Translation of Document No. NG-4556, Office of Chief Counsel for War Crimes, Affidavit of Friedrich Gaus
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OCR Page 1 of 54TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT No.NG-45:55
OFFICE OF CHIEF OF COUNSEL FOR WAR CRIMES
AFFIDAIT
I, Dr. Friedrich GAUS, in the year 1941 Ministerial
Director and Chief of the Legal Division of the German Foreign
Office, with the title of an Under State Secretary, herewith
under nath, after having been instructed that I make myself
liable to punishment through a false statement, declare the
following of my own free will and without duress or threat:
1) Through my personal observations, through the knowledge
of secret documents of the Foreign Office, especially of memoranda
on deplonatic conferences of Hitler and Ribbentrep, and alsn
through personal statements of the Minister, the final objectives
of the foreign palicy of the Third Reich as they wore pursued
at the high print of its aggressive actions in the year 1941,
became known to me as follows:
2) The German p^litical leadership say in the Japanes attack
Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 the first step toward the
realization in OI the idea of founding a Great Germanic Empire. For
this Empire was intended not anly to rule Europe, but to be the
decisive facter in the steering of world events in their entirety.
3) The Japanese entry into the war had a long prior history
in the files of the Foreign Office, that is comprised of many
diplonatic actions.
4) The triagular coalition Berlin-Rome-Tekyo, Ribbentrop
had tried ts establish firmly an idea for world policy as early e
1936 thrrugh his Anti-Comintern Pact, and then above all through
the Tripartite Pact of Autumn 1940. With the Japanese attack in
the Far East the German foreign policy detormined now to
approach the farther reaching objective of destraying forever the
British world empire. At the same time it was intended that the
United States should thereby receive a position of second rank,
excluded from the heritage of the British world empire and her
(the U.S.) sphere nf power and influence limited to the northern
part of the American Continent. The program of the G r man foreign
policy provided further a division of the spheres of interest in
the Eastern Hemisphere between Germany and Japan. Accordingly,
the demarcation should run along the line from the Urals, the
Persian Gulf and through the Indian Ocean eastwards of Aprica. TY
discussien of the details went SA far that consideration was ever
devoted, for example, to the fixing of the denarcation line in
the area of Madagascar. Concerning the role of the Axis partner
Italy, German diplomacy did not give itself nuch worry, for this
role would of itself be limited to the proper size through the
ratio of power between Germany and Italy.
5) This dividing up of the world was no mere daydream, but
reality the plan immediately of action that through German the diplomacy "final victory. intended M to transfer int
(signed) Friedrich GAUS
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