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Partly-printed DS, in German, signed “J. v. Ribbentrop,” one page, 8 x 13, February 9, 1946. Document headed (translated), "The International Military Tribunal, Defendant's Application for Summons for Witness," made while preparing his defense for the Nuremberg trials. Ribbentrop and his defense lawyer request testimony from the "Hilger, Counsellor at the Embassy in Moscow," citing his knowledge of these facts: "The German/Russian negotiations in August/September 1939 until the outbreak of hostilities." Ribbentrop states that the testimony is necessary for the "invalidation of Nos. 2 and 3 of the general points of the indictment and the specific accusations against me." Signed at the conclusion in pencil by Joachim von Ribbentrop, and countersigned by his defense counsel. Backed by archival paper and in fine condition, with professional cleaning to the paper. Accompanied by a contemporary English translation.
Gustav Hilger served as Counsellor at the German Embassy in Moscow and was a key participant in and eyewitness to the negotiation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Ribbentrop's defense sought his testimony to frame the pact as a diplomatic necessity and to shift blame for subsequent aggression onto the Soviet Union, an attempt that also aimed to embarrass the Soviet prosecutors at Nuremberg.
The testimony did not ultimately help Ribbentrop's case, and it did not establish that German foreign policy was purely defensive; Hilger himself, per later declassified documents, had knowledge of the regime's wider complicity, including having received reports from the Einsatzgruppen while serving as Ribbentrop's deputy in Berlin. He was never prosecuted, and went on to a long postwar career as a valued Cold War intelligence asset for the United States, working with the Gehlen Organization and later under CIA contract before serving as a counselor to the West German Foreign Office. Ribbentrop was convicted on all four counts and executed in October 1946.
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