The Russo-German Alliance: August 1939 – June 1941, by A. Rossi (Angelo Tasca) 1949
Not long after the victory over Poland and the failure of his peace proposals, Hitler began to prepare for war in the West. The plan drawn up by his General Staff was in his hands by about the end of October 1939, and he made one alteration in it at General von Manstein’s suggestion, [1] which was to be of decisive importance for the success of the attack. The main thrust was to be made through the Ardennes against Sedan and the Meuse.
Operations were timed to start about half-way through November but were held up by bad weather and were eventually postponed until the spring. The offensive was launched on 10 May 1940. Six weeks later the Franco – German armistice was signed near Compiègne.
Search For a Compromise With Britain: At the triumphant conclusion of this campaign Hitler still possessed a large army whose losses had been trifling; and, in addition, his loot from the victory and the armistice was enormous.
What was he to do with this vast array of men and steel? It was still almost intact, and he could direct its impetus in any direction he chose.
Hitler was still obsessed with the idea of bringing the war to a speedy conclusion through a compromise with Britain.
Britain had refused to listen to him in 1939, in spite of the German – Soviet pact of 23 August and the defeat of Poland in September, but she might be more reasonable now that France was defeated and that, in Europe, Germany controlled the coasts of the North Sea, the Channel and the Atlantic. On 19 July 1940, Hitler addressed the Reichstag in the role of a conqueror – but a conqueror who was ready to break off the fight and negotiate. In his speech he praised German – Soviet collaboration and warned Britain against entertaining any illusion that she might be able to undermine it.
To force Britain to capitulate, he had to prove that she had lost the battle on the Continent once and for all, and at the same time avoid rousing her too much. This was why he did not occupy the whole of France or send his divisions across Spain to Gibraltar and Morocco.
In June 1940, this operation seemed easy. Hitler could count on the assent and even the active cooperation of Franco, who had offered Hitler his services at the beginning of the month, and 10 days or so later had helped himself to something on account by occupying Tangier. [2] In a note written on 8 August, Stohrer, the German Ambassador in Madrid, reminded Berlin that ‘according to a memorandum from the Spanish Embassy last June, the Spanish government declares its readiness, under certain conditions, to abandon its non-belligerent status and to enter the war on the side of Germany and Italy’. [3]
But if the Wehrmacht crossed the Pyrenees and so threatened North Africa, the war would enter a new phase involving a struggle to destroy the British Empire; and this would deprive Hitler of the trump card on which he was counting to bring Britain to terms. In the talks at the end of August 1939, he had suggested that Britain should exchange Poland for the security of the British Empire, which he said he would ‘guarantee’. This idea, which was to be raised again by Rudolf Hess during his escapade in May 1941, explains Hitler’s attitude and even his reaction to Italy’s claims. During his meetings in Munich with Mussolini on 18-19 June 1940, when he was arranging the armistice terms for France, Hitler stated that he did not think it was advisable to destroy the British Empire as he considered it ‘an important factor in world stability’. The truth was that he wanted to make peace on the basis of his enormous gains from the Polish and Flanders campaigns. If he gave in to the greed of Franco and Mussolini, the war would have to be prolonged so that they could share out between them the spoils of the British and French Empires in Africa. As Ribbentrop told Ciano at the time, if Britain did not capitulate ‘it would be total war, complete, pitiless’. [4] But as long as there was a chance of reaching a settlement with her, Hitler preferred to make the attempt, even at the risk of offending his friends in Rome and Madrid who, after all, wanted to get something out of a victory to which they had contributed very little.
And so Hitler stopped and examined the sky-line in the direction of London. He stayed where he was for the moment, the more willingly as his General Staff was advising caution. [5] For the moment, he did not insist. In December 1940, when he wished to revive the scheme he had shelved in June and July, it was too late. Marshal Keitel, Chief of the General Staff, considered this ‘blunder’ of Hitler’s to be one of the main causes of Germany’s defeat. ‘History would have been different’, he said at the Nuremberg trial, ‘if we had taken Gibraltar and if the Führer had not let France keep her navy, her colonial troops and her colonies.’ [6]
After the Battle of France: So overwhelming a victory over France could not but have had serious repercussions on German – Soviet relations.
Molotov had been careful to take his precautions, just as he had at the time of the German campaign in Norway. When von Schulenburg announced that the Flanders offensive had begun, he answered ‘that he understood that Germany had to protect herself against Anglo – French attack’, and added that he ‘had no doubt of Germany’s success’. [7] On 16 May Izvestia and Pravda devoted two almost identical articles to the German offensive. Pravda was a little more outspoken and justified the offensive first of all on the grounds that the Anglo – French intended to make ‘Holland and Belgium into a military base from which to attack Germany’s vital centres’. Germany had merely forestalled them, as in Norway. After again quoting Stalin’s phrase about the imperialists who ‘like to pull the chestnuts out of the fire with other people’s fingers’, Pravda wound up: ‘We now see how great a responsibility for rejecting Germany’s peace proposals and for starting a new imperialist war in Europe rests on the shoulders of the Anglo – French imperialists.’
When the Wehrmacht had won its victory Molotov summoned von Schulenburg to his office on the evening of 18 June 1940, and expressed ‘the warmest congratulations of the Soviet government on the splendid success of the German armed forces’. [8] At the same time, he informed Schulenburg of Russia’s activities in the Baltic states, and of the fact that Dekanosov [9] had been sent to Lithuania, Vyshinsky [10] to Latvia, and Zhdanov [11] to Estonia to ‘break in’ both the governments of these three countries and the countries themselves. No objection was raised by the German government. But Berlin was not to be allowed to think that it was quits through this exchange of courtesies, so in his speech to the Supreme Soviet on 31 July 1940, Molotov went out of his way to remind Germany that the pact of August 1939 had given and was still giving her ‘the assurance of tranquillity in the East’, and that Berlin should not forget that the ‘magnificent success’ of the German army was something else which it owed to Russia. Molotov again reminded Hitler of this during his conversation with him in Berlin on 13 November 1940: ‘The German – Russian agreement had not been without influence upon the great German victories.’ [12]
This assistance was undoubtedly the vital guarantee which Stalin had offered Hitler in August 1939, and which had made their collaboration possible. But since the end of June its value had depreciated, for by then the Western front had ceased to exist and Hitler had less need to cover himself in the East. Moreover, Germany’s relative strength had been increased by the collapse of the French army and the capture of new strategic bases and economic resources. In short, Hitler considered he needed Stalin much less at the end of June 1940 than he did in August 1939 or May 1940, and this gave him considerably more freedom of action.
All the capitals were buzzing with rumours of German and Russian troop concentrations on the new Eastern frontiers. Hitler affected not to be in the least perturbed by them, both publicly in a speech on 19 July and privately at a meeting shortly afterwards: ‘Although Russia’, he declared, ‘looks on at our great successes with tears in her eyes, she has no intention of joining in the war against Germany.’ [13]
But if it is true that a few weeks later General Jodl was ordered to prepare a ‘counter-concentration of troops’ on the Eastern frontier, [14] Berlin must have had some qualms. The Nuremberg documents prove that the idea of ‘settling accounts’ with Russia had already occurred to Hitler during the French campaign. He mentioned it at the time to General Jodl [15] and explained what he had in mind to his General Staff (Keitel, Jodl and Warlimont) during a conference at the Berghof on 29 July 1940. [16] The three generals persuaded him to abandon the scheme for attacking Russia as early as the following autumn on the grounds that they were completely unprepared, [17] but at the beginning of August the first directives were issued for the preparation of an offensive timed for the spring of 1941. [18] Half-way through August Goering told General Thomas, head of the Economics and Armaments branch of the High Command, that deliveries to Russia should be made punctually up to the spring of 1941, but not after that date. [19] The transfer of troops to the East began at the end of the same month. [20]
There is no doubt that both Germany and Italy were a little disturbed by Russia’s entry into Bessarabia at the beginning of July 1940, and afraid that she would push on to the south-west as far as the Dardanelles. [21]
The Russians for their part not only virulently denied the reports appearing in the Anglo – Saxon press of troop concentrations on the Lithuanian – German frontier but even declared, through Molotov’s own lips (in his speech of 31 July), that ‘the prospect of an increase in German power’ did not worry the Soviet leaders in the least since ‘the friendly relations between Germany and the USSR were based on the fundamental interests of both countries’.
All the same, the fact is that between June and August 1940, immediately after the Germans had won their victory in the West, Stalin hastened to cash the securities which he had been promised in the secret protocols of August and September 1939. The fate of the three Baltic countries and Bessarabia was sealed when these protocols were signed. On the evening of 28 September 1939, just after the new agreement had been accepted but not signed, the Russians made use of a short break in the meeting – while Ribbentrop went to the Grand Theatre to have a look at the ballet – to meet a delegation from Estonia and speed up the Baltic settlement. The USSR concluded these so-called pacts of ‘mutual assistance’ with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania between 23 September and 10 October 1939, and they were the beginning of what was to become the military occupation of these countries. The political pressure which thenceforth the USSR brought to bear on them eventually transformed them into Soviet republics, and as such they were incorporated into the USSR. The objectives of Soviet policy had to be attained at all costs. But the state of mind of the Soviet leaders is shown by the fact that the Baltic countries were entirely occupied between 15 and 17 June 1940, just when France collapsed, and that Bessarabia was occupied two weeks later.
A further indication of their concern at the way things were developing during this period was that in July a decree was promulgated increasing the working day from seven to eight hours and forcing the workers to stay at their jobs in the factories, with very severe penalties if they left without permission. Molotov gave the reason for these measures in his speech on the 31st. ‘The USSR’, he said, ‘must show the greatest vigilance’ and must produce enough ‘to reinforce all its positions at home and abroad.’ According to Walter Duranty, it was in fact the ‘wholesale mobilisation of Russia’s industrial and agricultural manpower’, in a situation which had become dangerous. [22]
These precautions did not mean that the Soviet leaders were preparing to throw Germany over. Believing as they did in a German victory, [23] they wanted to stay on the right side of the fence. Britain’s advances were rudely repulsed. Actually, on about 10 July 1940, Sir Stafford Cripps approached Stalin with a very important proposal. The new British Ambassador tried to convince the master of the Kremlin that Germany was striving for the complete domination of Europe, and that she was a danger ‘for the Soviet Union as well as Britain'; the two countries should therefore ‘agree on a common policy of self-protection against Germany’. Cripps added that in exchange for this Britain was ready to recognise Russia’s rights in the Dardanelles and her leading role in the Balkans. To this Stalin turned a deaf ear. He said he knew Germany and the German leaders and did not believe there was any desire on their part to control all Europe, nor did he think that ‘German military successes menaced the Soviet Union and her friendly relations with Germany’. The German – Soviet agreement was based ‘on the basic interests of both countries’. He even instructed Molotov to give the memorandum of his conversation with Cripps to von Schulenburg so that it could be sent on to Berlin. It went on 13 July. [24] This willingness to prove his loyalty to a victorious Germany was part of the lightning conductor system which Stalin was installing.
The Frontal Assault on Britain: On 16 July 1940, Hitler issued orders to Generals Keitel and Jodl for the invasion of Britain:
Since England [they ran] despite the hopelessness of her military situation, has so far shown no signs of willingness to come to terms, I have decided to prepare landing operations against her and if necessary to carry them out. [25]
He announced this decision to Mussolini in a long letter he wrote the same day. On the previous day he had approached the French government with a request for its support ‘in effectively carrying on the fight against England’ and had demanded that eight airfields in Morocco be placed at his disposal, with the Mediterranean ports and the shipping necessary to supply the German forces stationed there. [26] On the 19th, in a speech to the Reichstag, he made one last appeal to Britain, who did not budge.
The operation was planned for mid-August. On 11 August the first clash occurred in the skies over England. In the latter part of the month the invasion forces, grouped into three armies under Marshal von Reichenau, General Strauss and General Busch, reached their assembly points from Cherbourg to Holland.
These troops were never to cross the Channel. To do so they would have had to command it, and to command it they would first of all have had to destroy British air power. What happened is well known. The RAF inflicted such losses on Goering’s aircraft that the Luftwaffe had first to give up heavy day bombing and then, towards the end of September, to throw in its hand altogether. There was no longer any hope of obtaining air supremacy soon enough to be of any use, since, for meteorological reasons, the invasion should have been attempted ‘at the beginning of October at the latest’. [27]
In the strategy of the Axis the invasion of Britain was to coincide with an Italian offensive against the British forces in Egypt. On 19 August Mussolini sent a telegram to General Graziani ordering him to attack in Egypt ‘as soon as the first German patrol lands in England’. [28] As this did not happen as quickly as they expected, the Duce, who was fuming with impatience, forced a very reluctant Graziani to attack all the same. The offensive began on 14 September but did not get beyond Sidi Barrani. General Wavell’s first real line of defence was enough to halt it.
Cause and Consequence of a Decisive Defeat: When exactly did Hitler realise that the invasion could not be carried out? At his meeting with Ciano in Salzburg on 28 August 1940, he blamed the weather for the failure of the attack: ‘I need at least two weeks of fine weather to neutralise British naval superiority with my air force.’ [29] But the bad weather did not stop the heavy bombing of London and the English ports and towns, nor daily and almost hourly battles between the two air forces, and it was in these air battles that the Luftwaffe was defeated. On 15 August, 76 German aircraft were shot down for a loss of 32 British defending aircraft; on 18 August, 71 against 27; on 15 September, 56 against 28. Between 11 August and 5 October the Luftwaffe lost 1188 machines and the RAF 675. [30]
A note from Raeder to Admiral Aussman shows that towards the end of August Hitler was beginning to fear that ‘air superiority over the Channel could not be achieved during the autumn of 1940’, [31] and in September he gave the impression of being no longer much interested in the invasion. [32] This was because, as we have just seen, the conditions which would have made it possible had not been achieved. A few weeks later Hitler admitted that ‘the air attacks on England’ had not given ‘the anticipated results either on land or on the convoys’. [33] The game was too dangerous to risk a defeat. Hitler explained to the Italian Ambassador, Alfieri:
It is as if I were pointing at England a revolver containing only one bullet: if I had the misfortune to miss, the consequences would be disastrous and I would be much worse off than before. [34]
The last word on the question was said by General Jodl at a talk he gave to the Nazi chiefs on 7 November 1943, when he bluntly explained the reasons for this severe defeat:
The invasion of England was prepared down to the last detail, but as all our means of transport were improvised it was too risky because we did not succeed in decisively knocking out the British air arm. [35]
It was the RAF therefore which got the whip-hand and upset Hitler’s plans in the autumn of 1940. It was the RAF and the British people, under Churchill’s leadership, who prevented a German victory.
This is not to underestimate the importance of other battles in which mortal blows were inflicted on the German armed forces, such as the defence of Moscow in November 1941, the tremendous revenge of the Soviet army at Stalingrad, and the annihilation of Rommel’s Afrika Korps in the spring of 1943.
But even if the Wehrmacht had been able to reach its objective, the Archangel – Astrakhan line, and if European Russia had been knocked out of the conflict, the war would have gone on and would very probably have been won by Britain and the United States. Won much later, but won all the same.
But if, instead of proclaiming that the British people would fight ‘on the beaches, in the fields and in the streets’, [36] or that the British had ‘become the sole champions now in arms to defend the world cause’ and would carry on the struggle ‘until the curse of Hitler is lifted from the brows of mankind’, [37] Churchill had announced the capitulation of his country; and if the RAF had been destroyed by the Luftwaffe and Britain had been occupied, then the fate of the free peoples would have been in the balance for a very long time to come and Russia herself would have had to submit to Hitler’s yoke. The battle fought by the RAF in the autumn of 1940 not only made victory certain but shortened the war, which even on the most optimistic reckoning would otherwise have dragged on year after year, like another Hundred Years War, until Hitler was crushed.
Repercussions in the East: As the compromise peace on which he laid so much store was now impossible because of the ‘obstinacy’ of the British, and as the frontal attack had missed fire, what was Hitler’s next move to be?
The documents found in Germany give a clear answer to this question: after the failure of the Luftwaffe over England, Hitler took the first decisive steps towards making war on Russia. As early as 27 August 1940, the High Command ordered 10 divisions and two armoured divisions to be transferred to the Government General of Poland ‘with a view to possible swift action for the protection of the Rumanian oil fields’. [38] According to Admiral Raeder:
... the fear of no longer being able to retain air superiority over the Channel in the autumn of 1940 – and no doubt the Führer realised this before the Naval General Staff, which was not so well informed as he on the real results of the air raids on England (our own losses) – certainly compelled the Führer to consider, as early as August or September 1940, whether a campaign in the East was feasible before victory in the West, so that our last serious opponent on the Continent could be eliminated. [39]
The current conception of Hitler as a man completely concentrated on his goal and marching resolutely towards it, almost like one possessed, does not always correspond with the truth. The German Führer wavered between various possible courses of action, some of them contradictory, much more than is generally supposed, and this was especially noticeable in the summer of 1940, when his lightning victory seemed to give him a wide freedom of choice. He knew that the victory was not really won so long as Britain did not admit that it was. He wanted to reach the compromise which he had been offering her for so long. The quickest way of getting it was to cross the short stretch of water over the Channel and bring her to her knees. But such an operation was only possible after the RAF and the British navy had been knocked out: and that was the business of Goering and his Luftwaffe. For some weeks Hitler had been considering how best the Russian problem could be fitted in with Britain. As a landing in the British Isles was out of the question, he had to fall back on a siege instead of a frontal attack, with the aim of destroying the vital centres of the country and starving it by sinking its supply ships. The success of such an operation seemed assured, but it would take time. And Hitler was anxious to rid himself of this problem quickly. As certain facts threw increasing doubts on the successful outcome of the air battle with Britain, the idea of a war in the East suggested itself and took firm hold on his mind. His generals had told him that an offensive could not be launched that year and that it would have to be put off until the spring of 1941, so Hitler intended to use the remaining months the better to prepare the military and political groundwork of the operation. When von Paulus was appointed to the General Staff at the beginning of September 1940, he found a draft plan of campaign against Russia already in existence, on which he was set to work. [40] This plan, he declared, had been in preparation for two or three weeks. [41] Instructions from the High Command dated 6 September show that the reinforcement of German units in the Eastern territories was planned to be completed by the end of October. ‘This regrouping must not give Russia the impression that we are preparing an offensive in the East’, but she must at the same time be made to understand ‘that at any moment we have considerable forces at our disposal with which to protect our interests, especially in the Balkans, against a Russian attack’. The intelligence officers for whom these instructions were intended had the job of concealing the strength of the forces massed in the north and of exaggerating, ‘if necessary’, that of the forces concentrated on the Balkan borders, ‘particularly the armoured divisions’. [42] The intention was not to alarm Russia too quickly, but to induce her all the same to remain passive in the Balkans. Germany could thus avoid risking a conflict before she was ready for it, and could ‘wait and see’.
It must not, however, be thought that the struggle against Russia took first place in Hitler’s schemes, nor that he had just made a choice between East and West. The destruction of Britain remained the principal aim of his strategy. It was for precisely the same reason that Napoleon let himself be swallowed up by the immense plains of Russia about 130 years earlier. The documents leave no room for doubt that Hitler dropped the idea of a frontal attack for that of an indirect attack, the object of which was the complete isolation of Britain. She would either have to accept a compromise in the end or give in under the blows of an offensive which would be launched against her in the spring and which, this time, would not fail... With these grandiose manoeuvres to isolate Britain – Hitler had, as a matter of fact, to modify them owing to the pressure of unforeseen events – there came successively the conclusion of the Three-Power Pact (27 September 1940), the meetings at Hendaye and Montoire (23 and 24 October), the talks with Molotov (12 and 13 November), and, finally, the war with Russia.
1. BH Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill (London, 1948), pp 71, 119-20.
2. On 14 June 1940.
3. This note is the first document in The Spanish Government and the Axis (US Department of State, 4 March 1946).
4. Ciano’s Diary, 1939-43 (London, 1947), p 266.
5. See General Jodl’s note of 30 June 1940, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Supplement A (Washington, 1946), pp 404-06.
6. R Cartier, Les Secrets de la Guerre devoilés par Nuremberg (Paris, 1946), p 180.
7. Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), p 144.
8. Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), p 154.
9. Commissar attached to the Foreign Ministry, appointed Soviet Ambassador to Berlin in November 1940.
10. At present USSR representative at UNO.
11. Head of the Bolshevik party organisation in Leningrad and Secretary of the Bolshevik party; later became chief of the Cominform.
12. See above, Chapter VI, section ‘German – Soviet Military Collaboration’.
13. R Cartier, Les Secrets de la Guerre devoilés par Nuremberg (Paris, 1946), p 232.
14. HC Deutsch, ‘Quand Hitler et Staline se partagaient le monde’, La Bataille, 30 April 1947.
15. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume 7 (Washington, 1946), p 926, point 12.
16. Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 7 (Nuremberg, 1947), p 249, deposition by Warlimont; Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 15 (Nuremberg, 1947), pp 390-91, deposition by Jodl.
17. RC Poole, ‘Light on Nazi Foreign Policy’, Foreign Affairs, October 1946, pp 7-18 of the off-print; Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 7 (Nuremberg, 1947), p 249.
18. Affidavit by Warlimont, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume 5 (Washington, 1946), p 740; Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 7 (Nuremberg, 1947), p 250; affidavit by Köstring, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume 5 (Washington, 1946), p 734; deposition by Jodl, Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 15 (Nuremberg, 1947), pp 390-91.
19. Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 3 (Nuremberg, 1947), p 331; Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume 4 (Washington, 1946), p 1082.
20. OKW directive of 27 August, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume 6 (Washington, 1946), p 987.
21. See below, Chapter VIII, section ‘Berlin and Moscow Begin to Quarrel’.
22. Walter Duranty, USSR: The Story of Soviet Russia (London, 1944), p 258.
23. See the interview between Molotov and Rosso on 25 June, in Chapter VIII.
24. Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), pp 166-68.
25. Speech by Sir Hartley Shawcross, Counsel for the Prosecution, Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 3 (Nuremberg, 1947), p 139.
26. The Vichy government rejected the German demands. See on this subject H Dumoulin de la Barthète, Le Temps des Illusions (Geneva, 1946), p 206; Procès du Maréchal Pétain (official edition, Paris, 1945), pp 86, 138, 172; La Délégation française auprès de la Commission allemande d'armistice, Volume 1 (a collection of documents published by the French government, Paris, 1947), Appendix IV, pp 462-65. This includes General Stuelpnagel’s letter transmitting the demands ‘of the Führer of the German Reich and Commander-in-Chief of the Army’.
27. Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 14 (Nuremberg, 1947), p 115, deposition by Raeder.
28. Ciano’s Diary, 1939-43 (London, 1947), p 285.
29. Ciano’s Diary, 1939-43 (London, 1947), p 286.
30. These are the revised figures issued by the Air Ministry and based on information from German sources which became available after the end of the war. German losses in manpower were much heavier than those of the RAF since the German aircraft were mostly bombers carrying crews of about five.
31. Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 3 (Nuremberg, 1947), p 141.
32. Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 14 (Nuremberg, 1947), p 115, deposition by Raeder.
33. Führer Conferences on Naval Affairs (1940) (London, 1947), 14 November, pp 120-21.
34. Dino Alfieri, Due dittatori di fronte (Milan, 1948), p 101.
35. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume 7 (Washington, 1946), p 927.
36. Speech in the House of Commons, 4 June 1940.
37. Broadcast talk, 17 June 1940.
38. See above, this chapter, section ‘After the Battle of France’.
39. Note to Admiral Assmann, Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 3 (Nuremberg, 1947), p 141.
40. See his deposition in Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 7 (Nuremberg, 1947), pp 254-55.
41. Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 6 (Nuremberg, 1947), p 301.
42. Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 3 (Nuremberg, 1947), pp 331-32; cf Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume 3 (Washington, 1946), pp 849-50.