10 Dec. 45

I have just been dealing be considered a part of the record to the extent that it involves these individuals.

THE PRESIDENT: I think you can treat it as all being in evidence.

MR. ALDERMAN: At a later stage in the Trial and in other connections, evidence will be introduced concerning the manner in which all of this planning and preparation for the elimination of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a political factor was actually carried out. The planned execution of intelligentsia and other Russian leaders was, for example, but a part of the actual operation of the program to destroy the Soviet Union politically and make impossible its early resurrection as a European power.

Having thus elaborately prepared on every side for the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Nazi conspirators proceeded to carry out their plans; and on 22 June 1941 hurled their armies across the borders of the U.S.S.R. In announcing this act of perfidy to the world Hitler issued a proclamation on the day of the attack. The text of this statement has already been brought to the Tribunal's attention by my British colleagues, and I should like merely to refer to it in passing here by quoting therefrom this one sentence, "I have therefore today decided to give the fate of Europe again into the hands of our soldiers."

This announcement told the world that the die had been cast — the plans darkly conceived almost a full year before and secretly and continuously developed since then, had now been brought to fruition. These conspirators, having carefully and completely planned and prepared this war of aggression, now proceeded to initiate and wage it.

That brings us to the consideration of the motives for the attack. Before going into the positive reasons I should like first to point out that not only was Germany bound by a solemn covenant not to attack the U.S.S.R., but throughout the entire period from August 1939 to the invasion in 1941 the Soviet Union was faithful to its agreements with Germany and displayed no aggressive intentions toward territories of the German Reich. General Thomas, for example, points out in his draft of "Basic Facts for a History of the German War and Armaments Economy," which is our Document Number 2353-PS and which I put in evidence earlier as Exhibit USA-35, that insofar as the German-Soviet Trade Agreement of 11 August 1939 was concerned, the Soviets carried out their deliveries thereunder up to the very end.

Thomas points out that deliveries by the Soviets were usually made quickly and well; and since the food and raw materials being thus delivered were considered essential to the German economy,