“The distance apart is narrowing. The steamship draws in quickly, but the position is still 40-50. I cannot see the stern yet. Tube ready. Shall I or not? The gunnery crews are also prepared. On the ship’s side a yellow cross in a small, square, dark blue ground. Swedish? Presumably not. I raise the periscope a little. Hurrah, a gun at the stern, an A/A gun or something similar. Fire! It cannot miss. . .”—and then the sinking.
Now that it is possible to examine some of the actual documents by which the defendant and his fellow conspirators issued their orders in disregard of international law, you may think the compilers of the above reports understated the case. These orders cover not only the period referred to in the reports, but also the subsequent course of the war. It is interesting to note in them the steps by which the defendants progressed. At first they were content with breaching the rules of international law to the extent of sinking merchant ships, including neutral ships, without warning where there was a reasonable prospect of being able to do so without discovery. The facts already quoted show that the question of whether ships were defensively armed or outside the declared operational areas was in practice immaterial.
I go to the next document in the document book, C-191, which I put in as Exhibit GB-193. That is a memorandum by the German naval war staff, dated 22 September 1939. It sets out:
“Flag Officer U-boats intends to give permission to U-boats to sink without warning any vessels sailing without lights.”
Reading from the third sentence:
“In practice there is no opportunity for attacking at night, as the U-boat cannot identify a target which is a shadow in a way that entirely obviates mistakes being made. If the political situation is such that even possible mistakes must be ruled out, U-boats must be forbidden to make any attacks at night in waters where French and English naval forces or merchant ships may be situated. On the other hand, in sea areas where only English units are to be expected, the measures desired by Flag Officer U-boats can be carried out; permission to take this step is not to be given in writing, but need merely be based on the unspoken approval of the Naval Operations Staff.
“U-boat commanders should be informed by word of mouth, and the sinking of a merchant ship must be justified in the War Diary as due to possible confusion with a warship or an auxiliary cruiser. In the meanwhile, U-boats in the English Channel have received instructions to attack all vessels sailing without lights.”
Now I go to the next document, C-21, which I put in as Exhibit GB-194. My Lord, this document consists of a series of extracts from the War Diary of the German naval war staff of the German Admiralty. The second extract, at Page 5, relates a conference with the head of the naval war staff, report of the 2 January 1940, and then reading:
“1) Report by Ia”—that is the Staff Officer Operations on the naval war staff. . .