In the meantime, and, of course, particularly during the last month, desperate attempts were being made by the Western Powers to avert war. You will have details of them in evidence, of the intervention of the Pope, of President Roosevelt’s message, of the offer by the British Prime Minister to do our utmost to create the conditions in which all matters in issue could be the subject of free negotiations, and to guarantee the resultant decisions. But this and all the other efforts of honest men to avoid the horror of a European conflict were predestined to failure. The Germans were determined that the day for war had come. On the 31st of August Hitler issued a top-secret order for the attack to commence in the early hours of the 1st of September.
The necessary frontier incidents duly occurred. Was it, perhaps, for that, that the Defendant Keitel had been instructed by Hitler to supply Heydrich with Polish uniforms? And so without a declaration of war, without even giving the Polish Government an opportunity of seeing Germany’s final demands—and you will hear the evidence of the extraordinary diplomatic negotiations, if one can call them such, that took place in Berlin—without giving the Poles any opportunity at all of negotiating or arbitrating on the demands which Nazi Germany was making, the Nazi troops invaded Poland.
On the 3rd of September Hitler sent a telegram to Mussolini thanking him for his intervention but pointing out that the war was inevitable and that the most promising moment had to be picked after cold deliberation. And so Hitler and his confederates now before this Tribunal began the first of their wars of aggression for which they had prepared so long and so thoroughly. They waged it so fiercely that within a few weeks Poland was overrun.
On the 23rd of November 1939 Hitler reviewed the situation to his military commanders and in the course of what he said he made this observation:
“One year later Austria came; this step was also considered doubtful. It brought about an essential reinforcement of the Reich. The next step was Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland. This step also was not possible to accomplish in one move. First of all the Western Fortifications had to be finished . . . . Then followed the creation of the Protectorate, and with that the basis for action against Poland was laid. But I was not quite clear at the time whether I should start first against the East and then in the West, or vice versa . . . . The compulsion to fight with Poland came first. One might accuse me of wanting to fight again and again. In struggle, I see the fate of all beings.”
He was not sure where to attack first. But that sooner or later he would attack, whether it were in the East or in the West, was never in doubt. And he had been warned, not only by the British and French Prime Ministers but even by his confederate Mussolini, that an attack on Poland would bring England and France into the war. He chose what he thought was the opportune moment, and he struck.
Under these circumstances the intent to wage war against England and France, and to precipitate it by an attack on Poland, is not to be denied. Here was defiance of the most solemn treaty obligations. Here was neglect of the most pacific assurances. Here was aggression, naked and unashamed, which was indeed to arouse the horrified and heroic resistance of all civilized peoples, but which, before it was finished, was to tear down much of the structure of our civilization.
Once started upon the active achievement of their plan to secure the domination of Europe, if not of the world, the Nazi Government proceeded to attack other countries, as occasion offered. The first actually to be attacked, actually to be invaded, after the attack upon Poland, were Denmark and Norway.
On the 9th of April 1940 the German Armed Forces invaded Norway and Denmark without any warning, without any declaration of war. It was a breach of the Hague Convention of 1907. It was a breach of the Convention of Arbitration and Conciliation signed between Germany and Denmark on 2 June 1926. It was, of course, a breach of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928. It was a violation of the Non-Aggression Treaty between Germany and Denmark made on the 31st of May 1939. And it was a breach of the most explicit assurances which had been given. After his annexation of Czechoslovakia had shaken the confidence of the world, Hitler attempted to reassure the Scandinavian states. On the 28th of April 1939 he affirmed that he had never made any request to any of them which was incompatible with their sovereignty and independence. On the 31st of May 1939 he signed a non-aggression pact with Denmark.
On the 2d of September 1939, the day after he had invaded Poland and occupied Danzig, he again expressed his determination, so he said, to observe the inviolability and integrity of Norway in an aide-mémoire, which was handed to the Norwegian Foreign Minister by the German Minister in Oslo on that day.
A month later, in a public speech on the 6th of October 1939, he said:
“Germany has never had any conflicts of interest or even points of controversy with the northern states, neither has she any today. Sweden and Norway have both been offered non-aggression pacts by Germany, and have both refused them, solely because they do not feel themselves threatened in any way.”
When the invasion of Denmark and Norway was already begun in the early morning of 9 April 1940, a German memorandum was handed to the governments of those countries attempting to justify the German action. Various allegations against the governments of the invaded countries were made. It was said that Norway had been guilty of breaches of neutrality. It was said that she had allowed and tolerated the use of her territorial waters by Great Britain. It was said that Britain and France were themselves making plans to invade and occupy Norway and that the Government of Norway was prepared to acquiesce in such an event.
I do not propose to argue the question whether or not these allegations were true or false. That question is irrelevant to the issues before this Court. Even if the allegations were true—and they were patently false—they would afford no conceivable justification for the action of invading without warning, without declaration of war, without any attempt at mediation or conciliation.
Aggressive war is none the less aggressive war because the state which wages it believes that other states might, in the future, take similar action. The rape of a nation is not justified because it is thought she may be raped by another. Nor even in self-defense are warlike measures justified except after all means of mediation have been tried and failed and force is actually being exercised against the state concerned.
But the matter is irrelevant because, in actual fact, with the evidence which we now possess, it is abundantly clear that the invasion of these two countries was undertaken for quite different purposes. It had been planned long before any question of breach of neutrality or occupation of Norway by England could ever have occurred. And it is equally clear that the assurances repeated again and again throughout 1939 were made for no other purpose than to lull suspicion in these countries, and to prevent them taking steps to resist the attack against them which was all along in active preparation.
For some years the Defendant Rosenberg, in his capacity as Chief of the Foreign Affairs Bureau—APA—of the NSDAP, had interested himself in the promotion of Fifth Column activities in Norway and he had established close relationship with the Nasjonal Samling, a political group headed by the now notorious traitor, Vidkun Quisling. During the winter of 1938-39, APA was in contact with Quisling, and later Quisling conferred with Hitler and with the Defendants Raeder and Rosenberg. In August 1939 a special 14-day course was held at the school of the Office of Foreign Relations in Berlin for 25 followers whom Quisling had selected to attend. The plan was to send a number of selected and “reliable” men to Germany for a brief military training in an isolated camp. These “reliable men” were to be the area and language specialists to German special troops who were taken to Oslo on coal barges to undertake political action in Norway. The object was a coup in which Quisling would seize his leading opponents in Norway, including the King, and prevent all military resistance from the beginning. Simultaneously with those Fifth Column activities Germany was making her military preparations. On