I have been granted an interrogatory for the witness, Departmental Director Scheidt, and I have already taken steps to confer with the Prosecution in this connection. The witness Wilhelm Scheidt has not made an affidavit; but I must point out to the Tribunal that I should have to be present when the affidavit is made and that I should be allowed to question the witness myself, in common with the Prosecution. I should like to repeat my request to cross-examine this Wilhelm Scheidt as a witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Thoma, if the witness was granted to you as a witness to give evidence in court, it would not be necessary for you to have any representative of the Prosecution when you saw the witness wherever he might be. The advance of a witness would entitle you to see him yourself and to obtain proof of his evidence. Is that clear?
DR. THOMA: So far I have been granted only an affidavit. I have not been granted him as a witness as yet.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I only wanted to make clear to you the difference between interrogatories and being allowed to call a witness to give all the evidence. Of course, if you are submitting to written interrogatories, you would not see the witness; but if, on the other hand, you were going to call the witness as a witness or to present an affidavit from him, you would then be at liberty to see the witness before he made his affidavit or before he drew up his proof.
DR. THOMA: Then I should like to put the request that Wilhelm Scheidt be called as a witness.
THE PRESIDENT: I understand that you are making that request.
DR. THOMA: As far as Robert Scholz is concerned, I should like to point out to the Tribunal that Scholz was the director of the Special Staff entrusted with the practical application of measures to be taken for the safekeeping of works of art in both eastern and western districts and I should like to draw the special attention of the Tribunal to the fact that a number of learned German experts were members of this Special Staff and that they did a great deal of very conscientious work in safeguarding, restoring, and protecting these works of art and in preserving them for posterity. The way in which this Special Staff did its work is of decisive importance, therefore, for a good many men. Robert Scholz knows every detail of the procedure. Robert Scholz can testify, in particular, to the fact that Rosenberg did not appropriate for himself a single one of the enormous wealth of art treasures that passed through his hands and that he kept a careful record of those that went to Hitler and Göring. He also knows that all these works of art—or, at least, the greater part of them—were left where they were at first, especially in the East, and were only brought to the Reich when it was no longer safe to delay.
I beg the Tribunal to hear this important witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Thoma, can you explain why the application was withdrawn on the 24th of January?
DR. THOMA: It was said then—I think by the British or American Prosecution—that the Special Staff would not be mentioned again during the proceedings. The French Prosecution, however, have now given detailed accounts of the looting of France; and so this witness is once more required.