Afternoon Session (continued 2)
Reading edition
My Lord, presumably when he came over he was not attempting to be funny. One can only conclude from these reports that at that time the people in Germany and the German Government really had no kind of idea of what the conditions in England were like at all; but throughout it appears that this man thought England was ruled by Churchill and a small war-mongering gang. It only needed him to come over and make a peace proposal for Churchill to be turned out in the course of two or three days.
I go on, then, to the next document, My Lord. I am afraid that it is now half past five. I have only the other reports and one further document to refer the Tribunal to.
THE PRESIDENT: I think you had better go on. We will finish tonight.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I am sorry it has taken so long. I go on to the next interview of the 14th of May, which is Document Number M-118 and becomes Exhibit Number GB-271.
He started off that interview by making certain complaints about the treatment, asking for a number of things, including Three Men in a Boat, the book which perhaps is one of the few signs that any of these defendants have shown any kind of culture or normal feelings at all.
He described his flight to England, and then I quote from the third paragraph:
“He then passed to political questions. He said that, on reflection, he had omitted to explain that there were two further conditions attached to his peace proposals. First, Germany could not leave Iraq in the lurch. The Iraqis had fought for Germany and Germany would, therefore, have to require us to evacuate Iraq. I observed that this was going considerably beyond the original proposal that German interests should be confined to Europe, but he retorted that, taken as a whole, his proposals were more than fair. The second condition was that the peace agreement should contain a provision for the reciprocal indemnification of British and German nationals, whose property had been expropriated as the result of war.
“Herr Hess concluded by saying that he wished to impress on us that Germany must win the war by blockade. We had no conception of the number of submarines now building in Germany. Hitler always did things on a grand scale and devastating submarine war, supported by new types of aircraft, would very shortly succeed in establishing a completely effective blockade of England. It was fruitless for anyone here to imagine that England could capitulate and that the war could be waged from the Empire. It was Hitler’s intention, in such an eventuality, to continue the blockade of England, even though the island had capitulated, so that we would have to face the deliberate starvation of the population of these islands.”
I think I can leave then that interview. Nothing more was added and I turn to the next document, Document Number M-119, which becomes Exhibit Number GB-272 and which is the report of the interview of the 15th of May, the third and last interview with Mr. Kirkpatrick. I quote from the third paragraph and then there was some mention of Iraq at the beginning of the interview and then Mr. Kirkpatrick writes:
“I then threw a fly over him about Ireland. He said that in all his talks with Hitler, the subject of Ireland had never been mentioned except incidentally. Ireland had done nothing for Germany in this war and it was therefore to be supposed that Hitler would not concern himself in Anglo-Irish relations. We had some little conversation about the difficulty of reconciling the wishes of the South and North and from this we pass to American interest in Ireland, and so to America.
“On the subject of America, Hess took the following line.
“1. The Germans reckoned with American intervention and were not afraid of it. They knew all about American aircraft production and the quality of the aircraft. Germany could outbuild England and America combined.
“2. Germany had no designs on America. The so-called German peril was a ludicrous figment of imagination. Hitler’s interests were European.
“3. If we made peace now, America would be furious. America really wanted to inhabit the British Empire.
“Hess concluded by saying that Hitler really wanted a permanent understanding with us on a basis which preserved the Empire intact. His own flight was intended to give us a chance of opening conversations without loss of prestige. If we reject this chance, it would be clear proof that we desired no understanding with Germany and Hitler would be entitled—in fact it would be his duty—to destroy us utterly and to keep us after the war in a state of permanent subjection.”
My Lord, those reports show the substance and indeed the whole substance of the visit. His humanitarian reasons for coming, which sounded so well on the 10th or between the 10th and 15th of May, took on quite a different light when barely a little more than a month later Germany attacked the Soviet Union.
One cannot help remembering an exact parallel between this business and that which took place before Germany attacked Poland, when every effort was made to keep England out of the war and so let her fight her battle on one front only. Here the same thing appears to be happening; and what is more, we have it from himself in the course of those interviews that, at that time, Germany had no intentions of attacking Russia immediately at all. But that must be untrue, because it will be remembered and the evidence is set out in the trial brief, that so far back as November 1940 plans were being made, initial plans, for the invasion of Russia.
On the 18th of December 1940 a directive ordered preparations to be completed by the 15th of May 1941. On the 3rd of April 1941 orders were given delaying the “Case Barbarossa” for 5 weeks; and on the 30th of April 1941, 10 days before he arrived in England, D-Day was actually fixed for the invasion of Russia for the 22d of June.
Well now, in my submission, nobody who held the position that this defendant did at that time—in charge of the foreign organization, Deputy to the Führer, having been made designate successor Number 2 only a year ago—never in that position could he have been kept in ignorance of those preparations and of those plans.
My Lord, my submission, therefore, is that the only reason he came to England was not humanitarian at all, but purely, as I say, to allow Germany to fight her battle against Russia on one front only.
There is—and I hesitate to refer the Tribunal to any other document—but there is one document, which is a document of extreme interest from many points of view and has only just come to light. I did ask that it should be put in at the back of the Tribunal’s document book; but if it has not been, I have some spare copies which perhaps the clerk may now hand out.
It is Document Number 1866-PS, which becomes Exhibit Number GB-273, and it is an account of conversations between Ribbentrop and Mussolini and Ciano on the 13th of May 1941, signed by Schmidt.
It carries the question very little further, but of course the question has existed, and still does exist—the question, of course, as to whether or not the flight to England was undertaken with the knowledge and approval of Hitler, or any other members of the Government, or on his own initiative and in complete secrecy. He himself has always maintained that he did it secretly. On the other hand, it is difficult to see how he could have been planning it and practicing it for months before and having tried three times before, without anybody knowing.
This account of the conversations with the Italians casts little further light on it; but it does show anyway what Ribbentrop is saying to the Italians, their allies, three days later. I would ask the Tribunal to look at and read the first page of this document, and the paragraph of the next page:
“To begin with, the Reich Foreign Minister conveyed the Führer’s greetings to the Duce.
“He would shortly propose to the Duce a date for the planned meeting, which he would like to take place as soon as possible. As the place for the meeting he would probably prefer the Brenner. At the present moment he was, as the Duce could well understand, still busy with the Hess affair and with a few military matters.
“The Duce replied that he would agree with all the Führer’s proposals. . . .”—and so on.
“The Reich Foreign Minister then said that the Führer had sent him to the Duce in order to inform him about the Hess affair and the conversations with Admiral Darlan. With regard to Hess’s affair he remarked that the Führer and his staff had been completely taken aback by Hess’s action and that it had been the deed of a lunatic.
“Hess had been suffering for a long time from bilious attacks and had fallen into the hands of magnetists and nature-cure doctors who caused his state of health to become worse.
“All these matters were being investigated at the moment, as well as the responsibility of the aides-de-camp who had known about Hess’s forbidden flights. Hess had for weeks carried out secret practice flights in an ME-110. Naturally he had acted only from idealistic motives. Disloyalty towards the Führer was utterly out of the question. His conduct had to be explained by a kind of abstractness and a state of mind caused by his illness.”
And it goes on, and the gist of it really is that Ribbentrop is emphasizing again that it was done without the authority of Hitler or without the knowledge of anybody else in Germany. I say he does not carry. . . .
THE PRESIDENT: Can’t you read the beginning of the next paragraph?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: “Being sympathetically inclined towards England, he had conceived the crazy idea of using Great Britain’s fascist circles to persuade the British to give in. He had explained all this in a long and confused letter to the Führer. When this letter reached the Führer, Hess was already in England. It was hoped in Germany that he would perhaps meet with an accident on the way, but he was now really in England and had tried to contact the former Marquis of Clydesdale, the present Duke of Hamilton. Hess quite wrongly considered him as a great friend of Germany and had flown to the neighborhood of his castle in Scotland.”
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: That is what Ribbentrop is saying to Mussolini. Ribbentrop, we know, is a liar, and indeed what he said later on in an interview proves it, and I would refer to Page 5—or rather to the bottom of Page 4—if the Tribunal would bear with me while I read that, because it would have been put in previously during this trial had this document been known of. And as I am putting it in now, perhaps I might be allowed to read this one paragraph which really concerns the Defendant Ribbentrop.
“The Duce returned to his remark concerning the united front of Europe against England and the two countries, Spain and Russia, that were absent from it, with the remark that to him it seemed that it would be advantageous if a policy of collaboration with Russia could be carried out. He asked the Reich Foreign Minister whether Germany excluded such a possibility, that is, collaboration with Russia. The Reich Foreign Minister replied that Germany had treaties with Russia and that the relations between the two countries were, by the way, correct. He personally did not believe that Stalin would undertake anything against Germany, but should he do so, or should he follow a policy that was intolerable to Germany, then he would be destroyed within three months. The Duce agreed to this. The Führer would certainly not look for any quarrel, but he had nevertheless taken precautions”—this is again, I think, Ribbentrop speaking—“The Führer would certainly not look for any quarrel, but he had nevertheless taken precautions for all eventualities. He had in no way come to any decision, but as a result of certain occurrences and want of clearness on the Russian side, he had become suspicious. Thus for example, the Russians had strengthened their forces along their western frontier, which of course, caused Germany to reinforce her troops too, but only after the Russians started it.”
It really must have been a remarkable position in the German Government if undoubtedly the Führer and the foreign secretary knew on the 13th of May 1941 that Germany was going to attack Russia a month later.
My Lord, that is the evidence which I have to present to the Tribunal on this matter. I regret that this should have taken so long. I am grateful to Your Honors for your patience.