I should like to supplement this document with a few excerpts from the minutes of the interrogation by Dr. Wengler, a former counsellor of the Foreign Counterintelligence Service of the OKW. This document is submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-129 (Document Number USSR-129). Wengler was questioned by me on 19 December 1945, and his testimony is important for purposes of evaluating the line of conduct both of the OKW and Keitel himself.
DR. NELTE: Mr. President, I ask that the document, Exhibit Number USSR-129, which the Russian Prosecutor intends to read, should not be read, but that the witness mentioned in this document, Dr. Wengler, be called personally to testify in Court, if the Soviet Prosecution is willing.
This document, USSR-129, is a record of an interrogation of Dr. Wengler, who was active in Counterintelligence Service in the OKW. It is a question of determining whether the nonapplication of the Geneva Convention as regards Russia is due to the fault of the German Government, the OKW, and the Defendant Keitel. I do not need to state that the clarification of this question is of the utmost significance in judging the responsible persons, not only because of the Counts in the Indictment, but because of the terrible guilt in face of the German people, if the testimony given by this witness should be true. The witness was interrogated in Nuremberg on 19 December 1945. Whether he is still here or in Berlin—he gave his address at the time of the inquiry—I cannot say. But I do believe that the basic decisions of the Tribunal concerning the interpretation of Article 21 of the Charter will justify my request in this respect since, firstly, the summoning of the witness from Berlin does not entail great difficulties, secondly we are concerned with a question of such tremendous significance, even in this setting, that the personal testimony and interrogation by this Tribunal should not be replaced by the mere lecture of the minutes of an inquiry.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you anything you wish to say in answer to that objection?
COL. POKROVSKY: With your permission I should like first of all, in order to clarify the matter, to ask where the witness actually is at the present moment? He is not in Nuremberg. He was brought here especially for this interrogation under the greatest technical difficulties. The interrogation was conducted according to all the rules of our judicial proceedings, so that this document could be submitted to the Tribunal and accepted as evidence, if the Tribunal so judges, according to Article 19 of the Charter.
All the problems concerning this subject, which were of interest to the Soviet Prosecution, are already sufficiently clear from the Document Number USSR-129, which we submit to you, and I see no possibility of having this witness brought here in the near future. Maybe the representatives of the Defense Counsel imagine that it is very easy to produce him, but I do not see any technical possibility of bringing him here a second time. And I repeat that, if the Tribunal does not consider it feasible to accept this document in the suitable manner in which we have formulated it, then we would even agree to refrain from submitting it as evidence and to replace it by other evidence—even though we believe it to be incorrect. But we consider it easier than to bring the witness here a second time. That is all I have to say in reply to this request.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you say that you could not bring the witness here, and that as you could not bring him here you would not press the introduction of the document?
COL. POKROVSKY: No, I put it differently. I said that we insist that this document be admitted, since the Tribunal has the right, according to Article 19 of the Charter, to accept this document as evidence. But if we were to choose between two possibilities, either by adding this evidence to the record or by summoning the witness a second time, the technical obstacles which prevent us from so doing would compel us, by preference, to accept the exclusion of this document from the record, in order to avoid any repetition of the difficulties already experienced. We consider that the document is quite correctly compiled, in accordance with all the rules of the Charter, and that the Tribunal should receive it as evidence according to Article 19 of the Charter.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal would like to know first of all, why is it difficult or impossible to bring the witness to Nuremberg in the same way that he was brought to Nuremberg in December 1945; and secondly, has Dr. Nelte and have the other defendants’ counsel got full copies in German of the document?
COL. POKROVSKY: Dr. Wengler was interrogated in his native German tongue. The original of his record, of his interrogation, has been submitted to the Tribunal in an adequate number of copies, which are at the disposal of the Defense Counsel.