LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: The 23rd of May 1939. Your Lordship will remember that Göring, Raeder, and Keitel, among many others, were present. It has three particular lines of which I want to remind the Tribunal, where he said:
“If there were an alliance of France, England, and Russia against Germany, Italy, and Japan, I would be constrained to attack England and France with a few annihilating blows. The Führer doubts the possibility of a peaceful settlement with England.”
So that, not only has the decision been taken definitely to attack Poland, but almost equally definitely to attack England and France, also.
I pass to the next period, which I have described as the final preparations taken from June up to the beginning of the war, at the beginning of September—Part V of the Tribunal’s document book. If the Tribunal will glance at the index to the document book, they will find I have, for convenience, divided the evidence up under four subheadings:
Final preparations of the Armed Forces; economic preparation; the famous Obersalzberg speeches; and the political or diplomatic preparations urging on the crisis and the justification for the invasion of Poland.
I refer the Tribunal to the first document in that book, dealing with the final preparations of the Armed Forces. It again is an exhibit containing various documents, and I refer particularly to the second document, dated the 22d of June 1939. This is Document C-126, which will become GB-45.
It will be remembered that a precise timetable had been called for. Now, here it is:
“The Supreme Command of the Armed Forces has submitted to the Führer and Supreme Commander, a ‘preliminary timetable’ for Case White based on the particulars so far available from the Navy, Army, and Air Force. Details concerning the days preceding the attack and the start of the attack were not included in this timetable.
“The Führer and Supreme Commander is, in the main, in agreement with the intentions of the Navy, Army, and Air Force and made the following comments on individual points: