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TO:	The General Secretary of the International Military Tribunal,
	Nuremberg.

On behalf of the Defendant Hess I hereby make the following application in my capacity of counsel:

I

A. That a medical expert be asked by the Court to make a thorough examination of the Defendant Hess and to report in an exhaustive manner as to whether the said defendant is

a) mentally competent,

b) capable of being tried, and to summon the medical expert as a witness at the Trial.

The expert should be named to the Tribunal by the medical faculty of the University of Zürich or, if a competent expert should not be available there, by the medical faculty of Lausanne.

B. If the Court has already appointed an expert, that the expert applied for and appointed as in I A. be appointed and summoned to act together with the Court’s own expert at the examination, and to testify in Court.

C. In the event of the Court’s having already in the meantime ordered a report by a board of experts, that this panel be completed by the appointment, as well as the expert mentioned in I A., of another expert also to be named by the medical faculty of Zürich or Lausanne.

II

. . . .

Reasons:

Re I. The undersigned Counsel has grave doubts as to the mental responsibility and the fitness for Trial of the Defendant Hess owing to defendant’s behavior during his numerous talks with him, and owing to the numerous publications, past and present, in the German and foreign press about the “Hess Case”. The defendant is not in a position to give his Counsel any information whatsoever regarding the crimes imputed to him in the Indictment. The expression of his face is lifeless and his attitude towards his Counsel and in view of the impending Trial is the reverse of every natural reaction of any other defendant.

The defendant declares that he has completely lost his memory since a long period of time, the period of which he can no longer determine.

The official Party declaration issued by the German Propaganda Ministry of 12 May 1941 even mentions “a disease which had been increasing over a period of years” and of “signs of mental derangement”. English press reports also state that defendant’s conduct after his landing in Scotland showed an absence of “mental clarity”.

Those facts are important for the allegation of Defendant’s irresponsibility as a result of morbid disorder of his mental capacity, and sufficient grounds for application numbered I.

Those facts at the same time justify the examination of defendant’s ability to plead. In the event of the Court’s having already, on its own authority, entrusted a panel of experts with the preparation of a report, it would be fair to the defendant to concede the addition of several experts to be appointed by the Defense.

. . . .

	/s/	VON ROHRSCHEIDT
		Attorney

Nuremberg, 7 November 1945