A Collon of Documentary Evidence and Guide Materials THE UNED STATES OF AMERICA, THE FRENCH RE- HERMANN WILHELM GOERING, RUDOLF HESS, Defendants. iii PREFACE This Supplement B brings to completion the seri of volumes on “Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression" in which le principal documents and other papers pertaining to the osecution at Nurnberg of the major German war criminals he been made generally available to the American public. Space limitations, made necessary by the limi1 funds available, have made impossible the full publicatiopf all defense documents. The final arguments of defense covel and defendants' final pleas summarize in considerable del not only the defense contentions, but also the defense evider. Both the arguments, as delivered before the Tribunal, and ie pleas are contained in Part I of this volume, and they shou furnish an adequate basis on which to evaluate prosecution cuments and the final judgment of the Tribunal itself. Part I so includes a few defense documents which appear to have uque historical interest. The text of all defense documents, ncluding those referred to in the final arguments of defense consel, may of course be obtained from the official transcript of th Tribunal published by the Secretariat of the International Mitary Tribunal. The title of this publication is "Trial of the Jajor War Criminals, Nuremberg." The text of most of the pro:cution documents referred to in the closing arguments will be ound in prior volumes Part II this volume contains excerts from interrogations conducted by the prosecution of most ofthe defendants and of many other witnesses. Space limitations have again made full publication impossible except in a few ases, since several hundred witnesses were interrogated in thecourse of almost a thousand separate interrogations, and the transcript total exceeds 17,000 typewritten pages. The passageshere included have therefore been chosen as those which appear to be the most significant from the standpoint of their genera historical interest, their bearing on the issues raised in the case, and in some instances, the light which they shed on the character or personality of certain defendants. Practically all the interrogations were conducted by examiners on the American prosecution staff, headed by Col. John Harlan Amen. Almost all the interrogations of defendants were taken before trial. In the majority of cases defendants were not interrogated after they were served with the indictment on 18 October 1945. Interrogations of non-defendant witnesses, however, were taken at various times both before and during trial. Although the testimony of most of the witnesses was given under oath, that of Goering and a few others was not. The reader may wish, in any event, to bear in mind that because of the circumstances, statements of many of the witnesses were obviously made with a view to self-vindication, and that veracity is more generally to be expected with regard to matters not touching the personal responsibility of the particular witness. Grateful acknowledgment must be made of the assistance furnished in the selection and editing of these interrogations by former members of the American Prosecution and Tribunal staffs Messrs. Ralph G. Albrecht, Lawrence A. Coleman, Adrian Fisher, Sam Harris, Seymour Krieger, Harold Leventhal, James Rowe, Melvin H. Siegel and Roy Steyer. The funds which made possible the publication of this volume, as in the case of its predecessors, were made available by the Departments of State and of the Army. 28 May 1948 Charles A. Horsky William E. Jackson Editors Approved: Robert H. Jackson U. S. Chief of Counsel |