International Military Tribunal - The Nuremberg Trials - Complete Tribunal Proceedings (V. 9)

As an addition I mentioned only State Secretary Stuckart, a witness who also has already been granted me previously by a decision of the Tribunal. I believe, therefore, that I do not need to discuss this supplementary application, and that the Prosecution have no objection to this action.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Dr. Nelte, General Westhoff and Wielen have already been granted to you, and there is no need for any further application.

DR. NELTE: Is State Secretary Stuckart also granted me, Your Honor?

THE PRESIDENT: Westhoff and Wielen have already been granted to you, and there is no need for any further application. I am afraid it is difficult to remember these names. I think that Stuckart has been granted to you.

DR. NELTE: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I am told he has.

DR. ALFRED THOMA (Counsel for Defendant Rosenberg): Mr. President, at yesterday’s afternoon session my name was also mentioned in the following connection: I have hitherto submitted only written applications, and I must now present them orally. I assume that this refers to the written application which I handed in with my document and witness list, in which, in a rather lengthy written application, I requested that I might have permission to submit in evidence as historical documents of the time, quotations from theological and philosophical works which were considered important at the time of Rosenberg’s public power. I beg Your Honor to inform me whether this is the application in question.

I should like to repeat: The President told me yesterday that I should repeat my written application orally. Therefore I should like to ask whether this refers to the written request that I handed in with my list of witnesses and documents.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Thoma, so far as the Tribunal knows, everything will be covered by the written order which the Tribunal will make upon your application. It is not convenient, really, to deal with these matters now by way of oral requests, but everything that is in your written application will be covered by a written order of the Tribunal. It will be subject, of course, to the order which I have announced this morning, in order to assure that there will be no more translation than is absolutely necessary.

DR. OTTO STAHMER (Counsel for Defendant Göring): Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Tribunal, before I start with my presentation I beg to make two supplementary applications. I am aware of the fact that supplementary requests as such should be put in writing. But since it is a question of several requests, I should like to have your decision whether I should submit these applications now or whether the Tribunal desires a written request.

THE PRESIDENT: You may put your request now, verbally, but we would prefer to have it in writing afterwards as soon as possible.

DR. STAHMER: I name first Major Bütz, who is in custody here in Nuremberg, as a witness for the following facts: Reich Marshal Göring repeatedly opposed in the summer of 1944 the measures which Hitler had ordered against aviators taking part in terror attacks. Furthermore, he knows that no order was issued either by the Luftwaffe or by the Wehrmacht corresponding to Hitler’s orders regarding terror aviators. Finally, he can give evidence in regard to the following: An officer of the Luftwaffe in May 1944 in Munich protected an airman, who had bailed out, from the lynching which the crowd wanted to carry out. Hitler, who had knowledge of this incident, demanded of Göring the name of this officer, and that he be punished. In spite of repeated inquiries on Hitler’s part, Göring did not give the name of this officer, although he knew it, and in this way protected him. This is the application regarding the witness Bütz. Another supplementary request is concerned with the following: In the session of 14 February 1946 the Soviet Prosecution submitted that a German military formation, Staff 537, Pioneer Battalion, carried out mass shootings of Polish prisoners of war in the forests near Katyn. As the responsible leaders of this formation, Colonel Ahrens, First Lieutenant Rex, and Second Lieutenant Hodt were mentioned. As proof the Prosecution referred to Document USSR-64. It is an official report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union which was ordered to investigate the facts of the well-known Katyn case. The document I have not yet received. As a result of the publication of this speech by the Prosecution in the press, members of the staff of the Army Group Center, to which Staff 537 was directly subordinate and which was stationed 4 to 5 kilometers from Staff 537, came forward. These people stated that the evidence upon which the Prosecution have based the statement submitted was not correct.

The following witnesses are mentioned in this connection:

Colonel Ahrens, at that time commander of 537, later chief of army armament and commander of the auxiliary army; First Lieutenant Rex, probably taken as a prisoner of war at Stalingrad; Lieutenant Hodt, probably taken prisoner by the Russians in or near Königsberg; Major General of intelligence troops, Eugen Oberhauser, probably taken prisoner of war by the Americans; First Lieutenant Graf Berg—later ordnance officer with Field Marshal Von Kluge—a prisoner of war in British hands in Canada. Other members of the units which are accused are still to be mentioned. I name these witnesses to prove that the conclusion as to the complicity of Göring drawn by the Prosecution in the above-mentioned statement is not justified according to the Indictment.

This morning I received another communication bearing on the same question, which calls for the following request: Professor Naville, professor of forensic medicine at the University of Geneva, carried out, with an international commission at Smolensk, investigations of the bodies at that time. He established from the state of preservation of these corpses, from the notes found in the pockets of their clothes, and other means of evidence, that the deed must have been committed in the year 1940.

Those are my requests.

THE PRESIDENT: If you will put in those requests in writing, the Tribunal will consider them.

DR. STAHMER: And now I come to the . . .

THE PRESIDENT: Just one minute. Dr. Stahmer, if you would communicate your written application to the Prosecution, they would then be able to make a written statement if they have any objection to it. You will do that as soon as possible. Let us have both your written application and the Prosecution’s answer to it.

DR. STAHMER: The Tribunal has ordered in its decision of 11 December 1945 that the Defense is entitled to one speech only. This shall take place only after the conclusion of the hearing of the evidence. The Tribunal decided some time later that explanatory words may be permitted at the present stage of the proceedings in connection with the presentation of documents by the Defense. The witnesses have already been named by me. A decision has been made concerning their admission except for today’s request and, with the Court’s permission, I shall call a witness shortly. Before I do that, I wish to make the following comments to the documents to which I shall refer during my final speech:

The Prosecution have charged the defendant repeatedly with the violation of the Treaty of Versailles. This charge is not justified in the opinion of the Defense. Detailed statements on this question belong to the concluding speech of the Defense and will therefore be dealt with there. The present part of the proceedings deals only with the production of documents which will be used to support the contention that the Treaty was not violated by Germany but that the German Reich was no longer bound by it. I submit that the Fourteen Points of the American President Wilson, which were the basis of that Treaty, are commonly known, and therefore do not need further proof, according to Paragraph 21 of the Charter.