Trial of the Major War Criminals before International Military Tribunal ...

gave solenin assurances of their peaceful and friendly intentions in
general, and towards countries they intended to invade in particular,
with the purpose to violate every international obligation. HITLER
stated.: "I am willing to sign anything. Why should one not please
others and facilitate matters for oneself by signing pacts, if the
others believe that something is thereby accomplished? I shall make
any treaty I require. It will never prevent me from doing, at any
time, what I regard as necessary for Germany's interest." (Rauschning:
"Hitler Speaks", page 14.)
RIBBENTROP when interrogated by Col. Dr. B. ECER, Czecho-
slovak Representative on the United Nations War Crimes Commis-
sion and Chief of the Czechoslovak War Crimes Investigating
Mission attached to War Crimes Branch, USF'ET, on July 22, 1945
in Mondorff, stressed peaceful intentions of HITLER in the sphere
of foreign policy, but pressed by precise questions he admitted:
"I add that the Fuehrer when he came to the conviction that
Germany was threatened by a vital danger, in such cases prevented
this danger even when thereby the neutrality was violated. (The
interrogating officer asked RIBBENTROP about the invasion of
Holland, Belgium, Denmark and so on.)
The "vital danger for Germany" was always invented and
pretended when HITLER intended to invade a country. Thus
HITLER acknowledged various international obligations signed by
Germany before 1933, he himself signed new obligations and treaties
and violated all of them without any hesitation. The solemn declara-
tions that Germany has
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peaceful intentions and will respect her international obligations
were nothing but frauds to deceive the world and to prepare the
way for the aggression. Numerous quotations can be given in order
to prove that the leaders of Nazi Germany systematically pursued
this policy of fraud. F.L.SCHULMANN in his book "Hitler and the
Nazi Dictatorships", page 8, rightly stated: "In the Reich deception
is an applied science as a fine art."
2. Germany's obligations towards Czechoslovakia
and their violation.
(a) T h e p r e t e x t s : .Czechoslo,vakia was strategically and
politically a great obstacle for the Germans on their way to the
domination of Europe and the world. BISMARCK'S well-known
statement: "Who dominates Bohemia dominates Europe", was the
maxim of HITLER's action against Czechoslovakia. The question of