dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
LT. CON. GRIFFITH-JONES: I quote from the third paragraph: "Although this communication was made more than 24 hours ago, no reply has been received but German attacks upon Poland have been continued and intensified. I have accordingly the honor to inform you that, unless not later than11 o'clock British summer time today, the 3rd of September, satisfactory assurances to the above effect have been given by the German Government and have reached His Majesty's Government in London, a state of war will exist between the two countries as from that hour." And so it was that at 11 o'clock on the 3rd of September a state of war existed between Germany end England and between Germany and France. All the appeals to peace, all the appeals to reason we now see completely stillborn; stillborn when they were made. Plans, preparations, intentions, determination to carry out this assault upon Poland, had been going on for months, for years before. It mattered not what anybody but the German Government had in mind or whatever rights anybody else but the German nation thought they had; and, if there is any doubt left at all after what we have seen, I would ask you to look at two more documents. If you would look at the last document first of all, in your document book--1831-PS, which becomes GB-75. Even now on the3rd of September, Mussolini offers some chance of peace. We have here a telegram. It is timed 6:30 hours, and I am afraid I am unable to say whether that is 6:30 in the morning or evening; but it is dated the 3rd of September, and I quote: "The Italian Ambassador handed to the State Secretary at the Duce's order the following copy for the Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor and for the Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs: " 'Italy sends the information, leaving, of course, every decision to the Fuehrer, that it still has a chance to call a conference with France, England, and Poland on the following basis: " '1.
LT. CON. GRIFFITH-JONES: An armistice which would leave the army corps where they are at present"'--and it will be remembered that on the3rd of September they had advanced a considerable way over the frontier--" '2. calling a conference within 2 or 3 days; 3. solution of the Polish-German controversy would be certainly favorable for Germany as matters stand today. " 'This idea, which originated from the Duce, has its foremost exponent in France. " 'Danzig is already German and Germany is holding already securities which guarantee most of her demands. Besides, Germany has had already her "moral satisfaction." If she would accept the plan for a conference, it will achieve all her aims and at the same time prevent a war which already today has the aspect of being universal and of extremely long duration."' But, My Lord, perhaps even Mussolini did not appreciate what all Germany's aims were; and, of course, the offer was turned down in the illuminating letter which Hitler was to write in reply. I refer you back to the document before that. It is still part of the same Exhibit GB-75.
THE PRESIDENT: As I understand it, the "GB" references you give are not on the documents at all; they are the exhibit numbers themselves, which are to be put on the document after they have been put in.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Yes. That is correct. They will, be put in by the Court, of course.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you try to make clear the references which are on the document so that the Tribunal could find the document itself?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Yes. The last document was 1831-PS, and it is the very last one in the document book. That is the one I have just referred to--the telegram from Mussolini. The document to which I am about to refer is the one but last in the Tribunal's book but it has the same number on it as the last because it forms part of the same exhibit.
THE PRESIDENT: I think if you would just explain the system in which the exhibits are numbered, it would help us.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: The exhibits are numbered at the present moment before they are put in evidence with a variety of serial numbers, such as "PS", "TC", "L" and other letters. There is no significance attached to that at all. It depends on whom they have been found by and what files they have come from. When the documents are put in as exhibits, they are marked by the Court with a court number. The documents put in by the United States representatives were all prefixed with the letters "USA." The documents which have been put in by the British prosecutors have all been prefixed with the letters "GB." If it would be of any assistance to members of the Tribunal, I will have their document books marked up this evening with the new court numbers that have been put upon them by the Court officials, during the course of the day.
THE PRESIDENT: We will talk about that later.
LT. COL GRIFFITH-JONES: If there is any document missing from any of these books, I have a copy.
THE PRESIDENT: You are going to read 1831-PS?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Yes, that is GB-75. 6 Dec.45 "Duce: "I first want to thank you for your last attempt at a mediation:  I would have been. ready to accept, but only under condition that there would be a possibility to give me certain guarantees that the conference would be successful. Because for the last 2 days the German troops are engaged in an extraordinarily rapid advance in Poland, it would have been impossible to devaluate the bloody sacrifices made thereby by diplomatic intrigues. Nevertheless, I believe that a way could have been found if England would not have been determined to wage war under all circumstances. I have not given in to the English because, Duce, I do not believe that peace could have been maintained for more than one-half a year or a year. Under these circumstances I thought that, in spite of everything, the present moment was better for resistance. At present the superiority of the German Armed Forces in Poland is so overwhelming in all the fields that the Polish Army will collapse in a very short time. I doubt whether this fast success could have been achieved in 1 or 2 years. England and France would have armed their allies to such an extent that the crushing technical superiority of the German Armed Forces could not have become so apparent any more. I am aware, Duce, that the fight which I enter is one for life and death. My own fate does not play any role in it at all. But I am also aware that one cannot avoid such a struggle permanently and that one has to choose, after cold deliberation, the moment for resistance in such away that the probability of success is guaranteed; and I believe in this success, Duce, with the firmness of a rock. Recently you have given me the kind assurance that you think you will be able to help me in a few fields. I acknowledge this in advance, with sincere thanks. But I believe also--even if we march now over different roads--that fate will finally join us. If the National Socialistic Germany were destroyed by the Western Democracies, the Fascist Italy would also have to face a grave future.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I was personally always aware of this community of the future of our two governments and I know that you, Duce, think the same way. To the situation in Poland, I would like to make the brief remark that we lay aside, of course, all unimportant things, that we do not waste any man on unimportant tasks' but direct all on acts in the light of great operational considerations. The northern Polish Army, which is in the Corridor, has already been completely encircled by our action. It will be either wiped out or will surrender. Otherwise, all operations proceed according to plan. The daily achievements of the troops are far beyond all expectations. The superiority of our Air Force is complete, although scarcely one-third of it is in Poland. To the West, I will be on the defensive. France can here sacrifice its blood first.Then the moment will come when we can confront the enemy. also there with the Cull power of the nation. Accept my; thanks, Duce, for all your assistance which you have given to me in the past; and I ask you not to deny it to me in the future." That completes the evidence which I propose to offer upon this part of the case in respect of the war of aggression against Poland, England, and France, which is charged in Count Two.
MAJOR F. ELWYN JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): May it please the Tribunal, in the early hours of the morning of the 9th of April 1940 Nazi Germany invaded Norway and Denmark. It is my duty to present to. the Tribunal the Prosecution's evidence which has been prepared in collaboration with my American colleague, Major Finely, with regard to these brutal wars of aggression, which were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements, and assurances. With the Court's permission I would like, first of all, to deal with the treaties and agreements and assurances that were in fact violated by. these two invasions of Norway and Denmark. The invasions were, of course, in the first instance violations of the Hague Convention and of the Kellogg-Briand Pact . My learned friend, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, has already dealt with those matters in the course of his presentation of the evidence. In addition to these general treaties, there were specific agreements between Germany and Norway and Denmark. In the first instance there was the Treaty of Arbitration and Conciliation between Germany and Denmark, which was signed at Berlin on 2 June 1926.The Court will find that treaty, TC-17, on the first page of British Document Book Number 3; and to that exhibit it may be convenient to give the Number GB-76. I am proposing to read only the first article of that treaty, which is in these terms: "The contracting parties undertake to submit to the procedure of arbitration or conciliation, in conformity with the present treaty, all disputes of any nature whatsoever which may arise between Germany and Denmark, and which it has not been possible to settle within a reasonable period by diplomacy or to bring with the consent of both parties, before the Permanent Court of International Justice. "Disputes for the solution of which a special procedure has been laid down in other conventions in force between the 261 contracting parties shall be settled in accordance with the provisions of such conventions." Then there follows in the remaining articles the establishment of the machinery for arbitration.
MAJOR F. ELWYN JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): I would next refer to the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and Denmark, which was signed by the Defendant Ribbentrop on the 31st of May 1939 which, as the Tribunal will recollect, was 10 weeks after the Nazi seizure of Czechoslovakia. The Court will find that as Document TC-24 in the document book and it will now bear the Exhibit Number GB-77. With the Court's permission, in view of the identity of the signatory of that treaty, I would like to read the Preamble and Articles 1and 2. "The Chancellor of the German Reich and His Majesty, King of Denmark and Iceland, being firmly resolved to maintain peace between Denmark and Germany in all circumstances, have agreed to confirm this resolve by means of a treaty and have appointed as their Plenipotentiaries: The Chancellor of the German Reich . . . and His Majesty, theTog of Denmark and Iceland ...." Article 1 reads as follows: "The German Reich and the Kingdom of Denmark shall in no case resort to war or to any other use of force, one against the other. "Should action of the kind referred to in Paragraph 1 betaken by a third power against one of the contracting parties, the other contracting party shall not support such action in any way." Then Article 2 deals with the ratification of the treaty, and the second paragraph states: "The treaty shall come into force on the exchange of the instruments of ratification and shall remain in force for a period of 10 years from that date .... " As the Tribunal will observe, the treaty is dated the 31st of May 1939. At the bottom of the page there appears the signature of the Defendant Ribbentrop. The Tribunal will shortly see that less than a year after the signature of this treaty the invasion of Denmark by the Nazi forces was to show the utter worthlessness of treaties to white the Defendant Ribbentrop put his signature. With regard to Norway, the Defendant Ribbentrop and the Nazi conspirators were party to a similar perfidy.
MAJOR F. ELWYN JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): In the first instance I would refer to Document TC-30, which is the next document in the British Document Book 3 and which will bear the Exhibit Number GB-78. The Tribunal will observe that that is an assurance given to Denmark, Norway, Belgium, and the Netherlands on the 28th of April 1939. That, of course, was after the annexation of Czechoslovakia had shaken the confidence of the world; and this was presumably an attempt, now submitted by the Prosecution to be a dishonest attempt, to try to reassure the Scandinavian States. The assurance is in a speech by Hitler and reads: ". . . I have given binding declarations to a large number of states. None of these states can complain that even a trace of a demand contrary thereto has ever been made to them by Germany. None of the Scandinavian statesmen, for example, can contend that a request has ever been put to them by the German Government or by German public opinion which was incompatible with the sovereignty and integrity of their state. "I was pleased that a number of European states availed themselves of these declarations by the German Government to express and emphasize their desire too for absolute neutrality. This applies to the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, et cetera. " A further assurance was given by the Nazi Government on the 2d of September 1939 which, as the Tribunal will recollect, was the day after the Nazi invasion of Poland. The Court will observe the next document in British Document Book 3 is the Document TC-31,which will be Exhibit GB-79. That is an aide-memoire that was handed to the Norwegian Foreign Minister by the German Minister in Oslo on the 2d of September 1939. It reads: "The German Reich Government are determined, in view of the friendly relations which exist between Norway and Germany, under no circumstances to prejudice the inviolability and integrity of Norway and to respect the territory of the Norwegian State.
MAJOR F. ELWYN JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): In making this declaration, the Reich Government naturally expect on their side that Norway will observe an unimpeachable neutrality towards the Reich and will not tolerate any breaches of Norwegian neutrality by any third party. Should the attitude of the Royal Norwegian Government differ from this so that any such breach of neutrality by a third party occurs, the Reich Government would then obviously be compelled to safeguard the interest of the Reich in such a way as the resulting situation might dictate." There follows, finally, the further German assurance to Norway, which appears as the next document in the book, TC-32, which will be Exhibit GB-80. That is a speech by Hitler on the 6th of October1939; and if the Court win observe Paragraph 2 at the top of the page, the extract from the speech reads as follows: "Germany has never had any conflicts of interest or even points of controversy with the Northern States; neither has she any today. Sweden and Norway have both bee in offered. non-aggression pacts by Germany and have both refused them solely because they did not feel themselves threatened in any way." Those are clear and positive assurances which Germany gave. The Court will see that violation of those assurances is charged in paragraph XXII of Appendix C of the Indictment at Page 43 . The Court will notice that there is a minor typographical error in The date of the first assurance which is alleged in the Indictment to have been given on the 3rd of September 1939. The Court will see from Document TC-31, which is Exhibit GB-79, that the assurance was in fact given on the 2d of September 1939. Now those treaties and.
MAJOR F. ELWYN JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): assurances were the diplomatic background too the brutal Nazi aggression on Norway and Denmark, and the evidence which the Prosecution winnow place before the Court will in any submission establish beyond reasonable doubt that these assurances were simply given to lull suspicion and cause the intended victims of Nazi aggression to be unprepared to meet the Nazi attack.: for we now know that as early as October 1939 these conspirators and their confederates were plotting the invasion of Norway, and the evidence will indicate that the most active conspirators in that plot were the Defendants Raeder and Rosenberg. The Norwegian invasion is, in one respect, not a typical Nazi aggression in that Hitler had to be persuaded to embark upon it, The chief instruments of persuasion were Raeder and Rosenberg. Raeder because he thought Norway strategically important and because he coveted glory for his Navy, Rosenberg because of his political connections in Norway which he sought to develop. As the Tribunal will shortly see, in the Norwegian Vidkun Quisling the Defendant Rosenberg found a very model of the Fifth column agent, the very personification of perfidy. The evidence as to the early stages of the Nazi conspiracy to invade Norway is found in a letter which the Defendant Raeder wrote on the 10th of January 1944 to Admiral Assmann, the official German naval historian. I put in this letter, the document C-66, which will be Exhibit GB-81, and which the Court will find further on in this book of documents. I should explain that in this book of documents the document s are inserted in the numerical order of the series to which they belong and not in the order of their submission to the court. I am trusting that that Will be a more convenient form of bundling them together than to set them down in the order of presentation.
THE PRESIDENT: 66?
MAJOR JONES: C-66. It is headed, 'memorandum to Admiral Assmann; for his own information; not to be used for publication." The Court will observe that the first page deals with Barbarossa; If the Tribunal turns to the next page headed."(b) Weserubung,"the Tribunal will find from documents which I shall shortly be submitting to the Court that Weserubung was the code name for the invasion of Norway and Denmark. I will omit the first sentence. The document which, as I have said, is a communication from the Defendant Raeder to Assmann reads as follows: "During the weeks preceding the report on the 10th of October 1939, I was in correspondence with Admiral Carls, who, in a detailed letter to me, first pointed out the Importance of an occupation of the Norwegian coast by Germany. I passed this letter on to C/SKL"--which is the Chief of Staff of the Naval War Staff--"for their information and prepared some notes based on this letter . . . for my report to the Fuehrer; which I made on the 10th of October 1939, since my opinion was absolutely identical with that of Admiral Carls, while at that time SKL was more dubious about the matter. In these notes I stressed the disadvantages which an occupation of Norway by the British would have for us: Control of the approaches to the Baltic, outflanking of our naval operations and our air attacks on Britain, pressure on Sweden. I also stressed the advantages for us of the occupation of the Norwegian coast: Outlet to the North Atlantic, no possibility of a British mine barrier, as in the years 1917-18. Naturally, at the time,. only the coast and bases were considered; I included Narvik, though admiral Carls, in the course of our correspondence, thought that Narvik could be excluded .... The Fuehrer saw at once the significance of the Norwegian problem, he asked me to leave the notes and stated that he wished to consider the question himself." I will pause in the reading of that document at that point and return to it later so that the story may be revealed to the Court in a chronological order.
MAJOR JONES: That report of Raeder, in my submission, shows that the whole evolution of this Nazi campaign against Norway affords a good example of the participation of the German High Command in the Nazi conspiracy to attack inoffensive neighbors: This letter, an extract from which I have just read, has revealed that Raeder reported to Hitler on the 10th of October 1939 . . .
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr.Biddle): When was that report?
MAJ0R JONES: The report, C-66, was made in January 1944 by the Defendant Raeder to Assmann, who was the German naval historian, and so, presumably, was for the purposes of history. Before Raeder's report of 10 October 1939 was made to the Fuehrer, Raeder got a second opinion on the Norwegian invasion. On the 3rd of October Raeder made out the questionnaire to which I now invite the Court's attention. It is Document C-122 and The Court will find it next but one to C-66 in the document book. That will now be Exhibit GB-82. That, as the Tribunal will observe, is headed "Gaining of Bases in Norway (extract from War Diary)" and bears the date of the 3rd of October 1939. It reads: "The Chief of the Naval Operations Staff"--who was the Defendant Raeder--"considers it necessary that the Fuehrer be informed as soon as possible of the opinions of the Naval Operations Staff on the possibilities of extending the operational base to the north. It must be ascertained whether it is possible to gain bases in Norway under the combined pressure of Russia and Germany, with the basic aim of improving our strategic and operational position. The following questions must be given consideration: "(a) What places in Norway can be considered as bases? "(b) Can bases be gained by military force against Norway's will if it is impossible to carry this out without fighting? "(c) What are the possibilities of defense after the occupation? "(d) Will the harbors have to be developed completely as bases or have they already decisive advantages suitable for supply position?" Then there follows in parenthesis: 'The Commander of the U-boat Fleet"--which is a reference, of course, to the Defendant Doenitz". . . considers such harbors already extremely useful as equipment and supply bases at which Atlantic U-boats can call temporarily." And then Question (e): "What decisive advantages would exist for the conduct of the war at sea in gaining bases in north Denmark, e.g.