As my next witness I name the former SS Gruppenführer and personal adjutant to Hitler, at present in Nuremberg in solitary confinement.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Sir David?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: With regard to this witness, the application says that there was a decisive conference between Hitler and the Defendant Von Ribbentrop, and that he can speak as to certain things that occurred. If that is so, if he can speak as one attending the conference, the Prosecution have no objections.
They object—and this point will arise in regard to a number of witnesses—to what I call self-created evidence. That is, if a witness is merely coming to say that the defendant said that he had certain views, that, in the submission of the Prosecution, does not carry the thing any further. If I understand, this witness is speaking as an observer of the conference, and, as such, we take no objection.
DR. HORN: I should like to give Sir David my assurance that this is a witness who has first-hand knowledge of decisive events and can give such testimony.
My next witness is Adolph Von Steengracht, since 1943 Secretary of the German Foreign Office. This witness is now in Nuremberg in solitary confinement.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: If the Tribunal would be good enough to look at the seventh line from the foot of this application, it says that Steengracht will further testify that, contrary to the assertions of the Chief Prosecutor of the United States, the protests of the churches and of the Vatican were always processed, thus obviating even worse excesses.
If it is meant by that—and the English is a little obscure—that the Defendant Ribbentrop sent forward the protests of the churches to Hitler, then the Prosecution would feel that they ought not to object to the witness.
DR. HORN: I can say in regard to this, Mr. President, that these protests were submitted not only to Hitler, but that furthermore, on the initiative and orders of the defendant, other German offices involved in these breaches of international law were approached for the purpose of settling the difficulties arising from the protests of the churches and the Vatican.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Can we go on to 10?