VON RIBBENTROP: I believe it is an error. That was after the attack on Pearl Harbor?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Exactly, the day after Pearl Harbor.
VON RIBBENTROP: That was an order of Adolf Hitler’s to attack America who, as everyone knows, had been attacking our ships for months. This is an altogether different affair.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: When you say “attacking German ships,” do you mean defending themselves against German submarines?
VON RIBBENTROP: No, so far as I know, some months earlier, I cannot tell you the exact date; but it was a long time before Pearl Harbor, we had delivered an official protest to the United States, in which we pointed out, in the case of the two ships Greer and Kerne, that these two boats had pursued German submarines and had thrown depth charges at them. I believe the Secretary of the Navy Knox admitted this openly in a press conference. I mentioned yesterday that Hitler said in his speech in Munich that he did not give the order to shoot or to attack American vessels but he had given the order to fire back if they fired first.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: What I want to know from you is this: Did you approve of the policy of ordering the entire German Navy to attack American ships whenever and wherever they might meet them 3 days before war was declared? Did you approve of that?
VON RIBBENTROP: I cannot say anything about that now, because I do not remember it and do not even know the document.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, I want to ask you about another point. Do you remember that the...
VON RIBBENTROP: It would have been understandable, that I must add.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You have given your answer. Do you remember, in June 1944, that there was a conference about which we have heard evidence, regarding the shooting of what is known as “terror-fliers”?