THE PRESIDENT: The Defendant Rose.
DEFENDANT ROSE: Mr. President, may it please the Tribunal, the scientists who are among the defendants in this trial are confronted with a principal difficulty, the fact that purely scientific questions have been made political, ideological questions by the Prosecution. In the opening speech by the Chief of Counsel, General Taylor, the political and ideological nature of the indictment has been expressed as clearly as possible. Subject of the personal charges against myself is my attitude toward experiments on human beings ordered by the State and carried out by other German scientists in the field of typhus and malaria. Works of that nature have nothing to do with politics or with ideology, but they serve the good of humanity, and the same necessities can be seen independently of any political ideology everywhere where the same dangers of epidemics have to be combated. Just as in the case of malaria experiments malaria research has to make experiments with human beings, in the same way malaria scientists of various nations had to carry out experiments on human beings. Just as Klaus Schilling, with his own initiative, but with the approval of competent authorities of the State, was compelled to undertake human experiments, before and after him malaria researchers of various nationalities were compelled to make human experiments. Just as Haagen, out of his own initiative and with the approval of the competent State authorities, tested the value of a new, living typhus vaccine, before him that was done in the course of fighting plague by this great co-patriot, Richard B. Strong, when he experimented on natives of the Philippines, who were not American citizens, and when he did so with the approval of your Government. Just as Dr. Ding, on the instruction of the highest and decisive authorities of the German civilian health administration, tested the value of the typhus vaccine on humans in times of greatest typhus danger.
Others have done so before him in less pressing emergencies, in part upon the instruction of their governments. From the witness stand I testified about the actual role which I played in regard to the charges of human experiments with malaria and typhus. And I have explained from the witness stand the legal evaluation of my actions, and they have been submitted to you by my Defense Counsel Dr. Fritz. I need not add anything to it. But my attitude towards the experiments on human beings in medical research, as a matter of principle, I stated probably not only in this Courtroom, but also when the National Socialist German Government was at the height of its limitless power. At that time I was cut short by a man, Professor Schreiber, who about a year ago in this very Courtroom, claimed to be a defender of medical ethics. The fact is undoubted that human experiments, which were exactly the same as those, the participation in which I am unjustly charged with, have been carried out in other countries, above all, in the United States which has indicted me. That has led the Prosecution to place to proper point of its charges upon the outside conditions of the persons put at the disposal for experiments. In that connection the question of fact whether they were voluntary was put in the foreground. I shall not discuss the question as to what extent the doctor who is charged with the experiments is responsible for these external, formal questions, at least a doctor who was so far removed from the experiments themselves as I was. But in connection with the principal question of subjects' being volunteers, I have to make a few statements. A trial of this kind presents probably the most unsuitable atmosphere to discuss questions of medical ethics. But since these questions have been raised here, they have to be answered. Everyone who, as a scientist, has an insight into the history of the dangerous medical experiments, knows with certainty the following fact. Aside from the self-experiments of doctors, which represent a very small minority of such experiments, the extent to which subjects are volunteers is often deceptive. At the very best they amount to self-deceit on the part of the physician who conducts the experiment, but very frequently to a mis-leading of the public.
In the majority of such cases, if we ethically examine facts, we find an exploitation of the ignorance, of the economic distress or another emergency on the part of experimental subjects. I may only refer to the example which was presented to the Tribunal by Mr. Ivy when he presented the forms for American malaria experiments.
You yourselves, gentlemen of the Tribunal, are in a position to examine whether, on the basis of the information contained in these forms, individuals of an average education of an inmate of a prison can form a sufficiently clear opinion of the risks of an experiment made with pernicious malaria. These facts will be confirmed by any sincere and decent scientist in a personal conversation, though he would not like to make such a statement in public. That I myself am, on principle, an opponent of the idea of dangerous experiments on human beings is known to you gentlemen of the Tribunal and proved by others than myself.
The state, however, or any human community which, in the interest of the well being of the entire community, did not want to forego the experiments on human beings, does only base itself on ethical principles as long as it assumes the full responsibility which arises therefrom. And if it imposes sacrifices on enemies of society to stone for their crimes and does not cover behind the method of a make believe principle of voluntary submission which imposes the risk of the experiment on the experimental subjects who are not in a position to foresee the consequences.
The prosecutor in his plea criticized the submission of affidavits during the presentation of evidence on the part of the defense. The difficulties which exist for a defendant in prison in Germany of today to acquire other documents are almost prohibitive. In order to give an example, when the malaria experiments of Schilling's were discussed, the prosecution, among other material, submitted to the Tribunal an excerpt from the well known Dachau sentence; concerning the facts stated -- the statements contained therein about the number of victims in these experiments, I have stated here in the witness box that I rather sit there as a defendant than to put my signature on the opinion which would confirm these statements. How right I was in making that statement can be seen from a letter by Professor Allenby of the University of London which unfortunately, has been received only now by my defense counsel, in which he termed the statement that 300 experimental subjects had died, a grotesque untruth.
My defense counsel in his final plea has quoted the passage of that letter. The prosecution at that time when the excerpt of the Dachau sentence was submitted, promised that the entire files of the Dachau trial would be put at our disposal. Unfortunately, all my efforts to gain an insight in these files until this moment have been in vain.
When Under-Secretary Conti during the war was toying with the idea to commission Professor Schilling, who was at that time in Italy, with malaria research in German, I, at that time, Chief of the Tropical Medical Institute, Department of the Robert Koch Institute, was assigned by the Reich Ministry of the Interior at first to give an opinion. In this opinion, for reasons which I have explained in the witness box, I rejected Schilling's plan. Had one followed my advice, the experiments by Schilling in Dachau would never have taken place. In the course of these proceedings I made all efforts to come into the possession of that opinion but in this case also I was unsuccessful, although that opinion in two copies is in the hands of the military Government, possibly even in this building.
Also, in vain, I attempted to get the file note, so important for my defense, which I dictated to the witness Brock about my conferences with Under-Secretary Conti and President Gildemeister, after I had gained knowledge about the conduct of the typhus experiments in Buchenwald, what little correspondence I had with Professor Haagen is apparently entirely in the hands of the prosecution. In spite of that, it has been submitted only in part to you. That fact offered an opportunity to the prosecution to interpret passages taken out of the context incorrectly. Unfortunately, I have no opportunity to force anyone to submit the missing documents which would clarify matters in my favor.
To evaluate the work of Haagen, and my defense counsel has pointed that out already, the statement of an unbiased expert would have been of decisive importance.
Therefore, I can only regret that the interrogation of the Frenchman Georges Blanc, which I suggested and who has the best knowledge in this field, did not take place, although he had volunteered to appear before this Tribunal as an expert.
Professor Lecrout, Director of the Institute Pastor in Paris, during this trial was frequently in Nurnberg. After an interview, the prosecution refrained from calling him as an expert witness to clarify some difficult questions resulting from the work of Haagen. I ask the High Tribunal to draw its conclusions from these facts and to assure that the lack of those pieces of evidence, which I cannot effect, should not result in a damage to my interests.
Prosecutor McHaney has explained in his plea that one still had to find that doctor among the defendants who would have subjected himself to such experiments as are covered by the indictment here. I do not feel that that concerns me, not only from the statement which I have made here before you but also from my case history which was available to the authorities of the prison before I was submitted to that indictment.
It can be seen that not only as an experimental subject I put myself at the disposal of experiments to evaluate vaccines but that frequently I gave myself infectious injections with cholera, typhus, malaria and hepatitis epidemica and that, in part, I am still suffering from the consequences.
Finally, the Prosecutor McHaney has asserted in his plea that all of those indicted here are guilty of murder, and that includes me too. If the Tribunal was to look at the problem at hand from this point of view, I would regret to have said a single word in my defense. However, if you believe me that in all actions of mine which have been discussed here, I was only moved by sincere devotion to duty, then I put my fate with confidence into your hands.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Ruff.
DR. RUFF: As far as the written and oral statements of my defense counsel are concerned which real with the points of indictment and as far as my activities as a doctor and scientist is concerned, I have nothing or hardly anything to add.
I can only repeat today what I said at the end of my examination when I was on the stand. After detailed inquiry into my conscience, I still today hold the belief that I never sinned against my duty as a man and as a doctor.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Brock.
DR. BROCK: Your Honor, in 1929, I joined the NSDAP when more than six million German voters were already backing Hitler. His later successes during the years of peaceful reconstruction consolidated my conviction that he had forever liberated Germany from the misery in which it seemed to have fallen. For all those years, therefore, I had no reason to have any misgivings with regard to Hitler's personality and thus I also believed in the legality of the euthanasia decree as emanated directly from the head of the state. The state officials and doctors, competent for mo at that time, told me that the euthanasia had always been an endeavor of mankind and was morally as well as medically justified. Therefore, I never doubted the legal character of the euthanasia decree.....
In this connection, however, I was assigned duties, the extent and importance of which I could not foresee. Neither my training nor my qualifications sufficed for this task. Nobody can deny, however my good faith in its justification, I frankly admitted what I did in the framework of the euthanasia measures and tried to prove that my collaboration was merely of a subordinate nature and exclusively directed by human aspects. I cannot be made responsible for later actions carried out by other officers and without my knowledge. These were the measures which I deeply regretted and when the prohibition of the inclusion of foreign nationals and Jews were infringed.
Through my activity in the Fuehrer Chancellery, I early became acquainted with the Gestapo atrocities. The testimonies of my witnesses proves how I fought against them and the concentration camp system without having had any direct knowledge of concentration camps.
I did so because I felt that I was obliged to help those concerned who suffered from the arbitrariness of the Gestapo. I did not do it because I recognized even at that time symptoms of a leadership that always and only knew arbitrariness and oppression.
But this is particularly tho reason why I was so shocked about the misuse of some of the euthanasia institutions, for the action 14f13 affected particularly those persons whoso detention I considered unjust and combatted. It was only in this court room however, that I learned of this action.
That I did not hate the Jews has been proved by numerous documents, but without the hatred of the Jews, the participation in tho extermination of Jews is hardly tenable. The measures of suppression to which the Jews were subjected forced me to give them the same assistance within my competence as I accorded to tho politically pursued persons. I thus helped by my activity hundreds of thousands of persons during the course of the years. But thus only could the sterilization suggestions come into existence. They were nothing but an attempt to prevent tho extermination of innumerable Jews.
In spite of all the efforts of my defense counsel, it was impossible to procure the witnesses who could testify to this effect. They preferred to evade their responsibility of serving the truth. I am utterly alone. I must leave it to this High Tribunal to ascertain on the basis of the presented expert scientific opinions that all my proposals were actually so formulated as to show my convictions of their harmlessness, and the impossibility of realizing them.
I must also leave it to the Tribunal to judge whether a man wo intended the extermination of the Jews would apply for service with the Army, just at the moment when tho aim which he alleges that he pursued was achieved and the extermination measures had started. Or docs it not appear paradoxical to assume that one and the same man should give his approval of the extermination of the Jews and in fact aided such a program, and, at the same time, save Jews he has never known, such as Georgi, Passow, Meyer, Warburg, and others, from such measures.
I can only emphasize that particularly these sterilization suggestions to Himmler appeared to me to be the Last possibility to take any action to save Jewery. Had I been indifferent to the Jewish fate, I would not be accused today. But I also tried in this respect, as was my habit, to give assistance and I am still convinced, that it had at least delaying, if not preventative effect. Certainly, the realization that such proposals should never have been made by me on the strength of my medical knowledge or my pos-ition at the time, even to the best of my intention, is something I could not reach until this trial was in progress My good intention which was the basis of these proposals and my good will to help by means of them cannot be denied by anybody, and can in no event be understood as my conscientious cooperation in the extermination of the Jews.
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant Romberg.
DEFENDANT ROMBERG: In the course of this trial, I have had full opportunity to speak in my defense. With special gratitude wo realize the fact offered to us and we took advantage of it, which was given by the possibility to question individually Professor Ivy in this trial. I have seen how the Tribunal itself, by a precise questioning, clarified the facts, and to the statements made by my defense counsel I have nothing to add, because they are the truth.
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant Becker-Freyseng.
DEFENDANT BECKER-FREYSENG: Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Tribunal: I also was given full opportunity to submit all the statements and the evidence required to refute the charges of the indictment. For that I have to thank the Tribunal and my defense counsel, Dr. Tipp. But I have nothing to add to it. For all the immaterial spiteful talk which grew outside and twisted around the objective atmosphere of these proceedings like a messy hedge, I believe that fortunately the verdict of this Tribunal must be and will be the appropriate answer. I look forward to it with the firm conviction that I have acted in my duty to mankind as a physician and scientist, and as a soldier to my fatherland, Germany.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Weltz:
DEFENDANT WELTZ: I have nothing to add to the statement made by my defense counsel. I thank Dr. Wille for his efforts made in my defense.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Schaefer.
DEFENDANT SCHAEFER: May it please the Tribunal, since I consider myself entirely innocent, I ask to be acquitted. I repeat my request to be set free, if possible, even before the verdict.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Hoven.
DEFENDANT HOVEN: I have nothing to add to Dr. Gawlik's plea of yesterday. I would at this point like to thank my defense counsel for the considerable help he has given me.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Beiglboeck.
DEFENDANT BEIGLBOECK: May it please the Tribunal, the experiments which I conducted, I did not carry out on my own initiative, neither according to the plans of my own, nor spontanioulsy, but the medical part was played, with the knowledge and approval of my clinical teacher for more than ten years, I was a disciple of Eppinger.
During those ton years I had come to know and respect his ways of thought and his superior knowledge. My relations to him were based on personal gratitude and awe-inspired devotion. If there was anything which he considered right and important, then for psychological reasons alone, it would be imperative for me to share his belief.
The experiments were to solve the problem of saving human life and that had to be approved. It was a military order which compelled my to carry them out in the atmosphere of a concentration camp. I objected against that, but I was not successful. So we had to carry it out in the concentration camp.
May it please the Tribunal, in your evaluation of this fact, please do not fail to consider that this did not happen in times of peace, nor in a country which granted its citizens individual freedom of decision in all matters, personal and professional, but during the bitter days of a most horrible war. What I carried out, I did in accordance with a plan previously determined and specified. If i had to require of my experimental subjects to undergo hardships and they suffered from thirst with all of its unpleasant sensations, those physical and mental characteristics, I did that in the nature of the experiments and this could not be avoided. I have not, however, done this without informing myself first by an experiment on my own system how it felt what I expected them to undergo, nor did I expect it of anyone else, unless I was firmly convinced that he undertook it voluntarily. It is not true to say that I might have forced anybody to do it, neither psychologically, nor by reprisals raised by threat, or force of arms.
Many eye witnesses have agreed that my conduct was never brutal on anyone of the experimental subjects under my care. Among these witnesses are even some who were brought here to testify against me.
At last, in the final stage of this trial, one experimen tal subject could be found who tought it appropriate to introduce - a dramatic note in an atmosphere artificially created. Based on a layman's interpretation of indeed harmless medical procedures, combined with the uncertain recollection emotionally presented by more or loss distorting and misconstruing my motives the attempt was made to lend an impression to my experiments and the part I played in them.
In contradiction to that a defense document was offered be others who came from outside the concentration camp and who preserved their objectivity which reveals that my behavior in the medical sense, as well as from the human point of view was correct, to say the least. By my experiments, no human life was sacrificed, nor did they result in any lasting damage to their health. I also believe, that I have presented proof that I intervened for the inmates, as far as that was within my power and that I did not consider experimental subjects as individuals of an inferior type whom I could well afford to illtreat, for idealogical reasons, as has been charged.
For over 15 years as a physician I always felt the strongest responsibility for those entrusted to my care. Thousands who were my patients will confirm it. My assistants and colleagues have testified to it. At no time was my conduct other than that of humaneness, that of a physician. The experiments as they were actually conducted have never gone beyond that which can be justified by the physician.
I consider myself as a physician and a human being free of guilt.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Pokorny.
DEFENDANT POKORNY: Your Honor, during this trial I have often asked myself what I should have done at the time in order to record my tru motive for this letter I had written to Himmler, but I believe that at the time when I dispatched this letter, I could not do anything else but to talk to the people in whom I had confidence and of whom I know that they would not betray me and confide in them my true reasons If today, this letter, which is against me, may seem objective, then this is a fact with which I must bear, although to the end I must say in correspondence with the truth that not surface reasons were the cause for my writing this letter, but that letter was written because at the time I had hoard facts about Himmler's plans, and, because at that time in my position standing lonely and slandered because of my family implications in a small town in Chechoslovakia, I felt that I was able to take the action described.
I retain the hope that you, my judges, will draw your conclusions from my conduct and the situation in which I found myself at the time, and will come to the conviction objectively that the true motive was a different one than that which is shown by this letter, and that you will not sentence me but will believe me in what I have not only told you, my judges, but others previously during my interrogations and, before that, what I have told my friends, at a time when this present situation had not arisen, in order to clarify my motives as being true.
With this hope I am looking forward to your judgment, and in that connection I am thinking of my children who, for years now, have lived under the protection of an allied power and who will not believe that their father, after everything that he has suffered, could possibly have acted as an enemy to human rights.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Oberheuser.
DEFENDANT OBERHEUSER: I have nothing to add to the statements I have made from the witness box under oath. In administering thereapeutical care, following established medical principles, as a women in a difficult position, I have done the best I could. Moreover, I fully agree with the statements made by my defense counsel and will refrain, at this stage of the trial, from making any further statements.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Fischer.
DEFENDANT FISCHER: Your Honors, when this war began I was just a young doctor, 27 years of age. My attitude towards my people and my Fatherland took me to the front line as a troop doctor. I there joined an armored division, where I remained until I was incapacitated for further service. For only a very brief period, during these years of war, I worked as a medical officer in a hospital back home, and there too my conception of my duties was directed by the wish to serve my country. During this time of my work at home, I received the order which made me a subject of the Indictment of this trial.
The order for my participation in these experiments originated from my highest medical and military superior and was passed on to me, as the assistant and first lieutenant, through Professor Gebhardt. Professor Gebhardt was the famous surgeon and much honored creator of Hohenlychen.
He was a scientific authority whom I looked up to with reverence and confidence. As a general of the Waffen SS he was my unconditional military superior. I believed him, that I had been earmarked by him to assist in the solution of a medical problem which was to bring help and salvation to hundreds of thousands of wounded soldiers, and which was to be a cure for them; and I believed that this problem would mean a question of life and death to my people. I believed unconditionally that this order had come to me from the head of the State, and that its execution was a necessity for the State. I considered myself bound by this order, as were thousands of soldiers whom I had seen walk to their deaths during my years at the front, also following an order by the State. Particularly since I had had the privilege during that time of working in a hospital at home, I considered myself doubly and particularly subject to that discipline, and felt myself in duty bound.
What this order demanded from me had been introduced as a method of modem medicine in all civilized countries. I was only to participate in the clinical part of it, and that was taking place just as a course of treatment in the institute of Hohenlychen, or any other clinic. What I did was what was ordered, and I did nothing beyond that order. I believed that I, as a simple citizen, did not have the right to criticize the measures of the State, particularly not at a time in which our country, our State, was engaged in a struggle for life and death.
I hope that through my unconditional devotion at the front and to my two injuries, I have shown that I not only asked others to make sacrifices, but that I was prepared at any time to sacrifice myself with my life and my health. Within the scope of the order given to me I did what I could, in my limited position as an assistant doctor, for the life of the experimental subjects and for an exact and proper clinical development of the experiment. I never found myself in a position where I had to expect that deaths would occur. When such fatalities did occur, I was as shaken by that event as I was by the death of a patient of our clinic.
After that, the experiments were immediately discontinued, and I went back to the division at the front.
Together with Professor Gebhardt, I reported about these experiments to the German public. Like many other Germans, there are many things which, in retrospect, I see more clearly today and in a new light. In my young life I have tried to be a faithful son of my people, and that brought me into this present miserable position. I only wanted what was good. In my life I have never followed egotistical aims, and I was never motivated by base instincts. For that reason, I feel free of any guilt inside me. I have acted as a soldier, and as a soldier I am ready to bear the consequences. However, that I was born a German, that is something about which I do not want to complain.
THE PRESIDENT: The personal statements by the defendants in this proceeding, made on their own behalf, have been heard by the Tribunal during this session in open court, and these statements are now concluded.
After over seven months of trial, consuming, I think, 139 trial days, hearing over 80 or 89 witnesses, the reception in evidence of many hundreds of documents and affidavits, the trial, insofar as the reception of evidence, arguments of counsel, and personal statements of the defendants, is not concluded. The Tribunal will now recess and enter upon the preparation of the judgment to be rendered in this cause. How long that preparation of the judgment will consume is, of course, uncertain, probably not less than three weeks nor more than five.
Counsel for the defendants must keep the Secretary General's office advised of their whereabouts, so that when the Tribunal is ready to formally render its judgment they will be available to appear before the Tribunal.
The Tribunal will now be in recess, subject to call by its own order, to reconvene to render the formal judgment in the cause.
(At 1225 hours, 19 July 1947, a recess was taken, subject to call by the Tribunal.)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Karl Brandt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 19 August, 1947, 0930 -- Justice Beals presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the court room will please find their seats.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I.
Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the court room.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, you have ascertained all defendants are present in Court?
THE MARSHAL: May it please your Honor, all defendants are present in the court room.
TIE PRESIDENT: The Secretary-General will note for the record the presence of all the defendants in Court.
The evidence in the case of the United States of America versus Karl Brandt, and others, defendants, having been closed, counsel for the prosecution and the defendants having filed their briefs and submitted them to the Tribunal, the Tribunal after consideration of the evidence and the briefs filed, is now ready to pronounce its judgment in the case of the United States of America versus Karl Brandt, and others, presently pending before this Tribunal.
In the reading of the judgment the formal title of the case will not be read.
The reading will commence with the judgment itself:
J U D G M E N T Military Tribunal I was established on 25 October 1946 under General Order No. 68 issued by command of the United States Military Government for Germany.
It was the first of several Military Tribunals constituted in the United States Zone of Occupation pursuant to Military Government Ordinance No. 7, for the trial of offenses recognized as crimes by Law No. 10 of the Control Council for Germany.
By the terms of the order which established the Tribunal and designated the undersigned as members thereof, Military Tribunal I was ordered to convene at Nuernberg, Germany, to hear such cases as might be filed by the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes or his duly designated representative.
On 25 October 1946, the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes lodged an indictment against the defendants named in the caption above in the Office of the Secretary General of Military Tribunals at the Palace of Justice, Nuernberg, Germany.
A copy of the indictment in the German language was served on each defendant on 5 November 1946, Military Tribunal I arraigned the defendants on 21 November 1946, each defendant entering a plea of "not guilty" to all the charges preferred against him.
The presentation of evidence to sustain the charges contained in the indictment was begun by the Prosecution on 9 December 1946. At the conclusion of the prosecution's case in chief the defendants began the presentation of their evidence.
All evidence in the case was concluded on 3 July 1947. During the week beginning 14 July 1947 the Tribunal heard arguments by counsel for the Prosecution and Defense. The personal statements of the defendants were heard on 19 July 1947 on which date the case was finally concluded.
The trial was conducted in two languages - English and German. It consumed 139 trial days, including 6 days allocated for final arguments and the personal statements of the defendants. During the 133 trial days used for the presentation of evidence 32 witnesses gave oral evidence for the Prosecution and 33 witnesses, including the 23 defendants, gave oral evidence for the Defense. In addition, the Prosecution put in evidence as exhibits a total of 570 affidavits, reports and documents; the Defense put in a total number of 901 -- making a grand total of 1471 documents received in evidence.
Copies of all exhibits tendered by the Prosecution in their case in chief were furnished in the German language to the defendants prior to the time of the reception of the exhibits in evidence.
Each defendant was represented at the arraignment and trial by counsel of his own selection.
Whenever possible, all applications by defense counsel for the procuring of the personal attendance of persons who made affidavits in behalf of the Prosecution were granted and the persons brought to Nuernberg for interrogation or crossexamination by defense counsel. Throughout the trial great latitude in presenting evidence was allowed Defense counsel, even to the point at times of receiving in evidence certain matters of but scant probative value.
All of these steps were taken by the Tribunal in order to allow each defendant to present his defense completely, in accordance with the spirit and intent of Military Government Ordinance No. 7 which provides that a defendant shall have the right to be represented by counsel, to cross-examine prosecution witnesses, and to offer in the case all evidence deemed to have probative value.
The evidence has now been submitted, final arguments of counsel have been concluded, and the Tribunal has heard personal statements from each of the defendants. All that remains to be accomplished in the case is the rendition of judgment and the imposition of sentence.
THE JURISDICTION OF THE TRIBUNAL The jurisdiction and powers of this Tribunal are fixed and determined by Law No. 10 of the Control Council for Germany.