dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR.ALFRED SEIDL (Counsel for Defendant Hess): This proclamation of 16 March 1935 contains no essential arguments on this question which had not already previously been brought out by the democratic German governments at the time of the Weimar Republic. Your Honors, the Tribunal have permitted me to read at least part of my brief in connection with this question. However, in view of the fact that counsel for the Defendant Von Neurath has already referred to this question in detail, I shall merely refer to his argument in this connection and I shall therefore, on my part, forego detailed comment. The reintroduction of general military service by the law of 16 March 1935 is apparently not considered in the Indictment as a punishable offense in itself, but only as part of the general plan as asserted by the Prosecution, designed to commit crimes against peace, against the laws of war, and against humanity. Whether such a plan ever existed at all, whether and to what extent the Defendant Rudolf Hess was involved in it and what part the reintroduction of general military service may have played in both an objective and a subjective way in this plan, I shall take up in detail later. Within the scope of the common plot, of having planned and prepared a war of aggression, the Defendant Rudolf Hess is also accused of having, in his capacity as Deputy of the Fuehrer, set up the Auslands-Organisation of the NSDAP, the League for Germans Abroad, the German Eastern League, the German-American Bund and the German Foreign Institute. The documents submitted by the Prosecution in this connection do not furnish proof to the effect that the Defendant Hess himself issued directives or orders to these organizations, which could have caused them to pursue activities similar to those of a fifth column. The testimony of the witnesses Bohle, Strohlin, and Alfred Hess has, on the contrary, proved that the Defendant Hess, in particular, clearly forbade these organizalions and leaders to interfere with the internal affairs of other countries.
DR.ALFRED SEIDL (Counsel for Defendant Hess): The Prosecution have not been able to prove in any way that the afore-named organizations had actually developed activities which were aimed at undermining the structure of foreign states from within. Under these circumstances it is superfluous to go into the activity of the afore-named organizations in more detail, all the more so since there is nothing at all tending to prove that there was any causal connection between the tasks and functions of these organizations and the events which later led to the outbreak of war in the year 1939. The Prosecution furthermore tried to prove that Defendant Rudolf Hess also took a decisive part in the occupation of Austria on 12 March 1938. I do not intend to enter into details of the history of the annexation and to consider from the legal point of view the facts which actually led to the annexation of Austria to the German Reich in the year 1938. There is one point, though, that must be established here: The right of selfdetermination of nations was a salient factor among the Fourteen Points of President Wilson. It is a fact, however, that of the postulates of the American President none was realized by the Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain to so small an extent as just this right of self-determination. The Tribunal has already been offered in evidence the resolution of the Provisional Austrian National Assembly of 12 November 1918. In this new basic law the following is ordained, inter alia: "German Austria is a democratic republic. All legislative and executive powers are instituted by the people. German Austria is part of the German Republic." The declarations made by the then Social-Democrat Federal Chancellor, Dr. Karl Penner, in justification of this constitutional law are no less definite when he says, among other things: "Our great nation is beset by misery and distress, the nation which was always proud to be called the nation of poets and thinkers, our German nation of humanism, of mutual love among the nations; it is bowed down with sorrow!
DR.ALFRED SEIDL (Counsel for Defendant Hess): Yet in this very hour when it might be easy and convenient, and perhaps even tempting, to prepare a separate account, and maybe gain advantage from the enemy's trickery-in this very hour let our people everywhere know: We are of one rice and share a common fate!" Contrary to the expressed will of an overwhelming majority of the Austrian population a union of the No German nations. was vetoed by the Entente. The victorious powers, by threat of a hunger blockade, prevented a plebiscite on the question of the Anschluss voted for by the Austrian National Assembly on 1 October 1920. Nevertheless some of the provinces carried out such a plebiscite independently, with the result that an overwhelming majority voted for the Anschluss. Indeed nothing could describe the situation better than the following passage in State Secretary Lansing's book, The Peace Negotiations, published in the year 1921: "A more patent denial of the ostensible right of selfdetermination than this veto against the Anschluss with Germany, willed almost unanimously by the German-Austrian people, can hardly be imagined." This wish of the Austrian people to be united with the German Reich did not only show immediately after the first World War, but remained alive in the times afterward. It is a moot question as to the specific reasons for this trend and what reasons prevailed at one time or another. Certainly there can be no doubt that 	such a wish did exist, and that the Anschluss would have been realized but for the opposition either of the Entente or of other powers which believed they had thus to defend so-called interests. In this connection reference may be made to the declaration of Federal Chancellor Dr. Renner of 12 November 1928, which has likewise already been submitted by the Defense, which reads inter alia: Today, 10 years after the 10th of November 1918, and forever, we shall faithfully abide by this resolution and confirm it by our signature.... The Peace of St. Germain has destroyed the right of self-determination of the Germans in Austria....
DR.ALFRED SEIDL (Counsel for Defendant Hess): Let the people of Austria vote freely and 99 percent win vote for the reunion with Germany..." And this is what really happened: When the German troops marched into Austria on 12 March 1938 they did not come as conquerors but were received by a jubilant population in one triumphal procession. In order to save time I shall refer to the extensive statement made by counsel for the Codefendant Dr. Seyss-Inquart. Whatever now concerns the participation of the Defendant Rudolf Hess and the Party in bringing about the annexation, the evidence has only shown that the annexation of Austria was an incident which did not really have anything to do with the National Socialist Party in the Reich as such. It is sufficient to refer in this connection to the testimony of the Defendant Goring and to that of Dr. Seyss-Inquart on the witness stand, which shows that the question of the annexation was solved exclusively by the Reich, that is, by state authority and not by the Party. If any doubts should still have existed on this point, they were removed by Document Number 812-PS, Exhibit Number USA-61, presented by the Prosecution. It deals in this case with the letter of the Gauleiter of Salzburg, Dr. Friedrich Rainer, to Reich Commissioner Gauleiter Josef Burckel, in which he states, among other things: ". . . Soon after the seizure of power in the Ostmark, Klausner, Globocznik, and I flew to Berlin in order to give a report to the Deputy of the Fuehrer, Party member Rudolf Hess, about the incidents which led to the seizure of power." A report naturally would not have been required if the Deputy of the Fuehrer and the Party itself had been directly and decisively participating in the solution of the annexation question. I do not mention this in order to give reasons of justification or excuses on behalf of the Defendant Rudolf Hess. The findings are rather made exclusively in the interests of historical truth. I now come to the question of the Anschluss of the Sudetenland.
DR.ALFRED SEIDL (Counsel for Defendant Hess): 3.5 million Sudeten Germans were incorporated into a state with 8.5 million Czechs and Slovaks, without being granted a decisive influence on the state. All attempts of this national group to receive autonomy within the Czechoslovakian state structure remained futile. When the question of annexation with regard to Austria was solved, it was inevitable that the future position of the Sudeten Germans, which after all consisted of 3.5 million persons who undoubtedly belonged to the German nation, would be subjected to a test. Now, I do not intend to take a detailed legal stand on all questions of the annexation of the Sudetenland to the Reich. In view of the fact, however, that the Prosecution in the trial brief which they presented before the Tribunal against the Defendant Hess treated the Sudeten German question and have also presented several documents as evidence, it appears necessary to take a brief stand concerning them. Document Number 3258-PS, Exhibit Number GB-262, deals with a speech of the Deputy of the Fuehrer at the meeting of the Auslands-Organisation of the NSDAP on 28 August 1938. The latter in general phrases takes a stand on the Sudeten German question by emphasizing the principle of nationalities and the right of self-determination of the nations. Also the remaining documents presented by the Prosecution, Document Number 3061-PS, Exhibit USA-126, Document Number 388-PS, Exhibit USA-26, do not show on what a decisive participation of the Defendant Rudolf Hess in the solution of the Sudeten German question could be based. However, the extent of this participation can be completely ignored, as the annexation of the Sudetenland to the Reich cannot in itself constitute facts for a criminal charge according to international law. After all, the annexation of the Sudetengau was not carried out on the basis of a one-sided act of Germany or on the basis of a perhaps disputable agreement between the German Reich and the Czechoslovak Republic.
DR.ALFRED SEIDL (Counsel for Defendant Hess): The annexation, rather, took place on the basis of an agreement which had been concluded in Munich on 29 September 1938 between Germany, the United Kingdom of Great Britain, France, and Italy. In this agreement exact and very detailed stipulations were made about the evacuation of the territory to be ceded and the step-by-step occupation by German troops. The final determination of the frontier was carried out by an international committee. Without wishing to go into further details, it can still be said with certainty that this is a treaty which had been concluded on the basis of a free agreement and that all those participating expected that it might provide the basis, or at least a considerable prerequisite, for an improvement of international relations in Europe. I now come to another point of the Indictment. Within the limits of the Indictment as a whole, as well as in the personal accusation raised by the Prosecution against the Defendant Rudolf Hess, the latter is accused of having participated in the outbreak of war and of being responsible for it. The Defendant Rudolf Hess actually did take a stand in several speeches on the question of the Polish Corridor and the problem of the Free State of Danzig. In this case, however, the following must be stated: By the establishment of the Polish Corridor not only the right of self-determination of the nations was violated-after all, more than one million Germans came under Polish domination in this manner-but in addition to this, through the partition of the state territory of the German Reich into two areas completely separated from each other, a situation arose which was not only contrary to all economic common sense but which, moreover, was bound to become the cause of constant discord from the very outset. Indeed, from the day of the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty, the demand for a revision of the treaty, especially in the question of the Polish Corridor, has never been silenced at any hour.
DR.ALFRED SEIDL (Counsel for Defendant Hess): There was no party and no government in Germany which did not acknowledge the necessity of a revision of the treaty, primarily in this point. There can be no doubt that if Poland ought to have an independent access to the Baltic Sea under all circumstances, this problem could have been solved much more sensibly than by the establishment of the so-called Corridor and the thereby stipulated partition of the German Reich into two areas which were completely separated from each other. Something similar applies with regard to the status of the Free State of Danzig on the basis of international law and state sovereignty. It is not necessary to look at the facts more closely in this case, which in the course of time have led to constantly increasing difficulties and which in the end necessitated a change with regard to international law and the state sovereignty of this purely German city. It is just as unnecessary to go into greater detail with regard to the minority problem which was raised by the Polish Corridor and the establishment of a Free State of Danzig. The fact is that in the course of two decades, no less than approximately one million Germans were forced to leave their settlement area, and especially under circumstances which could not remain without effect on the general political relations between the German Reich and the Polish Republic. The problems raised here have been publicly discussed even before Adolf Hitler came to power. Under these circumstances, it could not surprise anyone if after the seizure of power by Adolf Hitler and his Party, the questions raised by the Polish Corridor and the separation of Danzig from the Reich were subject to re-examination. This was all the more unavoidable since after the conclusion of the German-Polish Treaty in the year 1934, Poland's increasing attempts to exclude the German element did not cease.
DR.ALFRED SEIDL (Counsel for Defendant Hess): I do not intend to discuss in further detail the negotiations which were conducted by the German Reich with the Polish Republic, the aim of which was to find a modus vivendi, taking into consideration Poland's justified interests. Nevertheless, it appears important to me to keep the following facts in mind, and this seems to be essential for the reason that the Prosecution stated again and again that the defendants, the German Government, should have done everything to clarify those questions and that especially the German Government should have conducted negotiations, and that the one thing that they should not have done was to start a war. The following statements are to show that attempts were made to solve pressing problems by negotiations. For the first time the Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs, in the course of a conversation with the Polish Ambassador on 24 October 1938, discussed the question raised by the Corridor and the separation of the city of Danzig and suggested a solution which was to be based on the following foundation: "1. The Free State of Danzig returns to the German Reich. "2. An extraterritorial Reichsautobahn belonging to Germany and likewise an extraterritorial railroad with several tracks would be constructed across the Corridor. "3. Poland likewise obtains an extraterritorial road or Autobahn, a railroad, and a free port in the Danzig area. "4. Poland is guaranteed a market for her goods in the Danzig area. "5. The two nations recognize their common frontiers or the territories of both sides. "6. The German-Polish Treaty is to be extended by 10 to 25 years. "7. Both countries include in their treaty a consultation clause." The Prosecution themselves submitted to the Tribunal the reply of the Polish Government to this proposal. The document is Document Number TC-73, Number 45, which describes the attitude of the Polish Foreign Minister Beck of 31 October 1938 and his instructions to the Polish Ambassador Lipski in Berlin. In this document the German proposal is flatly turned down on the grounds that ". . .
DR.ALFRED SEIDL (Counsel for Defendant Hess): any attempt to incorporate the Free City of Danzig into the Reich would invariably lead to a conflict, and the resulting difficulties would not merely be of a local nature, but would prevent any possibility of Polish-German understanding in all its aspects." In fact, such also was the stand taken by the Polish Ambassador during another conversation which he had with the Reich Foreign Minister on 19 November 1938. When asked about the Polish Government's attitude regarding the German proposition of an extraterritorial Reichsautobahn and an extraterritorial railway through the Corridor, the Polish Ambassador declared that he was not able to make an official statement on these questions. It is impossible to deny that the proposal made by Germany was very restrained and contained nothing incompatible with Polish honor or the vital interests of that state. One should be all the more willing to admit this, as the creation of the Corridor and the separation of East Prussia from the Reich was really felt by the German people to be the heaviest burden of the Versailles Treaty. If, nevertheless, the Polish Government turned this proposal down, for reasons which excluded any prospect of finding a solution in subsequent negotiations, the conclusion could be drawn that already at that time Poland had no sincere wish to enter into an agreement, which would take into consideration Germany's legitimate interests. This impression was confirmed by the negotiations during the visit of the Polish Foreign Minister Beck to Berlin on 5 January 1939, and the return visit by the Reich Foreign Minister to Warsaw on 21 January 1939. When, in spite of this attitude of Poland, the Reich Foreign Minister repeated the proposition made on 24 October 1938 in another meeting with the Polish Ambassador on 21 March 1939, we must conclude that the German Government was sincerely desirous of solving, by means of negotiation, the questions relative to the Corridor and the separation of the city of Danzig.
DR.ALFRED SEIDL (Counsel for Defendant Hess): Thus it cannot be seriously denied that the German Government tried to solve the Danzig question and that of the Polish Corridor by negotiation and that it made very moderate proposals in that respect. The reply to the German proposals of 21 March 1939 was a partial mobilization of the Polish armed forces. The connection between the partial mobilization ordered by the Polish Government and the British proposal for consultation, dated 21 March 1939, need not be discussed, nor whether, incidental to the transmission of this consultation proposal in Warsaw, the declaration of guarantee of 31 March had already been promised or contemplated by the British Government. There can be no doubt, however, that the partial mobilization of the Polish armed forces, as also admitted by the British Prime Minister Chamberlain in a declaration before the House of Commons on 10 July 1939, was not calculated to create favorable prerequisites for further negotiations. As a matter of fact, the subject of the memorandum of the Polish Government given by the Polish Ambassador Lipski on 26 March 1939 was a complete rejection of the German proposal. It was declared that extraterritoriality for the highways was out of the question, and that a reunion of Danzig with the Reich could not be considered. In the conversation between the Reich Foreign Minister and the Polish Ambassador, which followed the transmission of the memorandum, the latter declared quite openly that it was his unpleasant duty to point out that to pursue the German plans further, particularly insofar as they had a bearing on the return of Danzig to the German Reich, would be tantamount to a war with Poland.
DR.ALFRED SEIDL (Counsel for Defendant Hess): The connection between the Polish mobilization of 23 March 1939 and the Polish memorandum of 26 March 1939 containing a complete rejection of the German proposal on the one hand, and the proposed British guarantee-pledge of 31 March 1939 on the other hand, which I said may be left open, appears justified with regard to the proposed "formal declaration" made by the British Government as early as 21 March in Warsaw, as well as in Paris and in Moscow. This "formal declaration" was to announce the opening of immediate discussions on measures of mutual resistance against any attack on the independence of any European state. Furthermore, the speech by Prime Minister Chamberlain on 17 March in Birmingham, and the speech of the British Foreign Minister, Lord Halifax, of 20 March in the House of Lords, reflected a point of view bound to encourage the Polish Government all the more toward stubbornness. As a matter of fact, the proposed step of "a mutual formal declaration" already proposed on 21 March 1939 by the British Government to the Governments in Warsaw, Paris, and Moscow proved to be the opening of lengthy discussions whose purpose it was to place an iron ring around Germany. It was thus clear from the very outset that, under such conditions, bilateral negotiations between the German and the Polish Governments promised but little success, in any case as long as those discussions lasted. In another memorandum handed to the Polish Foreign Minister on 28 April 1939, already submitted by the Prosecution, the German Government nevertheless once more explained its attitude completely and established once more its readiness for further negotiations. Contents of this memorandum, including proposals made in March 1939, were announced publicly by Adolf Hitler in his speech delivered in the Reichstag on 28 April 1939. In reply to the memorandum of the German Government of 28 April 1939, the Polish Government transmitted on 5 May 1939 a memorandum which has also been submitted by the Prosecution.
DR.ALFRED SEIDL (Counsel for Defendant Hess): That memorandum contained even more emphatically a complete rejection of Germany's proposal for solving the problem of the Corridor and the Danzig question. Negotiations which began on 21 March 1939 between London, Paris, Warsaw, and Moscow for the purpose of establishing an alliance exclusively directed against Germany, did not proceed as desired. Nor was it possible for the French and British military missions, sent to Moscow on 11 August 1939, to eliminate completely the difficulties arising from evidently far-reaching political differences of opinion. It need not be established how important was the fact that Poland, which was to obtain a guarantee by England, France, and the Soviet Union, obviously refused to accept military assistance from the Soviet Union. It also remains uncertain whether it is correct that the Soviet Foreign Commissar Molotov asserted during the special meeting of the Supreme Soviet on 31 August 1939 that England had not dissipated Poland's apprehensions but, on the contrary, had increased them. It seems more important to examine the fundamental differences of opinion. I was about to refer here to an extract from the well-known book written by the former British Ambassador in Berlin, Sir Revile Henderson. In consideration of the fact that the Tribunal do not desire to have this quotation read, I shall merely refer to it. Meanwhile, the following had actually occurred: At the Eighteenth Congress of the Communist Party on 10 March 1939, the President of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, Stalin, made a speech in which he intimated that the Soviet Government considered it possible or desirable to reach a better understanding even with Germany. Hitler understood this hint perfectly well. Foreign Commissar Molotov expressed himself similarly in his speech before the Supreme Soviet on 31 May 1939. Thereupon, the discussions between the German and the Soviet Governments were followed by the conclusion of a German-Soviet Trade and Credit Agreement. This agreement was signed in Berlin on 19 August 1939.