THE PRESIDENT: Well, Dr. Klöpfer is the only one who has arrived, as I understand it.
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, the only one who has arrived, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: What the Tribunal wants to know is how many you want to call now, and with reference to the others you had better withdraw them if you cannot find them.
DR. BERGOLD: Very well, Your Lordship, I wanted to put in an application for postponement. The witness Dr. Klöpfer has only just arrived. Up to now I have not had a chance to talk to him and I consider it unjust for him to have to testify here for the first time. Moreover, he is not prepared, he does not know the documents which have been presented by the Prosecution, and I myself do not know whether he has any knowledge about the things on which I want to question him. Therefore, I should like to apply for the proceedings in the case of Bormann to be postponed until 10 o’clock on Monday to give me the opportunity to hear my one chief witness and to discuss the case with him. I do not even know whether I want to have the witness interrogated for he may possibly make statements that are quite irrelevant. It is not my fault that I have not heard him until now. I applied many months ago to have him brought here and I would not have found him even today if at the last moment I had not had the very kind assistance of the American Prosecution. I believe—I have also spoken to Sir Maxwell-Fyfe—a postponement until Monday at 10 o’clock would be quite proper for my case in order to give me at least time to prepare; if not—my defendant has not been here and my witnesses have not been here and I have not been able to prepare anything.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Dr. Bergold, you have had many months in which to prepare your case and the Tribunal has put the matter back for you already for a very long time and this witness is now here. You can see him immediately and the Tribunal thinks you ought to go on. You must have known that the case would come on, in the same way every other case has come on, in its proper place, subject to the license which has been allowed to you to have your case put back to the end and all your applications for witnesses and documents put back to the very latest possible moment; and the witness is here and we still have some time to deal with the witnesses for Fritzsche and documents.
The Tribunal thinks in those circumstances you ought to go on.
DR. BERGOLD: Mr. President, it is quite correct I have had months at my disposal; but if I can obtain no witnesses and no information—I ask the Tribunal to put themselves in my place. What is the use to me of waiting many months in vain, months during which I could do nothing. The witnesses were not here, nobody could tell me where the witness Klöpfer could be found. He was only found at the very last moment. I cannot discuss the entire case with him in 15 minutes. I am just asking for a very short postponement until Monday morning. The Tribunal will lose only a very few hours through that. It is not my fault that I have been assigned such an unusual defendant, one who is not present.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Bergold, the only thing you propose to prove by this witness is the alleged fact that Bormann is dead and any evidence he can give about that. That is what the application says.
DR. BERGOLD: No, may it please the Court, that is a mistake. The witness Klöpfer cannot testify as to that. He can only give his opinion as to the rest of the Indictment, namely whether Bormann is guilty or not. Only the witnesses Christians, Lueger, and Rattenhuber can give evidence as to the death of the Defendant Bormann. But the witness Klöpfer can only testify concerning the Indictment itself.
THE PRESIDENT: Where is the application for Klöpfer? Where is your application?