VON RIBBENTROP: I consider that highly improbable. It is, of course, possible that somehow or other, some man may have worked for different departments, but this was definitely not done on an organized scale. The organization—we maintained a very small intelligence service abroad—and the intelligence services of the other departments of the Reich generally worked, as far as I was informed, completely apart from ours. It is possible that here and there some person or other would work for other, for different departments. That is quite conceivable. For instance, some person or other in our legations, as was customary at the English, American, Russian, and other legations, who had dug themselves in as consular assistants or some other kind of assistants, and carried out intelligence work for some organization or other.
COL. AMEN: So you want to change the answer you made a moment ago; is that right?
VON RIBBENTROP: No, I do not wish to change it at all. Fundamentally, as an organized routine matter, I never introduced any of the secret agents who worked for the different departments abroad. It is, however, conceivable that the department of the Foreign Office dealing with such matters may have appointed somebody. It was, however, a fairly insignificant affair. Today I say “unfortunately.” It is quite possible that other agents from this department, working for other departments, for Counterintelligence or the SD, et cetera, were correlated. Later on we even—I should like to add the following: I had pronounced differences of opinion with Himmler, over the intelligence services abroad, and it was only through the good offices of the Defendant Kaltenbrunner that I obtained an agreement to the effect that certain items of information would be placed at my disposal. But later this agreement was not honored. I think it was practically ineffective, because it was already too late. That, I believe, was in 1944.
COL. AMEN: Will you look at Document Number 3817-PS, please? Will you first tell the Tribunal who Albrecht Haushofer was, please?
VON RIBBENTROP: Albrecht Haushofer was a former collaborator of mine and was a man who, yes, who dealt with German minority questions. Could I perhaps read the letter first? Is it a letter from Haushofer? It is not signed.
COL. AMEN: Yes, it is. Have you finished reading?
VON RIBBENTROP: No, not quite, not yet. Shall I read the others too, or only the first letter?
COL. AMEN: We shall get to the other letters in a moment. I am trying to make this as short as we possibly can. Does that letter refresh your recollection that Haushofer was out in the Orient investigating various matters and making reports to you as early as 1937?
VON RIBBENTROP: At the moment I cannot recall that Haushofer was in Tokio but it is conceivable, it is possible that such was the case.
COL. AMEN: Well, the letter is addressed to you and it encloses a report, does it not?