THE PRESIDENT: The document is a new document, is it not?
M. FAURE: Yes, Mr. President, it is a document which I would like to submit under the Exhibit Number RF-1501. It belongs to the “D” series; it is D-734 of the British document books.
THE PRESIDENT: Has the defendant said whether he admits that it is a substantially accurate account of the conversation?
VON RIBBENTROP: I can no longer say for certain, Mr. President; what I did say at the time, I know only, and gather, from this document, from these words, that the Jews were spreading news from British and American sources. I can remember that at that time a large espionage and sabotage organization was in existence, and that this organization was causing a great deal of trouble in France, and that the Führer ordered me to discuss the matter with Mussolini since the Italians were opposing certain measures we had introduced in France. I spoke to Mussolini and told him that the Führer was of the opinion that, where this question was concerned, we should have to come to a definite understanding.
THE PRESIDENT: I think, Defendant, you have already told us that. The question that I asked was whether you agreed that it was a substantially accurate account of the conversation.
VON RIBBENTROP: I consider that in certain points the report is incorrect, but fundamentally the position was as I have just explained it.
M. FAURE: Now, you also spoke about this question with Horthy, did you not?
VON RIBBENTROP: Yes. I had to confer several times with the Hungarian Government so as to persuade them to do something about the Jewish problem. The Führer was extremely insistent on this point. I therefore discussed the question repeatedly with the Hungarian Ambassador and the question was primarily to centralize the Jews somehow or other in some part of Budapest, I think it was slightly outside Budapest or in—as a matter of fact, I do not know Budapest very well—in any case, it was somewhere in Budapest itself. That was the first point. And the second point dealt with the removal of the Jews from influential Government posts, since it had been proved that Jewish influence in these departments was sufficiently authoritative to bring Hungary to a separate peace.
M. FAURE: The document relating to your conversation or one of the conversations which you had with Horthy has already been produced. It was that of 17 April 1943. It is Document D-736, which was submitted as GB-283.
During the interrogation of your witness, Schmidt, the British prosecutor asked this witness if he admitted having compiled this account, and this was confirmed by Schmidt. This note bears the following remark at the bottom of the first paragraph: “The Foreign Minister declared that the Jews were either to be exterminated or sent to concentration camps. There was no other solution.”