One Hundred and Sixty-Third Day:
Tuesday, 25th June, 1946 [Page 190]
Q. Now, I want you just to turn to where your State
Secretary gets down to concrete suggestions as to this
policy of Germanisation. Remember that you entirely agree,
in your letter to Lammers.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: If your Lordship will turn to Page
123, there is a heading "Youth."
[Page 191]
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: 'cakes and whip ' 'Zuckerbrot and
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 task, and prevents the political problem from
sinking down to an administrative problem."
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
... you agree with these proposals?
[Constantin von Neurath] A. No, I do not agree in the least.
Q. Well, why did you tell Lammers you did? Why, when things
were going well, did you tell Lammers that you did agree
with them?
A. Later, I made a verbal 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 -
Q. (interrupting): 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:
A. (interrupting): 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, on the contrary, I proposed the
statement which I explained yesterday, to which I received
his agreement.
THE PRESIDENT: Sir David, are these documents correctly
copied? Because you see that in the letter of 31st August,
1940, three 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.
[Page 192]
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
BY 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.
A. In that case I regret that I must 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.
Q. 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.
THE 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 821.
Now, this is a memorandum, a secret memorandum of the
representative of the Foreign Office in the Office of the
Reich Protector of 5th October.
BY SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE:
Q. You will remember your letter was 31st of August. It
says:
To begin with, the Minister of Justice, Gurnter, 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 People's 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. Tire 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 proceeding 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 Germanisation of
the Bohemian and Moravian area by German settlers. This
possibility was out of the question too, as it would take
a hundred years.
3. The Germanisation of the Bohemian and Moravian area by
Germanising the Czechs, that is, by their assimilation.
The latter would be possible with the greater part of the
Czech people. 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 favour 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 continue at Prague.
The present status of the Protectorate thus continues." [Page 193]
A. To that I have the following reply to give:
First of all, the document shows that the Fuehrer touched
upon the following three questions 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 from that of 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 had talked 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 one, two and three. 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 Dr. Ziemke or whoever wrote 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.
Q. 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.
A. 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.
Q. 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?
A. I do not think it changed except when there were strong
resistance movements there.
Q. Well, now, why was it that you forbade in the middle of
1941 any reference to the discussion of the handling and
treatment of all questions about the German-Czech problem?
Why did you forbid its discussion?
A. 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, to
the Sudeten country. 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.
Q. 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 No. 3862-PS, my Lord ... your Lordship will find it at
Page 126 of Document Book 12A. It will become Exhibit GB
522.
It is for distribution through your various offices and you
say:
[Page 194]
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."
A. That is addressed not only to the Czech population, but
especially to the Germans, and for a certain reason - that
was some special event which I no longer remember - it says
here "for the motive stated I order that" - whenever there
was discussion about the future of the Protectorate or
something was published. That was the reason, and I pointed
out that that was why it was forbidden.
Q. 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 eighteen thousand students who were, of course,
out of work because they could not -
A. I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon. There were not so
many. There were at the most eighteen hundred in all.
Q. No, with the greatest respect, either you are wrong or
your office. The note from group 10 of your office reads:
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."
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: My Lord, it is Page 104, Document
3858-PS, GB 523.
A. 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 7,000,000.
THE PRESIDENT: Had you not 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 off 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, some;-here 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 were a maximum of 8,000 to 9,000 in Berlin per
year and in the case of a nation of only 7,000,000 there are
supposed to be 18,000 students in two universities. This
cannot be right.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: My Lord, it may be that there are
three age groups. Your Lordship sees that it is " according
to the data at my disposal, the number of students affected
by the closure for three years of the Czech universities is
18,000." It may be that that is the intake for two years, in
addition to present students.
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(Part 10 of 11)
Q. (continuing): "Fundamental change in education -
Extermination of the Czech historical myth."
That is the first point: "Destroy any idea they might have
of their history, beginning with the time of St. Wenceslas,
nearly a thousand years ago." That is your first point.
"Education towards 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 Behomicus' at the
German university in Prague - two years' compulsory
labour service.
Large-scale land policy, creation of German strongpoints
and German land bridges, in particular pushing forward of
the German national soil from the north to the suburbs of
Prague.
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 Lower
Danube should not be able to interfere and take away Braunau
as the capital of his Gau.
"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 -
"Regarding the reception of the Reich Protector and the
State Secretary Frank by the Fuehrer. I have learnt the
following from authentic sources:
"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 states 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.
"For the motive stated I order that in 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.
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 course."
Why did you want to prohibit so severely the addressing of
any public statements to the Czech population?
"According to the data at my disposal the number of
students affected by the closure" - I should think that
would include high schools as well - "for three years of
the Czech universities is 18,998.
And then your office goes on to say by a process of
subtraction that leaves 17,800. You were faced with their
occupation.