“Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Great Britain, Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iraq, Arabia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Iran.
“Answer: I started off by taking the trouble to find out in the case of the countries listed firstly, whether they feel themselves threatened and secondly, and particularly, whether this question Mr. Roosevelt has asked us was put as the result of a démarche by them or at least with their consent.
“The answer was a general negative, which in some cases took the form of a blunt rejection. Actually this counter-question of mine could not be conveyed to some of the states and nations listed, since they are not at present in possession of their liberty (as for instance Syria) but are occupied by the military forces of democratic states and therefore deprived of all their rights.
“Thirdly, apart from that, all the states bordering on Germany have received much more binding assurances and above all much more binding proposals than Mr. Roosevelt asked of me in his peculiar telegram.”
You will see that although that is sneering at Mr. Roosevelt, it is suggesting in the presence, certainly, of the accused Göring as being quite absurd that Germany should nurture any warlike feeling against her neighbors. But the hollow falsity of that and the preceding guarantee is shown by the next document. May I put this document, TC-42 (a) in as Exhibit GB-101.
The next document (L-79) which is Hitler’s conference of the 23rd of May has been referred to many times and is Exhibit USA-27. Therefore I need only very shortly remind the Tribunal of two passages. First of all, on the first page it is interesting to see who was present: The Führer, Göring, Admiral Raeder, Brauchitsch, Colonel General Keitel, and various others who are not accused. Colonel Warlimont was there. He, I understand, was Jodl’s deputy.