VON RIBBENTROP: I meant to say Russian divisions. The Führer, I know, mentioned this many times. He said, I believe, that we had only one division in the whole of East Prussia.
DR. HORN: Was not the occupation of Balkan territory by the Russians the reason for your discussion with Molotov?
VON RIBBENTROP: I did not quite understand the question. Please repeat it.
DR. HORN: Was not the Russian occupation of territory in the Balkans and also in the Baltic States the reason for inviting Molotov to Berlin?
VON RIBBENTROP: In the Balkans, no; for there were no Russian occupation zones there. But it did apply to Bessarabia, which is not a Balkan country in the strictest sense of the term. It was the occupation of Bessarabia, which took place with surprising speed, and that of Northern Bukovina, which had not been agreed to fall within the Russian sphere of influence in the discussions at Moscow—and which was, as the Führer said at the time, really an old Austrian crown land—and the occupation of the Baltic territories. It is true that this caused the Führer a certain amount of anxiety.
DR. HORN: Is it correct that in the summer of 1940 you and Hitler were informed that a Franco-British military commission was in Moscow?
VON RIBBENTROP: Yes—no. What was the date, please?
DR. HORN: The summer of 1940; that is, after June 1940?
VON RIBBENTROP: Yes, that is correct. Such reports came in continually, but I cannot say now how far that was correct for the summer of 1940. When I arrived in Moscow in 1939, I found French and English military commissions there, with instructions from the British and French governments to conclude a military alliance between Russia, England, and France. This was part of the policy which the Führer described as “British encirclement policy” in his speech to the Reichstag, I think on 28 May, and which Mr. Churchill in 1936 in the embassy had made quite evident to me.
DR. HORN: Is it correct that at these conferences between...