DR. NELTE: Would you grant to others also, who were not so near to the sources, the good faith that they only wanted what was best for their fatherland?
PAULUS: Yes, I do, of course.
DR. FRITZ SAUTER (Counsel for Defendants Von Schirach and Funk): Witness, yesterday you mentioned that you consider the Hitler Government as the guilty ones. Is that correct?
PAULUS: Yes, I have done so. . . .
DR. SAUTER: In your written deposition which you made on 9 January 1946—in a prisoner-of-war camp it is said—there is nothing about that; at least, I have not found anything about it so far.
PAULUS: This letter has nothing to do with that. This is a letter to the Soviet Government, in which I explained several questions which came up within the 6th Army in Russia, and several of my own experiences.
DR. SAUTER: In this letter of 9 January 1946, you said explicitly—and I quote:
“Today, when the crimes of Hitler and his helpers are being judged, I find myself obliged to tell the Soviet Government everything which I have known and which may serve as proof of the guilt of the war criminals in the Nuremberg Trials.”
In spite of that, in this written declaration, which is very detailed, there is nothing about it.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, if you cross-examine the witness on this letter, you must put the letter in evidence, the whole letter.