English Translation

It is rather a bond of good faith. And it is also clear that in the way in which the promise of the leaders of the German Reich, in whose hands the schieksal of the Czech people now lies, is completely free within the framework of the enacted conditions (guarantee of the appropriate autonomous development). Therefore, there was and is no legal obligation to formulate this autonomous development legally in the way that was done in the establishment of the Reichspro- tectorate. By choosing the form of protectorate, the Führer took one of the many different legal possibilities available to him for the realization of the above-mentioned commitment. There is, therefore, a legal connection between the agreement and the decree of the protectorate, but not in the sense of a legal source and a concrete right-wing rule of conduct. The full political organizational power of the Czech people and the Czech nation has been transferred to the hands of the leader of the Germans by the act of Hacha. Therefore the choice of legal form arose from the free legal will of the leader. The forms of legal and political life of the Czech people are from then on rightly determined by the leader of the Germans on the condition that he guarantees the appropriate autonomous development of Czech folk life. We therefore see a decisive deviation from the usual protection relationship here before us. The form of the protectorate is neither contractually established nor national law required by the people. The leader chose it in his full freedom of measurement in order to initiate in this form the promised autono me development of the Czech people. The present form of protectorate does not have to be the immutable legal form of Czech folk life. Since it is based on the free sovereign will of the leader, it can also, if necessary, be amended by an act of the prince. UNAE AE -E