SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I think the Defendant Frick.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I think it is.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, I am grateful to Your Lordship. I had forgotten that had not been read before.
Now then, as I say, we come to the aggression against the Soviet Union; and the first document which has not been put in so far, which I now put in as Exhibit GB-145, is TC-25, the German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact.
On 23 August 1939 this defendant had signed the German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact. Now the first point at which this defendant seems to have considered special problems of aggression against the Soviet Union was just after the 20th of April 1941, when the Defendant Rosenberg and this defendant met or communicated to consider the problems which were expected to arise in Occupied Eastern Territory. This defendant appointed his Counselor, Grosskopf, to be his liaison man with Rosenberg and also assigned a consul general called Bräutigam, who had many years experience in the U.S.S.R., as collaborator with Rosenberg. That is shown in Document 1039-PS, which is already Exhibit USA-146. I did not propose to read it again, as it had been read. But the passage to which I have referred is the first paragraph on the top of Page 2, beginning, “After notification to the Reich Foreign Minister.” It is that paragraph which I have just mentioned.
That was in April 1941. The following month, on 18 May 1941, the German Foreign Office prepared a declaration setting forth operational zones in the Arctic Ocean, the Baltic and the Black Seas, to be used by the German Navy and the Air Force in the coming invasion of the Soviet Union. That is the next document, C-77, which I now put in as Exhibit GB-146, and it is very short. Therefore I think I should quote it; it has not been read before:
“The Foreign Office has prepared for the use in ‘Barbarossa’ the attached draft of a declaration of operational zones. The Foreign Office, however, has reserved the decision as to the date when the declaration will be issued as well as the discussion of particulars.”
These last two documents show quite clearly that this defendant was again implicated in the preparation for this act of aggression. Then, on the 22d of June 1941, this defendant announced to the world that the German armies were invading the U.S.S.R., as was seen by the Tribunal in the film shown on the 11th of December. And how untrue were the reasons given is shown by the report of his own Ambassador in Moscow who said that everything was being done to avoid a conflict. The Tribunal will find the reference to that in the speech of my learned friend, the Attorney General, the transcript at Page 888 (Volume III, Page 143).
We now come to the aggression which involved Japan and was directed against the United States of America. And there the initial document is 2508-PS, which I now put in as Exhibit GB-147. That shows that on the 25th of November 1936, as a result of negotiations of this defendant as Ambassador-at-large, Germany and Japan had signed the Anticomintern Pact. I do not think that has been read, but if I might just read the introduction, the recital that gives the purposes of the agreement:
“The Government of the German Reich and the Imperial Japanese Government, recognizing that the aim of the Communist International, known as the Comintern, is to disintegrate and subdue existing states by all the means at its command, convinced that the toleration of interference by the Communist International in the internal affairs of the nations not only endangers their internal peace and social well-being but is also a menace to the peace of the world, desirous of co-operating in the defense against Communist subversive activities, have agreed as follows. . . .”