DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, I do not intend to comment on the question of whether the Versailles Treaty is just or not. The point is this: The Prosecution have submitted the Versailles Treaty in evidence. They made the Versailles Treaty the main point of the Indictment especially as concerns Count One of the Indictment.
My investigation aims at the following: First, was the Versailles Treaty formed legally? Second...
THE PRESIDENT: I spoke only of the injustice of the Versailles Treaty. But it is even more irrelevant to question whether the Versailles Treaty is a legal document or not. We do not propose to listen to your contending that the Versailles Treaty is not a legal document. There are plenty of matters which are of material moment for your client which you have to discuss before us, but that is not one of them.
DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, I cannot leave the Tribunal ignorant of the fact that the Versailles Treaty and its consequences, especially the causal relationship with the seizure of power by National Socialism, form a considerable part of my speech and it will be...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Seidl, I have told you that the Tribunal will not listen to your contending either that the Versailles Treaty was not a legal document or that it was in any way unjust. On those topics we do not propose to hear you.
DR. SEIDL: Then I must construe the attitude of the Tribunal to mean that I will not be permitted to speak of the consequences of the Versailles Treaty, and particularly about the connection which these consequences had with the rise of the National Socialist Party and with the seizure of power by Adolf Hitler and the co-defendants.
THE PRESIDENT: Look. The Versailles Treaty is, of course, a historical fact; and the Tribunal cannot prevent you from referring to it as a historical fact. But as to its justice or as to its being a legal treaty, the treaty which Germany signed, you will not be heard.
As you have not laid your speech before us, we do not know what you are going to say. But we will not listen to that sort of argument.
DR. SEIDL: Then I shall begin on Page 6 of the German manuscript, with the second paragraph.
Thus the struggle for the revision of the peace “Dictate” of Versailles began at the moment when it was signed. In the program of the National Socialist Labor Party of Adolf Hitler, this struggle against the Versailles peace “Dictate” and for its revision assumed a place far surpassing all other demands and considerations. It was the leading thought by which the whole inner-political activity of the Party was guided and which, after the seizure of power, was to form the basis for all foreign political considerations and decisions.