These intentions as well as most intensive preparations for offensive measures by the Western Powers had been ascertained beyond a doubt through sources of information. The grouping of the offensive forces showed that the Belgian-Dutch territory was included in the theater of operations. As has already been described in connection with preceding cases of conflict, such information was continuously passed on to Herr Von Ribbentrop by Hitler or his deputies. Here, too, Herr Von Ribbentrop had to rely upon the accuracy of this information without having the right or the duty of checking it. In that way he, too, became convinced that in order to avert a deadly danger, namely, an Allied thrust into the Ruhr district, preventive countermeasures were necessary. On the basis of these considerations, Luxembourg could not be spared because of the extensiveness of modern military operations.
In connection with this procedure the Prosecution accuses, among other things, German foreign policy and thereby Herr Von Ribbentrop, of having committed an invasion in contradiction to the Fifth Hague Treaty concerning the rights and duties of neutral powers and persons in case of war on land.
The Prosecution overlook that this treaty does not refer to drawing a neutral into a war between other powers but deals only with the rights and duties of neutrals and belligerents as long as a state of neutrality exists. The Prosecution have made the mistake of applying their, as I have shown, erroneous interpretation of the Kellogg Pact, to the pact which had been made 20 years earlier. There remains no doubt that at the time of the Second Hague Peace Conference the outbreak of war was a fact of historical value and not subject to any law. All treaties concerning laws of war, especially the Rules of Land Warfare and the Neutrality Pact for Land and Sea Warfare, rest upon the basis of an existing state of war, hence do not regulate the jus ad bellum, but the jus in bello. This fact disposes of the Prosecution’s references to the Fifth Hague Agreement in all cases of the expansion of war as concerns neutrals which have ratified this treaty.
It is, moreover, quite doubtful whether the Locarno Treaty can be referred to, as was done by the Prosecution, in connection with drawing Belgium into the war. With Germany’s resignation in 1935 the Locarno system had collapsed, as will be shown by the defense counsel of Baron von Neurath. All attempts to effect a new agreement which was to take its place were based on the fact that the actual situation created by Germany must be taken as the starting point for a new agreement. This is shown especially by the British and French plans for the intended new agreement. The attempt to create a new agreement was not successful. However, the thorough and wearisome negotiations show very distinctly that none of the signatories considered the Treaties of Locarno valid any longer. On the contrary, the Western Powers proceeded to consider among themselves the effects which their obligations of guaranteeing the Western borders still had after Germany’s withdrawal. Regardless of how one may judge Germany’s attitude of 1935, it remains to be stated that the pact system had become untenable thereby. Hence in 1940 German commitments to the Western Pact of 1925 no longer existed.
I shall on a later occasion discuss the existing arbitration treaties and treaties by agreement with Belgium, Poland, and Czechoslovakia in connection with the Locarno Treaty when discussing in general Germany’s obligation for a peaceful settlement of disputes.
As far as Luxembourg is concerned, not even the Prosecution referred to the neutralization of this country. Evidently they went on the assumption that Germany had been forced by the Treaty of Versailles to give up the rights given to her by the London Agreement of 1867.
When, on 24 March 1941, the Yugoslav Government joined the Tripartite Pact, Herr Von Ribbentrop could not, in the light of the available news, assume that a few days later a military intervention by Germany in the Balkans would be necessary for political reasons. This situation was caused by the forcible change of government in Belgrade. The reaction to the joining of the Tripartite Pact by the Stojadinovič Government resulted in a new political change in Yugoslavia under the leadership of Simovic, which aimed at close co-operation with the Western Powers, counter to the idea of the Tripartite Pact.
In view of this uncertain situation in the interior of Yugoslavia, which on account of the mobilization of the Yugoslav Army and their deployment on the German frontier became a danger for the Reich, Hitler suddenly decided on military operations in the Balkans. He made this decision without the knowledge of Herr Von Ribbentrop, with the idea of eliminating an imminent grave danger for his Italian ally.
The testimony of the witness Generaloberst Jodl has shown beyond a doubt that Herr Von Ribbentrop, after Hitler’s decision and after the Simovic Putsch, earnestly endeavored to be allowed to exhaust all diplomatic possibilities prior to the beginning of military operations. Generaloberst Jodl has confirmed here that Herr Von Ribbentrop’s endeavors were rejected in so rude a manner that, taking into consideration Hitler’s nature and the prevailing methods, any influence on him was practically out of the question.
In view of the fact that ever since 4 March 1941 strong British forces were pushing to the north from Southern Greece, a further localization of the Italian-Greek conflict was no longer possible. Although this war had begun in the autumn of 1940 against German wishes, Hitler, with a view to the general situation, certainly could not tolerate the imminent defeat of his Italian ally.