DR. HORN: This is in regard to the Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 3.
THE PRESIDENT: Where is that?
DR. HORN: It is on Page 14 of the document book.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Horn, the Tribunal would like to know what issue in this Trial this document is relevant to.
DR. HORN: I wanted to explain by it the German opinion of the Treaty of Versailles. Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 2 is the note of Germany to the United States that contains the offer for an armistice and conclusion of peace. And I wanted further to show in the next note again that this offer was one based on the Wilsonian Fourteen Points. Further, with Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 4, I wanted to submit evidence that the peace and the armistice were to be concluded on the basis of the Fourteen Points with two exceptions. I also wanted to show through Ribbentrop Exhibit...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, I tried not to interrupt, but really this is the issue that the Tribunal ruled on a fortnight ago when the Defendant Göring, I think, applied for documents on exactly this issue; and that also, as I understand, the Tribunal ruled on again this morning. The issue is perfectly clear; the only issue to which this can be directed is whether the Treaty of Versailles was in accordance with the Fourteen Points and if not, was therefore an unjust treaty which comes directly within the Tribunal’s ruling of an hour ago.
DR. HORN: May I add something more?
As far as I and my colleagues have understood the ruling of the Tribunal today, the only prohibition is against making before this Tribunal statements on the injustice of the treaty and on the fact that it purportedly was concluded under duress. We have not understood the decision in any other way.
THE PRESIDENT: That was why I asked you to what issue this was relevant, and you said that it was relevant to showing what the German opinion on the treaty was. Well, these are documents of the period before the treaty was made, and they seem to be only relevant upon the question of whether or not the treaty was a just treaty or not a just treaty.
DR. HORN: I personally did not want to demonstrate through this document either that it was a just or an unjust peace, but only that it was a treaty which had many legal inadequacies, since the main treaty was not in line with the agreements of the preliminary treaty.