunted and unafraid he expounded, among other things, the following: "Where there is no law which can serve as directive and where there id no judge to make the pronouncement, one should refrain from accepting the general will as a foundation. The general will cannot as such speak either about a man or about a fact. But if there is no law according to which one can judge them it is also not possible to render judgment, and then one also cannot think of conviction." lege firmly rooted in almost all law books. We find it in the German and in the Austrian penal code; we find it in Article 1 of the Dutch penal law and we also find it in French law in Article 4 of the "code penal" which states: "Nulle contravention, nul delit, nul crime, ne peuvent etre punis de poines qui m'etaientpas proncacesspar la loi avant qu'ils fussent commis." even today while this trial is in process, but on the contrary kept its full meaning, results from that. I want to remind again the French prosecutor that the France constitution which was submitted to the National Assembly on 19 April 1946, establishes specifically as statute of human rights in Article 10:
"The law has no retroactive force. No one can be convicted and punished except according to the law which has been promulgated and publicized before the deed which is to be punished. Every person accused is considered uneer reservation as innocent unless he is declared guilty. No one can be punished twice for the same deed."
What is now human right for the French, must necessarily remain human right for the Germans.
penal law, this innovation also found severe criticism in the circle of jurists outside of Germany. The second international congress for comparative jurisprudence held in the Hague in the year 1937 formulated a resolution., against the analogy in penal law. In this resolution, the congress expresses itself in favor of the principle "nulla poena sine lege". See Voeux et Resolutions du Douxieme Congres International de Dtroit Compare, Le Haye, 4-11 Aout, publie par les soins de M. Elemer Balogh, p. 69. inadmissable to apply principles in this trial which lack a legal basis. Continental law does not know the concept of conspiracy, Austrian law, which could come into question as the national law for my client, does not know this concept either. There are at best very small similarities if we point out that the explosives law of 27 May 1885, Reichsgesetzblatt 134, article 5 already declares the contemplation of the execution of a crime with explosives as punishable. Article 174 Ic of the penal code makes theft a crime if the thief commits thievery as a member of a gang which has banded together for the common commitment of thievery. German law recognizes the responsibilty under the penal code for the act of another only as accomplice, instigator, and helper. Conditions in French law are similar, and articles 59, 60, 89 and article 265 of the "Code Penal" are pointed out briefly. by the respected Russian teacher of international law, Professor A. N. Trainine in his book "La responsibilite penale des Hitleriens" (Publisher: La presse francaise et etrangere, O. Zeluck, Editeur, Paris, 1945). He states in page 13:
"The problems of internation penal law have unfortunately been studied very little. There is a lack of theoritical, clear definition of the fundamental concept 'International Crime' and a well-ordered system of this law remains still to be created." crimes against the peace, against the rules of war, and against humanity.
Professor Jahrreiss has already spoken extensively extensively about the liability for punishment of individuals because of the violation of international peace, and has described and given due recognition to the status of non-German international jurisprudence.
But since jurists of the German language have also concerned themselves with this question, I would like to take the liberty of an additional remark. Verdross, has established in his book, "International law" "According to prevailing opinion, subjects of an international legal crime can only be states as well as other legal corporations immediately subject to international law, but not individual persons ---" the trial, I turn to the Prosecution which accused my client of having participated in the seizureand taking of control in Austria as a conspirator, and of having committed warcrimes and crimes against humanity in poland and in the Netherlands.
Netherlands, and after a short interlude in Poland. Adolf Hitler stands at the window thinking and his gaze glides over the meadows and valleys to the snow-covered mountains which shine a purple red in the light of the evening sun. The country which is protected by these mountains is Austria, his homeland. It is a German land, free and independent and not subject to his will as the Reich, whose absolute Fuehrer he has become. When he wrote his life work in the fortress Landsberg, he wrote rightthere on the first page of his book: "German Austria must return into the great German fatherland." The shadows of night rise slowly from the depth of the valleys and histhoughts glide over the mountains to the old imperial city on the Danube which he loves and hates at the same time. It is the city of his joyless youth, filled with want and misery. In his book, "Mein Kamps" he compares this city with Munich and says about the latter: "Munich, a German city, what a difference from Vienna, I get sick when I think back to this racial Babylon." And still, this city remains the goal of his longing and he calls this same city in the March days of 1938 a pearl to which he will give the setting which its beauty deserves.
And on his table lies a book: "The History of German Austria". Hitler read this book again and again: it is the history of his homeland, and we also want to leaf through it a little, as far as time permits. We read: "Austria was throughout many centuries one of the strongest pillars of German life. Its evolution, its rise, and its descent form a considerable part of German history. Austria was and is a piece of the German glory, and German suffering. Austria has received inestimable strength, from the old Reich, but she herself has performedmuch of greatness and value for the expansion of the entire German culture."
I shall pass on to page 19. "The old Roman Empire of the German nation was destroyed in 1806, in the clash of the two powers. The Reich died, but the Reich concept lived. At Leipzig, in 1813, Prussians and Austrians fought shoulder to shoulder under Schwarzenberg, Scharnhorst Gneisenu, and Bluecher for the liberation from the yoke of the Corsican tyrant. On 11 January 1849, the duputies of all German states assembled at Frankfurt-onMain for the constitutional assembly. The Austrian delegate Bergassessor Karl Wagner from Styria spoke at that time the memorable words: 'Leave an opening for us so that we can enter; we shall come, unfortunately, perhaps not all of us anymore, we, Austria's Germans shall come, how and when, who can tell? Who can read in the book of the future? But we shall come.'" In the year previously, in Paul's Church, where the delegates of all German lands and states had met, thepoet Ludwig Uhland as delegate spoke the memorable words:
"May it be that it will always beAustria's job to be a light for the East; it has a closer, higher job -- to be the artery in the heart of Germany." thousand years between Austria and Germany was destroyed and Austria was forced to leave the German federation. How unsatisfactory the solution of the German question by Bismarck's forced exclusion of Austria from theunion of German states was, was also recognized in the Reich, where Paul de Lagarde wrote in 1875:
"But despite this, 1866 and the German Reich is an episode. Nikolsburg cannot separate what has been decided by geography and history to be together, if this being together will not be a union for a long time yet."
language and origin, the same customs and the same mode of life, demand the closest community. But is it not a symbol of spiritual unity that just as the North-German poet Hebbel, also Beethoven and Brahms made Vienna with its sense for art the permanent city of their work? There is no German music without Austria. But Austria did not only make her proud contribution to the cultural life of the German people in the field of art, but also in the fields of science and technology.
THE PRESIDENT: I think we can acquaint ourselves with the history of Austria without having it read to us as a part of your argument. Up to now there has been nothing in your twenty pages but the history of Austria.
DR. STEINBAUER: Mr. President, I beg your pardon; I consider it essential to give the reasons and the motives which motivated my client, but I have, however, concluded this point, and I shall pass over to the facts. I shall omittwo pages, and I shall continue on page 23. to take over Austria at the opportune moment, isthekey to the solution of the Anschluss question. for that, one does not require a conspiracy; however also participated were figures on the chess board of the two men, supers in the great theater of the world.
But let us return to Austria. I have already pointed out in the presentation of evidence that according to my opinion, three reasons led to the Anschluss, and I have also attempted to explain this by the documents submitted to which I refer herewith:
1. the economic want, 2. the disunity of the democratic parties resulting from this and 3. the attitude of the great powers towards Austria, especially Dr. Karl Renner, the federal president of the Republic of Austria who enjoys the confidence of the four occupying powers and on whom the entire Austrian people look with respect because he has steppedto thehelm of the ship of state for the second time in a period of serious emergency, has des-cribed the history of the Anschluss very appropriately in a memorandum in 1945:
"The political reason why the Anschluss idea got hold of almost all of Austria at the conclusion of the first World War lay in the repeated proclamations of the victorious powers, that the war was waged for the 'right of self-determination of the nations'."
But this political reason was not decisive for themasses. Austria is a mountainous country with much too little arable land, a country of an entirely one-sided economic structure, its capital itself shelters a third of the population, its industry nourished a large part of the latter only by working for its neighbours, receiving from them raw materials and bread. The sudden separation of the high agrarian parts of the previously uniformtariff territory of the Danube Monarchy, and themeasures of the successor states in 1918 introducing high protective tariffs deprived the country simultaneously of its food sources and its export territories. The fear of not being able to feed themselves and of not being able to find work at hom, the sudden limitation of labor market were the factors which made in 1918 the Anschluss appear as the only possible solution. One cannot talk about a national Chauvinism of the Austrian working class, so much the less so, as this class had its origin to a very high percentage in parents of non-German blood and who had hardly lost their ties with the homeland. The overwhelming competition of the Reich German and Czechoslovakian industry loomed menacingly before the workers of all professions in this small country, cut off from thesea and poor in raw materials, which was afraid not to be able to stand up against this competition. To understand first of all this economic situation means to understand the Anschluss movement and brings the realization how Hitler's boastful announcement that he had eliminated unemployment in the world had made such a deep impression on the Austrian working class that the desire to prevent the Anschluss was so weak within this working class at the beginning."
With the decision of 5 Sept. 1931, the Permanent International Court at the Hague declared the customs union between Germany and Austria incompatible with the Geneva protocol of 4 October 1922 by 8 votes against 7. This w as the last attempt of the governments to achieve a closer mutual state-legal relationship with the express accord of the victorious powers.
It failed. Wasn't the conviction bound to arise in the minds of fanatical Anschluss partisans that this paramount national aim could only be achieved through their own initiative? Million Schillings. Dr. Dollfuss concluded on July 13 1932 a loan agreement in Lausanne under the condition that the Anschluss problem would be put off for another 10 years. The ratification took place during the session ofthe National Council on 30 August 1932 with 82 votes against 80. In the federal council, the Social Democrat Koerner, at present mayor of Vienna, had protested against this law in view of a closer community with Germany.
Hitler came to power the year after. The Social Democrats saw their party dissolved in the Reich, the trade unions crushed; they saw the Reichstag fire the Anschluss idea. The Catholic circles, who wanted to fortify the Catholic element in the Reich by the Anschluss also turned away because of the beginning of the persecutio n of the clergy in the Reich; and only the National Socialists alone, whose membership had increased ten times within a short time, were in favor of the Anschluss. As Dr. Dollfuss had eliminated the parliament and thereby the way to power by means of votes, the National Socialists, under the leadership of land inspector Habicht, aspired with all means to the power in the State. We come to the bloody events of the year1934. Dr. Dollfuss is killed by the hands of assassins and his successor Dr. Schuschnigg attempts to restore the order in the deeply shaken state system. The Socialists, however, remain sulkily aloof because of the February events of the year 1934. Under the foreign political aspect, the situation changes, too, While Italy in the year 1934 still stood on Austria's side and while Mussolini had deployed his divisions on the Brenner menacingly against the Nort the Ethiopian adventure had forced Italy on Hitler's side. Austria is forced to follow the changed course and concludes also the agreement of 11 July 1936, in order to improve the economic situation.