“I have chosen this method of direct appeal to you because I am sure that your personal intervention will result in the assistance required.
“Yours in comradely esteem, signed Keitel, Field Marshal.”
Allow me now to submit the telegram which Antonescu sent in reply to Keitel. Please turn to Page 120 of the document book, Exhibit Number USSR-244(a), (Document Number USSR-244(a)).
THE PRESIDENT: Could you summarize the contents of this document.
GEN. ZORYA: I can summarize the contents of that telegram in two sentences. In reply to the Defendant Keitel’s tearful appeal to increase to the maximum degree the fuel supplies, Antonescu replied, in a wire addressed to Keitel, that he would meet his engagements in full, but that the supplies previously requested by the German officials had already been delivered and that it was impossible to send any more. If something could eventually be saved from the quantities used inside Romania then perhaps, somehow or other, Romania might be able to help her allies. On the whole, Antonescu begged General Keitel to accept his expressions of regard and high esteem, but would not give him any more oil.
Allow me to remind you, Your Honors, that in October and November 1942 Rommel’s fate was being decided in North Africa, and that at the same time the Red Army was barring Germany’s advance on the Grozny and Baku oil fields on the borders of Mozdok. It is obvious that the Germans lacked sufficient quantities of crude oil.
I shall read one extract from the minutes of a conversation which took place on 12 February 1942, between Antonescu and the Defendant Ribbentrop, which has not, as yet, been read into the record. I have previously submitted to the Tribunal the record of this conversation as Exhibit Number USSR-233. I ask you to turn to the end of Page 51 and to Page 52 of the document book, which corresponds to Page 4 of the Russian text. There you will find the following lines. In reply to Ribbentrop’s question on the subject of crude oil, Antonescu stated:
“As for crude oil, Romania has contributed the maximum which it was in her power to contribute; she can give no more. The only way out of the situation would be to seize territories rich in oil.”
We should note here that Antonescu was not at all original in his idea of seizing other people’s territories, rich in oil.
I am asking Your Honors to refer to Pages 121-129 of the document book. There is one document taken from the private office of the Defendant Rosenberg, which is entitled, “About the Organization of the Caucasus.” I submit this document to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-58 (Document Number USSR-58), and I would ask you to accept it as evidence. In July 1941 the Defendant Rosenberg formulated the German opinion on this question—Page 122 of the document book as follows: