I believe that three points should be stressed here:
1) The intention of carrying out the total destruction of the capital of the state;
2) The correlation between the aggression against Yugoslavia and the aggression against another country, Greece—the aggression against Greece was coded, as the Tribunal knows, under the name of Operation Marita;
3) The necessity to complete the concentration of German forces as well as meteorological conditions were the factors that determined the time limits for the attack.
As in all previous cases of criminal fascist aggression, we see one and the same thing—the criminal intent of the predatory invader, treachery, and cold calculation.
Preparations for the successive acts which had been carried on over a very long period followed the customary Hitler routine, already disclosed by the prosecutors: Fifth Column activities, the use of the protection of the German minority as a slogan and the lying practice of peaceable declarations combined with unceasing preparations for invasion. As I have already stated, the preparation of the crime was carried on over a very long period and followed the customary Hitler routine already disclosed by the prosecutors.
On 27 March 1941, on the very day when Hitler signed Directive 025, he personally conducted, in Berlin, a special conference on the situation in Yugoslavia. The minutes of this conference were presented by the United States Prosecution on 4 December 1945 as Document Number 1746-PS.
Other documents relating to this conference have also been registered under the same number. At the conference, the objective was determined with absolute precision and a plan of action was presented. You will, Your Honors, find the passage I have quoted on Page 349.
Hitler declared:
“. . . we are not going to wait for any declarations of loyalty by the new government, but to carry out all preparations for the destruction of the Yugoslav armed forces and of Yugoslavia itself as a national unit.