THE PRESIDENT: Any further evidence this Prosecution has to present will be documentary in form?
MR DENNEY: Yes, if Your Honors' please, so far as we know now, except by way of rebuttal we may have some witnesses.
THE PRESIDENT: Then tho Prosecution does not rest its case today?
MR DENNEY: No, sir. If Your Honor is agreeable we would rather not at this time. I think that was Your Honor's ruling Wednesday a week ago, at which time we adjourned, the understanding being that Dr. Bergold would start this morning.
THE PRESIDENT: Then you understand, Dr. Bergold, that the Prosecution reserves the right to present its further documentary evidence, and witnesses, , even after you enter into the defense case.
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that agreeable?
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Tribunal, that is agreeable to me, under the condition that I can take issue also with the further evidence that is submitted after I have concluded or during the presentation of my case.
THE PRESIDENT: Of course, that is your right.
In view of the concession of the Prosecution of the fact that Russia did not sign the Geneva Convention agreement, do you waive the production of von Neurath as a witness?
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Tribunal, I can nevertheless not do without this witness because there is a difference between my attitude on this man and that of the Prosecution. The prosecution can do without this witness on the ground that Russia did not sign the Geneva Convention. They do not, however, assert that Russia withdrew from this agreement. It seems to me that this is a very essential juridical difference, whether, on the one hand, a nation does not sign a pact or, on the other hand, withdraws from it, as the Soviet Union did from the pact that Czarist Russia had signed.
This withdrawal must have a juridical significance and is important for this reason; namely that the Prosecution says that the Geneva Convention was merely a codification of usages of war that already existed. If, then, a country withdraws from this codification of usages, the Prosecution must concede that the Soviet Union withdrew from the Geneva Convention after once having belonged to it.
MR. DENNEY: If Your Honors please, Dr. Bergold is now taking a different position from that which he had when we were discussing the witness von Neurath. Our position is the came as it was at that time and which I expressed this morning. Whether or not the soviet Union was a signatory and then withdrew, I don't know. I am willing to make the concession which we have made, and for the law on the point we rely on the decision of the International Military Tribunal, part of which has been read into the record and the balance of which we will present at the proper time.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, without trying to reach any implications, you are not prepared to concede that Russia withdrew from the Geneva Convention after having once subscribed to it?
MR. DENNEY: No; if your Honors please, I do not know the facts. I don't know if Russia did subscribe to it or not. I know that in the published edition that we have Russia does not appear as a signatory. There is nothing to indicate in the footnotes or any other printed material with reference to the Convention that she had been a signatory.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, without that concession, Dr. Bergold insists on his right to call a witness.
MR. DENNEY: That is, of course, for Your Honors to determine, and I certainly am not prepared to concede at this time that she was a signatory and then withdrew. I can not see that that makes any difference.
THE PRESIDENT: In view of Dr. Bergold's contention of the act of withdrawing from the Geneva Convention, which is claimed to have been a codification of already existing international legal principles, the Court will permit the production of the witness.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Tribunal, I undertake now to present the evidence for the Defense. The prosecution has painted the blackest possible picture of the man I am here to defend. It has pronounced a moral judgment on him, even for the period of his life, which, according to the Indictment, is not to be judged by this Tribunal.
Because of the great difference between the American and the German people I have no knowledge of whether such a method of prosecution is customary in the United States of America. The good principles of law which were practiced in Germany before 1933 provided that even the Counsel for the Prosecution should not reproach the defendant for anything that is not subject to examination by the Tribunal. The meaning of this is that the Defense Counsel also should be in a position to express his views with regard to these charges. This, according to my opinion, seems to be a fair principle.
Therefore, if it please the Tribunal, it shall be my aim in the course of my submission of evidence to prove by witnesses who have been approved and by the defendant himself that the charges made by the Prosecution are incorrect, and I shall aim to prove that also for such charges that are not contained in the Indictment.
Erhard Milch has never in his life been a traitor, as a person or in his profession, not even at the end of National Socialist rule when he himself was threatened in his life and in his honor. As a man of high intelligence and great talent or organization, he always tried to do his best for his people and for the world.
To say of him that ho misused his talent and devoted his life to a plan for conquest and enslavement of the world is to have a completely wrong conception of reality. He was never a militarist in the bad sense of the word, Never did he arm secretly before 1933 nor make use of the peaceful instrument of the commercial air fleet for any sinister purposes. He, the man who wanted to devote himself only to the tasks of peace, the man who in his capacity as Director of the German Lufthansa collaborated with many European air transport companies and who conceived this collaboration as almost a forerunner of a unified Europe, he, the man who in 1937 devoted all his efforts, together with a few wise and courageous statesmen, to the attempt to bring about a full understanding and a large scale collaboration between France, Belgium and Germany (unfortunately, the High Tribunal has not given me permission to furnish complete proof for this fact), he, Erhard Milch, truly never tried to enslave the world. If he had succeeded in his plans in 1937, then there would have be no 1938. And. all the more, there would not have been the horrible period of 1939 to 1945, the period in which the battle against intolerance became so hard and so complicated that we might think today that as in an Arabian tale, this spirit of intolerance has freed himself from the bottle and spread himself over so wide an area that, even today, it causes actions which one day must also be condemned by the just and the wise.
I shall prove that from the moment when this man tried, in 1937, to achieve his plans for peace he lost the confidence of his superiors. He never belonged to the intimate circle in which his superiors confided, even less so after 1937. They employed him unwillingly, and only because they believed that they could not spare him because of his ability. It is cheap and easy to say now that this man should have denied his superiors the benefit of his talents. We shall prove that he tried to do so. But who can dare to judge with certainty what goes on in the heart of such a man who is terribly aware of what dangers threatened his people --- once the fateful step of starting the war had been taken? Neither did he want this step nor could he prevent it.
Should he really have chosen the path of revolt, this man who was brought up in a world in which, for all ages, military obedience had been an inviolate law, this man who had a passionate love for his people? How many human beings, in all the countries, are capable of breaking the chains of their education and turn against the laws which have been inviolate for them ever since their childhood?
There is no punishable guilt, perhaps even no moral guilt in the fact that a man cannot free himself from the world of his education. Because it is the very essence of all education to give the man unbreakable laws and to create around him what philosophers call "the environment proper to his own nature." Therefore, he has not made himself guilty by doing what his education and the conceptions of his environment made him call his duty, in a war which he did not want, which he tried to prevent; and the stopping of which he advised again and again after it had started. This duty, he felt, was to do his work and to prevent the worst which he anticipated; namely, the terrible devastation of his fatherland and its complete and helpless collapse.
I shall prove that even after the war had broken out, as before, he always concerned himself with questions of defense only; that he wanted to strengthen the fighter force, a defensive weapon with which he wanted to prevent the doom of the German cities.
Perhaps, one day, the necessity for this doom will be judged differently. I shall prove that he condemned the attack against Soviet Russia as folly, and that he tried to prevent it. I shall show that in the spring of 1943 he submitted to Hitler detailed proposals for an immediate termination of the war and that he told him without reserve that the war was lost.
If it is true that from that moment onward he made efforts again and again to strengthen the fighter force, and that he took part in the creation of the Fighter Staff, who can reproach him with the intention to prolong the war if it will be proved that he knew that the enemy airforces would make a desert of Germany? Was it inhuman that he tried to prevent this total destruction even if the war was lost? He alone could not end the war. But he could try to prevent the inferno in Germany from becoming full reality. What true lover of his own country in any part of the world would not make the same attempt? Never can he be considered guilty on account of that, and even less so because of the fact that in other countries also voices have arisen and still arise which say that during the destruction of Germany many a thing has happened which was not always compatible with military necessity.
Despite the pains he took, his superiors mistrusted him so much that both Goering and Hitler contemplated to have him put out of the way.
I shall show that he never endorsed the theory of the superman and of the master race; that he always remained humane and that he intervened on behalf of friends under disregard of his own security. He never was cruel. If may be that some of the minutes carry wild speeches about him which must strike your Honors who come from a different world and are used to different customs -- as terrible and incomprehensible. I shall prove to you that in the barracks yards, which made the first impress on the sensitive mind of young Milch, wild expressions were quite common and that in German barracks yards bombastic expressions were considered normal and truly militaristic style. Nobody in Germany did at any time take those expressions at face value. For this human element in partic ular, the old saying holds true that dogs which bark do not bite.
This man, however, was all the more inclined to use these shocking expressions, because in a number of accidents he suffered severe concussions of the brain, as a result of which he was more susceptible to fits of anger than other people; all the more so, as he was overburdened with work and always frantic because time was too short. But witnesses will appear before this Tribunal who will confirm that no one in his surroundings took these fits of wrath, these crazy words, seriously; that these expressions never went further than the circle of his intimates, and that they were not brought into reality. His raving and yelling would make so little impression that when people around him noticed he was about to have another fit of rage, one would hear the familiar quotation: "In a moment somebody will be hanged again and then nothing happens."
I shall show that this man knew nothing at all of the many abominable happenings which occurred out in the country, sometimes committed by persons who were under his command, and that, for example, the connection with the experiments at Dachau were so remote and incidental that he could not even surmise what these men undertook to do. The sphere of his duties was so terrific, the burden of his work so great that he truly should have needed to be a superman if he were expected to have known all that which the Prosecution finds out today from records and from the examination of the offenders. It is appropriate to use a Latin quotation here with a little change: "Quod est in actis, non semper est in munde." Not everything that the investigating mind uncovers at a later date and inter-connects, was so in actual fact. The poet says "Easy for him to speak who speaks last." This man is charged with letting prisoners be a abused and killed. I shall prove that this was not so. I shall even prove that, for example, he did everything possible to protect so-called terror fliers from being lynched. He was a man who tried to attenuate verdicts pronounced by competent courts of justice, and who never favored death sentences.
The Prosecution charges him with the enslavement of the peoples of Europe.
I shall prove that he never aspired to enslavement; that information on deportations and shanghaiing never reached him; and that, on the contrary, information reached him which was bound to confuse his judgment and which permitted him to engage in deeds which now are being considered as wrong. Up to this day the opinion still prevails that everybody in Germany knew everything about all the cruelties. Slowly, however, the recognition comes through that this is not correct. In the "Neue Zeitung", the official organ of the Military Government, a German anti-Fascist by the name of Arnold Weiss Ruethel, whose book on the concentration camps is considered noteworthy by the newspapers -- published an article "On the Psychological Causes." There he states literally: "One would have termed anybody who informed the public of such happenings a scoundrel of a lunatic. This also explains why people who did not see these things with their own eyes and suffered from them day after day, even today, still refuse to believe that they actually happened. Yes, to me too it seems today often a dream and impossible, when thinking back I try to persuade myself that they really happened, the fearful excesses to which I was a witness during my five years in the concentration camp." Thus writes, be it noted, a man who suffered for years in a concentration camp himself. It has been proved again and again that the most painstaking secrecy was maintained regarding the atrocities. This is no hollow talk. This is the truth. The actual perpetrators disassembled, denied, lied, in a way that could not have been surpassed in cunning. The documents show you, Honorable Judges, that it was forbidden for Rascher to make reports without Himmler's authorization. Himmler wanted to draw the veil of secrecy over everything. But even with a Hitler, Sauckel, for example, soft-pedalled all his doings in the procuring of foreign workers. Regarding this, I will submit evidence.
I shall also show that the assignment of these workers was not a point in any program existing from the outset; that it was exclusively an emergency device which the exigencies of the war had forced upon Germany. So at least all this had to appear to him, the man who did not belong to the innermost circle. That he could not think otherwise will be demonstrated to the Court, to the Tribunal.
It is misleading when the honorable representatives of the Prosecution in his opening speech points out that this man had more to do with the use of forced labor than any other man in Germany. The International Military Tribunal, in its judgment on Speer, whose position as no one in this Courtroom can doubt, was far more powerful and significant than that of this man here, has stated (Page 16,614 of the German Record): "Speer's position was such that he did not have to deal directly with the atrocities and the carrying out of the forced labor program." On Page 16,598 of the German Record, the International Military Tribunal says: "It is nevertheless established beyond all doubt that Sauckel had the over-all responsibility for the slave labor program." I shall offer evidence that Sauckel actually also had the sole power over the manner in which the people were recruited and brought to Germany, and over the urgent work for which they were required.
The Prosecution submitted much evidence in Document Books No. I A and I B which contain the speeches and decrees of all possible persons and offices in Germany and in the territories formerly occupied. In my submission, however, it never proved that the defendant knew of all these things, much less that he had anything to do with them. I shall prove that he knew nothing of all this and that it was all so far remote from his sphere of action, that, logically speaking and considering his numerous tasks, he could not even know of them.
I ask permission to remark here that in cases of that kind it is perhaps after all not in keeping with the rules of true justice to charge one person with everything that happened somewhere and was committed by one person among a people of eighty million. In my opinion the concept of conspiracy is in such a case being inflated to the point of monstrosity. It was created for conditions of a narrower and smaller scope where it was within the framework of a man's possibilities to keep an over-all view of his associates and their deeds. But to extend the concept of conspiracy over an entire nation and, simultaneously, over numerous organizations with millions of members, that no longer can be commensurate with true justice.
This would result in the creation of a conspirator to whom would be ascribed a God-like stature. That, however, would be a distortion of an intelligent legal thought.
It must, therefore, be demanded that in the case of each document, of each act, with due consideration of the extent of his working sphere and, consequently, with due consideration for his working capacity, one should examine whether he could obtain knowledge thereof, whether he could humanly anticipate, examine them, and, by reason of his authority, could at all prevent them.
Finally, I shall prove to you that the documents submitted to you as official documents are not exact, not reliable; that they never were examined by the defendant and his associates, and that they contain inaccuracies, distortions and wilfull deceptions.
Regarding the powers and position held by the defendant, a number of witnesses and the defendant himself will attest that his powers were not so great nor so permanent as the Prosecution assumes.
We will show that while the Medical Inspector of the Luftwaffe was subordinate to him in his capacity of Inspector-General of the Luftwaffe, this subordination was a more formal than a practical one, that the staff of the Medical Service was not at all subordinate to him and that especially he did not have under his direction the DVL.
We shall further prove that even the Centrall Planning Board did not have the significance that the Prosecution assumes, that this agency was much more an advisory and information agency, that it was chiefly occupied with the allocation of raw materials and that only these decisions of the meetings were binding which were summarized in the so-called "Results."
Finally, we shall show that the defendant, it is true, was one of the founders of the Jaeger staff, but that he was not its Chief and that his importance in this commission was far less than it would appear on first consideration. The work of the Jaeger Staff and of the defendant was aimed solely at the protection of Germany against bombing attacks, and Milch very soon lost all influence in this Jaeger Staff.
In the presentation of all this evidence, I would ask the High Tribunal to have in mind one difficulty which particularly in this case is nearly insurmountable.
The documents submitted by the Prosecution are only parts of a body of material the extent of which can be termed gigantic. When one considers that the Jaeger Staff for instance from the time of its establishment held daily meetings and that from those meetings only these few stenographic records of a few sessions have been submitted that appear in the document books of the Prosecution, then one realizes that one even five percent of the material pertaining to the Jaeger Staff has been submitted.
Similar, although perhaps not equally striking, is the situation with reference to the minutes of the Central Planning Board. All these documents which were not submitted are not accessible to me at all. Does not, however, justice demand that the material in its entirety should be available to the defense counsel for examination? Already it was possible for me to discover in the incriminating documents numerous passages which threw a different light on the indictment. Is it highly not probable then, that numerous other passages may be found in all of the other material likely to extenuate to a high degree the guilt of the defendant, or which, in any case, might show many things in a better light?
In an ordinary trial with a considerably narrower scope it is much easier for a defendant to conduct his defense than here where material of such volume is at hand, that even if he had the best of memories it would be impossible for him to point out to me, his counsel, where and what kind of exonerating material can be found. That simply surpasses the capacity of the human memory, of the human ability to think. In parsing I would say that probably in all of the armies which fought in this war the responsible men used strong language during meetings and discussions which, had they all gone down in records, would cause the milder ones of our present day to shake their head. The wrath, impatience, worry and the anguish because of damages sustained frequently lead the responsible persons to wild utterances. What counts is not whether such words were uttered but the deeds which came after such excitement dies away.
The Prosecution had many long months to prepare its case. We, the defendant and I received the real documents on the indictment only in January.
It is beyond human capacity to examine everything within as short a period of time with the thoroughness which is necessary to assemble the required counter-evidence. The presentation of argument on the part of the defendant can, therefore, be but full of gaps.
It is particularly difficult in this case because within the short time available for the preparation it is impossible to study all the problems which are brought to light as a result of the Dachau experiments. This calls for special technical knowledge which a man such as the defendant, who never studied medicine, simply cannot possess. However, as this trial is held simultaneously with the trial on the Dachau experiments, the danger exists that the important and exonerating facts brought to light there, through the defendant experts and their well informed counsel, and which cannot be properly appraised in the present case and in this way, the cause of justice is endangered. All of this I merely say in order to ask Your Honors not to lose sight of these angles in judging this present case. Honorable Judges please bear that in mind, also when examining the documents which I shall submit and, giving ear to that extent to the voice of humanity and of justice lend your assistance to a man who, cut off so long and bitter a time from all his information and other aids to support his memory has been called upon to defend himself before you. If at any time the fundamental principle of penal justice, which exists since the days of the wise Romans, should find application "In dubio pro reo", in the case of doubt favor the accused, it should find strict application in this case. That is what I wanted to tell you as an introduction.
May it please the Tribunal: I must now make application to you for a further recess, and please do not be alarmed, to until next Monday. This application is a matter of great distress to me, because I am also considerably interested in a speedy termination of the case at trial.
During the past days, my associates and I have worked most strenuously, and we have made every effort to meet the deadline of today. However, it proved impossible. The volume of work is simply gigantic as it is a fact that in this present trial, the trial of Speer and of Sauckel, and the trial of the physicians, are being recapitulated. The material at hand is tremendous, and there is not the faintest chance for a careful preparation.
Taking only the minutes of the Central Planning Board, the minutes of the Fuehrer Meetings, and of the Jaegerstab, they comprise about six stacks, measuring approximately a foot high. Nobody can carefully read this material in a week or ten days, and work on it.
As an addition to my other work, I merely was able to tackle this material by taking in with my eyes whole sections in one grasp. The strain to my eyes was such that at times it made me dizzy. It would be important for the trial to study these minutes carefully and, especially, to submit the text to a critical examination because after they had been written up nobody examined them and they contain inaccuracies. A critical examination of the text, however, might establish their lack of reliability; this, in any case, would make them of doubtful value as evidence.
But this material covers merely the minutes which the prosecution has submitted. There are additional volumes of minutes in the house here, which I found out one of these last days only, --by accident-- and I should like to examine them also. In that connection, I purposely make it a point to disregard all of the minutes which are still in the Documentation Center in Berlin. But even when taking merely the minutes used by the Prosecution, I lack two minutes on the Jaegerstab and also two minutes on the Central Planning Board, up to today.
It would also be necessary to examine all the exonerating documents submitted by the counsel for Sauckel and Speer to see whether they can apply here.
I also must report that of the witnesses granted to me only a few are available for me here. So far I was not able to speak to the witness Speer because the permission of the Control Council is still outstanding. This is one of the most important witnesses without whose statements it is altogether impossible to bring this trial to a conclusion.
The witnesses Vorwald and Hertel (not inferior to Speer in their importance as associates of many years' standing and as they are persons familiar with all the activities of the defendant), have not yet reached Nurnberg.
Nearly all of the other witnesses, who are not residents of Nurnberg, have also not yet arrived.
It goes without saying that with all these witnesses I must have thorough discussions because they will supply information of utmost importance and possibly additional proofs of decisive import.
Another great difficulty is inherent in the fact that on the point of the indictment which pertains to the charge that Milch caused the shooting or hanging of two prisoners, the Prosecution submitted as evidence merely one record, an utterance by Milch which the defendant is certain that it can be termed false. Consequently, I have initiated comprehensive searches throughout Germany which already have yielded partial results, but which not yet been concluded because unfortunately the time for such investigations has as yet been too short.
I was not yet able to examine the physicians indicted in the Dachau trial, to obtain their objections as experts against the indictment. I was not yet able to speak to them because I could not do this until they were approved as witnesses and because they are in permanent demand by their own counsel for their own pending trials.
In this trial of the physicians objections are raised which possibly invalidate the entire indictment relative to the high altitude and freezing experiments, in the Spring and Summer of 1942.
Milch is unable to supply me with any information on this because he understands nothing about it.
In every country in the world a trial of the nature as this one would naturally be postponed until after conclusion of the trial of the physicians because quite obviously the decision in their case will establish a precedent for the present trial in a large degree.
Your Honors, in addition to all of the above, I must discuss all of the submitted documents with my client and that work would call for a greater expenditure of time.
Even with things following a normal course and with endeavors of reasonable proportions, all of these tasks would take up many weeks. Here I am expected to accomplish in a few weeks a piece of work which goes far, far beyond the strength of any person which not even a superman could accomplish.
It is not true to facts, however, that upon receipt of the indictment in November, I would have been given the time to prepare for the case. If Your Honors please, the indictment is so generally formulated that it was impossible for me and the defendant to recognize on what proofs and on which individual concrete events it was based. The leading men of the last era have talked so much in all these years; they have decreed so much that today, especially in view of the prolonged detention as prisoners, it is impossible for them to remember all they have said and all they have considered. From the very outset, however, I endeavored to obtain the Minutes. Despite all efforts, I did not receive them only since the early part of this month the information is being made available to us; only since submission of evidence by the Prosecution, do we at all know what-- in concrete terms-- the defendant is charged with, and only since then it was possible for me to engage in an orderly and appropriate proportion. In America a lawyer's rights are far more comprehensive than in Germany. He can call for witnesses, can ask for information. All of these things are prohibited to a lawyer in Germany. It also is true that since the collapse it is impossible to find a German witness who is willing to make statements unless reproaches can be leveled against him on the strength of written records. They are all afraid to make depositions in favor of the defendant because in certain localities such witnesses encounter difficulties from the population.
Before the prosecution's evidence was submitted, I therefore, was altogether unable to do any practical work. In Germany, Your Honors, one is very well aware of the difficulties of an attorney. This accounts for the requirement of very old standing that after the indictment has been served, all of the files of the Prosecution must be made available to the defense counsel so that he can inform himself as to what the concrete charges are against the defendant, and to enable him to start with the work at once. Because it is aimed to avoid that a defendant be placed at a disadvantage compared with the Prosecution which always had the time for the preparation which it may need. That is a principle for fair treatment, which principle must not be violated unless conducting a trial against a defendant is to end in illegality. Your Honors, in the present situation it is still necessary for me to conduct a series of investigations. I must be given the opportunity to clarify further the case of the murder. In that connection I cannot even make full use of the assistance of my associates, because it already has been my experience that one refused to give the correct information to my assistants because only I, the actual defense counsel, enjoys confidence. Today, for instance, a man approached me in order to make a statement to me which he refused to make in front of my assistant.
Your Honors, if a criminal case is at all expected to serve justice in any way whatsoever, there must be the endeavor to determine the objective truth. Since according to your system of law the Prosecution is merely concerned with presenting all that is incriminating - as explicitly stated by Justice Jackson of the International Military Tribunal in reply to one of my objections raised at the time, then I, the counsel, must also be given the time needed for the preparation which cannot be dispensed with whatever efforts I may make. These recent days many people in this courthouse building have confirmed my opinion that it is an impossibility to prepare this trial which calls for such volume of material in a few days. I simply cannot do it. Nobody in the world can do it. This would reduce the defense to a farce, unless I fulfill my duty completely.
All of the other defense counsels - in the trial before the International Military Tribunal as well as in trials of subsequent proceedings - have incomparably more time than I. In their case the material of the Prosecution is made available for many, many weeks.
There are many defendants. Consequently that means an appreciable gain of time for the defense, of which they can 508- A take full advantage.
This is denied to me here. My case is a special one.
I know that perhaps there are other reasons which will determine the decision of the Prosecution to bring the trial to a speedy conclusion. However I am of the opinion that is not admissible. Each trial is a world of its own. It must not be that consideration for other developments should forcibly bring about acceleration which will make a defense, a true defense, impossible. The prevention of an adequate defense is all over the world ground for attacking a verdict. No revision is in certain respects possible here. All the greater, however, is the duty for all of us to do everything, to eliminate every chance for a miscarriage of justice and to make his defense possible for the defendant in full measure.
I declare that having a great practice of my own here in Nurnberg which I presently must neglect completely, I am therefore considerably anxious in getting out of this case quickly to keep down the loss arising therefrom to me. But never shall I trespass against my duty.
Harrased by the pressure of time, the nightmare of my responsibility haunts me in my sleep at night. Your Honors, I plead with you, with all the force of that which is serious, do not misinterpret my position and do not reject my request. However bold it may seem, it is modest enough. Even with this additional adjournment I must draw on all the generosity of conduct of which I am capable, to check my doubts and to believe that I shall then conduct the defense adequately.
My application cannot ask less than that, however, or else my conscience will reproach me for the rest of my life.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Bergold, the Court understood that you had some documents to present this morning; is that true?
DR. BERGOLD: I have arranged a document book which I have here; however, I want to prepare a second such book. If I present the documents today, they will not stand in proper perspective. I want to have them available in connection with the calling of my witnesses, so that they can be properly presented to the witnesses. If I present them separately as they are now, they will each demand a long commentary. Moreover, if we proceed to trial now, I can not proceed with the other work of which I have just spoken at length;
509 - a I cannot call my witnesses, nor collect my data and affidavits, and they will be gone forever.