“The German attack on Norway on the 9th of April 1940 brought war to Norway for the first time in 126 years. For 2 months war raged throughout the country, causing destruction to the amount of 250 million kroner. More than 40,000 houses were damaged or destroyed and about 1,000 civilians were killed.”
And that describes the situation as it really was. Do you admit that your speech on 2 May 1940 was full of the usual lies?
FRITZSCHE: No, I do not admit that, but I assert that you, sir, in submitting this extract, are not taking into consideration the fact that I, in my introduction, reported that I wanted to describe what I had seen myself, when I made a journey into the Gulbran valley and which I remember took me nearly as far as Atta. It does not in any way prove my description to be incorrect, if, according to the facts ascertained by the Norwegian Government, such loss and damage actually did occur in connection with this undertaking.
GEN. RUDENKO: I believe that the Norwegian people and the Norwegian Government had sufficient experience of the weight of the German occupation, and the government report states actual facts and not the sort of facts which you stated in your propaganda. This document has been submitted in accordance with Article 21 as indisputable evidence, and I do not intend to argue with you. The Tribunal will take note of it. I have a few more questions to put to you in connection with a matter which has already been dealt with in detail here. It is the Athenia case. I will not question you in detail on this matter, as it has already been ascertained with sufficient accuracy. I am simply asking you: Do you admit now that Fascist propaganda gave out to the public slanderous and false information about the Athenia case?
FRITZSCHE: Whether this was done by Fascist propaganda in Italy, that I do not know. National Socialist propaganda did it in good faith, as I have clearly described.
GEN. RUDENKO: I have already been speaking for nearly an hour about what occurred here and what has been ascertained. Do you agree that this speech was a slanderous one or do you still deny it?
FRITZSCHE: No, I have already admitted that and I also showed clearly how these statements came about.
GEN. RUDENKO: Very well. I am interested only in the personal part you played in this matter. Why did you take such an active part in this matter, and why were you the first man to spread this slander?
FRITZSCHE: I do not believe that I was the first one to bring this matter before the public. However, it is a fact that I spoke very frequently about the case of the Athenia, on the basis of official reports which I believed. I spoke about this case because I happened to be the very man who, at the beginning of the war, spoke on the radio in the evenings.
GEN. RUDENKO: Are you trying to assert that the first report on the Athenia appeared in the Völkischer Beobachter in October, 1939?