Now, as the Tribunal saw in the report of Raeder to Assmann, in October 1939, Hitler was merely considering the Norwegian aggression and had not yet committed himself to it, although, as the Tribunal will see very shortly, Hitler was most susceptible to any suggestions of aggression against the territory of another country.
The documents will show that the Defendant Raeder persevered in pressing his point of view with regard to Norway, and at this stage he found a powerful ally in the Defendant Rosenberg.
The Nazi employment of traitors and the stimulation of treachery as a political weapon are now unhappily proven historical facts, but should proof be required of that statement it is found in the remarkable document which I now invite the Court to consider. I refer to Document 007-PS, which is after the TC and D series in the document book. That will be Exhibit GB-84.
That is headed on Page 1, “Brief Report on Activities of the Foreign Affairs Bureau of the Party”—Aussenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP—“from 1933 to 1943.” It reads:
“When the Foreign Affairs Bureau”—Aussenpolitisches Amt—“was established on the 1st of April 1933, the Führer directed that it should not be expanded to a large bureaucratic agency; but should rather develop its effectiveness through initiative and suggestions.
“Corresponding to the extraordinarily hostile attitude adopted by the Soviet Government in Moscow from the beginning, the newly-established bureau devoted particular attention to internal conditions in the Soviet Union as well as to the effects of world Bolshevism, primarily in other European countries. It entered into contact with the most variegated groups inclining towards National Socialism in combatting Bolshevism, focussing its main attentions on nations and states bordering on the Soviet Union. On the one hand those nations and states constituted an insulating ring encircling the Bolshevist neighbor; on the other hand they were the laterals of German living space and took up a flanking position towards the Western Powers, especially Great Britain. In order to wield the desired influence by one means or another”—and the Court will shortly see the significance of that phrase—“the bureau was compelled to use the most varying methods, taking into consideration the completely different living conditions, the ties of blood and intellect, and historical dependence of the movements observed by the bureau in those countries.
“In Scandinavia a progressively more outspoken pro-Anglo-Saxon attitude based on economic considerations had become more dominant after the World War of 1914-18. There the bureau put the entire emphasis on influencing general cultural relations with the Nordic peoples. For this purpose it took the Nordic Society in Lübeck under its protection. The Reich conventions of this society were attended by many outstanding personalities, especially from Finland. While there were no openings for purely political co-operation in Sweden and Denmark, an association based on Greater Germanic ideology was found in Norway. Very close relations, which led to further consequences, were established with its founder.”
If the Court will turn to the end of the main part of the statement which is 4 pages forward—in the intervening pages, I may say, there is an account of the activity of Rosenberg’s bureau in various parts of Europe, and indeed of the world, which I am not proposing to call the Tribunal’s attention to at this stage—but if the Tribunal will look at the last paragraph of the main body of the report which bears the signature of the Defendant Rosenberg, the last two sentences read: