4 Jan. 46
And turning to Paragraph Number 5, the "Timetable
for the Operations":
"On 5 April as soon as sufficient
forces of the Air Forces are available and weather permitting, the Air
Forces should attack continuously by day and night the Yugoslav ground
organization and Belgrade."
The German attack on the Soviet Union I have little more to say about.
The documents showing the aggressive nature of the attack have been put
in by Mr. Alderman. I suppose it is quite possible that some members of
the General Staff and High Command group opposed Barbarossa as
unnecessary and unwise from a military standpoint. The Defendant Raeder
so indicated in a memorandum he wrote on 10 January 1944, Document C-66,
Exhibit Number GB-81. C-66 is the translation and the only document I
propose to read on this subject, from which a few extracts are of
interest. The quotation starts at the very outset of the Document C-66:
"At this time the Führer had
made known his 'unalterable decision' to conduct the Eastern campaign
in spite of all remonstrances. After that further warnings, if no new
situation had arisen, were found to be, according to previous
experiences, completely useless. As Chief of naval war staff I was
never convinced of the 'compelling necessity' for Barbarossa."
And passing to the third paragraph:
"The Führer very early had the
idea of one day settling accounts with Russia; doubtless his general
ideological attitude played an essential part in this. In 1937-38 he
once stated that he intended to eliminate the Russians as a Baltic
power; they would then have to be diverted in the direction of the
Persian Gulf. The advance of the Russians against Finland and the
Baltic States in 1939-1940 probably further strengthened him in this
idea."
And passing to the
very end of the document, Paragraph 7, Page 4:
"As no other course is possible, I
have submitted to compulsion. If thereby a difference of opinion
arises between 1 SKL and myself" — that, if I may
interpolate, is a division of the naval war staff having to do with
operations — "it is perhaps because the arguments the Führer
used on such occasions (dinner speech in the middle of July to the
officers in command) to justify a step he had planned usually had a
greater effect on People not belonging to the inner circle than on
those who often heard this type of reasoning.
"Many remarks and plans indicate that the Führer calculated
on the final ending of the Eastern campaign in the autumn