SURPRISE AT NUREMBERG

Evening Star, Issue 25699, 24 January 1946, Page 5

SURPRISE AT NUREMBERG

APPLICATION BY HESS WANTS TO UNDERTAKE OWN DEFENCE (Rec. 1.20 p.m.) NUREMBERG, January 23. The Nuremberg court was taken by surprise when the British prosecutor, Sir David Maxwell, Fyfe, announced that presentation of the case against Hess, set down for today, would have to be postponed, because his counsel, Dr Rohrscheidt,, had broken his ankle in a , fall down stairs. Ribbentrop's counsel said Hess had asked him to request permission to undertake his own defence from now until the end of the trial. The court adjourned without without giving a decision on this point. The American prosecutor opened) the case against the anti-Semitic broadcaster, Hans Fritsche, putting in a long affidavit by him, in which he attempted to justify his position in Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry. He denied that he had any controlling. influence in the Ministry, and said he acquired his reputation and influence purely as a radio expert, and was strictly bound by the directions of his superiors. He affirmed that only a few hours before Britain and France declared war on Germany he received) assurances from Goebbels and Dietrich that the intervention of Mussolini would preserve peace in Europe. The German army was to stop its advance. Germany, Britain, and France had accepted a suggestion which would give time for a conference. Fritsche described how Ribbentrop on the eve of the onslaught against Russia told a Press conference it would be presented to the people as a preventive war for the defence of the Fatheland, " forced on us by the immediate danger of attack by the Soviet Union." UNSCRUPULOUS VON PAPEN. The British-prosecutor, Major J. H. Barrington, opened the case against von Papen. He said that, although von Papen was not the typical Nazi, he was an unscrupulous opportunist, ready to fall in with the Nazis when it suited him. He participated in the preparations of the Nazi conspirators for wars of aggression. Major Barrington accused von Papen of participating in the persecution of Jews and of betraying the Catholic Church, of which he was a member. Streicher suffered a heart attack and was not present in court to-day. He is confined to bed.