FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: It seems to relate to a great variety of subjects.
FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: Yes, a collection of documents.
THE PRESIDENT: Now as you dealt with the various subjects in entirely different order than the way in which Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe dealt with them, I think it would be convenient if we heard anything he wants to say about it. Only if you do wish to say something, Sir David.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Certainly, My Lord. My Lord, I have heard the Tribunal say that they have had an opportunity of examining the documents and therefore I propose to be extremely brief in any remarks I have to make: and may I make one explanation before I deal with the very few points?
My friend, Colonel Pokrovsky, wanted to make it clear—as I think it was clear to the Tribunal yesterday—that there had been no objection to Documents 3 and 4 because in these they deal with a secret base in the North which is only of importance for the attacks against wood transports from the North Russian ports. The objectionable matter, as I think the Tribunal pointed out, was introduced in a statement of Dr. Kranzbühler which has no foundation in the documents. Colonel Pokrovsky was very anxious that I should make that clear on behalf of the Prosecution.
My Lord, I think there are really only two points which I need emphasize in reply to the Tribunal. The first is on my Group 3, the details of the Contraband Control System. My Lord, I submit that on this there is an essential non sequitur in Dr. Kranzbühler’s argument. He says that, first of all, the carrying of contraband by merchant ships, to carry his argument to its logical conclusion, would entitle a belligerent to sinking at sight. That, I submit, with great respect to him, is completely wrong; and it does not follow that because you establish certain rules and lists of contraband that the right to sink at sight is affected at all.
Similarly, his second point with regard to the British navicert system. That system was used in World War I and is a well-known system. But again, the essential non sequitur or absence of connection is this, that if a neutral goes to one of the control ports and gets a navicert, that does not put that neutral into so un-neutral an act as to make it the equivalent of a ship of war, which is the position that my friend—that Dr. Kranzbühler—would have to take if that argument were to succeed.
His third division wishes to put in documents showing economic pressures on, for example, Belgium, with regard to the import of goods. The naval defendants are not being charged with economic pressure; they are charged with killing people on the high seas. Now again, I have dealt with it very shortly, and the Prosecution submits and takes the view very strongly that the whole of that documentary evidence is several steps removed from the issues in the case.
Now the second group of matters which I wanted to refer to. I can take as an example the document making several score of allegations of un-neutral acts against the United States. The case for the Prosecution on sinking at sight is that sinking at sight against various groups of neutrals was adopted as a purely political matter, according to the advantage or, when it was abstained from, the disadvantage which Germany might get from her relations with these neutrals. And it does not help in answering that allegation of the Prosecution. That is a matter of fact which can be judged, whether the Prosecution is right. It does not help on that to say that the United States committed certain nonneutral acts. If anything, it would be supporting the contention of the Prosecution that sinking on sight was applied arbitrarily according to the political advantages which could be obtained from it.