7 Dec.
45
Now I pass to a document which is specifically pleaded
at Paragraph XXVI as the assurance breached; it is the next document in
the bundle, TC-43 — German assurance to Yugoslavia of the 6th of
October 1939. It is part of the document which has already been put in
as Exhibit GB-80. This is an extract from the Dokumente der
Deutschen Politik:
"Immediately after the completion of
the Anschluss I informed Yugoslavia that from now on the frontier with
this country would also be an unalterable one and that we only desire
to live in peace and friendship with her."
Despite the obligation of Germany under the Convention of 1899 and the
Kellogg-Briand Pact and under the assurances which I have read, the fate
of both Greece and Yugoslavia had, as we now know, been sealed ever
since the meeting between Hitler and the Defendant Ribbentrop and Ciano
at Obersalzberg, on the 12th and 13th of August 1939.
We will pass to the next document in the bundle, which is TC-77. That
document has already been put in as GB-48; and the passages to which I
would draw Your Lordship's attention already have been quoted, I think,
by my learned friend, the Attorney General. Those passages are on Page 2
in the last paragraph from "Generally speaking . . ." until ".
. . neutral of this kind," and then again on Pages 7 and 8, the
part quoted by the Attorney General and emphasized particularly by
Colonel Griffith-Jones at the foot of Page 7 on the second day of the
meeting, the words beginning "In general, however, success by one
of the Axis partners . . ." to ". . . Italy and Germany would
have their backs free for work against the West."
Both of those passages have been quoted before; and if I might sum up
the effect of the meeting as revealed by the document as a whole, it
shows Hitler and the Defendant Ribbentrop, only 2 months after the
dinner to the Prince Regent, seeking to persuade the Italians to make
war on Yugoslavia at the same time that Germany commences hostilities
against Poland, as Hitler had decided to do in the very near future.
Ciano, while evidently in entire agreement with Hitler and Ribbentrop as
to the desirability of liquidating Yugoslavia and himself anxious to
secure Salonika, stated that Italy was not yet ready for a general
European war.
Despite all the persuasion which Hitler and the Defendant Ribbentrop
exerted at the meeting, it became necessary for the Nazi conspirators to
reassure their intended victim, Yugoslavia, since in fact Italy
maintained her position and did not enter the war when the Germans
invaded Poland, while the Germans themselves were not yet ready to
strike in the Balkans. It was just for this reason that on the 6th of
October through Hitler's speech they