“Britain, casting away habits of centuries, will decree national service upon her citizens. The British people will stand erect and will face whatever may be coming. But arms—instrumentalities, as President Wilson called them—are not sufficient by themselves. We must add to them the power of ideas. People say we ought not to allow ourselves to be drawn into a theoretical antagonism between Nazidom and democracy, but the antagonism is here now.”
I prove the fact that England was arming energetically in the air far beyond the normal needs of defense, by Ribbentrop Exhibit Number 51 (Document Number Ribbentrop-51), which I am offering to the Tribunal with the request for judicial notice. This is a declaration of the British Secretary of State for Air in the House of Commons, dated 16 November 1938...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Horn, I thought you understood what the Tribunal wanted you to do, which was to put in the documents all together. I think I have said from 44—wasn’t it the document that you had got to?—to 300 something, that you could put them in all together. But now you have gone through 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 and 51, and you seem to be going through each one in detail, doing exactly what I asked you not to do. Didn’t you understand what I said?
DR. HORN: The way I understood you, Mr. President, was that I may read important parts from them. That is what I did. It concerns only important extracts.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you going to find an important passage in each of the 300 documents?
DR. HORN: No, Mr. President, certainly not; but if I cannot read these documents, these extracts, then I would like to ask the Tribunal to accept my whole document book as evidence so that I can refer to it later.
THE PRESIDENT: That is what we intended to do. What we want you to do is to offer in evidence now, stating that you offer from Exhibit 44 up to 300 or whatever the number is, and we will allow you, of course, to refer to them at a later stage when you make your speech; and if there is any passage which the Prosecution object to, they can inform you about it beforehand and the matter can then be argued. But what we do not desire to do is to take up the time of the Tribunal by either offering each of these documents by its number individually, 44, 45, and so on, or that you should read anything except passages which are of especial importance at this moment. After all, you are not putting forward your whole case now; you are only introducing your evidence.
DR. HORN: Mr. President, I had...
THE PRESIDENT: I am reminded that of these last few exhibits to which you have been referring, you have referred to about six, all of them upon British rearmament. That is obviously cumulative, isn’t it? Therefore, it cannot be that all those are all particularly important to you.
We only desire to get on, and we desire you, as I have said, to put in these documents, if I may use the phrase, in bulk; and we do not desire you to refer to any of them beyond that.