THE PRESIDENT: There was, at any rate, a suggestion that translators should be ordered to translate such documents as trial briefs.
COL. STOREY: That is correct; yes, Sir, and whenever counsel wanted more copies, then they would request them and they would be available for them. The translators or translations or photostats would be available if they requested them.
Were there any other questions, Your Honor?
THE PRESIDENT: Do you mean that translators have not been supplied to defendants’ counsel?
COL. STOREY: If Your Honor pleases, as I understand, the defendants’ Information Center is now under the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, and my information is—I would like to check it—that when they want extra copies all they have to do is ask for them and they may obtain them and sufficient translators are available to provide the extra copies if they want them. That is my information. I have not checked it in the last few days, but sufficient copies in English are furnished for all the counsel; and these briefs and document books are furnished to them in advance. In this case I am told that the document book and the briefs were furnished.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
DR. FRITZ SAUTER (Counsel for Defendants Funk and Von Schirach): Your Honor, you may be assured that we Defense Counsel do not like to take up the time of the Tribunal for such discussions which we ourselves would rather avoid. But the question just raised by a colleague of mine is really very unpleasant for us Defense Counsel and makes our work extremely difficult for us.
You see, it does not help us if agreements are made or regulations are issued and in actual practice it is entirely different.
Last night, for example, we received a big volume of documents all of which were in English. Now, in the evening in the prison we are supposed to spend hours discussing with our clients the results of the proceedings, a task which has now been rendered still more difficult by the installation of wire screens in the consultation room. In addition we are also required to talk over whole volumes of documents written in English, and that is practically impossible. Time and again these documents are not received until the evening before the day of the proceedings; and it is not possible, even for one who knows English well, to make the necessary preparation.
The same thing is true of the individual trial briefs; and I do not know whether the actual trial briefs, such as we receive for each defendant, have also been submitted to the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Nearly every document which has been referred to in this branch of the case, which has been presented by Mr. Albrecht and by Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, are documents which have been referred to previously in the Trial and which must have been before the defendants’ counsel for many days—for weeks—and therefore there can be no lack of familiarity with those documents. The documents which have been referred to, which are fresh documents, are very few indeed and the passages in them which are now being put in evidence are all read over the microphone and, therefore, are heard by defendants’ counsel in German and can be studied by German counsel tomorrow morning in the transcript of the shorthand notes; and I do not see, therefore, what hardship is being imposed upon German counsel by the method which is being adopted.
You see, the Counsel for the Prosecution, out of courtesy to Counsel for the Defense, have been giving them their trial briefs in English beforehand. But there is no strict obligation to do that; and insofar as the actual evidence is concerned, all of which is contained in documents, as I have already pointed out to you, the vast majority of those documents have already been put in many days ago and have been in the hands of German counsel ever since, in the German language—and also the documents which are now put in.
DR. SAUTER: No, this is not true, Your Honor. This is the complaint which we of the Defense Counsel, because we dislike to approach the Tribunal with such complaints, have been discussing among ourselves—the complaint that we do not receive German documents. You may be assured, Mr. President, that if things were as you believe, none of us would complain but we would all be very grateful; but in reality it is different.
THE PRESIDENT: But Dr. Sauter, surely when you have a reference to a German document, that German document is available to you in the Information Center; and as these documents have been put in evidence, some of them as long ago as the 20th of November or shortly thereafter, surely there must have been adequate time for defendants’ counsel to study them.
DR. SAUTER: Suppose, for instance, I receive this morning a volume on Funk. I know, for instance, when Funk’s case comes on—perhaps tomorrow. It is quite impossible for me to study this volume of English documents upon my return from the prison at 10 o’clock in the evening. That simply overtaxes the physical strength of a Defense Counsel. I could go through it if it were in German, but even so, it is impossible for me after finishing my visit to the prison at 9 or 10 o’clock in the evening to go through such a volume. We absolutely cannot do it.
THE PRESIDENT: You see, Dr. Sauter, it is not as though you had to cross-examine witnesses immediately after the evidence is given. The documents are put in and it is not for you then to get up and argue upon the interpretation of those documents. You have, I regret to say, a considerable time before you will have to get up and call your own evidence and ultimately to argue upon the documents which are now being put in. Therefore, it is not a question of hours, it is a question of days and weeks before you will have to deal with these documents which are now being put in. And I really do not see that there is any hardship upon defendants’ counsel in the system which is being adopted.
And you will not forget that the rule, which, in a sense, penalizes the Prosecution, is that every document which is put in evidence and every part of the document which is put in evidence, has to be read in open court, in order that it should be translated over the earphones and then shall get into the shorthand notes. I am told that the shorthand notes are not available in German the next morning but are available only some days afterwards. But they are ultimately available in German. And therefore every defendant’s counsel must have a complete copy of the shorthand notes, at any rate up to the recess; and that contains all the evidence given against the defendants, and it contains it in German.
DR. SAUTER: Yes, Mr. President, what we are most anxious to have done and what we have been asking for many weeks is that the documents, or at least those parts of the document which come into question, should be given to us in German translation. It is very difficult for us, even if we know English, to translate the documents in the time which is at our disposal. It is practically impossible for any of us to do this. It is for this reason that we regret that our wish to get the documents in German is not being taken into consideration. We are conscious of the difficulties and we are very grateful for any assistance given. We assure you we are very sorry to have to make such requests, but the conditions are really very difficult for us. The last word I wish to say is that the conditions are really very difficult for us.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, I am most anxious and the other members of the Tribunal are most anxious that every reasonable facility should be afforded to the defendants and their counsel. But, as I have pointed out to you, it is not necessary for you, for any of you, at the present moment, to get up and argue upon these documents which are now being put in. By the time that you have to get up and argue upon the documents which are now being put in, you will have had ample time in which to consider them in German.
DR. SAUTER: Thank you, Sir.
HERR GEORG BOEHM (Counsel for the SA): I have repeatedly asked to receive copies of everything presented in English. The accusation against the SA was presented on the 19th or 18th of December, and at the same time a document book was presented. Today I received a few photostats, but I have not received the greater part of the photostats or other pertinent translations. This shows that we do not receive the German translations immediately after the presentation. Nor are we ever able to read the transcript of the proceedings on the next day