6
Dec. 45
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) Weserübung,"
the Tribunal will find from documents which I
shall shortly be submitting to the Court that
Weserübung 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, 1 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 Führer, 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
of 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 Führer 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.
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?