6
Dec. 45
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.
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 1 and 2.
"The
Chancellor of the German Reich and His
Majesty, the 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, the
King 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 be
taken 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 which the Defendant Ribbentrop put
his signature.
With regard to Norway,
the Defendant Ribbentrop and the Nazi
conspirators were party to a similar perfidy. 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