Nuremberg Trials
Opening Address for the United States
Robert Jackson
This document was retrieved from the archives of Nizkor. Source: Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression, Volume I, Chapter VII, Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1946.
EXPERIMENTS IN AGGRESSION
Before resorting to open aggressive warfare, the Nazis undertook some
rather cautious experiments to test the spirit and resistance of those
who lay across their path. They advanced, but only as others yielded,
and kept in a position to draw back if they found a temper that made
persistence dangerous.
On March 7, 1936, the Nazis reoccupied the Rhineland and then proceeded
to fortify it in violation of the Treaty of Versailles and the Pact of
Locarno. They encountered no substantial resistance and were emboldened
to take the next step, which was the acquisition of Austria. Despite
repeated assurances that Germany had no designs on Austria, invasion was
perfected. Threat of attack forced Schuschnigg to resign as Chancellor
of Austria and
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put the Nazi defendant Seyss-Inquart in his place. The latter
immediately opened the frontier and invited Hitler to invade Austria "to
preserve order." On March 12th the invasion began. The next day, Hitler
proclaimed himself Chief of the Austrian State, took command of its
armed forces, and a law was enacted annexing Austria to Germany.
Threats of aggression had succeeded without arousing resistance. Fears
nevertheless had been stirred. They were lulled by an assurance to the
Czechoslovak Government that there would be no attack on that country.
We will show that the Nazi Government already had detailed plans for the
attack. We will lay before you the documents in which these conspirators
planned to create an incident to justify their attack. They even gave
consideration to assassinating their own Ambassador at Prague in order
to create a sufficiently dramatic incident. They did precipitate a
diplomatic crisis which endured through the summer. Hitler set September
30th as the day when troops should be ready for action. Under the threat
of immediate war, the United Kingdom and France concluded a pact with
Germany and Italy at Munich on September 29, 1938 which required
Czechoslovakia to acquiesce in the cession of the Sudetenland to
Germany. It was consummated by German occupation on October 1, 1938.
The Munich Pact pledged no further aggression against Czechoslovakia,
but the Nazi pledge was lightly given and quickly broken. On March 15,
1939, in defiance of the treaty of Munich itself, the Nazis seized and
occupied Bohemia and Moravia, which constituted the major part of
Czechoslovakia not already ceded to Germany. Once again the West stood
aghast, but it dreaded war, it saw no remedy except war, and it hoped
against hope that the Nazi fever for expansion had run its course. But
the Nazi world was intoxicated by these unresisted successes in open
alliance with Mussolini and covert alliance with Franco. Then, having
made a deceitful, delaying peace with Russia, the conspirators entered
upon the final phase of the plan to renew war.
A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust
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College of Education, University of South Florida © 2005.