BRITISH PEERS TO BE CALLED NUREMBERG TRIALS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 301, 21 December 1945, Page 5

BRITISH PEERS TO BE CALLED

NUREMBERG TRIALS

NAZIS’ REQUEST GRANTED

Recd. 6 p.m. Nuremberg, Dec. 19. At Ribbentrop's request, Lords Kemsley, Beaverprook, Londonderry and Vansittart are to be interrogated. This was disclosed to-day when the War Crimes Tribunal trying leading Nazis issued a list of witnesses. The tribunal earlier refused Ribbentrop's request that they be called as witnesses. Goering’s application to have Lord Halifax and Sir Cadogan interrogated was granted by the tribunal.

Goering, in his application, claimed lo have had secret negotiations with Lord Halifax then Foreign Secretary, in 1939 in an effort to prevent the war. Goering said he conducted negotiations with three British members of Parliament through a Swedtsn intermediary and later, through the same intermediary, he established direct contact with Lord Halifax. The tribunal has not yet taken action on Goering's application to call a journalist, Ward Price, as a witness. An application from Rosenberg to call a Major Winterbotham as a witness was refused. The tribunal is allowing Sauckel and Schacht each to call 12 German witnesses, Ribbentrop three. Keitel tive and Goering and Hess one each. Streicher has one, namely, Hess, whose only witness is Goering. Schacht's witnesses include von Erauchitsch and von P.undstedt. DESTROYED 35 SYNAGOGUES.

One brigade of Hitler's brownshirted storm troopers alone blew up or burned 3b synagogues in two days, declared the American assistant prosecutor. Colonel Storey, at the resumption of the tr.al to-uay, in support ot his case to have the S.A. declared a criminal organisation. He said the S.A. was employed as a terroristic group, its lunction was to terrorise all political oppos.tion. The S.A. was originally usea in the same lashion as the Gestapo, but alter 1934 it was replaced in many respects by the S.S.

Colonel Storey submitted several allidavits describing how members of the S.A. beat up American citizens of Jewish blood in Germany, while the police told them they were helpless to nalt the attacks as they had no instructions to interfere with the S.A. The prosecutor contended that members of the S.A. were participators in the conspiracy which contemplated cr.mes against the peace, crimes against humanity and war crimes. It fostered a military spirit throughout Germany, preparing lhe people ■mentally and spiritually for vicious aggressive wars.

After the noon recess, Major Warren Farr, of the American prosecution staff, began the presentation of the case against Himmler's S.S. (Schutzstaffel), which was at first composed of men who served as Hitler's bodyguard, but which had 240,000 men at Hie outbreak of war. Major Farr said the fighting troops of the S.S.. known as Waffen S.S., were created on a personal secret order front Hitler in August, 1938. The order stated: “The Waffen S.S. is neither part of the Wehrmacht nor part of the police. It is a standing armed unit exclusively at my disposal.” Several of Himmler’s speeches were cited to show that the Nazis planned to make the S.S. the “Nazi aristocracy which would dominate Germany and the Europe to come.” Kaltenbrunner has been transferred from prison to an American army hospital. His condition is reported to be a serious form of the recurrence of his cranial haemorrhage.

A Berlin message states that 40 S.S. war prisoners escaped from a train today while being conveyed to Belgium from Hamm. They are still at large.