The Tribunal will appreciate that this document was circulated by the defendant’s ministry, widely circulated to all senior Reich authorities and to numerous people before the war, on the 25th of January 1939, just after the statement to M. Bonnet. Apparently the anti-Semitism of the defendant went from—I was going to say from strength to strength, if that is the correct term, or at any rate from exaggeration to exaggeration, for in June 1944 the Defendant Rosenberg made arrangements for an international anti-Jewish congress to be held in Kraków on the 11th of July 1944. The honorary members were to be Von Ribbentrop, Himmler, Goebbels, and Frank—I think the Defendant Frank. The Foreign Office was to take over the mission of inviting prominent foreigners from Italy, France, Hungary, Holland, Arabia, Iraq, Norway, et cetera, in order to give an international aspect to the congress. However, the military events of June 1944 prompted Hitler to call off the congress which had lost its significance by virtue of the landings in Normandy.
That is contained in Document 1752-PS, GB-159. At the foot of Page 1 the Tribunal will see the following had been entered as honorary members: Reich Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. So that there is no doubt that this defendant was behind the program against the Jews which resulted in the placing of them in concentration camps with anyone else who opposed the Nazi way of life; and it is submitted that he must, as a minister in special touch with the head of the government, have known what was going on in the country and in the camps. One who preached this doctrine and was in a position of authority cannot, I submit to anyone who has had any ministerial experience, suggest that he was ignorant of how the policy was carried out.
That is the evidence on the third allegation and it is submitted that by the evidence which I have recapitulated to the Tribunal the three allegations are proved.
With regard to the second, Hitler’s own words were:
“In the historic year of 1938 the Foreign Minister, Von Ribbentrop, was of great help to me by virtue of his accurate and audacious judgment and admirably clever treatment of all problems of foreign policy.”
During the course of the war this defendant was in close liaison with the other Nazi conspirators. He advised them and made available to them, in his embassies and legations abroad, information which was required and at times participated, as I have shown, in the planning of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity.
It is submitted that all the allegations which I read from Appendix A of the Indictment are completely proved against this defendant. I want, if the Tribunal will allow me, to add only one fact on behalf of the British Delegation. In the preparation of these briefs we have received great assistance from certain of our American colleagues; and I should like to thank once, but nonetheless heartily, on behalf of us all, Dr. Kempner’s staff: Captains Auchincloss, Claggett, and Stoll, Lieutenants Felton and Heller, and Mr. Lachmann for the great help they have been to us.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now for 10 minutes.
[A recess was taken.]
DR. ALFRED SEIDL (Counsel for the Defendant Frank): May it please the Tribunal, I have a motion to make.
THE PRESIDENT: On behalf of whom?
DR. SEIDL: I want to make a motion which concerns the indictment of Frank.
The Charter of the Tribunal contains, in Part IV, regulations for a fair trial, and Article 16 prescribes that for the purpose of safeguarding the right of the defendants the following procedure shall be followed. “The Indictment shall include full particulars specifying in detail the charges against the defendant. A copy of the Indictment, and of all the documents lodged with the Indictment, translated into a language which he understands, shall be furnished to the defendant at a reasonable time before the Trial.”
At the beginning of the Trial the Defendant Frank was handed a copy of the Indictment. This is the Indictment which was read on the first day. This is, if I may say so, a general indictment. All actions are listed therein which, according to the opinion of the Signatories of the London Agreement, are regarded as Crimes against Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity. The Indictment does not contain in detail the criminal actions of each defendant. I am now thinking about positive actions or concrete actions or omissions.
This morning I received a document. It has the title, “The Individual Responsibility of the Defendant Hans Frank for Crimes against Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity”—or in German “Die persönliche Verantwortlichkeit des Angeklagten Frank für Verbrechen gegen den Frieden, für Kriegsverbrechen und Verbrechen gegen die Menschheit.” This document is without any table of contents. It consists of 30 typewritten pages. In addition to this document, or indictment, as I should like to call it, another document book has been given to me, namely, “Document Book Hans Frank.” The first document, as well as the second document is not in German but in English. This first document is in reality what I should call the indictment against Frank, because here in this document of 30 pages for the first time those individual activities of Frank are listed which are to be regarded as criminal actions. At least one ought to say that this document is an essential part of the Indictment. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Forgive me for interrupting you. The Tribunal has already expressed its desire that a motion such as this should be made in writing. The Tribunal considers that a motion of the sort which you are now making orally is a waste of the Tribunal’s time and it therefore desires you to put your motion in writing. It will then be considered.
DR. SEIDL: I regret myself that I must make this motion now, but I was not able to make this motion in writing before receiving this document only two and a half hours ago. My motion is that the Prosecution should submit these two documents to the Defendant Frank in the German language.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has not got the documents to which you are referring. It is quite impossible for us to understand the motion you are making unless you make it in writing and attach the documents or in some other way describe or explain to us what the documents are. We have not got the documents that you are referring to.
DR. SEIDL: Then I shall make my motion in writing.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Roberts, can you explain to me what the counsel who has just spoken is complaining about?
MR. G. D. ROBERTS (Leading Counsel for the United Kingdom): I gather he was complaining that the trial brief and the document book which had been served on his client, Frank, were in English and not in German.
THE PRESIDENT: Who is dealing with the case against Frank?
MR. ROBERTS: It is being dealt with by the United States.
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps I had better ask Colonel Storey then.
COLONEL ROBERT G. STOREY (Executive Trial Counsel for the United States): If the Tribunal please, I think what counsel is referring to is the practice we have made of delivering in advance a copy of the document book and a copy of the trial brief. In this particular instance I happen to know that what counsel refers to is the trial address, which is to be read over the microphone, and as a courtesy to counsel they have been delivered in advance of the presentation, just like all the other document books and briefs against the other individual defendants. That’s what it is, as I understand it.
THE PRESIDENT: The documents which will be presented against the Defendant Frank will be all translated?
COL. STOREY: I am sure they are; yes, Sir. I don’t know about the individual case, but the instructions are that the documents will have two photostats, each one in German, plus the English translation, for counsel, and that is what has been delivered, plus the trial address, if Your Honor pleases. We handed that to him in advance—what the attorney will read over the microphone.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Storey, I thought the Tribunal ordered, after consulting the prosecutors as to the feasibility of the scheme, that sufficient translators should be supplied to the defendants’ counsel so that such documents as trial briefs, if in the English