Conclusion
The Tribunal finds the Defendant Hess guilty on
Counts One and Two; and not guilty on Counts Three and Four.
VON RIBBENTROP
Von Ribbentrop is indicted under all four Counts.
He joined the Nazi Party in 1932. By 1933 he had been made Foreign
Policy Adviser to Hitler, and in the same year the representative of
the Nazi Party on foreign policy. In 1934 he was appointed Delegate
for Disarmament Questions, and in 1935 Minister Plenipotentiary at
Large, a capacity in which he negotiated the Anglo-German Naval
Agreement in 1935 and the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936. On 11 August
1936 he was appointed Ambassador to England. On 4 February 1938 he
succeeded Von Neurath as Reichsminister for Foreign Affairs as part
of the general reshuffle which accompanied the dismissal of Von
Fritsch and Von Blomberg.
Crimes against Peace
Von Ribbentrop was not present at the Hossbach
Conference held on 5 November 1937, but on 2 January 1938, while
still Ambassador to England, he sent a memorandum to Hitler
indicating his opinion that a change in the status quo in the
East in the German sense could only be carried out by force and
suggesting methods to prevent England and France from intervening in
a European war fought to bring about such a change. When Von
Ribbentrop became Foreign Minister Hitler told him that Germany still
had four problems to solve, Austria, Sudetenland, Memel, and Danzig,
and mentioned the possibility of "some sort of a show-down"
or "military settlement" for their solution.
On 12 February 1938 Von Ribbentrop attended the conference
between Hitler and Schuschnigg at which Hitler, by threats of
invasion, forced Schuschnigg to grant a series of concessions
designed to strengthen the Nazis in Austria, including the
appointment of Seyss-Inquart as Minister of Security and Interior,
with control over the police. Von Ribbentrop was in London when the
occupation of Austria was actually carried out and, on the basis of
information supplied him by Göring, informed the British
Government that Germany had not presented Austria with an ultimatum,
but had intervened in Austria only to prevent civil war. On 13 March
1938 Von Ribbentrop signed the law incorporating Austria into the
German Reich.
Von Ribbentrop participated in the aggressive plans against
Czechoslovakia. Beginning in March 1938, he was in close touch with
the Sudeten German Party and gave them instructions which had the
effect of keeping the Sudeten German question a live issue which