GEN. RUDENKO: I quite appreciate that you have already been answering questions of this nature for 3 days running.
VON RIBBENTROP: I shall now be very brief. After the Polish campaign military considerations proved to be the decisive factors. The Führer did not wish the war to spread. As for Holland, Belgium, and France, it was France who declared war on Germany and not we who declared war on France. We therefore had to prepare for an attack from this direction as well. The Führer told me at the time that such an attack on the Ruhr area was to be expected, and documents discovered at a later date have proved to the world at large beyond a shadow of doubt that this information was perfectly authentic. The Führer therefore decided to adopt preventive measures in this case as well and not to wait for an attack on the heart of Germany, but to attack first. And so the timetable of the German General Staff was put into practice.
GEN. RUDENKO: Do you consider the attack on Greece as an act of aggression on the part of Germany?
VON RIBBENTROP: The attack on Greece and Yugoslavia by Germany has already been discussed. I do not believe I need give any further details on this point. That is here...
GEN. RUDENKO: I also do not think it is necessary to give detailed replies. I ask whether you consider the attack on Greece as an act of aggression on the part of Germany? Answer “yes” or “no.”
VON RIBBENTROP: No, and I consider that the measures adopted in Yugoslavia and the measures taken by Greece in granting bases, et cetera, to the enemies of Germany justified the intervention of Adolf Hitler, so that here too one cannot speak of aggressive action in this sense. It was quite clear that British troops were about to land in Greece, since they had already landed in Crete and the Peloponnesos, and that the uprising in Yugoslavia by the enemies of Germany, in agreement with the enemies of Germany, as I mentioned yesterday, had been encouraged with the intent of launching an attack against Germany from that country. The documents of the French General Staff discovered later in France showed only too clearly that a landing in Salonika had been planned...
GEN. RUDENKO: Witness Ribbentrop, you have already spoken about that in much detail. You explained it yesterday at great length. Now will you please answer “yes” or “no” to my last question: Do you, or do you not consider the attack on the Soviet Union as an act of aggression on the part of Germany?
VON RIBBENTROP: It was no aggression in the literal sense of the word, but...
GEN. RUDENKO: You say that in the literal sense of the word it was not an act of aggression. Then in what sense of the word was it an aggression?
THE PRESIDENT: You must let him answer.