Evening star., 1940-04-30
Ribbentrop's AIibi

~'NsOP 0SIDi
What was left of Herr Won Rib
bentrop's f1imsy alibi for Germany's
invasion of Norway, after its dis
avoWal by the British and the French
and its rejection by most neutral
observers, has been demolished by
c. j. Hambro, President of the Nor
wegian Parliament and chairman of
the Norwegian Foreign Affairs Com
mlttee. Stationed in Sweden since
outbreak of war on the Scandinavian
peninsula, Mr.. Hambro, who enjoys
worldwide respect as statesman of
Integrity and reputability, takes Ger
manys clumsy white Book" apart
In chapter-and-verse detail and ex-
poses it as sheer duplicity from start
TO finish. Far from accepting the
German claim that the Nazis antici-
pated the British "only by hours"
IN invading Norway, the President
OF the Oslo Parliament declares that
Hitler planned the violation of the
country for months, and that the
Norwegian Legation in Berlin had
proof that German troops sailed
from Baltic ports week before the
invasion began on April g."
I'VE now have irrefutable proof"
says Mr.. Hambro at Stockholm. that
Germany prepared detailed plans for
invasion OF Norway months before it
actually occurred. We would have
been In far better position today if
the British really had troops ready
to land when Herr Won Ribbentrop
says they had, and even more so If
the allied intelligence service, which
knew of the German preparations,
had warned us previously" The Nor
Weglan statesman is reluctant to
admit that his country's diplomatic
representatives in Berlin had news
or Nazl debarkation parties sailing
from German ports week before
the attacks on Norway started.
Members of the Legation now ex-
plain that while they knew for some
weeks that Hitler's troops were be-
ing concentrated at various German
ports, they did not believe, on any
information given the Legation, that
these forces were intended for an
attack on Norway. Why should the
Legation have harbored any such
suspicious? At the very moment the
Nazis were completing their plans for
invasion, they were assuring the
Norwegian government through the
Reich's Minister at Oslo of Ger
many's sympathy for Norway and of
Berlin's eagerness to help her re-
main neutral The history of state
craft, even at the zenith Of Machi-
avellianism, records few examples of
more malevolent diplomacy, though
the blitzkrieg invasion and subjuga-
ton of Denmark, on which Ribben-
trop's White Book is silent as the
tomb, is just as wanton
Mr.. Hambro cites, as not the least
damning evidence of Germany's
guilt, that Norway possesses "a mass
of evidence" from Norwegian pilot
masters and other shipping sources
that Nazi vessels, which later dis
gorged soldiers from their holds as
landing parties at principal Nor
Wegian ports, had left German har-
bors more than a week before April
9. Cases are known where German
troops, fully armed and equipped,
issued from ships which had been
lying in Norwegian ports four or five
days previous to the invasion. One
typical instance is the eleven thou
sand-ton whaler Jan Wellem which
brought the major Nazi landing
force and arms to Narvik 1t entered
Norwegian territorial waters on April
8 after voyage which required a
minimum of week from the Ger
man point of departure.
The Hambro statement contains
much more circumstantial proof of
oAAC AolSAVy VI VIC
tention that the allies planned
to invade Norway as a northern
f1anking movement against Ger
many. Despite the theatrical back
ground staged for it's presentation,
the reproduction of allegedly incrim-
mating documents found on British
officers and troops and other typical
Nazi methods for adding "corrobora-
tive detail to an otherwise bald and
unconvincing narrative" as the
librettist of a far cleverer piece of
claptrap and balderdash once put it,
the German White Book takes its
place in the history of this war as
the latest, but hardly the last, at
tempt of the Nazis to clothe their
action in the garb of decency and
plausibility. 1t has failed like all the
others that came before.