As an attorney—and only as such do I have to evaluate the results of the evidence—I shall, with the permission of the Tribunal, after clarifying this aspect, present the role of Herr Von Ribbentrop within the alleged conspiracy for the plotting of wars and acts of aggression in violation of treaties.
Herr Von Ribbentrop had not been Foreign Minister for 10 days when he was called upon by Hitler to participate in the conference with the Austrian Chancellor and his Foreign Minister on 12 and 13 February 1938 in Berchtesgaden. Evidence presented in court has confirmed the fact that questions involving Austria especially were exclusively Hitler’s own concern. The then Ambassador Von Papen reported directly to the head of the State. Herr Von Ribbentrop had no influence whatever upon the activities of the Party in Austria nor in the Southeastern territory. My client alleges to have been informed only very rarely and not officially about its activities there.
The former Austrian Foreign Minister, Dr. Guido Schmidt, testified here that Herr Von Ribbentrop did not participate in the decisive conference between Hitler and Schuschnigg. During the other conferences he did not conduct himself in the Hitlerian “style” and created the impression on the witness of not being informed, which in a certain measure was due to his late activity in London and his only recent appointment as Foreign Minister. From this inoffensive conduct of Herr Von Ribbentrop the Prosecution have drawn the conclusion that it was a maneuver agreed upon between Hitler and himself. They insist upon seeing in Herr Von Ribbentrop’s conduct a typical sign of what they characterize as “double talk.” Must not the indisputable dates and facts with regard to Herr Von Ribbentrop, the impression of the witness Schmidt resulting therefrom, my portrayal of Ribbentrop’s position as Minister, his lack of information on the long-planned preparations with respect to Norway and Denmark, and other undeniably proven facts give cause to raise the question whether Herr Von Ribbentrop did not participate in decisions of foreign policy to a far lesser degree than is contended by the Prosecution?
In the question of the Anschluss, at any rate, he did not, as the evidence proves conclusively, play a decisive part. To him Austria was a country, mutilated by the Treaty of St. Germain, which on sound principles could hardly subsist and which once shared a common destiny in history with a greater Germany. The National Socialists were not the first to awaken Austria to the thought of a union with Germany. This thought had ripened in the German element of the Hapsburg monarchy since the revolution of 1848, which aimed at a democratic Greater Germany. After the downfall of the monarchy the Social Democrats continued to fight for it for ideological and material reasons. In fact, they saw in the Weimar state their spiritual offspring. The economic distress resulting from the destruction of the Danube area as an economic entity nurtured the thought of a union with the Reich, which was in a better economic position.
In this fertile soil the National Socialists were able to cultivate the Anschluss idea. In any event the prerequisites for an Anschluss with Germany were created when support for Austria by Italy ceased, due to the rapprochement of the latter toward Germany on account of the Abyssinian conflict. The further reasons that contributed to the Anschluss and its justification will be fully presented by my colleague Dr. Steinbauer.
Reich Marshal Göring testified here that the Anschluss in its close form, as laid down in the Law of 13 March 1938, Wiedervereinigungsgesetz, which was signed also by Herr Von Ribbentrop, did not originally even correspond with Hitler’s intentions, but was put through by him.
As a further violation of treaties with regard to the Austrian question the Prosecution quote the violation of Article 80 of the Treaty of Versailles and the corresponding article of the Treaty of St. Germain, as well as the violation of the treaty between Austria and Germany of 11 July 1936.
THE PRESIDENT: The translation came through to me, I think, as though you had said, “...the union did not even correspond with the intentions of Hitler, but was put through”—it should have been “by Göring himself.”
DR. HORN: Yes, I forgot that.
THE PRESIDENT: Go on.