I would say, first of all, that this Document Raeder-102 has not been quoted at length. The French Delegation has referred to the text of the German White Book. We have read it carefully. This document is only a preparatory order in view of defensive preparations organized by the Belgians on the French-Belgian frontier facing France. We have consulted the Belgian military authorities. This order was a manifestation of the Belgian Government’s determination to defend Belgium’s neutrality on all its frontiers.
It is therefore contrary to the truth to try to prove by means of this document the existence of staff contacts between Brussels, London, and Paris, which, if they had existed, would have been contrary to the policy of neutrality.
The commentary made by the German Minister for Foreign Affairs in the introduction to the German White Book, Page 11 of the French text, took the counsel by surprise and certainly did not mislead Admiral Raeder, who is a serviceman. In fact, it is at the price of a lie that the official commentator affirms, on the one hand, that the expression “les forces amies” (friendly forces) used in this document means French and British troops, whereas in reality it is a regular expression used in the Belgian Army to describe Belgian units in the immediate vicinity of those actually fighting. On the other hand, the German commentator claims, and I quote, “The general line Tournai-Antoing, of the canal from Mons to Condé, Saint Ghislain and Binche, is partly in Belgian and partly in French territory.” It is sufficient to look at a map to see that all those localities are in Belgian territory and they are all at least some dozens of kilometers distant from the French-Belgian frontier, and in places, 60 kilometers from the French frontier.
I ask the Tribunal to excuse this interruption. I thought it was advisable to enlighten them by giving a convincing example of the value of the evidence furnished by the German White Book.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Siemers, the Tribunal thinks the most convenient course would be to hear your argument now upon these documents, not only upon 28 to 29, but upon the other documents specified in Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe’s list, and then the Tribunal would consider these documents after the adjournment and would give its decision tomorrow morning.
DR. SIEMERS: May it please the Tribunal, I should be very grateful if it would be possible to proceed in a somewhat different manner. I should like to call attention to the fact that a rather lengthy debate regarding documents has already taken place, and the decision of the Court followed. I believe that if I comment upon all the documents at this point a great deal of time will be lost, since the coherence of the documents will emerge of itself later during my presentation of evidence. If I now deal with the list submitted by Sir David, I would, in order to show my reasons, have to set forth all that which will appear again in the regular course of testimony later on. I thought that the decision of the Tribunal first to present the documents in the document book was specifically to save time, and then objections could be made one by one as individual documents are presented.
THE PRESIDENT: I know; but there are a very great number of documents. The Tribunal will have to hear an argument upon each document if we do what you suggest, reading the list of Sir David. There are 30 or 40 documents, I suppose.
DR. SIEMERS: Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe has already stated that he will be guided according to different geographical groups. Therefore, there will not be objections with regard to each document but rather with regard to each group of documents and each group of questions—for instance, an objection in the Norway case against all Norwegian documents or in the Greek case against all Greek documents. It would be easier to deal with matters that way, since in my testimony I shall be dealing with Greece and Norway anyway, whereas if I do so now I shall have to say everything twice. But I shall of course be guided by the decision of the honorable Tribunal. I only fear that an unnecessary amount of time will be lost that way.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, I only want to say one word on procedure. I did hope that Dr. Siemers and I had already occupied sufficient of the Tribunal’s time in arguing this point because, of course, the arguments as to relevancy must be the same. Whether they are so obviously irrelevant as not to be translatable, or whether they are inadmissible, at any rate my arguments were the same, and I did not intend to repeat the argument which I had made before the Tribunal.
Dr. Siemers already assisted the Tribunal for an hour and a half on this point, which we discussed before, and I hoped that if I stated as I did state that I have maintained the points which I put before the Tribunal in my previous argument, that Dr. Siemers might be able on this occasion to shorten matters and to say that he relied on the—if I may say so—very full argument which the Tribunal had on the other occasion. That is why I thought it might be convenient if we dealt with them now and put this problem out of the need for further consideration.