THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, we have this matter fully in our mind as we have already had to consider it; therefore, it is not necessary for you to deal with it in detail, for I understand that these are new witnesses who have not before been applied for.
COL. POKROVSKY: I had in mind the fact that the new witnesses have been called and I would like to inform the Tribunal of our exact point of view with regard to the calling of the new witnesses, without going into detail about the Katyn Forest incident. The Soviet Prosecution, from the very beginning, considered the Katyn Forest incident as common knowledge. The Tribunal can see, by the limited space allotted to this crime in the Indictment and by the fact that we found it possible to limit ourselves to reading into the record only a few short excerpts from the report of the Commission, that we consider this episode to be only an episode. If the question mentioned by Sir David should be raised, that is, the fact that the Tribunal may have doubts about the credibility of certain witnesses or certain documents accepted as evidence—then, once again, we would be forced to present new evidence in order to discredit the new material again presented by the Defense.
Thus, if the Tribunal considers it necessary to admit two new witnesses relative to the Katyn Forest shootings, the Soviet Prosecution will find itself obliged to call about ten more new witnesses who are experts and specialists, and to present to the Tribunal new evidence put at our disposal and which we have recently received—new documents.
Furthermore, we shall have to return to the question of reading into the record all of the documents of the Special Commission, excerpts from which were read before the Tribunal. We think that it will greatly delay the proceedings, and it will not be a matter of hours but of days. So far as we are concerned, there is no necessity for doing this, and I think that this request should be refused, since there is absolutely no basis or reason for it. That, My Lord, is what I wanted to say in regard to the Defendant Göring’s application.
I would also like to add a few words to what Sir David said in regard to Dr. Seidl’s application. I will not go into all our motives. We certainly support Sir David fully, and we consider that Dr. Seidl’s applications should be refused. But I want to report to you that this morning I signed a document which is being sent to you, Your Honor, and which contains a full and detailed statement of our motives and considerations in regard to this question; and this document is presented to the Tribunal. Therefore, without taking up your time, I have found another way of informing the Tribunal about our position.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, it is not necessary, I think, to ask counsel for the Defendant Schirach to address the Tribunal, because there is no objection to those two applications with reference to the witness Marsalek and the interrogatory of Kaufmann.
With reference to the Hess matter, the Tribunal will consider that. They are going to consider it as they said they would in their previous order.
With reference to the Defendant Funk, there is no objection to the affidavit of Kallus, and so unless counsel for Funk wants to address us upon it, we need not bother about that.
With reference to Streicher, there is an objection to Gassner as a witness, so perhaps the counsel for Streicher had better say anything that he wishes to say.
[There was no response.]