THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): I take it then, Sir David, that you would say that evidence with respect to general knowledge by any very substantial segment of an organization would be relevant, would it not?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, I think it would be relevant if it were not absurd. I mean, a disclaimer of knowledge of certain acts may be so absurd that the Tribunal should not take the time of inquiring into it.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): That would apply to any evidence, of course. But my point was: You have said that evidence with respect to general knowledge over a whole organization would clearly be relevant.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Certainly.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): And now I ask you whether that would be true with respect to any substantial segment of an organization such as the Waffen-SS.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I am trying to relate it to the practical position. That is where I find it very difficult.
Now, to take your example, it is difficult to imagine. Let us take four divisions that were very well known: the Totenkopf, the Polizei, Das Reich, or the 12th Panzer Division. I should have thought that, as a matter of discretion, if it were sought to show that these divisions, about which there is so much evidence as to their participation in crime, did not know of the crimes, the Tribunal would be right in rejecting that.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Well, the question would come up more whether the acts of the members of certain divisions were known generally throughout the whole Waffen-SS, would it not?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: With the greatest respect, I find it very difficult to see how the knowledge or absence of knowledge of a particular division in the Waffen-SS could affect the question of criminality of the SS as a whole.