Herr Von Ribbentrop then deals with the question of Austria and the Sudetenland. According to his conviction at that time, England will not in either of these questions give her consent to a modification of the status quo, although she might be forced through the power of circumstances to tolerate a solution of these questions.
A change through collision with vital French interests of the status quo in the East will, however, always cause England to become an opponent of Germany in a conflict of such nature. Herr Von Ribbentrop held this conviction not only in 1938 when this document was penned; but, contrary to the assertions of the Prosecution, warned Hitler of this danger even before and at the outbreak of the second World War.
From this document it follows also that Herr Von Ribbentrop did not, as was asserted here, depict the British to Hitler as a degenerate nation, for he says in this document quite clearly that England would become a hard and keen opponent to the pursuance of German interests in the Mediterranean.
This conception of Germany’s foreign political situation at that time, as expressed in Document TC-75, evidently agreed with Hitler’s ideas inasmuch as in the course of the Fritsch crisis Herr Von Ribbentrop took over the Foreign Ministry in place of the resigning Herr Von Neurath.
According to Herr Von Ribbentrop’s testimony, Hitler asked him upon entering his office to assist him in solving four problems. These were the Austrian, the Sudeten German, the Memel, and the Danzig and Corridor questions. As shown by the evidence this was not a secret understanding which was arrived at by the two statesmen.
The Party program contains, in Point 3, the demand for revision of the peace treaties of 1919. In a number of speeches Hitler repeatedly pointed out the necessity of fulfilling these German demands. Reich Marshal Göring testified here that in November 1937 he explained to Lord Halifax the necessity of solving these questions and said that they were an integral part of German foreign politics. He also clearly expounded these goals to the French Minister Bonnet. Herr Von Ribbentrop therefore put his energy into the attainment of goals which were known and which beyond that resulted, of necessity, from the dynamic situation at that time prevailing in Central Europe due to the strengthening of the Reich.
How much or how little freedom of action Herr Von Ribbentrop had as a minister in the solution of these questions, I shall explain in connection with my statement on the participation in the conspiracy of which the defendant is accused. Only this much may be said here: That, as was proven by evidence, with the dismissal of Herr Von Neurath, the decisive authority in the field of foreign politics was also concentrated in Hitler’s hands. Herr von Neurath was the last Foreign Minister who under the regime of National Socialism at first retained a decisive influence on foreign politics as a Foreign Minister, which influence, however, due to the increasing power of the regime, he had to surrender more and more to Hitler’s aspirations towards totality.
In the selection of Herr Von Ribbentrop, a man of Hitler’s own liking became Foreign Minister. Outside of all formalities of state law and jurisdiction, every government without a doubt has a strong component in the purely personal relations among the rulers themselves. Seen from this point of view, it is necessary for the understanding of certain actions and of recent history to look into the relations between Hitler and Herr Von Ribbentrop.
Herr Von Ribbentrop, a well-to-do man of nationalist leanings, saw that Hitler and his Party strove for goals which corresponded with his own ideas and feelings. Herr Von Ribbentrop’s ideas about the foreign countries visited by him aroused Hitler’s interest. Hitler’s personality and political convictions developed in Herr Von Ribbentrop a form of loyalty, the final explanation of which one can perhaps find in the effects of the power of suggestion and hypnosis.
Let us not be oblivious to the fact that not only Herr Von Ribbentrop but also countless people within and beyond Germany’s borders fell victims to this power. What in this courtroom is to be considered by the standards of law, after all finds its final explanation only from the point of view of mass suggestion and psychology, to say nothing of the pathological forms of these phenomena. This task may be left to the sciences concerned.