This morning I received another communication bearing on the same question, which calls for the following request: Professor Naville, professor of forensic medicine at the University of Geneva, carried out, with an international commission at Smolensk, investigations of the bodies at that time. He established from the state of preservation of these corpses, from the notes found in the pockets of their clothes, and other means of evidence, that the deed must have been committed in the year 1940.
Those are my requests.
THE PRESIDENT: If you will put in those requests in writing, the Tribunal will consider them.
DR. STAHMER: And now I come to the . . .
THE PRESIDENT: Just one minute. Dr. Stahmer, if you would communicate your written application to the Prosecution, they would then be able to make a written statement if they have any objection to it. You will do that as soon as possible. Let us have both your written application and the Prosecution’s answer to it.
DR. STAHMER: The Tribunal has ordered in its decision of 11 December 1945 that the Defense is entitled to one speech only. This shall take place only after the conclusion of the hearing of the evidence. The Tribunal decided some time later that explanatory words may be permitted at the present stage of the proceedings in connection with the presentation of documents by the Defense. The witnesses have already been named by me. A decision has been made concerning their admission except for today’s request and, with the Court’s permission, I shall call a witness shortly. Before I do that, I wish to make the following comments to the documents to which I shall refer during my final speech:
The Prosecution have charged the defendant repeatedly with the violation of the Treaty of Versailles. This charge is not justified in the opinion of the Defense. Detailed statements on this question belong to the concluding speech of the Defense and will therefore be dealt with there. The present part of the proceedings deals only with the production of documents which will be used to support the contention that the Treaty was not violated by Germany but that the German Reich was no longer bound by it. I submit that the Fourteen Points of the American President Wilson, which were the basis of that Treaty, are commonly known, and therefore do not need further proof, according to Paragraph 21 of the Charter.
The Treaty of Versailles has already been submitted to the Tribunal. It was published in the Reichsgesetzblatt, 1919, Page 687. Of this Treaty of Versailles, Article 8 and Part V are important for its interpretation. These provisions insofar as they are of interest here, read as follows—I quote the first four paragraphs of Article 8:
“The members of the League recognize that the maintenance of peace requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations.
“The Council, taking account of the geographical situation, and circumstances of each State, shall formulate plans for such reduction for the consideration and action of the several governments.
“Such plans shall be subject to reconsideration and revision at least every 10 years.
“After these plans shall have been adopted by the several governments, the limits of armaments therein fixed shall not be exceeded without the concurrence of the Council.”
The first paragraph of Part V reads:
“In order to render possible the introduction of a general limitation of the armaments of all nations, Germany undertakes strictly to observe the military, naval, and air clauses which follow.”
These regulations infer, not only that Germany had to disarm, but also that the signatories of the pact were likewise bound to disarm. Germany, however, was committed to start disarmament first. Germany completely fulfilled this commitment.
On 17 February 1927 Marshal Foch stated, “I can assure you that Germany has actually disarmed.”
Therefore, the signatories of the pact had to fulfill their commitment to disarm. As they did not disarm, Germany was no longer bound by the pact according to general principles of law, and she was justified in renouncing her obligations.
This interpretation agrees with the point of view which has been expressed by French as well as by English statesmen. Therefore, I should like to refer to the speech made by Paul Boncour on 8 April 1927, in which Boncour stated as follows—I quote from Document Book 1, Page 28:
“It is correct that the introduction to Part V of the Treaty of Versailles concerns the limitation of armaments which was imposed on Germany as a prerequisite and as the forerunner of a general limitation of armaments. This brings out very clearly the difference between the armament restrictions of Germany and other similar armament restrictions which in the course of history have been imposed after the conclusion of wars. This time these regulations—and in this lies their entire value—have been imposed not only on one of the signatories to the Treaty, but they are rather a duty, a moral and legal responsibility, for the other signatories to proceed with a general limitation of armaments.”
Further, I should like to refer to the speech by David Lloyd George on 7 November 1927, in which he particularly describes the memorandum to the skeleton note of 16 June 1919, as—and I quote from the Document Book 1, Page 26:
“. . . document which we handed Germany as a solemn pledge on the part of Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, and 20 other nations to follow Germany’s example after she was disarmed.”
The Treaty of Versailles was felt not only by the German people to be a bitter injustice—there were numerous voices even in foreign countries that called the Treaty exceedingly unfair for Germany. I am quoting the following from Rothermere’s Warnings and Prophecies, Document Book 1, Page 30:
“Germany was justified in feeling that she had been betrayed in Versailles. Under the pretext . . .”
MR. JUSTICE ROBERT H. JACKSON (Chief of Counsel for the United States): [Interposing.] I call the Tribunal’s attention to the fact that the documents which are now being read into the record are documents which, as I understand it, were excluded as irrelevant by the Tribunal when that matter was before it before. They are matters of a good deal of public notoriety and would not be secret if they were not in evidence; but I think the reading of them into the record is in violation of the Tribunal’s own determination.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Stahmer, the Tribunal has suspected that these documents had been excluded, and they have sent for the original record of their orders. But I must say now that the Tribunal expects the defendants’ counsel to conform to their orders and not to read documents which they have been ordered not to read.
[At this point Defendant Hess was led out of the courtroom.]
DR. STAHMER: Shall I continue?
THE PRESIDENT: Certainly.
DR. STAHMER: “Under the pretext that it was the first step to world disarmament, Germany was forcibly disarmed. Great Britain was, indeed, also deceived. She had actually continued to disarm for a period of 15 years. But from the day on which the various peace treaties were signed, France encouraged a number of small states to powerful rearmament and the result was that 5 years after Versailles, Germany was surrounded by a much tighter ring of iron than 5 years before the World War. It was inevitable that a German regime, which had renounced Versailles, would at the first opportunity rearm heavily. It was evident that its weapons, diplomatically, if not in the true sense of the word, were to be directed against the powers of Versailles.”
In the same way the Locarno Pact is contested, with a breach of which the defendant is also charged, and, as far as the Defense are concerned, unjustifiably.
Germany renounced this pact and could do so rightfully because France and Soviet Russia had signed a military assistance pact, although the Locarno Pact provided a guarantee of the French eastern border. This act by France, in the opinion of Germany, was in sharp contrast to the legal situation created by the Locarno Pact.
In