DR. KUBUSCHOK: As to the co-operation of his closest assistants, do you believe that some trained minister, a minister of labor or some other minister who was specially trained, was ever consulted by Hitler about his plans for aggression?
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel, the witness has already said that he does not know how the decisions of the Reich Government were arrived at. What he may think about it is really not relevant. He does not know.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: Witness, is it your impression that plans for aggression were made by Hitler many years in advance, or are you of the opinion that they were made to meet certain circumstances, on the basis of the intuition which you say he always had?
PAULUS: That is entirely outside my knowledge. My observations began on 3 September 1940 and continued from that time until January 1942. What I observed during that period is something I explained yesterday. About the time prior to that I am not informed.
DR. MARTIN HORN (Counsel for Defendant Von Ribbentrop): Witness, you said just now that you were a member of a body which had the aim of saving Germany from disaster. My question is: What possibilities to carry out these intentions were at the disposal of yourself and the other members of that group?
PAULUS: We had the possibility of making ourselves heard and understood by the German people, and believed it our duty to make known to the German people our view, not only of military events but also of the events of 20 July, and to tell them of the convictions we had since gained. In this regard the initiative came chiefly from the ranks of the army I had led to Stalingrad. There we experienced how, through the orders of those military and political leaders against whom we were now taking a stand, more than 100,000 soldiers died of hunger, cold, and snow. There we experienced in concentrated form the horrors and terrors of a war of conquest.
DR. HORN: Did you have any other possibility apart from propaganda?
PAULUS: Apart from the possibility of making propaganda through radio and those newspapers which we had created, apart from that propaganda to the German people, we had no other facilities.
THE PRESIDENT: What has the Tribunal got to do with this?
DR. HORN: I merely wanted to ascertain what conclusions I could draw on the credibility of the witness.