“Answer: ‘Yes, that is true.’
“Question: ‘Is it not also a fact that the start of the campaign was ordered for the 25th of August but on the 24th of August in the afternoon it was postponed until September the 1st in order to await the results of new diplomatic maneuvers with the English Ambassador?’
“Answer: ‘Yes.’ ”
My only comment upon that document is in respect to the second paragraph where Göring is purporting not to want war with England. The Court will remember how it was Göring, after the famous speech of the 22d of August to his commanders-in-chief, who got up and thanked the Führer for his exhortation and assured him that the Armed Forces would play their part.
I omit the next document in the document book, which carries the matter a little further, and we go on to Hitler’s verbal communiqué, as it is called in the British Blue Book, that he handed to Sir Nevile Henderson on the 25th of August, after he had heard of the signing of the Anglo-Polish agreement, in an endeavor to keep England from meeting her obligations. He states in the first paragraph, after hearing the British Ambassador, that he is anxious to make one more effort to save war. In the second paragraph, he asserts again that Poland’s provocations were unbearable; and I quote Paragraph 2:
“Germany was in all circumstances determined to abolish these Macedonian conditions on her eastern frontier and, what is more, to do so in the interests of quiet and order and also in the interests of European peace.
“The problem of Danzig and the Corridor must be solved. The British Prime Minister had made a speech which was not in the least calculated to induce any change in the German attitude. At the most, the result of this speech could be a bloody and incalculable war between Germany and England. Such a war would be bloodier than that of 1914 to 1918. In contrast to the last war, Germany would no longer have to fight on two fronts.”—One sees the threats, veiled threats, appearing in this paragraph—“Agreement with Russia was unconditional and signified a change in foreign policy of the Reich which would last a very long time. Russia and Germany would never again take up arms against each other. Apart from this, the agreements reached with Russia would also render Germany secure economically for the longest possible period of war.