The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: imt//tgmwc/tgmwc-18/tgmwc-18-170.06


Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-18/tgmwc-18-170.06
Last-Modified: 2000/09/11

                                                   [Page 59]

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will not sit in open session on
Saturday next, nor will it sit in open session on any
Saturday in the future unless it gives notice that it is
going to do so.

Yes, Dr. Thoma.

DR. THOMA (counsel for the defendant Rosenberg): Mr.
President, yesterday I mentioned an affidavit of Dr. Heinz
Oppert, Reichshauptstellenleiter. I have now received this
affidavit, and I have also already conferred with Mr. Dodd
about it.

I now beg the permission of the High Tribunal to submit this
affidavit. Mr. Dodd has no objections to the submission of
this affidavit.

May I read a very brief passage from this affidavit, Mr.
President?

THE PRESIDENT: Can you tell us what the affidavit is about?

DR. THOMA: Yes, Mr. President. This Dr. Oppert had the
Office of Ideological Enlightenment in the office of the
Fuehrer's deputy for the supervision of the entire
ideological and intellectual training of the Party.
Concerning this activity and this office he testified that
it involved almost exclusively a reporting and registration
of events in this sphere.

Any active interference in the Church policy of the State or
the Party would not have been possible even if they had
wished it, for this office had no executive powers of any
kind. There were constantly very intense differences with
the State and Party organizations which participated in this
sphere of activity, between the Propaganda Ministry and the
Church and the SD and Party Chancellery. The suppression of
certain ideological groups and sects as well as the measures
taken against individual clergymen, as far as I know, were
taken by the SD or the Gestapo, without the knowledge or
authority of this office.

I am asking the High Tribunal to take judicial notice of
this document.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well.

DR. THOMA: Exhibit R-57.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Fritz: On behalf of Fritzsche - is anyone
representing Dr. Fritz?

DR. SCHILF: Dr. Schilf for Dr. Fritz who is absent,
representing the defendant Fritzsche.

Mr. President, Dr. Fritz applied in writing last Monday
concerning two affidavits which are still outstanding, one
an affidavit by the journalist - the English journalist,
Sefton Delmar, and the other affidavit by His Excellency
Feldscher, Ambassador of the Protective Power, now in Berne.
Neither of these affidavits has arrived yet, and we are
asking the High Tribunal if we may submit and be allowed
these documents later.

I have no further comments. No other applications have been
made.

THE PRESIDENT: Have you - I did not hear the name of the
second one. Was it Feldscher?

DR. SCHILF: Ambassador Feldscher, ambassador of the
Protective Power. He is now at Berne in Switzerland.

THE PRESIDENT: Have these affidavits been placed before the
prosecution?

DR. SCHILF: No, Mr. President, they are not yet available.
They have not arrived yet.

THE PRESIDENT: I see. Are they affidavits or
interrogatories?

DR. SCHILF: They are two interrogatories, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Interrogatories, I see. Well, then, when the
interrogatories come back answered, they can be shown to the
prosecution in case they want to put in cross-
interrogatories, and then they can be translated and
submitted to the Tribunal.

                                                   [Page 60]

Dr. Schilf, there was an application - I am not sure whether
it was in writing or whether it was only oral - with
reference to Schorner and Voss, and one other man, whose
statements were used in cross-examination by the
prosecution. I think they were affidavits; I am not sure,
and there was an oral application, I think, to cross-examine
those persons. Do you want that to be done, or have you
withdrawn that?

DR. SCHILF: Mr. President, that application has not been
withdrawn, but it was put in only as an auxiliary
application, to have effect only if the interrogation notes
submitted by the Soviet prosecution - it seems to me that
these interrogation notes cannot be considered as
affidavits, but only interrogation records, more of a police
character.

And Dr. Fritz made application to this effect, that if these
three documents were to be used as documents of evidence, we
cannot waive the cross-examination. These three documents
were used in the examination of the defendant Fritzsche only
in part, and only short passages were submitted to the
defendant in his examination. Every detail there he has -

THE PRESIDENT: What you were saying is that if the
prosecution do not want to use the whole of those documents,
but only the parts which were put to the defendant Fritzsche
in the course of cross-examination, they do not need to have
those persons Voss and Schorner called for cross-
examination, but if the prosecution wish to put in the whole
document, then you want to cross-examine them. Is that
right?

DR. SCHILF: Mr. President, that is correct.

THE PRESIDENT: Are you meaning that you are asking the
Tribunal to strike out the passages in the defendant
Fritzsche's evidence which deal with these statements or are
you merely meaning that if the prosecution wish to use not
only the parts which they have put to the defendant in cross-
examination but other parts of the document, that in that
event you would like to cross-examine the deponents Voss and
Schorner?

DR. SCHILF: Mr. President, we only want the cross-
examination to take place in case the Tribunal should regard
the three interrogation records as a whole as documentary
evidence.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, then you do mean what I first of all put
to you.

Well, perhaps the prosecution, General Rudenko, would tell
us whether he is wanting to put in the whole document or
whether he has put enough of it in.

GENERAL RUDENKO: Mr. President, as I have already stated to
the Tribunal when these written statements were submitted
and the transcripts of the interrogations were written down
in accordance with the procedure which is in existence in
the Soviet Union, the prosecution will only use those parts
which were read here before the Tribunal and on which the
defendant Fritzsche was cross-examined.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well, then it is not necessary to have
those witnesses brought here for cross-examination. Very
well.

DR . SCHILF: Yes, indeed, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Then that brings the Tribunal, to the end of
the evidence for the defence, with the exception of two
witnesses who are to be - who are here and to be called on
behalf of the defendant Bormann.

DR. FLAECHSNER: Mr. President, on behalf of the defendant
Speer may I submit in addition a document which has already
been translated and is known to the prosecution. This is the
Fuehrer protocol of 4th January, 1943. This shall have the
number Exhibit Speer 35. I had already listed it as Exhibit
35 in the index of the documents submitted by me which I
gave to the Tribunal. Only at that time it had not yet been
translated. I should like to submit it now.

                                                   [Page 61]

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly.

What I wanted to say was that that concludes the whole of
the evidence on behalf of the defendants with the exception
of the interrogatories which have already been granted, the
answers to which have not yet been received. Of course,
those interrogatories, subject to their being admissible,
will be admitted when the answers are received and that
applies also to anything in the shape of an affidavit which
has been allowed by the Tribunal, but otherwise the evidence
for the defendants is now closed with the exception of Dr.
Bergold.

DR. SERVATIUS (counsel for the defendant Sauckel): Mr.
President, I have another question regarding the appearance
for testimony of the witness Walkenhorst. In case he is not
called as a witness, I have an affidavit at my disposal
which I have received and I assume that I may submit this in
case this witness is not examined here before the Tribunal.
It deals with but a very brief question, namely, the
telephone conversation which Sauckel had regarding the
evacuation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Walkenhorst
happened to be the man at the other end of the wire. I have
an affidavit on this one question.

Of course, if the witness is being questioned here in Court
I shall ask him but in case he is not examined I request
that this be held open.

THE PRESIDENT: You are speaking of Walkenhorst?

DR. SERVATIUS: Yes, the witness Walkenhorst.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, he is just going to be examined now.

DR. SERVATIUS: I hope so, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: But - I believe he is here.

I have before me a list of supplementary applications but I
think they have all been dealt with in the discussion which
we have had during the last two days. And if there is any
other matter which the defendants' counsel wish to raise
they should raise it now.

Well, then, I take it then, that as I said, the evidence for
the defence is now concluded, subject to the reception of
documents which I may describe as outstanding, either
interrogatories or affidavits.

DR. MARX (for the defendant Streicher): Mr. President, may I
be permitted, please, to introduce three more documents.
They concern the following questions:

When considering what influence the weekly paper published
by Streicher exercised on the German population, it is of
decisive importance to know how the circulation of this
paper was formed and to what circumstances the fact is to be
attributed that within a certain period of time there was a
marked increase in its circulation.

I set myself the task of determining from the records of the
weekly paper, Der Sturmer, how its circulation developed.

THE PRESIDENT: But - we have already dealt with this
application. We have had the application before us and we
have considered it and we have refused it.

DR. MARX: Yes, I beg your pardon, Mr. President; it concerns
the following:

Quite by accident, when looking at various issues of this
newspaper, I ascertained that in the year 1935 a marked jump
in circulation took place and the defence counsel would like
to prove that this increase is not to be traced to an
increased demand by the German people but rather to the fact
that high Party offices became connected with it at this
time, and that this, together with a new publishing policy,
brought about a threefold increase. Naturally, it is of
essential significance whether a threefold increase results
from a demand by the people, or whether, as in this case,
the German Labour Front intervened in the person of Dr. Ley
and a special edition was published, which was then
circulated by using the huge organization of the German
Labour Front.

That is something I want to prove and I am of the opinion
that it is of extreme significance to the defence.

                                                   [Page 62]

I have three documents along these lines, Mr. President, and
with the permission of the Tribunal I shall read a directive
and I ask that I be allowed to introduce it as evidence.
From this it appears that Dr. Ley, as the Director of the
German Labour Front, gave the order to all the offices of
the German Labour Front to circulate this special edition
and to see to it that it was extensively circulated in the
factories, and so forth. For, indeed, it is one of the
essential points of the indictment that the German people
were influenced against the Jews by Der Sturmer and by the
defendant Streicher, and thereby were later made ripe to
support the measures in the east, even to the extent of mass
extermination.

Therefore, I ask that this evidence be admitted and that it
be declared relevant.

THE PRESIDENT: You said you have got three documents. The
first one is a directive from Ley?

DR. MARX: Yes, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. What are the other two?

DR. MARX: One is an excerpt from the newspaper Der Sturmer
published in May, 1935, No. 18, which reads as follows:

  "Bernhardt, who fled from Berlin to France, writes in the
  'Paris Daily News' of March 29, 1935, under the heading
  'Sturmer circulation increases threefold' as follows:
  
  "The support which the pornographer Streicher received
  from the highest offices of the Reich in circulating his
  Sturmer helped him to triple its circulation within less
  than one year .... "

THE PRESIDENT: Wait. You have already told us that the
circulation of Der Sturmer went up threefold. It is not
necessary to repeat it all again. We only want to know what
the documents are. The first one is a directive of Ley. The
second one is an issue of Der Sturmer What is the third one?

DR. MARX: And the third, the third is a summary of the
circulation from January, 1935, until the middle of October,
1935, and from this it appears that within the period of one
year, the circulation increased from I 13,800 to 486,000.
Anybody will probably -

THE PRESIDENT: Well, that is quite sufficient. We do not
want to know any more about it.

DR. MARX: Very well, Mr. President. Then, may I be permitted
-

COLONEL PHILLIMORE: My Lord, I - it is entirely in the hands
of the Tribunal, but we can see no objection from the
prosecution's point of view to the admitting of these
documents. The first would appear to link directly the
defendant Streicher with another of the conspirators. It
would be a most important document.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well, Dr. Marx. Then the three documents
will be admitted.

DR. MARX: I should like to submit the documents under
Exhibit numbers 19, 20 and 21.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well.

DR. MARX: I beg your pardon, Mr. President. May I make one
more remark? This matter came about in this way and was so
delayed because I personally did not know anything about it.
It was only by accident that I came across this in Der
Sturmer's records, which were previously unknown to me, and
considered it to have probative value. I ask to be excused
for not submitting it before now.

DR. SAUTER (counsel for the defendants Funk and Schirach):
Mr. President, I naturally do not wish to submit any further
evidence, but I should like to ask you to clarify a
question, a question of law.

At this time continuous interrogations are being carried on
by the Commissions in order to gather evidence with regard
to the organizations. Witnesses are being

                                                   [Page 63]

interrogated there whom we here do not know, and documents
are being submitted which we have not yet seen. It will be
several weeks before we know the results of this gathering
of evidence about the organizations.

Now we defence counsel who are working here are thinking of
the following possibilities. It could happen, for instance,
that one of these defendants could be incriminated by some
new testimony about the organizations, or documents might be
submitted which we, as counsel for these defendants, would
absolutely have to take into consideration in our pleas, or
to which we would have to offer evidence in rebuttal.

Now we are agreed that the evidence here should be
concluded, but we would naturally like to reserve the right
in such cases to -

THE PRESIDENT: I think you will find when you look carefully
at the order which the Tribunal made, that this matter was
provided for, and that if there is any matter in the course
of the hearing of the case against the organizations which
in any way materially or directly affects any of the
individual defendants, the Tribunal, of course, has
discretion to hear counsel for the defendant upon the
matter, and I think that is specifically dealt with in the
order that we have made.


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