In the meantime, the entries in this document show that Mussolini, the flunky of Nazism, was crying out for a more active Nazi Mediterranean policy. I refer the Court to Page 57 of the document book, the entry for the 30th of May. The word “Duce” is omitted from the first line, and the entry should read:
“Duce demands urgently decisive offensive Egypt-Suez for fall 1941; 12 divisions needed for that. ‘This stroke would be more deadly to the British Empire than the capture of London’; Chief, Naval Operations, agrees completely. . . .”
And then, finally, the entry for the 6th of June, indicating strategic views of Raeder and the German Navy at this stage, reads as follows. It is at Page 58 of the document book:
“Supreme Naval Commander with the Führer. Memorandum of the Chief, Naval Operations: ‘Observation of the strategic situation in the eastern Mediterranean after the Balkan campaign and the occupation of Crete and further conduct of the war.’ ”
A few sentences below:
“The memorandum points with impressive clarity to the decisive aims of the war in the Near East. Their advancement has moved into grasping distance by the successes in the Aegean area and the memorandum emphasizes that the offensive utilization of the present favorable situation must take place with the greatest acceleration and energy, before England has again strengthened her position in the Near East with help from the United States of America. The memorandum realizes the unalterable fact that the campaign against Russia would be opened very shortly; but demands, however, that the undertaking Barbarossa ‘which, because of the magnitude of its aims, naturally stands in the foreground of the operational plans of the armed forces leadership,’ must under no circumstances ‘lead to an abandonment, diminishing, or delay of the conduct of the war in the eastern Mediterranean.’ ”
So that Raeder was, throughout, seeking an active role for his Navy in the Nazi war plans.
Now, once Hitler had decided to attack Russia, Raeder sought a role for his Navy in the campaign against Russia; and the first naval operational plan against Russia was a particularly perfidious one. I refer the Tribunal to the Document C-170 which I have just been reading from, at Page 59 of the document book. There the Tribunal will see an entry for the 15th of June 1941:
“On the proposal of Chief Naval Operations . . . use of arms against Russian submarines south of the northern boundary of the Öland warning area is permitted immediately; ruthless destruction is to be aimed at.”
The Defendant Keitel provided a characteristically dishonest pretext for this action in his letter, the Document C-38, which is at Page 11 of the document book and which will be Exhibit GB-223. The Tribunal sees that Keitel’s letter is dated the 15th of June 1941: