Then I think that only leaves an application of the Defendant Keitel for the use of a decree of Hitler of 20 July 1944, and the Prosecution has no objection to that.
My Lord, I think I have dealt with every one except the first one, which my friend General Rudenko will deal with—the application of the Defendant Göring.
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): Members of the Tribunal, the Soviet Prosecution have several times expressed their view respecting the application of Defense Counsel to call witnesses with regard to the mass shooting of Polish officers by the Fascist criminals in Katyn Forest. Our position is that this episode of criminal activity on the part of the Hitlerites has been fully established by the evidence presented by the Soviet Prosecution, which was a communication of the special Extraordinary State Commission investigating the circumstances of the mass shooting of Polish officer prisoners of war by the German Fascist aggressors in Katyn Forest. This document was presented by the Soviet Prosecution under the Document Number USSR-54 on 14 February 1946, and was admitted by the Tribunal; and, as provided by Article 21 of the Charter, it is not subject to argument.
Now the Defense once again are putting in an application for the calling of three supplementary witnesses—a psychiatrist, Stockert; a former adjutant of the Engineer Corps, Böhmert; and a special expert of the staff of the Army Group Center, Eichborn.
We object to the calling of these three witnesses for the following reasons:
The calling of the psychiatrist Stockert as a witness must be considered completely pointless as the Tribunal cannot be interested in the question of how the commission drew its conclusion—a conclusion which was published in a Hitlerite White Book. No matter how this conclusion was drawn, the fact of the mass shooting of Poles by Germans in Katyn Forest has been unequivocally established by the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission.
Stockert himself is not a doctor of forensic medicine but a psychiatrist—at that time a member of the Hitlerite commission, not on the basis of his competence in the field of forensic medicine, but as a representative of the German Fascist military command.
The former adjutant, Captain Böhmert, is himself a participant in the crimes of Katyn Forest, having been a member of the Engineer Corps which carried out the executions. As he is an interested party, he cannot give any useful testimony for clarifying the circumstances of this matter.
Third, the expert of the staff of the Army Group Center also cannot be admitted as a witness because he, in general, knew nothing at all about the camp of the Polish prisoners of war, and could not have known all that pertained to the matter. The same reasons apply to his potential testimony to the fact that the Germans never perpetrated any mass shooting of Poles in the district of Katyn. Moreover, Eichborn cannot be considered an unprejudiced witness.
Regardless of these objections which express the opinion of all the prosecutors, the Soviet Prosecution especially emphasize the fact that these bestial crimes of the Germans in Katyn were investigated by the special authoritative State Investigating Committee, which went with great precision into all the details. The result of this investigation has established the fact that the crimes in Katyn were perpetrated by Germans, and are but a link in the chain of many bestial crimes perpetrated by the Hitlerites, a great many proofs of which have previously been submitted to the Tribunal.