THE PRESIDENT: I think the Tribunal thinks you are going into too great detail over these matters. If the Tribunal is prepared to accept this witness’ evidence as true, it shows that Schacht was negotiating with him and General Witzleben at this time with a view to prevent the war. I say, if the Tribunal accepts it; and that seems to be a matter you will not prove with the details of these negotiations, which seem to me not very important.
DR. DIX: Yes, but in my opinion the gravity and intensity of the activities of these conspirators should be substantiated in detail. In my opinion it is not sufficient that these plans...
THE PRESIDENT: But you have touched upon them since 10 o’clock this morning.
DR. DIX: Your Lordship, I am now proceeding in connection with Schacht’s point of view, as to whether a survey, a political survey of Schacht’s part...
THE PRESIDENT: I am told that you said last night that you would be half an hour longer. Do you remember saying that? Perhaps it was a mistranslation.
DR. DIX: Oh no, that is quite a misunderstanding. I said that if I were to touch upon the Fritsch crisis and complete it, it would take another half hour—that is, the Fritsch crisis alone. Gentlemen of the Tribunal, the position is this: We are now hearing the story of the political opposition, in which Schacht played a leading role. If the Defendant Göring and others had time for days to describe the entire course of events from their point of view, I think that justice demands that those men, represented in this courtroom by the Defendant Schacht, who fought against that system under most dreadful conditions of terror, should also be permitted to tell in detail the story of their opposition movement.
I would, therefore, ask the Tribunal—and I am not in favor of the superfluous—to give me permission to allow the witness to make a few more remarks on the measures taken by the group of conspirators, Beck, Schacht, Canaris, and others, which he has already touched upon. I beg the Tribunal to realize that I consider it of the greatest importance; and I assume, Your Lordship, that if it is not done now, the Prosecution will take the matter up during cross-examination. Moreover, I believe that as it is now being told in sequence, it will take less time than if we were to wait for the cross-examination.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal does not propose to tell you how you are to prove your case, but hopes that you will deal with it as shortly as possible and without unnecessary details.
DR. DIX: Please be sure of that.
Well then, Witness; you had mentioned foreign political measures, and you were about to talk of the motives which caused some of you to enter into relations with foreign countries for the support of your opposition movement. Will you please continue with that?