I don’t think I need trouble the Tribunal with the rest.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Francis Biddle, member for the United States): I think you had better read the next paragraph.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: “But it seemed to us to be better not to touch on these problems for the time being, but instead to concentrate on the destruction of England with all our forces. Where Germany was concerned, she was interested in the northern German districts (Norway, et cetera), and this was acknowledged by the Duce.”
I am very grateful to you, Your Honor. That I put in as Exhibit GB-143.
A month or two later, in January 1941, at the meeting between Hitler and Mussolini, in which this defendant participated, the Greek operation was discussed. Hitler had stated that the German troops in Romania were for use in the planned campaign against Greece. That document is C-134, which was put in as Exhibit GB-119, and therefore I do not propose to give it again but to give the Tribunal the reference to the points which are mentioned at the foot of Page 3 of the English text.
With regard to that meeting there is a cross-reference in Count Ciano’s diary, Count Ciano having attended as Italian Foreign Minister, and he recalls his impression of that meeting in the diary for the 20th and 21st of January by saying:
“The Duce is pleased with the conversation on the whole. I am less pleased. Above all, because Ribbentrop, who had always been so boastful in the past, told me, when I asked him outright how long the war would last, that he saw no possibility of its ending before 1942.”
Despite that somewhat pessimistic statement to Count Ciano, a short time later, 3 weeks later, when it was a question of encouraging the Japanese, this defendant took a more optimistic line.
On the 13th of February 1941 he saw Ambassador Oshima, the Japanese Ambassador, and that conversation appears in Document 1834-PS, which is Exhibit USA-129. That was read previously, and again I simply give the reference on Page 3 of the English version.
The second from the last paragraph dealt with the optimistic account of the military position and the position of Bulgaria and Turkey. I do not think I need read it further, but I will give the Tribunal the reference.