THE PRESIDENT: Well, if the main treaty was not in accordance with the preliminary treaty then the main treaty would, according to that argument be an unfair treaty. That is the very point upon which the Tribunal has ruled.
DR. HORN: For that reason, Mr. President, I have just omitted these documents also and said that I will not refer to them in view of this ruling. I will now turn to Document Number 8.
THE PRESIDENT: As you are going through a lot of documents we might break off for 10 minutes.
[A recess was taken.]
MR. DODD: I do not want to take much of the Tribunal’s time, but in view of the statement of Dr. Horn concerning the condition of the Defendant Von Ribbentrop, I think it is required that we inform the Tribunal of the situation as we understand it, which is something quite different from the understanding of Dr. Horn.
I have talked with Colonel Andrus and with one of the Army doctors in attendance. Colonel Andrus has talked with both of them, and our understanding is that Ribbentrop is not ill and is able to take the witness stand; that he is nervous, and appears to be frightened, but he is not disabled in any sense and is capable of testifying.
DR. HORN: I come now to Page 21 of the document book, and ask the Court to take judicial notice of the document appearing under Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 8. It is a copy, again from the Dokumente der Deutschen Politik, Volume 4, which I turned over, signed, to the Court. It is the speech of Ambassador Von Ribbentrop at the 91st session of the League of Nations Council in London, regarding the Soviet Pact, the Locarno Pact and the German Peace Plan. The speech was delivered on 19 March 1936. I refer to Page 3 of the speech and begin my quotation with Number 5. I quote:
“According to this alliance, France and Russia appoint themselves judges on their own affairs by independently determining the aggressor, if occasion arises without a resolution or a recommendation of the League of Nations, and thereby are able to go to war against Germany according to their own judgment.
“This strict obligation of the two countries is clearly and unequivocally evident from Paragraph 1 of the signatory protocol to the Treaty of Alliance. That means: In a given case France can decide, on her own judgment, whether Germany or Soviet Russia is the aggressor. She merely reserves the right not to be exposed, on account of military action based on such an individual decision, to sanctions on the part of the powers guaranteeing the Rhine Pact, namely, England and Italy.
“From the point of view of law and realistic politics, this reservation is meaningless.