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Hitler’s negotiations with the Polish Head of State, Marshal
Pilsudski, which were climaxed by the conclusion of the German-Polish
nonaggression pact of 26 January1934, seemed to bring about a gradual easing of
the tension. However, further developments showed that the genuine and
straight-forward desire of the Marshal to come to an understanding, found no
reaction in certain circles of the Polish people. Even more pronouncedly after
his death in the year 1935, did it seem impossible to improve the mutual
relation.
Your Honors, I thought it fit to give you this brief account
in order to show how very strained the relations were at Germany’s eastern
borders ever since 1919. I shall submit still further evidence in the course of
my case in chief concerning further developments of German-Polish relations in
the years prior to World War II.
Of the operations which apparently
forced one country after the other into the war after September 1939, the
prosecution has dealt in detail with the Norwegian campaign, as far as evidence
against Admiral Schniewind is concerned.
As initial steps to prepare
this operation on the part of the Germans were taken by an officer of the navy,
the former Admiral Carls, and as the navy was predominantly engaged in
executing this operation, in contrast to the other campaigns, I shall deal in
still greater detail with this particular topic in my case in chief; I shall
prove which facts were decisive for the planning, the preparation, and
execution of this operation, and which part Admiral Schniewind played in them.
The Western campaign, the campaign against Yugoslavia and Greece, and
the war with the Soviet Union, will be dealt with by me less specifically
because of the subordinate part the navy played in them. |
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| * * *
* * *
* * * * |
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E. Extract From the Opening Statement for
Defendant
Woehler* |
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| DR. RAUSCHENBACH : The case of General Otto Woehler, for whom I
am acting as defense counsel, appears to stand out among the other cases I have
been privileged to defend before the High Military Tribunals at Nuernberg, in
that it seems to me to be essentially decided in favor of the defendant before
it has actually begun. A cursory inspection of the prosecution documents
submitted against Woehler will suffice to show the Tribunal that the in-
[…dictment] |
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* Complete opening statement is recorded
in mimeographed transcript, 9 June 1948, pp. 5602-5624.
211 |
. 
