VON RIBBENTROP: So far as the preparations with Rosenberg are concerned, that is in error. I spoke, according to my recollection, about this matter to Rosenberg only after the outbreak of war. So far as that Navy memorandum is concerned, I saw that document here; I had not known of it previously. I believe it is an expert opinion on international law about matters which might arise in connection with a war in the Baltic Sea. Such expert opinion was doubtless submitted.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: It says, “The Foreign Office has prepared, for use in Barbarossa, the attached draft of a declaration of operational zones.” Don’t you remember anything about that?
VON RIBBENTROP: No, I believe that did not reach me at all at that time. That was acted upon by another office. Of course I am responsible for everything that happens in my ministry.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Wasn’t Ambassador Ritter the liaison officer between your office and the Wehrmacht?
VON RIBBENTROP: Yes, that is right.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, again, I want you to help me about one or two other matters. You have told us that you negotiated the Anti-Comintern Pact back in 1936; and, of course, at that time the Anti-Comintern Pact—and I think you said so yourself—was directed against the Soviet Union. That is so, isn’t it?
VON RIBBENTROP: Yes, it was more an ideological pact, which, of course, had certain political implications. That is right.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: And that was extended by the Tripartite Pact of the 27th of September 1940? That was an extension of the first pact, was it not?
VON RIBBENTROP: It had in itself nothing to do with the first pact, because this one was a purely political, economic, and military pact.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well now, the fact is—and I think I can take this quite shortly—that you were urging Japan to enter the war quite early in March of 1941, weren’t you?