SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Again, with great respect, Herr Dörnberg’s views on the veracity of Count Ciano, in my submission, are not relevant. If we get into calling witnesses to express their views as to the veracity of or other characteristics of the statesmen of Europe, the Tribunal would embark on a course that might well take a very long time and would not lead to any great results, and I respectfully submit that this is not a class of testimony or a ground of testimony which the Tribunal should entertain.
DR. HORN: Mr. President, with reference to this matter I can say that Ciano, himself, in his diary which has now been made accessible to us, presents this proof—at least as to the decisive point—which Mr. Dörnberg is supposed to bring; and we shall submit it to the Court at the proper time and—I believe I can say—in a conclusive form.
The second point of Dörnberg’s statement deals with the matter of decoration. The Russian Prosecution has accused Ribbentrop of bartering Siebenbürgen for a high Romanian order. For this reason I would like permission to question Mr. Dörnberg about this point either here or in the form of an affidavit.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
DR. HORN: Next I name Ambassador Schnurre, chief of the commercial policy department of the Foreign Office, present whereabouts unknown, presumably in custody in the British zone.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: With great respect, My Lords, the Prosecution again say that there is no need for a witness to be called to give information that his political chief intended to keep a treaty which he signed. The very grounds that are given for the application seem to me to show that this is really a matter of comment and argument, and we submit that a witness on this point is both irrelevant and unnecessary.
DR. HORN: I ask the Tribunal to permit me this witness, because the fact alone that the witness can testify about the sincerity or insincerity or the intentions of his chief is not so important for me as the fact that, on the basis of participation at the negotiations and preliminary negotiations and his discussions with other important persons about the background of this treaty, he can testify with regard to an important point of the Indictment.
THE PRESIDENT: May I ask you again, with reference to the relevance of this evidence, suppose it were true that in August 1939 the German authorities intended to keep the treaty which was made with Russia, that depended or might have depended upon whether England supported Poland in the war which Germany was about to begin with Poland; and it may very well be that the German authorities intended to keep the treaty with Russia in order to keep Russia out of the war with Poland and England. Therefore, how would the intention of Ribbentrop at that time be relevant?
DR. HORN: Mr. President, for determining the criminal facts in this case in order to establish guilt, it is material to know the extent to which the Defendant Ribbentrop, as a human being, strove to keep the treaty; and it is a different question how far he may have been compelled, by political necessity and other forces, to witness how a treaty was not kept in the sense in which it was originally signed.
THE PRESIDENT: You can pass on.