When Lord Justice Lawrence, the British President of the International Tribunal, opened the great Nuremberg war trial this morning he called it unique in the history of the jurisprudence of the world, and on that note proceedings are begun against the surviving leaders of the Third Reich arraigned as major war criminals.
I learn authoritatively that Ribbentrop, taking advantage of the wide powers granted by the rules of the Court in calling witnesses for the defence, has applied through his counsel, Dr. Fritz Sauter, for a number of prominent British witnesses to testify on his behalf, including Lord Vansittart, who was Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office during Ribbentrop╒s tenure as Ambassador to London; Lord Beaverbrook, Lord Rothermere, and Lord Kemsley. Ribbentrop also included Lord Dawson of Penn, apparently in ignorance of his death.
ONLY THREE IN UNIFORM
The prisoners appeared in the order of their names in the indictment and are seated in two rows, with Goering occupying the right-hand corner of the dock facing the raised judges╒ bench. Behind him, beginning the second row of ten, is Admiral Doenitz, an almost insignificant figure in civilian clothes. Only three of the prisoners, indeed, are in uniform, stripped of insignia and badges ╤ Goering in an elegant pale grey Luftwaffe uniform, presumably his own creation, and the soldiers Keitel and Jodl, in the familiar grey green of the Wehrmacht.
Looking at the men in the dock, there was little in their bearing or appearance to suggest that they were on trial for their lives. The enormity of the charges against them, involving the deaths of millions of people, somehow eluded reality in this unemotional, analytical atmosphere.
The whole day╒s sitting was taken up with the reading of the 24,000-word indictment and as counsel of the United States, Great Britain, France, and Russia took up the sections on which they are leading the accused barely followed the proceedings. They had the German text in their hands 30 days ago and in the solitude of their cells have had time to assimilate its resonant words.
GOERING╒S SMILE
Goering, far less gross than in the old days and looking remarkably fit save for the heavy sadness of his eyes, permitted himself a discreet smile at the mention of the million bottles of champagne looted from France and it was Hess at his side who for the general tenseness of his bearing was constantly to be remarked among the defendants ╤ Hess and the insolent laugh of Hans Frank, seated in the middle of the front row.
Hess was strained and taut. His dark, burning eyes were continually roving about the court when they were not absorbed in a novel he had brought into the dock with him and he smiled cynically when at the outset the batteries of floodlights were switched on overhead for the cameramen operating from apertures con- structed for the purpose high in the walls. Sometimes he engaged Ribbentrop on his left in animated conversation, once he made a remark to Goering, but Goering, chin in hand and gazing thoughtfully at nothing, ignored him.
As for the others, they might almost have been attending some business convention. Dr. Schacht has never looked more benign or the chief of the German Army and Navy more Prussian and stolid. So the case of the United States of America, the French Republic, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union was opened.
