English Translation

- 2 - both princes offered us, instead of the planned expropriation, the sale of the entire Coburg property. Of course, it was much easier for the Land Office to take over the entire property by way of a hands-free agreement than by means of an expropriations under public law. I On the condition that it is completely incomprehensible that the two Coburg princes should have offered the release of the great CtUoN allod values, which were not at all subject to the soil reform, on their own initiative to the Land Office for the release, I declare: I do not know the motives that led to the offer. I remember so much that I probably advised the prince to agree, otherwise I would have to carry out the long and extremely detrimental public expropriation procedure to the interests of the princes. When asked whether any illegal pressure had been exerted on the two princes from any side to induce them to leave the property, I declare that I do not know of any pressure whatsoever. After reading to me the testimony of the lawyer Dr. Kyyovs-ki, Brno, before the District Court of Vienna IX, C g l/33, which actually proves this monstrous pressure to the princes themselves and to their representatives by the President Vozenilek, I declare: I do not know these facts. I did not attend this negotiation with President Vozenilek, nor did he tell me anything about it. In my capacity as section chief of the State Land Office, I would not have resorted to, nor resorted, to, such a means of pressure, nor would I have approved of, as I do not regard these processes, if they were to have happened, even today and do not approve of them. On condition that it is strange that the two princes not only offered to buy the basic property which is subject to the land reform, but also the other extensive freely inherited allodic assets, and that the contract of 24 March 1938 did not provide any specification of these assets which were sold together.