dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. HORN: May I explain very briefly that the oppression of German racial groups in the border territories of Czechoslovakia led to the formation of the Sudeten German Party, and to the co-operation and consultation of the latter with official German agencies. Therefore the Defendant Von Ribbentrop, in his capacity of Reich Foreign Minister and within the scope of the directives he received, held conferences with leaders of the national groups. A number of documents have already been submitted in evidence by the Prosecution and I shall refer to them later. In this connection may I ask to make a correction in Document 2788-PS, where, on Page 2, approximately in the middle, it says "by the extent and gradual" -- there is an error in translation here. Our document says "provocation," whereas the original says "specification (Prazisierung) of the demands in order to avoid entering the government." I request the correction of this error, as it distorts the meaning. In the course of the Prosecution's presentation Von Ribbentrop was said to have supported the high-handed conduct of the Sudeten German leaders. As evidence to the contrary I refer to a part of Document 3060-PS which has not yet been read and from which the contrary can be gathered, that is, that the then Foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop took measures against the high-handedness of the Sudeten German leaders with the help of his Ministry in Prague. As evidence of this, may I quote the first and second paragraphs of this document. I quote: These directives do not apply within the frame of the general policy which had as its aim the avoidance of direct interference in Czech affairs or in the policy of the Sudeten German Party. Regarding the details of the activity of the German Government and of the Foreign Office in their relations with the Sudeten German Party, I shall question Herr Von Ribbentrop when he is called as a witness. I now pass on to Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 46 (Document Number Ribbentrop-46), which I submit to the Tribunal for judicial notice.
DR. HORN: This document is a report from the Legation of the Czechoslovak Republic in Paris. It is concerned with the meaning and purpose of Lord Runcimaii1s mission to Prague. It shows that that mission was entrusted to him by England for the purpose of gaining time for rearmament. I should like to read the document. On 29 September 1938, the Munich Pact was concluded, in which Von Ribbentrop also participated. Just how far, is something I shall demonstrate when the defendant is examined in the witness box regarding his policy. On 30 September there was a mutual declaration, which I submit to the Tribunal as Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 47 (Document Number Ribbentrop-47). That declaration by the Fuehrer and the British Prime Minister Chamberlain, dated 30 September 1938, was planned to serve the purpose of removing all differences still pending between Germany and England. The reaction to this agreement differed in Germany and in England. As evidence for the British reaction I refer to Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 48 (Document Number Ribbentrop-48), which I am offering to the Tribunal with the request for judicial notice. This is an extract from the speech of the British Prime Minister Chamberlain in the House of Commons on 3 October 1938. May I quote the following from its first paragraph: As evidence of this rearmament program, which Chamberlain himself said was constantly growing in speed and size, I should like to prove this assertion by reference to Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 49 (Document Number Ribbentrop-49). This is a speech of the British Secretary of State for War, Hore-Belisha, at the Mansion House in London, given on 10 October 1938, and I request the Tribunal to take judicial notice of this speech also, from the extracts which I am submitting. May I quote a few words from them? I am now skipping one paragraph and read the following paragraph, Paragraph 5, which says: So much for the quotation from the speech of the Secretary of State for War. In Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 50 (Document Number Ribbentrop-50) further stress is laid on armament.
DR. HORN: It concerns a speech of Winston Churchilrs, of 16 October 1938, and I beg the Tribunal to take judicial notice of this speech in connection with extracts from it as a document. I am quoting only a few sentences from it: I prove the fact that England was arming energetically in the air far beyond the normal needs of defense, by Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 51 (Document Number Ribbentrop-51), which I am offering to the Tribunal with the request for judicial notice. This is, a declaration of the British Secretary of State for Air in the House of Commons, dated 16 November 1938...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Horn, I thought you understood what the Tribunal wanted you to do, which was to put in the documents all together. I think I have said from 44 -- wasn't it the document that you had got to? -- to 300 something, that you could put them in all together. But now you have gone through 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 and 51, and you seem to be going through each one in detail, doing exactly what I asked you not to do. Didn't you understand what I said?
DR.HORN: The way I understood you, Mr. President, was that I may read important parts from them. That is what I did. It concerns only important extracts.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you going to find an important passage in each of the 300 documents?
DR. HORN: No, Mr. President, certainly not; but if I cannot read these documents, these extracts, then I would like to ask the Tribunal to accept my whole document book as evidence so that I can refer to it later.
THE PRESIDENT: That is what we intended to do. What we want you to do is to offer in evidence now, stating that you offer from Exhibit 44 up to 300 and whatever the number is, and we will allow you, of course, to refer to them at a later stage when you make your speech; and if there is any passage which the Prosecution object to, they can inform you about it beforehand and the matter can then be argued. But what we do not desire to do is to take up the time of the Tribunal by either offering each of these documents by its number individually, 44, 45, and so on, or that you should read anything except passages which are of especial importance at this moment. After all, you are not putting forward your whole case now; you are only introducing your evidence.
DR. HORN: Mr. President, I had.
THE PRESIDENT: I am reminded that of these last few exhibits to which you have been referring, you have referred to about six, all of them upon British rearmament. That is obviously cumulative, isn't it? Therefore, it cannot be that all those are all particularly important to you. We only desire to get on, and we desire you, as I have said, to put in these documents, if I may use the phrase, in bulk; and we do not desire you to refer to any of them beyond that.
DR. HORN: In that case I am offering Number 51 ... COL. POKROVSKY [Interposing] : If I understand rightly, Dr. Horn up to now has not drawn any conclusions from those directions which were given him, time and again, by the Tribunal. I had an opportunity, that is, as far as I could, actually to acquaint myself with those translations that are gradually coming to me, and, by the way, Dr. Horn turned over these documents, not 3 weeks ago, as he said, but considerably later. As far as I can see up to now, I have a whole series of objections. Most of the documents in general are altogether irrelevant to the matter, and in particular, absolutely irrelevant to the case of Ribbentrop.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, we have already indicated that we do not want to deal with questions of admissibility at the moment, because the documents are not before us. I do not understand the purpose of your objections. We haven't got the documents here. How can we tell whether they are admissible or not?
COL. POKROVSKY: I have an objection in principle. Part of the documents -- I will not quote their contents but merely for illustration will name two or three numbers. Some of them are direct filthy and slanderous attacks by private persons against such statesmen as Mr. Roosevelt, the late President of the United States. I have in mind the Documents Number Ribbentrop-290(4), 290(3), 290(l). Some of them are just provocative forged documents. I have in mind Document Number Ribbentrop-286. There is a whole series of documents which fall directly under the terms of those directions that were given to Dr. Horn by the Tribunal, and it seems to me that if Dr. Horn will continue reading those documents into the record ... THE PRESIDENT [Interposing] : Colonel Pokrovsky, as I have said, we haven't got these documents before us. You say documents 290(l), 290(3), 290(4), and 286 -- I don't know even what the documents are. I have never seen them. I think the best way would be for the Chief Prosecutors to submit their objections in writing, and then they will be considered by the Tribunal. The documents aren't here. We can't do anything until we see what the documents are. In order to try and get on with this case, we are allowing Dr. Horn to put in the documents in bulk. But your objections now are really simply taking up time and doing no good at all. If you would put in your objections in writing, saying that you object on certain grounds to these documents, that matter would be considered; but we can't consider it without that.
COL. POKROVSKY: My objection was dictated by the wish to save time and is of a very practical nature. From the moment when a certain document -- well, at least the contents of it -- from the moment even a brief account of it is recorded in the transcript this material becomes the property of the press; and it seems to me that it is not in our interests to have a document which is a known falsification, and the fate of which has not been determined by the Tribunal, that such a document should be turned over to certain circles and that it should be made public. Meanwhile, among the documents which have been presented by Dr. Horn, there are such documents; and it is not quite clear to me why these particular documents were delayed in translation, why these documents were presented later than others. And on the basis of this consideration I thought it my duty to address the Tribunal, and I think that the Tribunal will consider the reason for my objections.
THE PRESIDENT: I follow what you mean now with reference to documents being communicated to the press, and steps ought to be taken on that. The Tribunal will rule now that documents, upon the admissibility of which the Tribunal has not ruled, are not to be given to the press. I believe there have been some infractions of that in the past; but that is the Tribunal's ruling, that documents should not be given to the press until they have been admitted in evidence before this Court.
COL. POKROVSKY: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: I ought perhaps to add that the Tribunal are not in complete control of this matter. It is for the Prosecution to see -- and also possibly for the Defense -- that documents should not be given to the press until they have been admitted in evidence here.
COL. POKROVSYY: Up to now the order was such if the documents mentioned in Court are recorded in the transcript, then they become public property.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-YYFE: Your Honor, I wonder if I could help on that practical point, because it is one which has given us a little concern. As Your Lordship knows, the practice has been that the documents have been given some 24 hours before they are produced in Court, on the understanding which has been practically entirely, completely, complied with, that the press would not publish until the document is put in evidence. And, My Lord, I am sure that if the Tribunal expressed the wish that where any objection is taken to a document and the Tribunal reserves the question of admissibility, the press would, in the spirit with which they have complied with the previous practice, comply at once with the Tribunal's desire and not publish it in these circumstances. I think that in practice that would solve the difficulty which Your Lordship has just mentioned.
THE PRESIDENT: The only thing is, of course, that we are now dealing with a very large number of documents which Dr. Horn wants to submit; and, as you have heard, for purposes of trying to save time we have asked him to submit those documents in bulk.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: And of course it is very difficult, if not impossible, for members of the Prosecution to make their objections to documents when they are offered in bulk in that way. Therefore, I think the most convenient course would probably be if, as soon as the translation of those documents has been made, the Prosecution could indicate any objections they have to them and the Tribunal would consider them. And after the order of the Tribunal has been made upon them, they should then be made available to the press.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, I respectfully and entirely agree. My Lord, the Prosecutors did confer. Of course the only material that they had to confer upon was the short description of the document in Document Book Number 1, and on that it appeared to all of us that there were a number of documents which might be and probably were objectionable. But, clearly, from our point of view it would be much more satisfactory if we had the opportunity of seeing the actual document in translation, and then we should gladly comply with what Your Lordship has suggested, namely, that we will make the objections in writing to such of those as we think are objectionable and let the Tribunal have them.
THE PRESIDENT: Sir David, a good many of them, I believe, are in English, and you could let us have your objections as soon as possible. Perhaps the press would act in accordance with our wishes and not make public those documents to which objection is taken until we have ruled upon them.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: If Your Lordship pleases, yes. We will make our objections as soon as we have had the opportunity of reading the documents.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
DR. HORN: May I, Mr. President, state that none of my material has been handed to the press by me up to now. I may further state that by an order of the Tribunal only that part was to be translated which was considered relevant by the Prosecution. On the basis of this ruling I cannot rightly comprehend the one point of Colonel Pokrovsky's objection regarding the intrinsic value of the documents. I do not believe that the Prosecution, on the strength of that ruling, would translate anything which, as Colonel Pokrovsky emphasized, must be designated as dirty in its contents. I think that would have been rejected already before now by the Prosecution and therefore the danger does not exist at all that any such translation or original will reach the press.
THE PRESIDENT: I haven't seen the documents, so I can't say, but if you would continue in accordance with the scheme that I have suggested to you, I think that would be the best course for you to take.
DR. HORN: May I now submit the documents referring to armament, military as well as economic, which at the same time show the co-operation between Britain and France? These are the Documents Number Ribbentrop-51 to 62, in my document book. I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of these documents. I come to the question of Czechoslovakia. As evidence for the fact that Slovakia requested to be taken under German protection I shall present to the Court Ribbentrop Exhibit Numbers 63, 64, and 65 (Documents Ribbentrop-63, 64, and 65) with the request that they be given judicial notice. Furthermore, I shall examine the Defendant Ribbentrop concerning this subject when he takes the stand and, as far as is necessary, I shall have him express an opinion regarding these particular documents. Now I shall submit Documents Numbers 66 to 69 (Documents Ribbentrop-66 to 69) to the Tribunal for judicial notice. They contain statements regarding the reaction in Britain to the occupation of the rest of the Czech country on 15 March 1939 by Germany. Regarding the details as to how the creation of the protectorate came about I shall again question the Defendant Von Ribbentrop concerning the individual documents. As the next group of exhibits, I present to the Tribunal the document which refers to Article 99 of the dictate of Versailles and which specifically refers to the international legal position of the Memel territory. We are concerned here with Documents Ribbentrop-70 and 71 of my document book. Regarding the fact that in accordance with the presentation of evidence up to now, I had timed myself not to proceed any further today than to this document, I should like to ask your Lordship's permission to submit the rest of the documents to the Tribunal tomorrow. For up to now, on the strength of the existing practice of the Tribunal that the documents be partly read with connecting text, I had expected not to go any further than to this document.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Horn, why don't you put them all in now? You say you have an index of them. All you have to say is that you offer in evidence the documents from 71 to 300 and something and then they go in, and then if the Prosecution should take an objection to them, of course you can be heard upon the question of the objection.
DR. HORN: May I have your permission to confer with my colleague for one moment and see how much material he has here, so that I can then offer evidence on the separate subjects to the Tribunal? May I again ask Your Lordship? -- I gather from this ruling of the Tribunal that submission of evidence here is no longer to take place but merely presentation of exhibits quite apart from the contents.
THE PRESIDENT: Presumably when these documents are submitted for translation which I understand you say you have done -- but at any rate, if you haven't done it already you will be doing it -- you will mark the passages upon which you rely. Some may be in books, and there you will indicate only certain parts; in documents you will indicate the parts upon which you rely, which is what we desired you to do. You described all these documents by numbers and gave them exhibit numbers in your document book and all we want you to do now is to offer them in evidence and then the Prosecution, when they have been translated, will have the opportunity of objecting to them on the ground of their being cumulative or of their being inadmissible for some other reasons; and, if necessary, you will be heard upon that. All we want you to do now is to get on. What difficulty there can be in submitting these documents, all of which you have indexed in your document book, the Tribunal is quite unable to see.
DR. HORN: Until now, however, the ruling of the Tribunal was to this effect that we, in the Defense presentation, were not only allowed to submit our documents but also to deliver them with a connecting text so as to indicate the attitude of the Defense. Just recently, Mr. Justice Jackson suggested that, on the contrary, the documents should be handed over in their entirety and that objections could be raised subsequently by the Prosecution against the individual documents without their being presented. This suggestion was turned down on the strength of representations made by Dr. Dix, and the Tribunal intended to continue the established procedure, namely, that the documents could be read and brought forward with a connecting text. Now, we come today to a complete departure from this procedure, in which only the documents, and these in bulk, are presented to the Tribunal for judicial notice. That is naturally such a deviation that one first of all has to regroup all these documents, in order to be able to submit them to the Tribunal in their proper order, for up to now we had planned to deliver at least some part of the contents.
THE PRESIDENT: I am not aware of any order of the Tribunal which refers to an interconnecting text. We did not rule that you should not be allowed to read any passage from the documents, but what we did rule was that we wished the documents to be presented and put in evidence and that the passages upon which you relied should be marked and that the Prosecution should, if they wished to object to them as being so irrelevant that they needn't be translated, that they should do so, and that the Tribunal should rule, if there was a conflict upon that. Dr. Horn, of course, you can put any document to your witnesses in the course of their examination and ask them to explain it. It isn't as though you are confined to this presentation of the documents in bulk.
DR. HORN: Mr. President, may I add another word? This matter appears to me to be again such a question of principle that I do not wish to prejudice my colleagues and I should like to have an opportunity first of all to confer with my colleagues about it. That is indeed a basic departure from the established procedure which was allowed the Defense. I would not like therefore to take it upon myself now simply to alter these matters for myself and then in so doing, also commit my colleagues. I hope that Your Lordship will understand that.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Horn, the only material order which the Tribunal has made, as far as I am aware, is this: It is the order of the 4th of February 1946, 2(a):
DR. HORN: Mr. President, this ruling could naturally only be interpreted by us to the effect that we were granted approximately the same procedure as the Prosecution, for that certainly belongs to the fundamental principles of any trial, that a certain equality of rights exists between Prosecution and Defense. So as to save time, we are prepared to adapt ourselves to the Court to the extent that we submit the documents to the Tribunal in bulk, insofar as they refer to a definite problem; but still with the reservation to make those statements upon their contents required in order to understand the whole problem. This possibility, however, is taken away from us, if we must now simply submit the entire documentary material and can make no statements about it at all; for we certainly cafmot make any comments on a document if I now, for example, submit 10 pieces altogether for a specific problem.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Horn, the Tribunal will adjourn now for a few minutes to consider this question and will return in a short time and announce their decision so that you can prepare yourself for tomorrow on the lines which they wish.