Gentlemen, this is something of decisive importance. From the very
beginning, Rosenberg wanted the NSDAP to co-operate with the other
parties. That could constitute the exact opposite of a conspiracy from
the start. May I present to the Court a copy of my four applications?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, these seem to be individual documents
whose relevancy can be finally dealt with when Dr. Thoma shows their
purpose in his exposition. I do not stress that the Tribunal need not
make any final decision on them at the present time.
DR. THOMA: I should like to refer to the fact that I have already asked
the General Secretary to admit these documents.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Thoma, have you the documents in your possession?
DR. THOMA: Yes, My Lord. The only documents that are lacking are the
four I have just mentioned. They are still in the hands of the
Prosecution.
THE PRESIDENT: They are in the hands of the Prosecution, are they?
DR. THOMA: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I have not appreciated that. If Dr. Thoma wants
the documents we will do our best to find them. The first time I heard
of them, of course, was when Dr. Thoma started speaking a few minutes
ago. If the Prosecution have them or can find them, they will let Dr.
Thoma have them or have copies of them.
THE PRESIDENT: May I ask you, Dr. Thoma, why it is that you have not put
in a written application for these four?
DR. THOMA: I have made such a request, My Lord, several days or a week
ago. I made the first request already in November.
THE PRESIDENT: For these four documents?
DR. THOMA: It is like this: The first two documents were granted me
already in November or December 1945, but I have not as yet received
them.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, we will consider that. Well, that finishes
your documents, does it not?
DR. THOMA: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, with regard to the witnesses, it might
be convenient if I indicated the view of the Prosecution on the, say,
first six. The Prosecution has no objection to the first witness,
Riecke, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, or to Dr.
Lammers, who is being summoned for a number of the defendants, or to
Ministerialrat Beil, who was the deputy chief of the Main Department of
Labor and Social Policy in the East Ministry.
With regard to the next one, Number 4, Dr. Stellbrecht, the Prosecution
suggests that that is a very general matter which does not seem very
relevant, and they say that Dr. Stellbrecht should be cut out, or at the
most that that point be dealt with by a short interrogatory.
We also object to 5 and 6, General Dankers and Professor Astrowski.
General Dankers is sought to say that certain theaters and museums of
art in Latvia remained untouched, and that hundreds of thousands of
Latvians begged to be able to come into the Reich.
There are papers about certain laws. The Prosecution submits that that
evidence does not really touch the matters that are alleged against the
Defendant Rosenberg and again they make objection.
Professor Astrowski, who is alleged to be the Chief of the White
Ruthenian Central Council and whose whereabouts are still unknown, who
was last in Berlin, is to be called to prove that the Commissioner
General in Minsk exerted all efforts in order to save White Ruthenian
cultural goods. There again the Prosecution says that that is a very
general and indefinite allegation and, if the defendant and certain of
his officials are called to give evidence as to his policy and
administration, it is suggested that the witnesses 5 and 6 are really
unnecessary.
I might also deal with Number 7, because the first seven witnesses are
the subject of a note by Dr. Thoma. Number 7 is Dr. Haiding, who is the
Chief of the Institute for German Ethnology, and it is sought to call
him in order to prove that in the Baltic countries cultural institutions
were advanced and new ones founded by Rosenberg. That witness, the
Prosecution submits, falls into the same category as Dankers and
Astrowski. But, with regard to him, if there is any general point, they
say that he could be dealt with by interrogatories but certainly should
not be called.
It is relevant for the Tribunal to read the note under Number 8 dealing
with these witnesses. Dr. Thoma says:
“The witnesses can present evidence for the refutation of the
Soviet accusation that Rosenberg participated in the planning of
a world ideology for the extermination of the Slavs and for the
persecution of all dissenters.”
The Prosecution submits that the three witnesses that they have
suggested, coupled with the interrogatories, if necessary, in the case
of Stellbrecht and Haiding, should cover these points amply.
DR. THOMA: I agree with Sir David that as far as Dr. Haiding and Dr.
Stellbrecht are concerned an interrogatory will be sufficient. Regarding
witnesses Numbers 5 and 6, I was interested in bringing in as witnesses
people who actually lived in these countries and who have their personal
impressions of Rosenberg’s cultural activities; and I request that these
witnesses be granted.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, the Court will consider that.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: The witness Scheidt comes into the story of the
Defendant Rosenberg’s connection with Quisling, and this has been dealt
with by interrogatories by the Defense and by certain
cross-interrogatories by the Prosecution. This is obviously an important
part of the case, and I suggest that the Tribunal does not decide as to
the personal summoning of Scheidt until the answers to the
interrogatories are before the Tribunal.
Number 10 is Robert Scholz, the department chief in the Special Staff of
creative art, and roughly the evidence is to show that the defendant did
not take the works of art for his personal benefit. The Tribunal ordered
the alerting of this witness on the 14th of January, but on the 24th of
January the application for this witness was withdrawn and it is now
renewed by Dr. Thoma. If the Tribunal will look at the way in which it
is put in Dr. Thoma’s application, which is limited and guided by
certain specific acts on which Mr. Scholz can speak—the Prosecution
suggest that the Tribunal might think the most convenient way was again
to get a set of interrogatories on Mr. Scholz, and see how he can deal
with the many individual points put to him.
DR. THOMA: Gentlemen of the Tribunal, the case of the witness Wilhelm
Scheidt touches the question of Norway. Scheidt is the decisive witness
as to the reports made by Quisling of his own volition without being
invited to do so, either through the Amt Rosenberg for foreign policy or
through the Reich Ministry for Foreign Affairs. I believe that a
personal hearing, a cross-examination, of this witness Scheidt is
extremely important, because he can give a great deal of detailed
information which is decisive for the question of whether or not Hitler
conducted a war of aggression against Norway.
I have been granted an interrogatory for the witness, Departmental
Director Scheidt, and I have already taken steps to confer with the
Prosecution in this connection. The witness Wilhelm Scheidt has not made
an affidavit; but I must point out to the Tribunal that I should have to
be present when the affidavit is made and that I should be allowed to
question the witness myself, in common with the Prosecution. I should
like to repeat my request to cross-examine this Wilhelm Scheidt as a
witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Thoma, if the witness was granted to you as a witness
to give evidence in court, it would not be necessary for you to have any
representative of the Prosecution when you saw the witness wherever he
might be. The advance of a witness would entitle you to see him yourself
and to obtain proof of his evidence. Is that clear?
DR. THOMA: So far I have been granted only an affidavit. I have not been
granted him as a witness as yet.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I only wanted to make clear to you the difference
between interrogatories and being allowed to call a witness to give all
the evidence. Of course, if you are submitting to written
interrogatories, you would not see the witness; but if, on the other
hand, you were going to call the witness as a witness or to present an
affidavit from him, you would then be at liberty to see the witness
before he made his affidavit or before he drew up his proof.
DR. THOMA: Then I should like to put the request that Wilhelm Scheidt be
called as a witness.
THE PRESIDENT: I understand that you are making that request.
DR. THOMA: As far as Robert Scholz is concerned, I should like to point
out to the Tribunal that Scholz was the director of the Special Staff
entrusted with the practical application of measures to be taken for the
safekeeping of works of art in both eastern and western districts and I
should like to draw the special attention of the Tribunal to the fact
that a number of learned German experts were members of this Special
Staff and that they did a great deal of very conscientious work in
safeguarding, restoring, and protecting these works of art and in
preserving them for posterity. The way in which this Special Staff did
its work is of decisive importance, therefore, for a good many men.
Robert Scholz knows every detail of the procedure. Robert Scholz can
testify, in particular, to the fact that Rosenberg did not appropriate
for himself a single one of the enormous wealth of art treasures that
passed through his hands and that he kept a careful record of those that
went to Hitler and Göring. He also knows that all these works of
art—or, at least, the greater part of them—were left where they were
at first, especially in the East, and were only brought to the Reich
when it was no longer safe to delay.