First, they were ordinary Party members, so they had consequently to assume, as the Chief Prosecutor did, that the Party program of which they had become adherents, was legally unimpeachable.
Now the question arises for the Defense, and above all, for conducting the defense: When did the individual client enter the sphere in which it was known that the aims were to be attained by war, aims which so far he had considered legitimate and unimpeachable, that is, aims which according to his previous assumption, were not to be pursued by recourse to war? Had the Defendant Ribbentrop already entered the circle of conspirators when in 1932 he contacted Party circles? Was he, as Ambassador in London, already “in the know” and thereby a party to the conspiracy; or did he only realize, at the time of the Hossbach document, that the political aims of the Party were to be materialized through war? Or when?
The Defense must be aware of the danger that the defendant will be accused by the Prosecution that he joined the conspiracy the very earliest moment he came in contact with the Party and its aims. In this connection I can refer to the words just spoken by Sir David who said that the foundation of the conspiracy was laid in 1921. I ask—or rather—is it my task or my duty to prove through witnesses that my client, for instance, up to 1939 was striving for peaceful relations in order to refute that he then already planned or prepared wars or took a decisive part in these plans and preparations?
From this point of view, I ask the Tribunal to weigh the applications for the witnesses and subjects of evidence as set forth in my brief. Furthermore, I expressly maintain that this discussion has not clarified the question: When does the conspiracy start?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, I don’t want to repeat any general argument. My desire is that Dr. Horn should know what case Ribbentrop has to meet, and I have already stated that, but I want to make it quite clear.
According to the entry in Das Archiv Ribbentrop entered the service of the Nazi Party in 1930, and between 1930 and January 1933 was one of the instruments and vehicles by which the accession of the Nazi Party to power took place. That semi-official publication says that some meetings between Hitler and Von Papen and the Nazis and representatives of President Von Hindenburg took place in his house at Berlin-Dahlem. That is the first point. It is quite clear and it is all set out in the transcript.
The second stage is that he held certain offices between 1934 and 1936 that show that he was an important and rising Nazi politician and negotiator in the realm of foreign affairs. In 1936 he justified the action of Germany in breaking the Versailles Treaty. The defendant justified it before the League of Nations. Therefore, he has to meet that point.
In the same year he negotiated the Anticomintern Pact. He has to explain that.
From that time onwards, there are a succession of German documents, all referred to in the transcript for the 8th and 9th of January, which show exactly the part this defendant played in 10 sets of aggression against 10 separate countries.
I respectfully submit to the Tribunal that that is a perfectly clear case which this defendant has to meet. There is no doubt about it at all.