dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. HORN: I had intended to submit documents first and not to call my witnesses until later. As far as Von Ribbentrop is concerned, I have learned that his condition has become constantly worse. I do not know therefore whether at the end of the presentation of evidence I will be in a position to summon the Defendant Von Ribbentrop; but I must be prepared for the possibility that I might not be able to call him. And otherwise I am concerned with only a very few very general points for rectification.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Horn, you cannot give evidence at any rate and if you cannot call Von Ribbentrop, then you must, if it is possible to do so, call some other witnesses who will give the evidence which he would have given. If, unfortunately, it is not possible to do so, then his case may suffer; but the Tribunal will give every possible facility for his being called at any stage. If he is in fact so ill, as you suggest, that he cannot give evidence, then his evidence may be put off until the end of the defendants' case, subject of course to a proper medical certificate being produced.
DR. HORN: If the Court wants then later to hear the defendant, I will postpone the matter with the request that if I cannot hear him, that is, cannot hear him fully -- for I emphasize again, there is a speech disturbance -- then he can at least confirm the evidence as a witness.
THE PRESIDENT: You may call any of the witnesses; the Tribunal has not laid down that the defendant must be called first. You have applied for eight witnesses, I think, in addition to the defendant and you can call any of them or you can deal with your documents, but whichever you do, you must do it in the way which the Tribunal has ordered.
DR. HORN: Then, I will turn now to the occupation of the Rhineland. On 27 February 1936, there was ratified between the French Republic and the Soviet Union a mutual assistance pact, the content of which clearly violated the Locarno Treaty and the covenant of the League of Nations, and was solely directed against Germany. At the same time...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Horn, you have just said that something or other is against international law. Now, that is not a reference to any document which you are offering in evidence, nor is it any comment upon the production of oral evidence. If you have a document to offer, kindly offer it and then make any necessary explanatory remarks.
DR. HORN: Then, I wanted next to refer to Document Number 1 in the Document Book Ribbentrop. We are concerned with a memorandum of the German Government to the signatory powers of the Locarno Pact, of 7 March 1936.
THE PRESIDENT: Which page is that?
DR. HORN: That is on Page 6 of the document book. In explanation I may add that this memorandum was submitted to the signatory powers, because between the French Government and the Republic of the Soviet Union a treaty of mutual assistance had been ratified and at the same time, the German Foreign Office received knowledge of a plan which the French General Staff had worked out and which arranged that the French Army was to advance along the line of the Main, so that North and South Germany in this way would be separated, and even to join hands with the Russian Army across Czechoslovakia.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Horn, for the formality of the record, it is necessary to offer each document in evidence and the document should be given a number. You have not yet offered any of these documents in evidence or given them any numbers, so far as I know.
DR. HORN: I gave this document the number, Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 1. The number is in the upper right hand corner of the document.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
DR. HORN: And I ask -- perhaps I may say this in order to save time -- I ask that all these documents quoted as Ribbentrop exhibit number be accepted in evidence.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, and in the order in which you quote them?
DR. HORN: Yes, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: They will be numbered that way. Very well.
DR. HORN: As to the particulars just submitted on the reason for this memorandum being lodged, and as evidence of the fact just cited regarding the arrangement of the French General Staff, I will call Von Neurath as a witness. I will question him on this one point, when he is called into the box. In order to justify the German view, which is contained in the memorandum and which consists in the fact that the Locarno Pact and the League of Nations covenant were considered infringed upon, I would like to refer to Page 3 of the document and wish to quote the following this is on Page 8 of the document book:
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Horn, was this document Exhibit Number Ribbentrop-1, one of the documents for which you applied and which you were allowed in the applications?
DR. HORN: Yes, Mr. President. This document is concerned with excerpts from the Dokumente der Deutschen Politik (Documents of German Politics) , Volume 4. I want to stress that this collection of documents was granted to me at the same time as the two evidence books.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal would like to see the original document.
DR. HORN: Mr. President, we are not in a position to present original documents, since the Foreign Office was confiscated by the victorious powers and with it a great part of the documents. Then I would have to make an application now that the signatory powers concerned produce these original documents, for we simply are not able to. We can only refer to document collections.
THE PRESIDENT: Where does the copy come from?
DR. HORN: This copy, Mr. President, is from the Dokumente der Deutschen Politik , Volume 4, as is shown in the document book which the President has before him. The document is found on Page 123 of this document collection. I should like, Mr. President, to add an explanatory remark: If the Court is interested in seeing the original, I should have to have the collection, which is up in the document room now, brought down. It is in German, and I do not believe that it would be of any value to the Tribunal at this time. May I mention further ...
THE PRESIDENT: You see, Dr. Horn, as a matter of formality and certainty, the Tribunal ought to have in its record every document which forms part of the record, whether it is an original or whether it is a copy; and whatever the document is that is offered in evidence, it ought to be handed in to the Tribunal and kept by the Tribunal. It ought to be put in evidence, offered in evidence, and handed to the General Secretary or his representative, and then the Tribunal has a full record of every document which is in evidence. But we cannot have documents such as this, which is a mere copy of the original document which ought to be offered in evidence. If it is at the Information Center, then it is quite capable of being produced here.
DR. HORN: Mr. President, the Court decided that we are justified in copying documents and certifying to the authenticity in order that these documents may be submitted as evidence to the Tribunal. Therefore, we have compared every document with the original we had on hand, or with the printed copy of the document and at the end of the document we attested the authenticity of the copy. This document, certified with my own signature, is in the hands of the Tribunal, I believe in five copies.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Horn -- Yes, Mr. Dodd.
MR. DODD: We thought that we might be helpful. We say that we are willing to accept this quotation from the volume referred to, and I do think that we did put in some documents ourselves and asked the Court's indulgence at the time in something of the same fashion. I think the Court, if I may suggest respectfully, might take this document on that same basis. I have conferred only with Sir David, but I feel quite sure that our French and Russian colleagues will agree as well.
THE PRESIDENT: I think, Mr. Dodd, the point is -- and, of course, it is probably only a formal point -- that the only document which is offered in evidence or put in evidence is a copy which does not contain Dr. Horn's signature and therefore there is nothing to show that it is in fact a true copy. Of course, if we had had Dr. Horn's signature, we would be prepared to accept that it was a true copy of the original. What we have before us is a mere mimeograph, I suppose, of some document which has not been produced to us.
MR. DODD: Very well, Your Honor. I have not had an opportunity to examine it carefully. We did not get these documents, by the way, until pretty late last night. We have not had the usual period of time to examine it, but in any event, I have suggested it might go in, and if Dr. Horn would verify it, as suggested by the President, and later furnish the original copy, it might be all right.
THE PRESIDENT: That would be all right, certainly. Dr. Horn, you understand what I mean. If you will produce to us at some future date the actual document which you signed yourself, to show that it was a true copy, that will be quite satisfactory.
DR. HORN: Mr. President, in the entire document book there is no document which I have not signed and given in five copies to be translated. Of course, I cannot also sign all the translations. This document which is contained in the document book submitted to the President has my signature in the German text.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean that you have handed your documents in to be translated, in German, with your signature at the bottom, saying it is a true extract, and you do not know where those documents are because they have gone into the Translation Division? That is right, is it not?
DR. HORN: Only partially, Mr. President. I know that I handed in these documents, to the proper office, in German, and with my signature. Then that office kept them and had them translated. From the moment I handed them in I naturally have had no further control of what happened. I may also point out that the document books which we used were available only in a single copy and must be used by all attorneys, even now, for their future work. Because of that, I cannot produce the original for the Tribunal since it is not my property. That can be done in agreement only with the person in charge of the document section, Lieutenant Commander Schrader.
TBE PRESIDENT: Dr. Horn, if, in the future, you and the other defendants' counsel could get your document books ready in sufficient time, you could perhaps then make the arrangement that you hand in the document book, when you are offering it in evidence, and then it would be capable of being handed to the officer of the Court.
DR. HORN: Mr. President, I do not believe that that possibility exists at all, for these Dokumente der Deutschen Politik -- just to use this example -- are available only in one copy for the use of all Defense Counsel attorneys; I cannot take these books away, if they wish to continue work with them, in order to submit them to the Tribunal as evidence. I would not receive them. I receive these books only to use them, and make excerpts from them, and then I have to return them.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but you are putting in evidence now a certain extract from the book, and all the Tribunal wants is that that extract be certified, either by you or by some other person who can be trusted, as a correct extract from the book, and that that document, so signed, can be produced. It may be difficult to produce it at the moment because you have handed it in to some official or to somebody in the Translation Division and therefore you cannot produce it, but it could be arranged that it should be produced in the future. I do not mean this particular one, but in the future other defendants' counsel can produce their documents certified by themselves or by some other person of authority.
DR. HORN: That has already been done, Mr. President. Five document books of the same type, signed by me, were handed to the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Well, the rule of the Tribunal happens to be that they should be handed in, in this Court, at the time that they are being used, as well as their being handed in to somebody for the purpose of translation. That is the rule. But now perhaps we had better get on as we are taking up too much time over this.
DR. HORN: I have just heard that the German documents which I signed are being procured from the Secretariat General, so I will be able to submit them to the Tribunal with signature, in the German.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
DR. HORN: I should like to continue and explain the afore-mentioned opinion of the legal consequences of the Pact made between France and Russia in 1936, and I refer to Page 3, that is, Page 8 of the document book. I quote: I will omit the next paragraph and will quote from Page 9 of the document book as follows: In consideration of the Franco-Russian pact and the intentions of the French General Staff, Hitler had the Defendant Von Ribbentrop come to him in order to question him about the presumable attitude of England to a possible German reoccupation ...
THE PRESIDENT: You are reading from the document, are you not, Dr. Horn? You begin to tell us something about Hitler.
DR. HORN: Yes, I interrupted at the phrase "as bound by this pact which has become void," in order to bring in the role of Ribbentrop briefly. On the basis of this pact and of the intentions of the French General Staff, Hitler then had the Defendant Von Ribbentrop ...
THE PRESIDENT: We shall hear that from Von Ribbentrop, shall we not?
DR. HORN: Mr. President, we are permitted to add a few connecting words to the documents. I can now...
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Colonel Pokrovsky.
COL. POKROVSKY: As far as I can understand, the Tribunal has already explained to Ribbentrop's Defense Counsel, Dr. Horn, that the Defense is now submitting a document. Although Dr. Horn does not consider it necessary to state when he deviates from the document and when he quotes from it, I have had the opportunity of noting that in the document he has just quoted, numbered Ribbentrop-1, there is a complete absence of any reference to the plans of the French General Staff. Among the documents in the 4ocument book submitted by Ribbentrop's Defense Counsel I could not find any copies of the plans of the French General Staff. It is therefore quite incomprehensible to me how Dr. Horn happens to be informed about the plans of the French General Staff, and on what grounds he refers to these plans while presenting evidence, in Ribbentrop's case, since they appear to be completely absent among the documents to which he refers.
DR. HORN: Mr. President ...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Horn, what you appeared to the Tribunal to be doing then was not anything explanatory of the document, but telling us what Hitler did, and what the Defendant Ribbentrop did, in consequence of what Hitler did. That is not in evidence. You cannot tell us what is not in evidence. You can only give us explanatory remarks to make the document itself intelligible.
DR. HORN: Mr. President, the Defendant Von Ribbentrop is accused on account of the conduct of the entire foreign policy. The Prosecution have presented the foreign political activity as they see it, and we have been permitted, not to give a speech, but, in connection with the documents submitted, to present our opposing view, as the Defense see it. In order to do, that, I must refer to certain facts, documents and quotations. I can never give a complete picture if I may just submit a document without giving a large frame to this matter, a certain development in the entire policy.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Dr. Horn, the Tribunal is not expecting you to give a complete picture at this stage. All you are doing at the present moment is introducing the evidence. You are going to give the complete picture when you make your final speech. It is intelligible, this document. It is a document which is well known; it is perfectly intelligible without telling us what Hitler or what the Defendant Ribbentrop did.
DR. HORN: Regarding these questions raised by the Russian Prosecutor, I have already asked for the Defendant Von Neurath as a witness. I can interrogate him on this point only after the Defendant Von Neurath is in the witness box. But I can still refer now to these facts that are counterevidence.
THE PRESIDENT: But, you see, that would be his function. If you are going to tell us what you think the Defendant Von Neurath is going to say in answer to questions which you put to him, that would be making an opening statement. Well, that has not been provided for by the Charter. We must wait until you call Von Neurath or until you question Von Neurath.
DR. HORN: Then I will read from this document just mentioned Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 1, on Page 10 of the document book: I ask the Tribunal to accept the entire document as evidence. Through this step of the German Government certain articles of the Treaty of Versailles which were concerned with the demilitarization of the Rhineland zone had become obsolete. Since this morning, by decision of the Court, the taking of a position on the Versailles Treaty is not permitted, I will omit the corresponding material from the document book of the Defendant Von Ribbentrop, and turn now to the document Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 8, which is 6n Page 21 of the document book. May I put another question first, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: Certainly.
DR. HORN: Is it permitted to submit the official documents on the Treaty of Versailles that were exchanged between governments before the conclusion of the treaty? These are purely government documents and not any arguments on the treaty itself. May these documents be submitted after the decision of the Tribunal today?
THE PRESIDENT: Which are they, the one on Page 21?
DR. HORN: This is in regard to the Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 3.
THE PRESIDENT: Where is that?
DR. HORN: It is on Page 14 of the document book.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Horn, the Tribunal would like to know what issue in this Trial this document is relevant to.
DR. HORN: I wanted to explain by it the German opinion of the Treaty of Versailles. Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 2 is the note of Germany to the United States that contains the offer for an armistice and conclusion of peace. And I wanted further to show in the next note again that this offer was one based on the Wilsonian Fourteen Points. Further, with Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 4, 1 wanted to submit evidence that the peace and the armistice were to be concluded on the basis of the Fourteen Points with two exceptions. I also wanted to show through Ribbentrop Exhibit...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, I tried not to interrupt, but really this is the issue that the Tribunal ruled on a fortnight ago when the Defendant Goering, I think, applied for documents on exactly this issue; and that also, as I understand, the Tribunal ruled on again this morning. The issue is perfectly clear; the only issue to which this can be directed is whether the Treaty of Versailles was in accordance with the Fourteen Points and if not, was therefore an unjust treaty which comes directly within the Tribunal's ruling of an hour ago.
DR. HORN: May I add something more? As far as I and my colleagues have understood the ruling of the Tribunal today, the only prohibition is against making before this Tribunal statements on the injustice of the treaty and on the fact that it purportedly was concluded under duress. We have not understood the decision in any other way.
THE PRESIDENT: That was why I asked you to what issue this was relevant, and you said that it was relevant to showing what the German opinion on the treaty was. Well, these are documents of the period before the treaty was made, and they seem to be only relevant upon the question of whether or not the treaty was a just reaty or not a just treaty.
DR. HORN: I personally did not want to demonstrate through document either that it was a just or an unjust peace, but only at it was a treaty which had many legal inadequacies, since the main treaty was not in line with the agreements of the preliminary reaty.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, if the main treaty was not in accordance with the preliminary treaty then the main treaty would, according to that argument be an unfair treaty. That is the very point upon which the Tribunal has ruled.
DR. HORN: For that reason, Mr.President, I have just omitted these documents also and said that I will not refer to them in view of this ruling. I will now turn to Document Number 8.
THE PRESIDENT: As you are going through a lot of documents we might break off for 10 minutes. [A recess was taken.]
MR. DODD: I do not want to take much of the Tribunal's time, but in view of the statement of Dr. Horn concerning the condition of the Defendant Von Ribbentrop, I think it is required that w infonn the Tribunal of the situation as we understand it, which is something quite different from the understanding of Dr. Horn. I have talked with Colonel Andrus and with one of the Army doctors in attendance. Colonel Andrus has talked with both of them and our understanding is that Ribbentrop is not ill and is able t take the witness stand; that he is nervous, and appears to be frightened, but he is not disabled in any sense and is capable of testifying
DR. HORN: I come now to Page 21 of the document book, and ask the Court to take judicial notice of the document appearin under Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 8. It is a copy, again from the Dokument der Deutschen Politik , Volume 4, which I turned over, signed, to the Court. It is the speech of Ambassador Von Ribbentrop at the 91st session of the League of Nations Council in London regarding the Soviet Pact, the Locarno Pact and the German Peace Plan. The speech was delivered on 19 March 1936. 1 refer to Page 3 of the speech and begin my quotation with Number 5. I quote: I now go to Page 26 of the document book, and the same document, and to clarify the German point of view, I add the following. I quote: With this, Germany had expressed the legal basis of her attitude toward the Locarno Pact and the Versailles stipulations regarding the demilitarization of the Rhineland. In order to prove her will to disarm, there is in the same document on Page 7, that is, Page 27 of the document book, an exhaustive and detailed disarmament proposal. I ask the Tribunal to accept in evidence the document just cited, so that I may later refer to it. With this exposition I conclude my presentation on Germany's reasons for reoccupying the Rhineland. Regarding the role of the Defendant Von Ribbentrop, in the occupation of the Rhineland, I shall enter upon that when I call the Defendant to the witness stand. After the occupation of the Rhineland, the Defendant Von Ribbentrop returned to London, where he was then ambassador. On 4 February 1938 he was appointed Foreign Minister, and from that time on, conducted the foreign policy along the lines laid down by Hitler. In proof of this statement I refer to Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 10, to be found in the document book. This is a very short document that I submit to the Tribunal for judicial notice. It is an excerpt from the speech of the Fuehrer before the German Reichstag in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin on 19 July 1940.
DR. HORN: I quote: I submit this quotation to the Tribunal to show according to what principles the Defendant Von Ribbentrop had to conduct the foreign policy. I should like now to ask the Tribunal to hear the witness State Secretary Von Steengracht. [The witness Von Steengracht took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your name, please?
ADOLF FREIHERR STEENGRACHT VON MOYLAND (Witness): Adolf von Steengracht.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: "I swear by God -- the Almighty and Omniscient -- that I will speak the pure truth -- and will withhold and add nothing." [The witness repeated the oath in German.]
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down if you wish.
DR. HORN: What was your last position in the Foreign Office?
VON STEENGRACHT: From May 1943 I was State Secretary of the Foreign Office.
DR. HORN: What were your activities?