SCHULTE-MÖNTING: A British landing had already occurred in the south of Greece a few days before.
DR. SIEMERS: Did this landing make it necessary to occupy the whole of Greece?
SCHULTE-MÖNTING: Yes, for strategic reasons, absolutely. The menace of an occupation from the sea or from the air, or the formation of a Balkan front against Germany, or the menace from the air to the oil fields, had to be eliminated under all circumstances. May I only remind you of the Salonika operation in the first World War. I believe that was a similar situation.
DR. SIEMERS: Here again the Prosecution say this was governed by the desire for conquest and fame. Is that correct?
SCHULTE-MÖNTING: I should like to answer that fame requires achievements, and I do not know what the Navy could have conquered in the Mediterranean. We did not have a single man or a single ship down there; but Raeder, of course, for the strategic reasons I have mentioned, had to advise Hitler in that direction.
DR. SIEMERS: Were breaches of neutrality on the part of Greece known to you before this time, before we occupied Greece?
SCHULTE-MÖNTING: We had been informed that in 1939, certain Greek political and military circles had been in the closest connection with the Allied General Staff. We knew that Greek merchantmen were in British service. Therefore we were compelled to consider the Greek merchantmen which sailed through the prohibited zone to England as enemy ships. And, I believe, in the beginning of 1940, or the middle of 1940, we received information that the Allies intended to land in Greece or to establish a Balkan front against Germany.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now.