forts are directed toward ability for total resistance and thereby make war still more pitiless than the one about which judgment is to be rendered here.

In reference to these basic thoughts I beg to present to the Tribunal the case which I represent.

H. von Ribbentrop is being considered among the conspirators as the man mainly responsible for the foreign policy and diplomatic side of an alleged conspiracy, which is supposed to have had as its goal the preparation and execution of aggressive wars. It is my task to find out from the evidence when an attack in the meaning of international law is prevalent, and in which cases aggressive wars were conducted.

The term aggression follows not only the proposed formal judicial definition by the American and British prosecutors, but has, beyond all, a basis in realities.

Only the knowledge of these premises permits the adoption of an attitude which will serve as a basis for the decision of the court. I am therefore deferring the discussion of the problematic aspects of aggression and aggressive wars till I have presented to the court the evidence for the valuation of German foreign policy and the participation in it by H. von Ribbentrop.

As the Tribunal intends to consider the matter in the light of criminal law, I shall examine especially, to what extent H. von Ribbentrop checked or promoted the decisions concerning foreign policy during the time of his political activity.

The Foreign Policy of Ribbentrop as Ambassador and Foreign Minister 1935-1938

Mr. von Ribbentrop's first step into the world of the balancing of interests and therefore of the international game of power was successfully taken when he in 1935 concluded the naval agreement between Germany and England. The circumstances under which this treaty came to life are as significant for the political problems of those years as they are characteristic for judging the personality of von Ribbentrop and his further political development. This treaty-as it is known in informed quarterscame about under exclusion of the official German diplomacy. The then German Ambassador in London, von Hoesch, and the Wilhelmstrasse were very skeptical toward this project. Both Hoesch and the Wilhelmstrasse did not believe that England was inclined to conclude such a treaty, which contradicted the terms of part V of the Versailles Treaty as well as her previous attitude displayed at the different disarmament conferences. Furthermore they did not believe that such an agreement could materialize a few weeks

quests. If at the first moment one may especially from the German side recognize many mutual characteristics in the British, still on close contact one will note profound differences. Both root in a different soil. Their spiritual field is watered by various streams. The deeper the Germans and the British go, the greater will be the proof of the difference of their faith and their intellect. The deeper the British and the French penetrate into the nature of the other, the more mutual features they will find. Common political interests in the past 50 years have deepened these mutual features between the British and the French.

In the course of modern history England always had the need for an alliance with a continental military power and searched and found satisfaction of this interest, according to the standpoint of British aims, sometimes in Vienna, sometimes in Berlin, and from the beginning of the 20th century, in Paris.

Even at the time of Herr von Ribbentrop's activity as an ambassador, England's interest did not require a deviation from this line. To this was added the principal British attitude that Great Britain did not wish to commit herself on the continent. One was able to recognize from the Thames the complications slumbering under the surface of the continent. Added to this was the fact that authoritative men in the Foreign Office thought still too much in the political terms of the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century and this attitude was still, now as then, governed by leaning towards France.

The voices of those who supported a closer approach toward Germany were negligible, their political power inferior to that of the opposition. To this were added the difficulties which resulted for Herr von Ribbentrop from Germany's participation in the non-interference committee, which at that time met in London in order to keep the powers out of the Spanish civil war.

The prosecution raised the question of how Herr von Ribbentrop regarded the German-British attitude on his departure as an Ambassador from London. The answer to this will best be furnished by document TC-75, which contains the view of Herr von Ribbentrop about the then prevailing situation of Germany with regard to foreign politics and the future possibility for shaping German-British relations.

Herr von Ribbentrop presupposes that Germany does not plan to be bound by the status-quo in Central Europe. He entertains the conviction that the implementation of these objectives of foreign politics will by force lead Germany and England "into different camps."

For this case he advises to strive toward a constellation of al

bentrop as a Minister reached in the solution of these questions, I shall explain in connection with my remarks on the participation in the conspiracy of which the defendant is accused. Only that much may be said here, that as was proven by evidence, with the dismissal of Freiherr von Neurath the concentration in Hitler's hands of the decisive authority also in the field of foreign politics had found its conclusion. Herr von Neurath was the last Foreign Minister who, at first as a Foreign Minister had managed to maintain a decisive influence on foreign politics under the regime of National Socialism, which in time with the increasing power of the regime, he had to surrender to Hitler's striving totality, more and more.

In Herr von Ribbentrop, a man now became Foreign Minister whom Hitler had elected after his own taste.

Besides, of all forms of state law and jurisdiction, government without a doubt has a strong component in the purely personal relations among the rulers. Seen from this point of view it is necessary for the understanding of certain actions and history to look into the relations between Hitler and Herr von Ribbentrop. Herr von Ribbentrop as a well-to-do man from the nationalistic camp, saw in Hitler and in his party, efforts which corresponded with his own ideas and feelings. Herr von Ribbentrop's ideas about the foreign countries visited by him aroused Hitler's interest. Hitler's personality and political convictions formed in Herr von Ribbentrop a form of loyalty, the final explanation of which one can perhaps find in the effects of the power of suggestion and hypnosis. We do not wish to conceal that not only Herr von Ribbentrop but also an enormous number of people on this side as well as on the other side of the border fell victim to this power.

What is in this court-room to be conceived in the forms of law, will find its final explanation only from the point of view of the effect on the masses and in the psychology, to say nothing of the pathological form of these phenomena. This task may be left to the sciences concerned.

As an attorney-and only as such do I have to evaluate the results of the evidence-I may, with the permission of the Tribunal, present, after clarifying these facts, the role of Herr von Ribbentrop within the alleged conspiracy for the plotting of wars and acts of aggression under breach of contracts.

Ribbentrop's part in the annexation of Austria

Herr von Ribbentrop had not yet been Foreign Minister for 10 days when he was called upon by Hitler to participate in the conference with the Austrian Bundeskanzler and his Foreign Min