FRITZSCHE: No. Several hours before that, on the evening of the day preceding the entry, Dr. Goebbels had called some of the departmental chiefs of the Ministry to his house at Wannsee and told them these facts and forbade them to leave or to telephone. That was the first real knowledge that I had of this fact.
GEN. RUDENKO: Very well. You also claim that you got to know of Germany’s aggressive aims with regard to the Soviet Union only in 1942, and this according to your own observations, is that right?
FRITZSCHE: I do not know what you mean by that. I tried this morning to make it clear that I began to have doubts as to the truth of the official German reasons given for this attack only when I was in prison. I explained that this morning. A second point, which I emphasized earlier in Moscow when I was interrogated, was that I observed in 1942—it may have been in 1941—after the war with the Soviet Union had broken out, that preparations of all kinds must have been going on for quite some time before 22 June.
GEN. RUDENKO: I will recall to your memory an excerpt from your statement, a document which you confirm in full. It is Number 3469-PS. In Paragraph 42 we read:
“At the beginning of 1942 I was a soldier in the eastern theater of war. I saw the extensive preparations which had been made for the occupation and administration of territories extending as far as the Crimea. On the basis of my personal observations, I came to the conclusion that the war against the Soviet Union had been planned a long time before it broke out.”
Is that statement right?
FRITZSCHE: Yes, certainly.
GEN. RUDENKO: Well, then, I have no further questions to put to you regarding this matter.
I would like to recall to your memory two further documents connected with the carrying out of propaganda, in view of the preparation of war and the actual attack against the Soviet Union. I am referring to the minutes of a conference held by Hitler dated 16 July 1941.
This document, Mr. President, is Number L-221 and has already been submitted.