“The office’s initiative in developing, with the help of commercial circles, entirely new methods for the economic penetration of Iran found expression, in an extraordinarily favorable way, in reciprocal trade relations. Naturally, in Germany, too, this initiative encountered a completely negative attitude and resistance on the part of the competent State authorities, an attitude that at first had to be overcome. In the course of a few years, the volume of trade with Iran was multiplied five-fold and in 1939 Iran’s trade turnover with Germany had attained first place.”
In the last sentence on Page 3. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Well, now, Mr. Brudno, will you kindly explain to the Tribunal how the paragraph that you just read bears upon the guilt of Rosenberg in this Trial?
MR. BRUDNO: If Your Honor pleases, we submit that the conspirators used, as one of the tools of conspiracy, the economic penetration of those countries which they deemed strategically necessary to have within the Axis orbit. The activities of Rosenberg in the field of foreign trade contributed materially, we submit, to the advancement of the conspiracy, as charged in the Indictment.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you suggesting that it is a crime to try and stimulate trade in foreign countries?
MR. BRUDNO: If Your Honor pleases, the expression of ideological opinions or the advancement of foreign trade do not, in themselves, constitute a crime, we agree.
THE PRESIDENT: There is nothing here about ideological considerations. It is simply a question of trade.
MR. BRUDNO: Further on, Your Honor, he mentions the cultural activities.
THE PRESIDENT: I was confining myself, in order to try to get on, to the particular paragraph that you had just cited.
MR. BRUDNO: I see, Your Honor; we are merely trying to show, Sir, that the Germans used the foreign trade weapon as a material part of the conspiratorial program.