The next witness is the Swiss Ambassador Feldscher, who was finally, to our knowledge, Ambassador at Berlin.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I suggest, My Lord, that he comes into the same position as Dr. Burckhardt. He should be dealt with in the same way.
DR. HORN: I agree, Mr. President. The next witness is the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, Mr. Winston Churchill.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution objects to this application and, with the greatest respect to Dr. Horn, submits that there are no relevant reasons disclosed in the application now before the Tribunal. The first part of it is apparently an account of a conversation which does not touch the facts of this case, and the second part is also a discussion of a conversation which apparently took place some years before the war, between the German Ambassador and a gentleman who at that time was in no official position in England. But what relevancy the conversation has to any of the issues in this case the Prosecution respectfully submits is not only nonapparent but nonexistent.
DR. HORN: Against this statement of Sir David, I want first to point out the following:
Prime Minister Winston Churchill was at that time Leader of His Majesty’s Opposition in Parliament. In this capacity we may attribute to him a sort of official position, particularly since he, to my knowledge, as Leader of the Opposition is even paid a salary.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I am sure that Dr. Horn would be the last person to rely on a point on which he has been misinformed.
Mr. Churchill was not Leader of His Majesty’s Opposition at any period and was certainly not from 1936 to 1938, when the Defendant Ribbentrop was ambassador. Mr. Attlee was the Leader of the Opposition. Mr. Churchill was not in office; was a back-bench member of the Conservative Party, independent member of the Conservative Party at that time.
I did not want my friend to be under any misapprehension.
DR. HORN: At any rate, Mr. President, Mr. Churchill was one of the statesmen best known in Germany. This statement, which Churchill made at that time on the occasion of his visit to the embassy, was immediately reported to Hitler by Ribbentrop and was, in all probability, one of the reasons for Hitler’s making the statements quoted in the so-called Hossbach document, submitted as Document Number 386-PS, which contains statements and declarations so surprising to the participants and in which the Prosecution saw the first definite evidence of a conspiracy in the sense of the Indictment.