PRELIMINARY HEARING
Saturday, 17 November 1945
THE PRESIDENT The Tribunal would like to know
whether the Chief Prosecutors wish to make a statement with reference
to the Defendant Bormann.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE (Deputy Chief Prosecutor
for the United Kingdom): May it please the Tribunal, as the Tribunal
are aware, the Defendant Bormann was included in the Indictment,
which was filed before the Tribunal. There has been no change in the
position with regard to the Defendant Bormann; nor has any further
information come to the notice of the Chief Prosecutors. I think that
the Tribunal are aware of the state of our information when the
Indictment was filed, but it might be as well, if the Tribunal
approves, if I explained what was the state of our information at the
time of the filing of the Indictment, which is also the state of our
information today.
There is evidence that Hitler and Bormann were
together, with a number of Nazi officials, in the Chancellery area in
Berlin on 30 April 1945, and were, at one stage on that day, together
in Hitler's underground air raid shelter in the Chancellery gardens.
On 1 May Bormann and other Germans tried to break
out of the Chancellery area in a tank. They got as far as the river
Spree and tried to cross a bridge over it. A hand grenade was thrown
into the tank by Russian soldiers. Three members of the party who
were with Bormann in this tank have been interrogated. Two think.
that Bormann was killed, and the third that he was wounded. The
position is, therefore, that the Prosecution cannot say that the
matter is beyond probability that Bormann is dead. There is still the
clear possibility that he is alive.
In these circumstances I should submit that he
comes within the exact words of Article 12 of the Charter:
"The Tribunal shall have the
right to take proceedings against a person charged with crimes set
out in Article 6 of this Charter in his absence, if he has not been
found."
In other words, it is not necessary to hold the
man in these cumstances The Tribunal laid down in its Rules of
Procedure in Rule 2 (b) the procedure applicable to this situation:
"Any individual Defendant not in
custody shall be informed of the Indictment against him and of of his
right to receive the