THE FRENCH PROSECUTOR: No.
DR. DIX: I have, as counsel for the Defendant Schacht, an indirect interest in the question of the criminality of the group Reich Cabinet (Reichsregierung) because Schacht was a member of the Reich Cabinet. I want to point out, however, at the very beginning that I do not want to make detailed statements now either of a legal nature or in regard to the facts of the case. I shall do that rather at the time of my concluding speech.
What I want and seek now, and for which I ask the support of the Tribunal, is a clarification and amplification of those answers which Mr. Justice Jackson and Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe gave yesterday to your questions, Mr. Biddle.
I should like to point out that it is, of course, clear to me that I have no right to ask any questions of the members of the Prosecution. Formally speaking, I could at the most ask the Tribunal to supplement the questions which were put yesterday by the Tribunal. I believe, however, that this formal objection has no practical significance, because I am convinced that Sir David, who will see the pertinence of my request to have his answer extended, will be prepared to amplify the answer given to the question by Mr. Biddle without discussing the theoretical question, whether he is under any obligation to do so.
Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe was asked yesterday whether he considers the Reichsregierung, that is to say, the Reich Cabinet, as it was composed on 30 January 1933, in view of the then relatively small number of National Socialist cabinet members, criminal even at that time and if so, whether he is of the opinion that this hypothetic criminal character was at that time discernible to other people.
Sir David answered this question of Mr. Biddle’s in the affirmative and based this answer (1) on the contents of the Party program and (2) on the fact that already at that time the Leadership Principle had been set forth in the program.
I should like to ask if Sir David would supplement his answers along the following lines: Does Sir David really mean to say that the Leadership Principle as such, that is to say, purely as an abstract theory, is not only to be rejected politically or for other reasons but is also to be considered criminal? I want to make it understood that I am speaking about the abstract principle, without considering any factual developments in the ensuing period of time.
Concerning his second answer, that the Party program occasions him to declare that even at that time the Reich Cabinet is to be considered criminal and was recognizable as such, this answer—not directly in response to Mr. Biddle’s first question put in the course of further questions addressed to him by the Tribunal—he added to and substantiated by declaring that the aim expressed in the Party program of eliminating the Treaty of Versailles and the announcement therein of the desire for the annexation of Austria were the criminal points in this program.
May I ask Sir David to state, first, whether these two points of the Party program, that is to say, the abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles and the Anschluss, were with the exception of the Leadership Principle, the only points of the Party program which caused him to consider that program criminal, that is, to consider a government criminal which knew that program? Secondly, I should like to ask whether he really wants to put forward the opinion that an attempt to attain a revision or an abrogation in a peaceful fashion, that is, by way of negotiations, of a treaty found to be oppressive, very oppressive, by a nation, can be considered criminal.
Furthermore, I should like to ask him to state whether, considering the great democratic principle of the right of self-determination of nations and considering the history of the annexation movement in Austria itself—and I remind him of the plebiscite of 1919 when this Anschluss was demanded by, one may safely say, 100 percent of the Austrian population—he as a politician would consider a political party or a political program criminal which aimed at reaching this goal in a peaceful fashion. And here I should like to stress, again in order not to be misunderstood, that the later development and everything which actually happened and anything which might not have happened in accordance with the Party program is to be left out of consideration and only the Party program as such taken into consideration. Upon that, of course, the sense of his answer depended when he said, “Yes, the Party program is the basis of the criminal character.”