dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
VON NEURATH: Not quite. Here there are. . .
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: But just before you answers what did you mean by saying, in the last passage that I read to you, ". . Expelling those who are not useful from a racial standpoint or are enemies of the Reich, that is, the intelligentsia which has developed in the last 20 years"? Did you mean what you said? Were you speaking the truth when you said it was necessary to expel the intelligentsia?
VON NEURATH: To that I can answer only "yes" and "no." First of all, I should like to say that from this report it becomes apparent that the memorandum was written by Frank. I joined my name to it, and this was on 31 August 1940. The memorandum which I-the memorandum which is referred to in the Friderici report is from a-is dated later I think, although I do not know offhand.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I think you will find-I will give you, in a moment, the letter from Ziemke, who transmits Hitler's view, and I think you will find that it is this memorandum that Hitler is dealing with. I will show you Frank's memorandum in a moment. I am suggesting to you now, as you say to Lammers, that you enclosed your memorandum and you enclosed another memorandum, of which I will read you the essential part in a moment, which is the memorandum of Karl Hermann Frank. But this is a...
VON NEURATH: They are both by Frank.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I'll show it-no; but look at your own letter of the 31st of August: "Enclosed I send you the memorandum," and you go on: "I enclose another memorandum... which my State Secretary K. H. Frank has drawn up independently of me... with which I fully agree." I am suggesting to you, you know that this is your-this is your memorandum referred to as '~e-in the Friderici document... My Lord, that is Page 132 of Document Book 12. [Turning to the defendant.] ... where General Friderici says, "After ample deliberation the Reich Protector expressed his view about the various plans in a memorandum." I am suggesting to you that this is your memorandum which you sent on to Lammers for submission to the Fuehrer. Are you saying-are you really going to tell the Tribunal that this is not your memorandum?
VON NEURATH: No, I do not want to say that at all. At the moment I really do not know any longer. I did not write it, but I agreed with its contents; the letter to Lammers says so.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well now, if you agreed with its contents, what did you mean by saying that you would have to expel the intelligentsia, except that you were going to break down the Czechs as a national entity and expel the people who would keep going that history and tradition and language? Isn't that why you wanted to expel the intelligentsia?
VON NEURATH: I never mentioned the word "destroy," but said that the intelligentsia . . .
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I said "expel"...
VON NEURATH: I see.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: . . . which is your own word.
VON NEURATH: The class of the intelligentsia was the greatest obstacle to co-operation between Germans and Czechs. For that reason, if we wanted to achieve this co-operation, and that was still the aim of our policy, then this intelligentsia had to be reduced in some way and principally their influence had to be diminished, and that was the meaning of my explanation.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes, you said to achieve your policy, but by achieving your policy you meant to destroy the Czech people as a national entity with their own language, history, and traditions, and assimilate them into the Greater German Reich. That was your policy, wasn't it?
VON NEURATH: My policy was, first of all, to assimilate Czechoslovakia, as far as possible. But in the final analysis that could not have been achieved for generations. The first thing to do was to bring about co-operation so as to have peace and order.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, now before I put to you the memorandum of Frank with which you entirely agree, would you look at Paragraph VII of your own memorandum? My Lord, it is Page 113 of Document Book 12a. [Turning to the defendant.] In Section VII you say: "If one considers the gigantic tasks facing the German nation after a victorious war, the necessity for a careful and rational utilization of Germans will be apparent to everyone. There are so many tasks that have to be tackled at once and simultaneously that a careful, well-thought-out utilization of the Germans who are suitable for carrying out these tasks is necessary. "The Greater German Reich will have to make use of the help of foreigners on a large scale in all spheres and must confine itself to appointing Germans to the key positions and to taking over branches of public administration where the interests of the Reich make it absolutely necessary . . ." You were, in this memorandum, blueprinting the plans for dealing with the Czechs after the war on the basis of the German victory; that is, that they should disappear as a nation and become assimilated to the German Reich. Wasn't that what was in your mind?
VON NEURATH: To make the Czechs disappear as a nation was altogether impossible. That was not possible at all. But they were to incorporate themselves more closely into the Reich, and that is what I mean by the word "assimilate." Moreover, it is also stated in this memorandum-earlier, much earlier-that from the racial point of view-if you want to use that unpleasant expression-there was an extraordinarily large number of Germans within Czechoslovakia.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well now, just turn over and see how the-your State Secretary's memorandum with which you entirely agree-how that runs. My Lord, Your Lordship will find the beginning of that is enclosure Number 2 on Page 115. [Turning to the defendant.] The State Secretary states his problem. He says, in the second sentence: "The question as to whether the Protectorate, with a Reich Protector as its head, is suitable for settling the Czech problem and should therefore be retained or whether it should now give place to some other form of government is being raised by various people and is the cause of this memorandum. It will briefly: (A) Indicate the nature of the Czech problem; (B) analyze the present way in which it is being dealt with; (C) examine the proposed alterations from the point of view of their suitability, and finally: (D) express an independent opinion on the whole question." Well now, I would like you just to look at your State Secretary's independent opinion with which you entirely agree.
THE PRESIDENT: Oughtn't you to read the last two lines?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Oh yes, My Lord, I'm sorry. "On a correct decision depends the solution of the Czech problem. We thus bear the responsibility for centuries to come." Now, My Lord, Frank's own opinion starts on Page 121 in Section D of the memorandum, and he begins by saying: "The aim of Reich policy in Bohemia and Moravia must be the complete Germanization of area and people. In order to attain this there are two possibilities: "I. The total evacuation of the Czechs from Bohemia and Moravia to a territory outside the Reich and settling Germans in the freed territory; or "II. If one leaves the majority of the Czechs in Bohemia and Moravia the simultaneous application of a great variety of methods working toward Germanization, in accordance with an X-year plan. "Such a Germanization provides for: 1) The changing of the nationality of racially suitable Czechs; 2) the expulsion of racially unassimilable Czechs and of the intelligentsia who are enemies of the Reich, or 'special treatment' for these and all destructive elements; 3) the recolonizing of the territory thus freed with fresh German blood." Now, I want you just to turn to where your State Secretary gets down to concrete suggestions as to this policy of Germanization. Remember that you entirely agree, in your letter to Lammers. If Your Lordship will turn to Page 123, there is a heading "Youth; fundamental change in education; extermination of the Czech historical myth." [Turning to the defendant.] That is the first point: Destroy any idea they might have of their history, beginning with the time of St. Wenceslaus, nearly a thousand years ago. That is your first point. "Education toward the Reich idea; no getting on without perfect knowledge of the German language; first doing away with the secondary schools, later also with the elementary schools; never again any Czech universities, only transitionally the Collegium Bohemicunz at the German university in Prague; 2 years compulsory labor service.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: "Large-scale land policy, creation of German strongpoints and German bridges of land, in particular pushing forward of the German national soil from the north to the suburbs of Prague. "Campaign against the Czech language, which is to become merely a dialect as in the 17th and 18th centuries, and which is to disappear completely as an official language. "Marriage policy after previous racial examination. "In attempts at assimilation in the Reich proper, the frontier Gaue must be excluded. "Apart from continuous propaganda for Germanism and the granting of advantages as an inducement, severest police methods, with exile and 'special treatment' for all saboteurs. Principle: 'Zuckerbrot und Peitsche."'-What is that "Zuckerbrot und Peitsche"? "The employment of all these methods has a chance of success only if a single central Reich authority with one man at its head controls its planning, guiding, and carrying out. The direct subordination of the 'master in Bohemia' to the Fuehrer clarifies the political character of the office and the task, and prevents the political problem from sinking down to an administrative problem." In other words, it was essential to this policy that you should keep your job as Reich Protector and Frank should keep his as State Secretary, and the Gauleiter of the Danube should not be able to interfere and take away Brno as the capital of his Gau. 25 June q6 Defendant, do you tell this High Tribunal, as you told Dr. Lammers, that you entirely agree with what I suggest to you are dreadful, callous, and unprincipled proposals? Do you agree with these proposals?
VON NEURATH: No, I do not agree in the least.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, why did you tell Lammers you did? Why, when things were going well' did you tell Lammers that you did agree with them?
VON NEURATH: Later I made an oral report to the Fuehrer about this. Apart from that, the statements which you just made show quite clearly that this first memorandum was written by Frank, who then added the second memorandum to it, and if you say, as you said at the end just now, that it was my purpose to remain in office as Reich Protector, then I can only tell you that the purpose, if there was a purpose in this connection, was that Frank wanted to become Reich Protector. However, from the point of view of the contents of this memorandum, I can certainly no longer identify myself with them today, nor did I do so on the occasion when I reported to 'the Fuehrer. This becomes clear from the testimony which I gave yesterday. This testimony. . .
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, I'm not concerned with your testimony yesterday; I am concerned with what you wrote in 1940 when you wrote-and I will read the words again; I have read them three times: "I enclose another memorandum on the same question which my State Secretary, K. H. Frank, has drawn up independently of me"-independently of me-"and which in its train of thoughts leads to the same result, and with which I fully agree." Why did you...
VON NEURATH: I have just now told you that I no longer agree with these statements today, and that at the time when I verbally reported to the Fuehrer, I did not support these statements either, but to the contrary, I made the proposals to him which I explained yesterday and to which I received his agreement.
THE PRESIDENT: Sir David, are these documents correctly copied? Because you see that in the letter of the 31st of August 1940 there is a reference in the margin, "Enclosure 1; Enclosure 2."
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes, My Lord.
THE PRESIDENT: Therefore, the letter identifies the document.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes, My Lord, that is so. The one is, as I am suggesting, the defendant's; the other is Frank's.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: And you have mentioned, Defendant, about what-that you dealt with them otherwise to the Fuehrer. I suggest to you that that is not true, that is not true that you dealt with them otherwise to the Fuehrer. I am putting it quite bluntly that it is not true.
VON NEURATH: In that case I must regret to say that you are lying. For I-I must know. After all, I must know whether I talked to the Fuehrer. I delivered a verbal report to him in person and Frank was not present.
SIR DAVID MAXWWLL-FYFE: Well now, just let us look at the report, at your report. Your Lordship will find it on Page 7. We will see whether it is true or not. Phi PRESIDENT: Page what?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Page 7, My Lord. It is Document D-739 of the same book, 12a; it is Exhibit GB-521. Now, this is a memorandum, a secret memorandum of the representative of the Foreign Office in the Office of the Reich Protector, of the 5th of October. [Turning to the defendant.] You will remember your letter was the 31st of August. It says: "Regarding the reception of the Reich Protector and State Secretary Frank by the Fuehrer, I have learned the following from authentic sources: "To begin with, the Minister of Justice, Gurtner, gave a report on the Czech resistance movement, during the course of which he maintained that the first trial of the four chief ringleaders would shortly take place before the Peoples' Court. "The Fuehrer objected to this procedure and declared that execution squads were good enough for Czech insurgents and rebels. It was a mistake to create martyrs through legal sentences, as was proved in the case of Andreas Hofer and Schlageter. The Czechs would regard any sentence as an injustice. As this matter had already entered the path of legal procedure it was to be continued with in this form. The trials were to be postponed until after the war, and then amidst the din of the victory celebrations, the proceedings would pass unnoticed. Only death sentences could be pronounced, but would be commuted later on to life imprisonment or deportation. "Regarding the question of the future of the Protectorate, the Fuehrer touched on the following three possibilities: "1. Continuation of Czech autonomy in which the Germans would live in the Protectorate as co-citizens with equal rights. This possibility was' however, out of the question as one had always to reckon with Czech intrigues. "2. The deportation of the Czechs and the Germanization of the Bohemian and Moravian area by German settlers. This possibility was out of the question too, as it would take 100 years. "3. The Germanization of the Bohemian and Moravian area by Germanizing the Czechs, that is, by their assimilation. The latter would be possible with the greater part of the Czech people.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Those Czechs against whom there were racial objections or who were anti-German were to be excepted from this assimilation. This category was to be weeded out. "The Fuehrer decided in favor of the third possibility; he gave orders via Reich Minister Lammers, to put a stop to the multitude of plans regarding partition of the Protectorate. The Fuehrer further decided that, in the interests of a uniform policy with regard to the Czechs, a central Reich authority for the whole of the Bohemian and Moravian area should remain at Prague. "The present status of the Protectorate thus continues." And look at the last sentence: "The Fuehrer's decision followed the lines of the memoranda submitted by the Protector and State Secretary Frank." Now, Defendant, although you answered me so sharply a moment ago, that document says that after the reception of the Reich Protector and the State Secretary, the representative of the Foreign Office in your office says that the decision of the Fuehrer followed the lines of the memoranda put forward by you and your State Secretary Frank. Why do you say that I am wrong in saying it is untrue that a different line was followed by the Fuehrer? It is set out in that document.
VON NEURATH: To that I have the following reply to give: First of all, the document shows that the Fuehrer touched upon the following three eventualities with reference to the question of the future of the Protectorate. They are the three possibilities which I said yesterday I had proposed. The document also shows, though not directly, that the cause for this Fuehrer conference was primarily quite a different one than merely deciding the question of the Protectorate. On the contrary, the Minister of Justice was present and a legal question in regard to the treatment of the members of the resistance movement was the cause for the discussion and Frank came to Berlin for this reason. I had been to Berlin before that and I tamed to the Fuehrer, not about the memorandum, which I had in my hand, but about my misgivings in general and the future of our policy in the Protectorate. My report included those proposals which are mentioned here under 1, 2, and 3. It says there at the end, "The decision followed the lines of the memoranda submitted by the Protector and State Secretary Frank." That remark was added by Herr Ziemke or whoever had written the document, but what I said yesterday about the policy is correct. And even if I admit that at that time in the letter to Lammers I did identify myself with these enclosures it was nevertheless dropped.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, I want to remind you that in the passage which I referred to last in your memorandum, as opposed to that of Frank, you were putting forward the organization of the Greater German Reich. I take it in this way, that you envisaged yourself that in the event of a German victory in the war the Czech part of Czechoslovakia would remain part of a Greater German Reich.
VON NEURATH: No, I beg your pardon. It had already been incorporated and here it is also expressly stated that it should remain in that condition, as a protectorate but as a special structure.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: Well now, I just-are you saying that your policy, after this period-this was in the autumn of 1940- that your policy towards the Czechs was sympathetic?
VON NEURATH: I do not think it changed except when there were strong resistance movements there.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well now, why was it that you forbade, in the middle of 1941, any reference of the handling-to the discussion of the handling and treatment of all questions about the German-Czech problem? Why did you forbid its discussion?
VON NEURATH: To prevent these problems which were the cause of this memorandum from arising again and again, namely the problem of individual parts of the Protectorate being torn away and added to the lower Danube or the Sudeten country with a general resettlement. That was the purpose of my report to the Fuehrer, as I explained yesterday, so as to put a stop to that discussion once and for all. ,
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: But you also-you particularly prohibited, did you not, any public statements addressed to the Czech population? Well, let us look at the document. It is Document Number 3862-PS, My Lord. Your Lordship will ' find it at Page 126 of Document Book 12a. My Lord, it becomes Exhibit GB-522. [Turning to the defendant.] It is for distribution through your various offices and you say: `'For the motive stated I order that in the future, when arrangements and publications of any kind concerning the German-Czech problem are made, the views of the whole population are more than ever to be directed to the war and its requirements while the duty of the Czech nation to carry out the war tasks imposed on it jointly with the Greater German Reich is to be stressed. "Other questions concerning the German-Czech problem are not suitable subjects for public discussion at the present time. I wish to point out that, without detriment to my orders, administrative handling and treatment of all questions about the German-Czech problem are to be in no way alluded to." Then the last paragraph: "Requisite public statements about the political questions of the Protectorate and in particular those addressed to the Czech population are my business and mine alone and will be published in due time." Why did you want to prohibit so severely the addressing of any public statements to the Czech population?
VON NEURATH: That is addressed not only to the Czech population, but especially to the Germans, and just for this reason- that was some special event which I no longer remember-it says here "for the motive stated I order that"-when there was again a discussion about the future of the Protectorate or something was published. That was the reason and I pointed out that that is why it was forbidden.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: Well now, I suggest to you about the your proposals and Frank's speak for themselves. I want you to help me on one other matter. Do you remember after the closing of the universities that the question arose, what was to happen to the students? There were about 18,000 students who were, of course, out of work because they could not.
VON NEURATH: I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon. There were not so many; there were at the most 1,800 in all.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: No, you got it-with the greatest respect either you are wrong or your office. According to the note from Group X of your office: "According to the data at my disposal the number of students affected the closure"-I should think that would include high schools as well-"for 3 years of the Czech universities is 18,998. "According to the press communications, dated the 21st of this month only 1,200 persons were arrested in connection with the events of the 15th of this month." And then your office goes on to say by a process of subtraction that leaves 17,800. You were faced with their occupation. My Lord, it is Page 104, Document 3858-PS. Exhibit GB-523.
VON NEURATH: I do not want to deny my official's statement. He must have known better than I. I am merely surprised that there should have been 18,000 students in two Czech universities, in a country with a population of 7 millions.
THE PRESIDENT: Hadn't you better check that by the original?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, I shall. I am much obliged to Your Lordship. Well, My Lord, it is quite clear that both figures-they are in figures, and they are 18,998, and then there is the check below, and you have to take of e 1,200; that leaves 17,800. My Lord, if it were only 1,800, the second figure could not arise.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: Mr. President, somewhere there must be an error. That would have been more for two universities in Czechoslovakia than there were in Berlin at the best of times. There was a maximum of 8,000 to 9,000 in Berlin per year and in the case of a nation of only 7 millions there are supposed to be 18,000 students in two universities. This cannot be right.