THE PRESIDENT: All right.
M. FAURE: It is evident therefore, from this document, that three officials of the German Embassy, Abetz, Schleier, and Zeitschel, collaborated with Dannecker in the settlement of Jewish affairs. That is shown by the document, is it not?
VON RIBBENTROP: Am I supposed to answer that? Is it a question?
M. FAURE: It is a question.
VON RIBBENTROP: To that question I must answer “naturally.” They certainly collaborated to some extent in the Jewish question in France; that is perfectly clear. But I can also add that the French Prosecution surely is informed that Ambassador Abetz was not only instructed by me, but also acted on his own initiative in always attempting to reach some kind of conciliatory settlement of this question. It goes without saying that the Embassy was involved, one way or the other, in this sphere of action. And it also goes without saying that I must assume responsibility for anything done by the gentlemen in the Embassy, and I should like to repeat that my instructions as well as the activities of Ambassador Abetz were always in the opposite direction. It is quite clear that the basic anti-Semitic tendency and policy of the German Government spread over all the departments and naturally, in any sphere—I mean, every Government office somehow or other came into contact with these matters. Our task in the Foreign Office—which could be proved in thousands of cases if the documents would be submitted—was to act as an intermediary in this sphere. I might say, we often had to do things in accordance with this anti-Semitic policy, but we always endeavored to prevent these measures and to reach some kind of conciliatory settlement. In fact, the German Embassy was not responsible for any anti-Semitic measures of any description in France.
M. FAURE: I would like to draw your attention to another document, Number RF-1210, a French document which is a second report from Dannecker of 22 February 1942, Page 3 of the document, Page 2 of the German text.
VON RIBBENTROP: I should like to say here and now that I do not even know who Dannecker is. Perhaps you can give me some information on that subject.
M. FAURE: I informed you that Dannecker was the person responsible for Jewish affairs in France. As a matter of fact, these documents were submitted a long time ago to the Tribunal and communicated to the Defense.
At Page 3 of the document, which is Page 2 of the German, there is a paragraph entitled, “Actions,” from which I read one sentence: “Up to the present, three large-scale operations have been undertaken against the Jews in Paris.”
Now, if you will look at the last page of the document, the last paragraph but one, we read as follows: