NUREMBERG TRIBUNAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26176, 12 June 1946, Page 5

NUREMBERG TRIBUNAL

SEYSS-INQUART IN DOCK DENIES PLAYING DOUBLE GAME NUREMBURG, June 10. Beginning his defence before the War Crimes Tribunal, Dr Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Minister of the Interior in Schuschnigg’s Cabinet and Chancellor after the German occupation of Austria, said he never played a double game. “I only joined tne Austrian Nazi Party in February 1938 so that the accusation that I played a double game is completely untrue.” „ , , . ... Seyss-Inquart added that he, like other Austrians, was convinced that Austria’s only chance of survival lay in the anschluss with Germany He had a talk with Hitler at Berchtesgaden after he joined Schuschnigg’s Cabinet. He told Hi|ler that the Austrian ideals must be maintained as a pre-requisite of peaceful union with Germany. Hitler agreed, and said the fulfilment of the Nazi . programme there should remain a secondary consideration, but after the Wehrmacht marched into Austria, Hitler relegated Seyss-Inquart, and changed his attitude. On the eve of the anschluss, Seyss-Inquart said, he telephoned Hitler and Goering, appealing to them not to send German troops into Austria, and in a final appeal for a delay until a plebiscite was taken, he' telephoned Hitler at Linz (the border city through which the Wehrmacht marched in). It was then too late. The march had begun. He did, however, obtain permission from Hitler for Austrian troops to march into Germany to maintain symbolic equality, and Austrian troops entered Munich and Berlin simultaneously with the German entry into Vienna. He appealed to Hitler to allow him to leave politics, but instead Hitler made him Governor of Austria —a position he did not want. Dealing with his period as Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands, Seyss-Inquart said the task Hitler gave him was impossible. He was assigned the task of changing the pro-British attitude of the Dutch people to a proGerman attitude. Defending the legal system he introduced into Holland, he said that during the four years it was operating about 800 death sentences were passed after a fair trial. Hitler, however, at the end of 1944 ordered the Dutch arrested for sabotage to be handed over to the Security Police, and, in spite of his objections, the order was carried out. About 600 were executed, and many more would have been executed but for his intervention. Seyss-Inquart said Himmler wanted 500 hostages shot for sabotage. “I tried to get the list reduced, but we had to keep down the Resistance Movement, which was organised and armed by the Dutch Government in London, and was a very serious threat to the German occupation forces.”