6
Dec. 45
Again
on the next page, which is headed Number
C-120(1), I am afraid this is a précis
only, not a full translation and therefore,
perhaps, I will not read it. But it is the
annex, showing the "Directives for the War
against the Enemy Economy and Measures of
Protection for Our Own Economy."
As
we will see later, not only were the military
preparations being carried out throughout these
months and weeks, but economic and every other
kind of preparation was being made for war at
the earliest moment.
I think this
period of preparation, translated up to May
1939, finishes really with that famous meeting
or conference in the Reich Chancellery on the
23rd of May about which the Tribunal has already
heard. It was L-79 and is now Exhibit USA-27;
and it was referred to, I think, and has been
known as the "Schmundt minutes." It is
the last document which is in the Tribunal's
document book of this part and I do not propose
to read anything of it. It has been read already
and the Tribunal will remember that it was the
speech in which Hitler was crying out for
Lebensraum and said that Danzig was not the
dispute at all. It was a question of expanding
their living space in the East, where he said
that the decision had been taken to attack
Poland.
THE PRESIDENT: Would you
remind me of the date of it?
LT. COL.
GRIFFITH-JONES: The 23rd of May 1939. Your
.Lordship will remember that Göring,
Raeder, and Keitel, among many others, were
present. It has three particular lines of which
I want to remind the Tribunal, where he said:
"If
there were an alliance of France,
England, and Russia against Germany,
Italy, and Japan, I would be constrained
to attack England and France with a few
annihilating blows. The Führer
doubts the possibility of a peaceful
settlement with England."
So
that, not only has the decision been taken
definitely to attack Poland, but almost equally
definitely to attack England and France, also.
I pass to the next period, which I
have described as the final preparations taken
from June up to the beginning of the war, at the
beginning of September — Part V of the
Tribunal's document book. If the Tribunal will
glance at the index to the document book, they
will find I have, for convenience, divided the
evidence up under four subheadings:
Final
preparations of the Armed Forces; economic
preparation; the famous Obersalzberg speeches;
and the political or diplomatic preparations
urging on the crisis and the justification for
the invasion of Poland.