I find an interesting quotation from the semi-official publication, Das Archiv, for April 1942, and as it is very short and deals with these points I venture to read it to the Tribunal, so that it may appear on the record. At Page 54 it says:
“SA Unit, Government General. At the order of the Chief of Staff of the SA, there took place the foundation of the SA unit, Government General, whose command Governor General SA Obergruppenführer Dr. Frank took over.”
I only quote that to finish my argument to show, as indeed all the evidence shows, that with regard to the SA, no less than any other of the organizations, the Prosecution have provided evidence of crimes reaching over the period which they have stated.
I deliberately have cut out anything further that I might say, My Lord, because I do not want to shorten unduly the time, if the Tribunal wishes to ask me any questions.
THE PRESIDENT: I think there is only one question that I should like to ask you. As I understand it, you say that the Prosecution have proved facts from which one must conclude that every reasonable person who joined any of these organizations would know that they were criminal.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: You would agree, would you not, that proof of any fact which went to contradict the facts from which you have presumed knowledge of criminality could be proved by the Defense?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Certainly. If the Defense sought to prove, to take an extreme example, that the conduct of the SS with regard to, first of all, concentration camps and, secondly, killing Jews and political commissars on the Russian front, was done in such a way, despite the vast territory over which these crimes have been proved to have been carried on, was done in such a way that nobody knew about it—if there was relevant evidence on that point, then they could call it, on the general point that it was not a matter of imparted constructive knowledge, but of memory.
THE PRESIDENT: I only asked you that question because there were certain observations by Mr. Justice Jackson, which did not seem altogether to accord with the answer which you have just given.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I think that, as I understood Mr. Justice Jackson, he was saying that it might not be relevant to prove that one member did not know of the crimes, and I thought that our two approaches really did fit in with each other.