[Page 59]

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: 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]

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]

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 .... "

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]

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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