The Nuremberg Trials (Vol.9). International Military Tribunal

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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 a speech of Plenipotentiary Von Ribbentrop before the League of Nations on 19 March 1936, this opinion was expressed in the following terms—I quote from Document Book 1, Page 32 . . .

      THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Stahmer, I have before me now the order of the Tribunal of 26 February 1946, and Paragraph 4 of that order is in the following terms: “The following documents are denied as irrelevant,” and then the heading “Göring,” and the fourth of the documents is the speech by Paul Boncour on 8 April 1927; and the sixth is the speech by Lloyd George on 7 November 1927, which you have not read but which you have put into your trial brief. I would again call your attention, and the attention of all the Defense Counsel, to the fact that they will not be allowed to read any document which has been denied by the Tribunal. Go on.

      DR. STAHMER: This quotation is as follows:

      “. . . but it is also clear that if a world power such as France, by virtue of her sovereignty, can decide upon concluding military alliances of such vast proportions without having misgivings on account of existing treaties, another world power like Germany has at least the right to safeguard the protection of the entire Reich territory by re-establishing within her own borders the natural rights of a sovereign power which are granted all peoples.”

      Before I take up the question of aggressive war in detail I have the intention, if I have the permission of the Tribunal, to call on the first witness, General of the Air Force Bodenschatz.

      THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly.

      [The witness Karl Bodenschatz took the stand.]

      THE PRESIDENT: What is your name?

      KARL BODENSCHATZ (Witness): Karl Bodenschatz.

      THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: I swear by God—the Almighty and Omniscient—that I will speak the pure truth—and will withhold and add nothing.

      [The witness repeated the oath in German.]

      THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down if you wish.

      DR. STAHMER: General Bodenschatz, since when have you known Reich Marshal Göring?

      BODENSCHATZ: I have known Reich Marshal Göring since June 1918.

      DR. STAHMER: In what capacity did you get to know him?

      BODENSCHATZ: I came to know him when he was the commander of the Richthofen Squadron. I was at that time the adjutant of Rittmeister Freiherr von Richthofen who had just been killed in action.

      DR. STAHMER: Were you taken into the Reichswehr at the end of the first World War?

      BODENSCHATZ: At the end of the first World War I was taken into the Reichswehr as a regular officer and remained from the year 1919 until April 1933.

      DR. STAHMER: When, after the completion of the World War, did you resume your connection with Göring?

      BODENSCHATZ: In November 1918 I was with Göring at Aschaffenburg, at the demobilization of the Richthofen Fighter Squadron, and later in the spring of 1919 I was with him again for several weeks in Berlin. There our paths separated. Then I met Göring for the first time again at his first wedding, and I believe that was in the year 1919 or 1920. I cannot remember exactly. Up to 1929 there was no connection between us. In the year 1929, and until 1933, I met Hermann Göring several times here in Nuremberg where I was a company commander in Infantry Regiment 21. My meetings with Göring here in Nuremberg were solely for the purpose of keeping up the old friendship.

      DR. STAHMER: And then in the year 1939, you entered the Luftwaffe?

      BODENSCHATZ; In 1933 I reported to Hermann Göring in Berlin. At that time, Göring was Reich Commissioner of the Luftwaffe and I became his military adjutant.

      DR. STAHMER: How long did you retain this post as adjutant?

      BODENSCHATZ: I retained this post as adjutant until the year 1938. Later I became Chief of the Ministerial Bureau, 1938.

      DR. STAHMER: And what position did you have during the war?

      BODENSCHATZ: During the war, I was liaison officer between the Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe and the Führer’s headquarters.

      DR. STAHMER: Were you at the headquarters, or where?

      BODENSCHATZ: I was alternately at the Führer’s headquarters and at the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe.

      DR. STAHMER: When did you leave that position?

      BODENSCHATZ: I left that position on 20 July 1944, because I was seriously wounded that day.

      DR. STAHMER: And what was the cause of your being wounded?

      BODENSCHATZ: The plot against Hitler.

      DR. STAHMER: You were present?

      BODENSCHATZ: Yes.

      DR. STAHMER: And what were your СКАЧАТЬ