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FIFTH
DAY
Monday, 26 November 1945
Morning
Session DR. FRITZ SAUTER
(Counsel for Defendant Von Ribbentrop): May it please the Court, I
should like to make an application. I am Dr. Sauter, counsel for the
Defendant Von Ribbentrop. On 30 October the Defendant Von Ribbentrop
requested that his former secretary, Margareta Blank, at that time in
the Remand Prison in Nuremberg, be placed at his disposal in order that
he might dictate his reply to the Indictment, as well as a description
of the manner in which he performed his official duties in the last 7 or
8 years.
On 11 November 1945 the Tribunal allowed this
request. The Defendant Von Ribbentrop was therefore able to dictate for
a few hours, but this was stopped for reasons unknown to him. Neither
has the Defendant Von Ribbentrop had returned to him the shorthand notes
or the typed transcript. He has not been able to dictate any more to Fräulein
Blank.
On 15 November Ribbentrop repeated his request
regarding the witness Blank, but up to the present she has not been
placed again at his disposal. The Defendant Ribbentrop therefore
requests the President to give instructions that his former secretary,
Margareta Blank, again be placed at his disposal in order to take down
the necessary notes from dictation. Such permission appears to be
absolutely essential to enable the Defendant Ribbentrop properly to
prepare his own testimony and the testimony of the defense witnesses.
Particularly in the case of Von Ribbentrop, the material to be
treated is so voluminous, that no other way of treating it appears
feasible to us. The Defendant Von Ribbentrop has a further request to
make. He has repeatedly asked that some of his former colleagues, in
particular Ambassador Gauss, Ambassador Von Rintelen, Minister Von
Sonnleitner, Professor Fritz Berber, and Under State Secretary Henke, be
brought to Nuremberg as witnesses, and that he be permitted to speak to
these witnesses in the presence of his counsel. This request had in part
been refused by the Court on 10 November. The remaining part has not yet
been decided.
It is quite impossible for the Defendant Von
Ribbentrop to give a clear and exhaustive account of the entire foreign
policy for the last 7 or 8 years if nothing is placed at his disposal
except a pencil
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