The Niebergall affidavit is in substance the same as the Coogan affidavit which was accepted by the International Military Tribunal as sufficient authentication of documents used in Case No. 1. However, in addition to these affidavits, the prosecution in this case will attach to each document submitted in evidence, other than self-proving documents such as affidavits signed by the defendants, a certificate signed by an employee of the Evidence Division of the Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, reading, for example, as follows:
“I, Donald Spencer, of the Evidence Division of the Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, hereby certify that the attached document, consisting of one photostated page and entitled, ‘Letter from John Doe to Richard Rod, dated 19 June 1943,’ is the original of a document which was delivered to me in my above capacity, in the usual course of official business, as a true copy of a document found in German archives, records, and files captured by military forces under the command of the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Forces.
“To the best of my knowledge, information, and belief, the original document is at the Berlin Document Center.”
So much for the authentication of documents to be presented in this trial. I turn now briefly to the distribution of documents which we will use. The prosecution made available to the Defendants’ Information Center approximately a week ago three photostatic copies of the great bulk of the documents which will be used in our case-in-chief. These documents are of course in German. In addition, the prosecution has prepared document books in both German and English which contain, for the most part, mimeographed copies of the documents, arranged substantially in the order in which they will be presented in this court. Each document book contains an index giving the document number, description, and page number. A space is also provided for writing in the index number.
Twelve official copies of the German document books will be filed in the Defendants’ Information Center at least 24 hours prior to the time that particular material will be introduced in court. In addition, defense counsel will receive seven so-called unofficial German document books, which will contain mimeographed copies prepared primarily for the German Press. Six official copies of the German document books will be presented to the Tribunal—one for each of the Justices on the bench and one for the Secretary General. Two of such document books will contain photostatic copies in order that the Tribunal may from time to time refer to the original. Document books will also be made available to the German interpreters and court reporters.
The English document books will contain certified translations of the documents in the German document books. The documents will be numbered and indexed identically in both the English and German versions. The Defendants’ Information Center will receive four copies of the English document books at the same time the corresponding German document book is delivered. A representative group of the defense attorneys have agreed that four of the English document books are sufficient to meet their needs.
The Tribunal will receive six English document books and sufficient copies will also be made available to the interpreters and court reporters. Copies of all documents introduced in evidence will thereafter be made available to the press.
The prosecution will sometimes have occasion to use documents which have just been discovered and are not in document books. In such cases we will try to have copies in the Defendants’ Information Center a reasonable time in advance of their use in court. Now, I must point out to your Honors, and I do so without any embarrassment, that there will surely be some instances during the course of this trial when the prosecution fails to comply with one or the other of the court’s rulings in view of the fact that few of our personnel here were able to obtain experience and training in the technicalities in the course of Case No. 1 before the International Military Tribunal, but be that as it may, we shall constantly endeavor to present our case as fairly, as clearly, and as expeditiously as is humanly possible.
The prosecution, when presenting a document in Court, will physically hand the original, or the certified photostatic copy serving as the original, to the clerk of the Tribunal, and give the document a prosecution exhibit number.
In the IMT trial, the usual practice, to which there were many exceptions, was that only those documents or portions of documents which had been read aloud in Court were considered to be in evidence and part of the record. Now this was due to the fact that the IMT trial was conducted in four languages and only through that method were translations in all four languages ordinarily available. However, the IMT ruled several times, for example on 17 December 1945, that documents which had been translated into all four languages and made available to defense counsel in the Defendants’ Information Center were admissible in evidence without being read in full.