RIBBENTROP BREAKS DOWN

Chronicle (Levin), 3 April 1946, Page 5

RIBBENTROP BREAKS DOWN

i Press Assn

^ — HITLER'S FANATICAL ATTITUDE T0WARDS -JEWS ♦ Teld Him They Were To Be Killed Like Deer and Hares

By Telegrapl

..-Copyright

Received Wednesday, 11.50 a.m. NUREMBERG, April 2. Ribbenirop had a bad night following his six hours of cross-examination yesEerday. When returned to his cell last evening he broke down with a fit of hysterical weeping. Ribbentrop was cross-rexamined by the French prosecutor, M. Faure to-day. He said he was very depressed when Hitler told him that the Jews had to be killed like deer and hares to prevent them doing damage. Ribbentrop attributed much of the sabotage in France to Jewish organisations. He claimed that six years before the war he tried to change Hitler^ fanatical attitude towards the Jews. "We in the Foreign Ofhce had to act according to the German anti-Semitic policy, but always tried afterwards to alleviate it."

M. Faure asked: You considered it normal to belong to a Government whose head was a, murderer?" Ribbentrop: I told the Fuhrer ithat I was against his measure so I he had it handled by others. ! Ribbentrop confirmed that he j carried out Hitler's order to . approach the Danish, Hungarian j and Bulgarian Governments "to get : the evacuation of the Jews eastjward started." I The American prosecutor asked , Ribbentrop whether he was Hitler's ! "Yes Man." / I Ribbentrop: I was always true to the Fuhrer. I saw in Hitler the ^ymbol of Germany — the only man who could win the war. I was sometimes dlfficult to subordinate, but carried out his orders. The Russian prosecutor, M. Rudenko, asked Ribbentrop whether he thought the German moves against European countries were aggres- J sions. These were his answers: — j Austria : The anschluss was the , execution of both peoples' will. Czechoslovakia : This was in linei with the principle of self-determin-ation set out in President Wilson's fourteen points. Poland: Germany could not toi- j erate Polish provocation any longer. ! Scandinavia : Intervention was aj

preventive measure because British landings were imminent. Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg: The Fuhrer decided not to 'await an Allied attack against tne jRuhr and the heart of Germany, ; but to attack first. j Yugoslavia: Action was justified 1 by the putsch in Yugoslavia and the jgranting of bases in Greece to the enemy. Ribbentrop did not dispute tnat Germany had attacked Russia, but said it was a preventive war. The Fuhrer feared a pincers movement by Russia, Britain and America. 1 Ribbentrop told M. Rudenko that he had no knowledge of the atrociIties in German concentration camps until the Russians over-ran Maidjeneck Camp, near Lublin. "When I Iread about it I went to Hitler," he I added. M.- Rudenko asked : How can you, in the face of all these bloody crimes, still think the Hitler regime right, and this criminal clique in reality a group of idealists? Lord Justice Lawrence said the Tribunal did not feel that this was a proper question, and it was ruled out. Ribbentrop returned to the dock after twenty hours in the witnessbox. '