FRITZSCHE: I never claimed that.
GEN. RUDENKO: Well. Then I will remind you that you dealt with the Athenia as early as September 1939; is that right?
FRITZSCHE: Yes, of course, the question of the Athenia...
GEN. RUDENKO: And you spoke about it before the report was published in the Völkischer Beobachter?
FRITZSCHE: Many weeks before that, yes.
GEN. RUDENKO: Therefore, you were the first to spread those slanderous assertions?
FRITZSCHE: No, I cannot confirm that, but rather...
GEN. RUDENKO: Very well. In this connection I will put only one other question to you. You will not deny that in 1940 you still spread this version? I will repeat the question. I am asking you, you will not deny that even in 1940 you continued to propagate this slander?
FRITZSCHE: It is the essence of every form of propaganda that it repeats good and effective things as frequently and for as long a time as possible. I have explained already that in December of 1945, here in the prison only, I heard from Grossadmiral Raeder for the first time that it was really a German U-boat that had stink the Athenia.
GEN. RUDENKO: Very well. I will pass on to a group of questions regarding your participation in the carrying out of propaganda connected with the preparation of aggression against the Soviet Union. You assert that you had no knowledge of the preparation of aggression against the Soviet Union until 5 o’clock on the morning of 22 June 1941—that is to say, when the German troops had already entered Soviet territory—and when you were called by Ribbentrop to the Foreign Office, where a press conference was being held. Did I correctly understand your testimony?