Abetz Believes Nazis Could Have Won If –

Northern Advocate, 14 July 1949, Page 5

Abetz Believes Nazis Could Have Won If -

PARIS, Wed. (11.30 a.m.).—lf the French fleet and French colonial army had fought against Britain and America, Germany would have won the war, Otto Abetz, Hitler’s wartime Ambassador to Paris, said today on the second day of his trial by a military tribunal.

Abetz said that Hitler, Ribbcnirop and Goering had always rejected such an alliance with France because Admiral Darlan had proposed conditions which made them fear being “duped.” Abetz, who is charged with complicity in murder, looting, mass deportation and torture, was questioned about a document he wrote defining his duties as Nazi Ambassador.

factor in Europe." Abetz asked the court to take into consideration the circumstances in which the document was written—at Hitler’s Salzburg headquarters at the beginning of his career as a diplomat and a very young member of the Nazi Party.

“There were terrible hates and jealousies raging round me,” he said. Declaring that he had done his best to form a Franco-German alliance during the war, Abetz said: “I wanted to give France virtual equality with Germany in a united Europe.” . "You mean under German domination. of course," said the presiding judge. Abetz smiled his absent,

In this document Abetz spoke of gaining influence on a section of French politicians by encouraging the “illusion of understanding between Germany and France." The document called for France’s entry into the war against Britain, but envisaged France after the war "as being excluded for ever as g aflUtaq;