THE PRESIDENT: I think you have dealt with each topic with the exception of Numbers 20, 23, and 28. Number 20 is Mr. Winston Churchill’s book; 23 is Tchitcherin’s, and 28 is General Fuller’s book. We will take those.
DR. STAHMER: Book Number 20, Churchill’s Step by Step—here we are concerned with statements in which Churchill at one point expresses his opinion as to whether England, by the Naval Treaty of 1935, had not sanctioned Germany’s renunciation of the Versailles Treaty.
Furthermore, this book is of importance as far as I can see it now, in evaluating the extent to which England rearmed, and finally at various points in that book there are references to Hitler’s personality.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I say with the greatest respect to Dr. Stahmer that he has reinforced my point, that if Dr. Stahmer is putting forward the thesis that in order to reach a proper decision on the matters before the Tribunal it is necessary to investigate whether other belligerents have committed breaches of conventions, then, as I say, I join issue with him in toto. I cannot add to the matter. But with regard to Mr. Churchill, Dr. Stahmer makes three points; one, that some passages in the book give color to the idea that by the naval agreement the validity of the Versailles Treaty was affected. That is a point to which there are obviously many answers, including the facts that France was a party to the treaty and the United States was a party to a treaty in the same terms. But clearly Mr. Churchill’s view expressed in a book, as to the legal effect of one treaty or another, is in my submission irrelevant.
Equally irrelevant is the British rearmament and the personality of Mr. Churchill himself. And I respectfully submit, without going into detail, that Dr. Stahmer has, by his examples, confirmed the argument that these matters are irrelevant to the issues before the Court. I do not wish to say more.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Stahmer, the Tribunal would like to know if you would go back from this question, or if you like, deal with anything you have to say about Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe’s observations about Mr. Churchill’s book. If you prefer to do that, do that now.
But afterwards, and before you finish your argument upon these documents, the Tribunal would like to hear you somewhat further about Document 8 and following up to 22, in order that you should develop your argument as to how those documents can be relevant. For instance, Document 10 and Document 11, the speeches and notes of President Wilson. How can such documents as that have any bearing upon this Trial or indeed upon the validity of the Treaty of Versailles? But take it in your own order.
DR. STAHMER: These speeches form the foundation of the Versailles Treaty and they are significant therefore for the interpretation of the treaty. Consequently it is important to refer to the speeches, in order to judge the contents of the treaty and the question whether Germany rightfully or wrongly renounced the treaty, that is, whether thereby a breach of the treaty took place, or whether the treaty actually gave Germany the right to withdraw.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that all you wish to say about that?
DR. STAHMER: Yes.