THE PRESIDENT: Before you sit down, Dr. Seidl, you were putting Gaus’ affidavit to the defendant, I suppose with the intention that he should say that the affidavit was true; is that right?
DR. SEIDL: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: You didn’t put to him Paragraph 4 of the affidavit at all, did you?
DR. SEIDL: I read only Paragraph 3 of the affidavit. I did not read Paragraph 1, 2, 4, and 5 in order to save time.
THE PRESIDENT: The answer to my question was, “yes,” that you did not put it. Should you not put the end of Paragraph 4 to him, which reads in this way:
“The Reich Foreign Minister regulated his words in such a manner that he let a warlike conflict of Germany with Poland appear not as a matter already finally decided upon but only as an imminent possibility. No statements which could have included the approval or encouragement for such a conflict were made by the Soviet statesmen on this point. Rather the Soviet representatives limited themselves in this respect simply to taking cognizance of the explanations of the German representatives.”
Is that correct?
DR. SEIDL: That is correct.
THE PRESIDENT: I am asking the witness. Is that correct?
VON RIBBENTROP: I may say the following to this. When I went to Moscow no final decision had been reached by the Führer...