“Danzig is not the subject of the dispute at all; it is a question of expanding our Lebensraum in the East and of securing our food supplies and of the settlement of the Baltic problem. Food supplies can be expected only from thinly populated areas. Added to the natural fertility, the German, through cultivation, will enormously increase the surplus. There is no other possibility for Europe.” (Document Number L-79)
Are you telling the Tribunal that Hitler never explained that view to you?
VON RIBBENTROP: It may be strange to say so, but I should like to say first that it looks as though I was not present during this conference. That was a military conference, and the Führer used to hold these military conferences quite separately from the political conferences. The Führer did now and then mention that we had to have Lebensraum; but I knew nothing, and he never told me anything at that time, that is in May 1939, of an intention to attack Poland. Yes, I think this was kept back deliberately, as had been done in other cases, because he always wanted his diplomats to stand wholeheartedly for a diplomatic solution and to bring it about.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You mean to say that Hitler was deliberately keeping you in the dark as to his real aims; that Danzig was not the subject of dispute and what he really wanted was Lebensraum; is that your story?
VON RIBBENTROP: Yes, I assume that he did that deliberately because...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well now, just look at the very short paragraph a little further on where he says:
“There is no question of sparing Poland, and we are left with no alternative but to attack Poland at the first suitable opportunity. We cannot expect a repetition of the Czech affair. There will be fighting. The task is to isolate Poland.”
Do you tell the Tribunal that he never said that to his Foreign Minister?
VON RIBBENTROP: I did not quite understand that question.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: It is a perfectly simple one. Do you tell the Tribunal that Hitler never mentioned what I have just read from his speech, that there is to be no question of sparing Poland, that you had to attack Poland at the first opportunity, and your task was to isolate Poland? Are you telling the Tribunal that Hitler never mentioned that to his Foreign Minister, who would have the practical conduct of foreign policy?