English Translation

26 8 True prehistory of this war, which the so-called democracies have always declared to be an outflow of the "insatiable attacking forces of the Axis powers", in a certain awareness that their peoples would give them notice of their followers, they would know about the true facts. As far as Mr Beneš's share is concerned, he has come to light surprisingly by his zeal. We can put Beneš's attitude into the following theses: l.) Beneš always felt as defender of the integral Versailles Treaty. He notes with great concern that England and France stopped "unanimously and out of production to believe that they could maintain the Versailles standing..." "We could not keep this standing alone, with our own forces." All previous talk of a supposedly "open-minded", "comprehensive" Beneš policy towards Germany is completely disavowed by this commitment. But from such a basic attitude Beneš is now the constant advocate of an attack on the empire, i.e. of the war of aggression, among other things we want to note the following: 2.) Beneš wanted and prepared the war not only against the National Socialist, but against the democratic Weimar Germany. The testimony regarding this is perhaps the most surprising: "Yes, l9ç8 I was ready for all eventualities. Since l932, I had been knowingly prepared for it. When I returned from the first long sessions of the Conference on Disarmament in July I immediately went to our General Staff and said there in the presence of all the members and the Minister of War Bradatsch: "I give you four years. In the year l936 there will probably be a crisis, until then everything has to be prepared. We all know what I was doing and what I did as President." In a radio speech of 2l.8.1944, he returned to the events of l938 and explained: "I was fully aware in 38 that a new war with Germany cannot be avoided. Our state was prepared for it. It was my wish that it would be in 38, before Munich, for the war t -6 -