10 Dec.
45
The report of that conference, our Document 1834-PS,
has already been offered in connection with the presentation of the case
on aggression against the Soviet Union as Exhibit USA-129. A part of it
has already been read into the record and I now intend to read other
portions. I shall again come back to this document when dealing with the
German-Japanese collaboration as regards the United States.
As can be seen on the cover page of the English translation, Ribbentrop
on 2 March sent copies of an extract of the record of this conference to
his various ambassadors and ministers for their strictly confidential
and purely personal information with the further note that — and I
quote:
"These statements are of fundamental
significance for orientation in the general political situation facing
Germany in early spring 1941."
1 shall now quote from the top of Page 2 of the English translation of
1834-PS, to the end of the first paragraph on that page, and then skip
to the last three sentences of the second paragraph:
"Extract from the report of the
conference of the Reich Foreign Minister with Ambassador Oshima in
Fuschl on 13 February 1941.
"After particularly cordial mutual greetings the RAM (Reich
Foreign Minister) declared that Ambassador Oshima had been proved
right in the policy he had pursued regarding Germany in the face of
the many doubters in Japan. By Germany's victory in the West these
policies had been fully vindicated. He (the RAM)" — that is
Ribbentrop — " regretted that the alliance between Germany
and Japan, for which he had been working with the ambassador for many
years already, had come into being only after various detours; but
public opinion in Japan had not been ripe for it earlier. The main
thing was, however, that they are together now."
Then,
skipping:
"Now that the German-Japanese
alliance has been concluded, Ambassador Oshima is the man who gets
credit for it from the Japanese side. After conclusion of the alliance
the question of its further development now stands in the foreground.
How is the situation in this respect?"
Ribbentrop, thereafter in the conference, proceeded to shape the
argument for Japanese intervention against the British. First outlining
the intended air and U-boat warfare by Germany against England, he said
— and I now quote the last two sentences in Paragraph 4, on Page 2,
of the English translation:
"Thereby England's situation would
take catastrophic shape over-night. The landing in England is
prepared; its execution,