A real responsibility for this could be laid upon the Defendant Keitel only in case it were proved that he willfully participated in drawing up these orders, instructions, et cetera.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Nelte, would that be a convenient time to break off?
[A recess was taken.]
M. CHARLES DUBOST (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): Gentlemen, Counsel for the Defense have presented a request to the French Prosecution to have certain documents communicated to them. This request is divided into two parts.
The first part concerns the Scapini incident, which arose from the publication of a document in the course of my own statement. I am able to communicate to the Defense the answer which the French Government has made to its request.
The French Government has found in the archives left behind by the German authorities the answer which was made to the protest raised at the time of the massacre of French prisoners. It is, by the way, a purely dilatory answer. The German authorities replied that the Armistice Commission was not competent; that the request must be made by the Scapini Embassy. I have handed this document to the Defense and I think that the incident is closed.
The second part of defense counsel’s request concerns a statement made by my colleague, M. Edgar Faure, who at the beginning of his speech announced to the Tribunal that he had examined approximately 2,500 documents, of which he had retained only 200. I can, of course, not answer on behalf of M. Edgar Faure. I only know that the French Delegation has only a total of 800 documents in its archives, and has submitted them all to the Tribunal and to the Defense. I therefore think that it is merely oratorical hyperbole and that my colleague wished to allude to covering letters which were of no importance. In any case, I had previously informed defense counsel Dr. Nelte that all the documents of our delegation were open for him to see and that he would be able to verify that we had no other documents than those which we had published.
On the other hand, the requests which we forwarded to Paris to have complementary documents which might have been forgotten sent to us have all been in vain. We therefore conclude that we have here all the documents which we could make use of in this Trial.
DR. NELTE: Mr. President, I am grateful to the French Delegation for the explanation given now regarding the complaint I made this morning. If I had had that explanation a few days earlier, what happened this morning would not have occurred. I regret it very much indeed.
I continue on Page 64 to the effect that Keitel co-operated in drawing up orders. In order to clarify this as much as possible I would like furthermore to point out the following: