SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: In the submission of the Prosecution, the grounds stated for calling these witnesses are too vague and general to justify their being called before the Court. When two countries are at peace, the fact that a foreign minister or an ambassador has made statements saying that he hopes the good relations between the two countries will continue, or words to that effect, does not really take us any further; and it would, in the submission of the Prosecution, be a waste of time for witnesses to be called for such a purpose.
Apart from that, the first four witnesses, the Marquis and Marquise De Polignac, and Count and Countess Jean de Castellane, as far as the Prosecution know, have not been in any official position, and there is, therefore, the additional objection that calling people who may be the most admirable people but are in a position of general friendship to talk as to what really becomes their view of the state of mind of a defendant, is not evidence which is relevant or which the Tribunal should entertain.
DR. HORN: With these witnesses the Defense wishes to prove exactly the fact that the efforts of Ribbentrop with respect to France went further than normal remarks which could not be called anything more than _courtoisie internationale_. For this reason I ask that one or the other of the witnesses in this group be granted me.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Horn, these witnesses seem to raise the same question as to relevance as I put to you earlier on them.
Assuming that it was the intention of the German Foreign Office to try to keep France out of any war which Germany was preparing to make, what relevance has that got to the question whether she was about to make an aggressive war upon Poland?
DR. HORN: I would like through these witnesses to produce evidence that it was at least not the intention of the Defendant Von Ribbentrop to plan and prepare wars but that he has tried for years to improve relations with Germany’s neighboring states.
The Prosecution, Mr. President, accuses my client also of having planned and carried out aggressive aims, war against England and France. If the Prosecution will forego this point, I, of course, can also forego these witnesses.