FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: Before the noon recess I was discussing the
fact that units of the Navy were not subordinate to the Naval Operations
Staff in matters affecting warfare on land.
This channel of orders for territorial questions also explains the
complete ignorance of Admiral Dönitz and of his colleagues in the Naval
Operations Staff about the delivery to the SD of the crew of the
Norwegian motor torpedo boat _MTB 345_ after its capture by units under
Admiral Von Schrader. As the testimony of witnesses and the records of
the Oslo War Crimes Court show, the Naval Operations Staff only received
an operational report about the capture of the boat and the number of
prisoners. All other details, the discovery on board of material for
sabotage, of civilian suits and sabotage orders, and the treatment of
the crew as saboteurs according to the Commando Order were regarded as
territorial matters, and as such dealt with by Admiral Von Schrader and
the Armed Forces commander in Norway. The decision regarding the fate of
the crew came from the Führer’s headquarters in reply to an inquiry from
Gauleiter Terboven. Not only is there no proof that the Naval Operations
Staff took part in those territorial questions, but this must in fact be
considered refuted on the basis of the evidence submitted and the chain
of command as explained.
I regard as the second attempt of the Prosecution to establish a
participation in the alleged conspiracy to commit war crimes the
submission of Admiral Wagner’s minutes on the question of withdrawal
from the Geneva Convention in the spring of 1945. The details are
contained in Wagner’s testimony, according to which the Führer pointed
out in a conference on 17 February that the enemy propaganda about the
good treatment of prisoners of war was clearly having an influence on
the units fighting on the Western Front, and that many cases of
desertion to the enemy were being reported. He ordered that the question
of a withdrawal from the Geneva Convention be investigated. In this way
he wanted to convince his own soldiers that they could no longer rely
upon receiving good treatment as prisoners of war, and thus create a
countereffect against enemy propaganda. Two days later Hitler returned
to this idea, although he then put forward another reason as the main
one. He termed enemy warfare in the East and the bomb attacks on the
German civilian population an outright renunciation of international law
by the enemy, and he, for his part, also desired to free himself from
all obligations by withdrawing from the Geneva Convention. Once more he
asked for the opinion of the Armed Forces in this matter and addressed
himself directly to Grossadmiral Dönitz, who did not answer. The
attitude of the military leaders on this matter was unanimously
negative.
On the next day, just before the daily conference on the situation, a
10-minute conversation took place between Grossadmiral Dönitz,
Generaloberst Jodl, and Ambassador Hewel; in the course of this
conversation Dönitz expressed his negative attitude. According to the
notes of Admiral Wagner he said that “it would be better to take the
measures considered necessary without previous announcement and, at any
rate, to save face before the world.” The Prosecution sees in this a
readiness and a design to expose hundreds of thousands of Allied
prisoners of war to arbitrary murder.
Admiral Dönitz himself has no recollection of this sentence. That is not
surprising, as this is not a record, but a summary of a lengthy
conversation in four sentences, the summary being worded on the day
after the conversation by Admiral Wagner. This summary admits that the
Grossadmiral disapproved of any “wild measures” which would put us in
the wrong from the beginning, and considered justifiable only measures
actually warranted by the conduct of the enemy in each case. Since
Wagner himself, as the author of the transcript, should know best what
he meant thereby, I personally cannot add anything to this statement.
The interpretation of the Prosecution is equally little supported by
other circumstances. There was no question at all of keeping any
measures secret; they had to be made known, regardless of whether they
were meant to deter our own deserters or as reprisals. But Wagner’s note
does not mention any kind of concrete measures to be taken, and all
witnesses present at this situation conference in Hitler’s headquarters
state that not a word was spoken on that subject. The idea of killing
prisoners of war could not, therefore, have been present in the minds of
any of the participants in this discussion which Wagner noted down.
Now it has come to light here, through the statements of the Defendants
Ribbentrop and Fritzsche, that apart from the action for which he was
preparing the ground during the discussion with the generals, Hitler had
evidently at the same time planned a second action, in which only
Goebbels and Himmler were to participate, and which by chance also came
to Ribbentrop’s knowledge. In this action the shooting of thousands of
prisoners of war seems to have been contemplated as a reprisal against
the air attack on Dresden. Hitler, very wisely, did not give the
slightest indication of such a plan to the generals. This plan was not
followed up and no reprisals were taken.
And now I return to the facts. It is a fact that Admiral Dönitz
disapproved of the withdrawal from the Geneva Convention, and that
Hitler, in view of the attitude of all military leaders who clearly
opposed it did not follow up the idea any further. It is also a fact
that no measures in violation of international law were taken by the
Germans as a result of this remark which the Prosecution has criticized,
and finally it is a fact that enemy sailors who were captured were sent
to a prisoner-of-war camp of the Navy where they were treated in an
exemplary way up to the last day of the war.
Whoever, in his own sphere, behaved as Admiral Dönitz did with regard to
the prisoners of war of the Navy, cannot reasonably be charged with
having thrown overboard all standards of law and ethics applying to
prisoners of war. A British commander has certified that when the
prisoner-of-war camp of the Navy was taken over by British troops, all
prisoners without exception said that they had been treated with
fairness and consideration. The Tribunal will, no doubt, appreciate such
unanimous expression of views, especially after what has come to light
elsewhere in these proceedings with regard to the breakdown not only by
Germans in the proper treatment of prisoners of war.
I shall now deal with the conspiracy to commit Crimes against Humanity,
and I should like first of all to point out that Admiral Dönitz is not
accused, under Count Four of the Indictment, of direct commission of
Crimes against Humanity. Not even participation in the conspiracy to
commit Crimes Against Humanity was contended in the detailed charges.
That, I would say, is an admission that there was in fact no relation,
between his activity and the Crimes against Humanity of which the
Prosecution has brought evidence. Nevertheless the Prosecution presented
some documents which are apparently meant to prove his participation in
the responsibility for certain Crimes against Humanity.
In judging these documents the most important question always is: What
did Admiral Dönitz know of those alleged crimes? On this subject I
should like to make one point clear. During the entire war he resided
and lived at his staff headquarters, first on the North Sea coast, after
1940 in France, in 1943 for a short time in Berlin, and then in the Camp
Koralle near Berlin. When he was at the Führer’s headquarters, he stayed
with the naval staff there. Even outside his duty, his time was thus
spent almost exclusively with naval officers. This may have been a
weakness, but it is a fact which gives an additional explanation of his
lack of knowledge of many events.
The fact that the defendant forwarded a proposal by the Ministry for
Armaments to employ 12,000 men from concentration camps as workers in
the shipyards proves, according to the Prosecution, that Admiral Dönitz
knew and approved of the arrest of countless innocent people and their
ill-treatment and extermination in concentration camps.
He actually knew, of course, that concentration camps existed and he
also knew that, apart from the professional criminals, people arrested
for political reasons were kept there. As has already been explained
here, the protective custody of political adversaries for reasons of
safety is a measure adopted by all states, at any rate in an emergency,
and knowledge of such a measure can therefore incriminate no one.
However, an unusually high number of political prisoners—out of
proportion to the number of the population—may stamp a regime as a
regime of terror, but taking into account a population of 80 million in
the fifth year of a grim war, even twice or three times the number of
12,000 men, which is the number mentioned by Admiral Dönitz, would not
indicate a regime of terror, and the Prosecution will hardly claim that.
Admiral Dönitz stated here that the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, as
well as his collaborators and the overwhelming part of the German
people, did not know of the abuses and killings that occurred in the
concentration camps. All that the Prosecution has put forward against
this are assumptions, but no proofs.
On this point, therefore, I will only refer to the statement of the then
Minister for Armaments, Speer, according to which the inmates of
concentration camps were much better off in industrial work than in
camp, and that they tried with all means to obtain employment in such
work. The proposal forwarded therefore did not imply anything inhuman,
but rather the opposite.
The same request also contains a suggestion to take energetic measures
against sabotage in Norwegian and Danish shipyards, where seven out of
eight vessels under construction had been destroyed. If need be, the
personnel should be entirely or in part employed as “KZ workers”
because, so it says, sabotage of such dimensions can only occur if all
the workers silently condone it. This therefore amounts to a proposition
for security measures to consist in keeping the workers who actively or
passively participated in sabotage in a camp close to the shipyard, so
that their connections with sabotage agents would be cut off. I do not
believe that juridical objections can be raised against such measures of
security. According to the practice of all occupation troops even
measures of collective punishment would be justified in such cases.[37]
Actually the measures proposed were never carried out and the
Prosecution presumably presents them only to accuse Admiral Dönitz quite
generally of a brutal attitude toward the inhabitants of occupied
territories. For this same purpose it even refers to a statement of the
Führer at a conference on the military situation in the summer of 1944,
according to which terror in Denmark must be fought with counterterror.
Admiral Dönitz’s only connection with this statement was that he heard
it and that his companion, Admiral Wagner, wrote it down. The Navy had
no part in this statement, nor did it take any measures as a result of
it.
In contrast to this line of evidence of the Prosecution, I should like
to emphasize the attitude which Admiral Dönitz actually showed toward
the population of the occupied territories. There is before the Tribunal
a survey of the administration of justice by the naval courts in
protecting the inhabitants of the occupied territories against excesses
by members of the Navy. The survey is based on an examination of about
2,000 files on delicts and some of the judgments given are quoted with
the facts and the reasons of the verdicts. Judging from that survey, one
can fairly say that the naval courts protected the inhabitants in the
West and in the East with justice and severity, including their lives as
well as their property and the honor of their women. This administration
of justice was constantly supervised by the Commander-in-Chief of the
Navy as the Chief Court Administrator. Under terms of legal procedure it
was his duty to confirm death penalties imposed on German soldiers.
The time at my disposal does not permit a more detailed discussion of
some of these judgments. A phrase expressed in one of them may be taken
to apply to all: All soldiers must know that in occupied territory as
well the life and property of others will be fully safeguarded. This was
the general attitude in the Navy, and the severity of the penalties
inflicted proves how seriously it was taken.
I need only say a few words about the order issued in the spring of
1945, in which a German prisoner of war, a noncommissioned officer, was
cited as an example, because he had unobtrusively and systematically
done away with some Communists who were attracting attention to
themselves in their prison camp. As Admiral Wagner recalled, it was
actually an informer who was liquidated. But the facts were camouflaged
as described in order to avoid giving enemy intelligence a clue to the
camp and the person of the noncommissioned officer. There cannot be any
doubt that this order in its true background could be justified in view
of the enormous number of political murders which have been committed
with the connivance or assistance of governments engaged in the war, the
perpetrators being today extolled as heroes. I cannot, however, consider
as serious the argument that the unfortunately camouflaged wording could
be proof of a general plan to liquidate Communists. A court judgment for
the protection of Communists will reveal the true circumstances. A
sergeant had stolen hospital blankets which were intended for Soviet
prisoners of war and had extracted a dead prisoner’s gold teeth. This
sergeant was sentenced to death by a naval court and executed after the
sentence had been confirmed by the Commander-in-Chief.
Finally, the Prosecution also established a connection with the Jewish
question through a remark in which Grossadmiral Dönitz speaks of the
“creeping poison of Jewry.” On this point I should like to add some
comments. Dönitz knew as little of the plan for the destruction of the
Jews as he did of its execution. He did know of the resettlement in the
Government General of Jews living in Germany. I do not think that a
resettlement of this sort can be condemned at a time when expulsions of
Germans on a much larger scale are taking place before the eyes of a
silent world. Here, too, I refer to a sentence of long penitentiary
terms against two German sailors who, together with some Frenchmen, had
robbed French Jews. From the findings of the court I again quote a
sentence which characterizes the general attitude: “That the crimes were
committed against Jews does not excuse the defendants in any way.”
Similarly, it seems to me that the efforts of the Prosecution to include
Admiral Dönitz in its construction of the conspiracy by terming him a
fanatical Nazi have failed. He was neither a member of the Party nor was
he ever politically prominent before his appointment as
Commander-in-Chief of the Navy. The assertion of the Prosecution that he
became Commander-in-Chief of the Navy because of his political attitude
lacks all foundation. As a professional officer, to whom every political
activity was forbidden by the Reich Defense Law, he had no reason for
dealing with National Socialism in any way. However, he, too, like
millions of other Germans, recognized the unique success of Hitler’s
leadership in social and economic fields and, of course, also the
liberation from the obligations of Versailles which Hitler had brought
about and which particularly concerned Admiral Dönitz as a soldier.
Therefore, at the time of his appointment as Commander-in-Chief of the
Navy, he was politically in no way active, although loyal to the
National Socialist State.
This appointment introduced two new elements into his relations with
National Socialism. There was first of all his personal contact with
Adolf Hitler. Like almost everyone else who had personal dealings with
this man, he too was most deeply impressed by him. The respect for the
head of the State and loyalty to the Supreme Commander inherent in the
professional officer were complemented by admiration for the statesman
and strategist. It is difficult fully to appreciate such an attitude in
view of the information which has come to light in the course of this
Trial. I feel neither called upon nor able to judge a personality like
Adolf Hitler. But one thing seems to me certain, namely, that with a
consummate art of camouflage he skillfully concealed the repulsive
traits of his character from those of his collaborators to whom he did
not dare reveal this part of his nature. The Hitler with whom the new
Commander-in-Chief of the Navy became acquainted at that time, and whom
he admired, was therefore an entirely different man from the one which
the world—rightly or wrongly—pictures today.
The second new element in the relations between Grossadmiral Dönitz and
National Socialism was that in the performance of his military duties he
necessarily came into contact with the political authorities of the
Reich. Whether he needed more men, more ships, or more arms, in the end
he always had to discuss these matters with the political authorities,
and in order to be successful in his demands, he had to make sure that
any political mistrust was eliminated from the very start. This he
deliberately did, and he demanded the same of his subordinates. To him
the Party was not an ideological factor, but rather the actual exponent
of political power. He was linked with it in the common aim to win the
war, and for the achievement of this aim he considered it his ally. But
to obtain the advantages which one expects of an ally, one must be
willing to make certain sacrifices, especially sacrifices in overlooking
faults and in ignoring conflicting issues.
However, his connection with the Führer and his contact with the Party,
which were concomitants of his position and of his duties as
Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, never led him to participate in anything
for which he could not assume responsibility before his conscience. Some
points of the Prosecution even go to prove this. The Führer demanded
action against shipwrecked crews; Admiral Dönitz rejected it. The Führer
asked for withdrawal from the Geneva Convention; Admiral Dönitz rejected
it. He stubbornly and successfully resisted the Party’s influence upon
the Armed Forces. Thanks to his resistance the National Socialist
Führungsoffiziere did not become political commissars, but were, as
genuine officers, merely advisers to their commander, who retained the
sole responsibility for the leadership of his unit. The transfer of
proceedings against soldiers on political grounds from the military
courts to the People’s Courts, which had been advocated by the Party,
was prevented by Grossadmiral Dönitz until the winter of 1944-45, and a
Führer order to this effect issued at that time was never carried out in
the Navy. Thus he never identified himself with the Party and can
therefore surely not be held responsible for its ideological endeavors
or its excesses, just as in foreign politics a government would not be
ready to assume responsibility for such things if they had been done by
an ally.
I do not by any means want to give the impression that Admiral Dönitz
was not a National Socialist. On the contrary, I just want to use him as
an example to disprove the theory that every National Socialist as such
must be a criminal. This Tribunal is the sole instance in which
authoritative personalities of the great Allied Powers are dealing
directly and in detail with the last 12 years of the German past. It is,
therefore, the only hope of very many Germans for the removal of a fatal
error which is causing the weaker elements of our nation to become
hypocrites and is thus proving a decisive obstacle on the road to
political recovery.
And now I should like to deal with the charge that in February 1945
Admiral Dönitz protracted the inevitable surrender out of political
fanaticism, and I wish to do so for a particular reason. This charge,
which seems hardly to have anything to do with the Indictment before an
International Tribunal, weighs particularly heavily in the eyes of the
German people, for this nation truly knows what destruction and losses
it endured in those last months from February until May 1945. I have
submitted declarations of Darlan, Chamberlain, and Churchill from the
year 1940 in which those statesmen, in a critical hour for their
countries, called for desperate resistance, for the defense of every
village and of every house. Nobody will conclude from this that these
men were fanatical National Socialists. The question of unconditional
surrender is indeed of such colossal import to a nation, that in fact it
is not possible until after the event to judge whether a statesman who
had to face this question did or did not do the right thing. Admiral
Dönitz, however, was not a statesman in February 1945, but the
Commander-in-Chief of the Navy. Should he have asked his subordinates to
lay down their arms at a time when the political authority of the State
still considered military resistance as opportune and necessary? Nobody
will seriously demand that.
Much more difficult seems to me the question of whether, in view of the
high esteem Hitler had for him, he should not have considered it his
duty to point out clearly to Hitler the hopelessness of prolonged
resistance.
Personally, I would have affirmed this to be his duty toward his nation,
if Admiral Dönitz himself at that time had considered that surrender was
justified. He did not consider it justified, and he gave his reasons:
Surrender implied a halt of the armies and of the population; the German
Army on the Eastern Front—still numbering more than 2 million men in
February 1945—and the entire civilian population of the German eastern
provinces would thereby have fallen into the hands of the Soviet armies,
and in a bitterly cold winter month, too. Admiral Dönitz, therefore, was
of the opinion, shared by Generaloberst Jodl, that the losses in men
suffered in that way would be far greater than the losses which would
necessarily be caused if the capitulation were postponed until the
warmer season. Only in future years, when more exact data regarding
casualties of the Army and of the civilian population both before and
after the surrender in the East and in the West are available, will it
be possible to view this opinion objectively. But it may already be said
today that such considerations arose entirely from a full sense of
responsibility for the life of German men and women.
The same sense of responsibility caused him, when he became head of the
State on 1 May 1945, to cease hostilities against the West, but to
protract the surrender in the East for a few days, days in which
hundreds of thousands were able to escape to the West. From the moment
when—to his own complete surprise—he was given a political task, he
calmly and intelligently averted a threatening chaos, prevented
desperate mass action without a leader, and assumed responsibility
before the German people for the gravest action which any statesman can
take at all.
Thus, to revert to the beginning of the Indictment, he did nothing to
start this war, but he took the decisive steps to end it.
Since that moment the German nation has learned of many things which it
did not expect, and more than once it has been referred to the
unconditional surrender which the last head of the State carried
through. It is for this Tribunal to decide whether in the future this
nation will be reminded of the binding value of the signature of a man
who is being outlawed as a criminal before the whole world by his
partners in the agreement.
At the beginning of my speech I mentioned the doubts which any trial of
war criminals is bound to call forth in the mind and heart of any
lawyer. They must weigh upon all who bear any responsibility in such a
trial. I could not more fittingly describe the task of all the
responsible persons than in the words of a British attorney speaking of
the trials before the German Supreme Court in the year 1921. I quote:
“The war criminals’ trials were demanded by an angry public
rather than by statesmen or the fighting services. Had public
opinion in 1919 had its way, the trials might have presented a
grim spectacle, of which future generations would have been
ashamed. But thanks to the statesmen and the lawyers, a public
yearning for revenge was converted into a real demonstration of
the majesty of right and the power of law.”[38]
May the verdict of this Tribunal stand in a similar way before the
judgment of history.
THE PRESIDENT: I call on Dr. Siemers for the Defendant Raeder.
DR. WALTER SIEMERS (Counsel for Defendant Raeder): Gentlemen of the
Tribunal, in my final speech for the Defendant Grossadmiral Dr. Raeder,
I should like to keep to the order I chose for my document books and for
the whole presentation of my evidence. I think a survey of the whole
case will thus be made easier.
Raeder, who has just turned 70 years of age, has been exclusively a
soldier, body and soul, ever since the age of 18, that is to say, for
nigh on half a century covering an eventful period. Although he was
never concerned with anything but his duties as a soldier, the
Prosecution has accused him, in this great Trial against National
Socialism, not only as a soldier, namely, as Commander-in-Chief of the
German Navy, but, a singular and decisive point, as a politician, as a
political conspirator, and as a member of the Government, three things
which in truth he never was.
I am, therefore, faced with the singular task of defending Raeder as a
politician, although it was precisely, as I shall demonstrate, his life
principle as an officer to keep aloof from politics, and to command an
officers’ corps and a Navy likewise committed to remain entirely free
from politics.
If the Prosecution levels such manifold and grave accusations against
Raeder, this is primarily because it has conceived a notion entirely
foreign to the German Armed Forces, namely the notion of an admiral
being responsible for foreign policy and for the outbreak of a war.
I shall disprove this conception and show that it was unjustified and
unfounded even in Hitler’s National Socialist State. True, Hitler again
and again placed politics in the forefront of the nation and endeavored
to give the nation a one-track political education. Foreign countries
knew this, and they may well therefore be all the more surprised by the
fact that Hitler refrained from such political shaping in one single
instance. Every administration, every organization, and every police
institution was directed by Hitler on political principles, with the
single exception of the Armed Forces. The Armed Forces, and the Navy in
particular, remained for a long time and far into the war absolutely
unpolitical. And not only did Hitler give Raeder an assurance to this
effect, but he had also given the same assurance to Hindenburg as Reich
President. This explains the fact, which has also been made clear in
this Trial, that up to 1944 no officer could be a member of the Party,
and if he was, then his membership was suspended.
After these preliminary reflections it will be understood why Raeder, as
his interrogation showed, was disconcerted and amazed at these
accusations which amount to a political charge. A man who is nothing but
a soldier cannot understand why he should suddenly and without any
relation to his military duties be made responsible for things which at
no time came within the compass of his activity.
I shall naturally also discuss the military accusations, with the
exception of submarine warfare, which, for the sake of uniformity, has
already been dealt with by Dr. Kranzbühler on behalf of Raeder, too.
It will be seen from other military accusations, as for instance in the
cases of Norway and Greece, that again and again there arises this
discrepancy between the political and the military aspects: Raeder acted
as Commander-in-Chief on the basis of military considerations, whereas
the Prosecution now calls him to account on the basis of political
considerations, by evaluating the military actions as political ones.
The first instance of this discrepancy already lies in the accusations
raised against Raeder with regard to the period before 1933, that is,
before National Socialism. In connection with these accusations it must
not be overlooked that Hitler, the head of the alleged conspiracy for
the waging of wars of aggression, did not rule Germany at that time, and
yet already at that time there is supposed to have existed a common
conspiracy between Hitler and a part of the defendants.
This is all the more surprising because Raeder, as a naval officer and
after 1928 as Chief of the Naval High Command, at that time had nothing,
absolutely nothing at all, to do with National Socialism, and did not
even know Hitler and his co-workers in the Party. The accusations
concerning the violations of the Versailles Treaty are included by the
Prosecution in the conspiracy, although the violations did not take
place under Hitler’s leadership, but under the leadership or with the
approval of the democratic governments in Germany at the time. This
shows that the Prosecution does not only want to attack National
Socialism through this Trial, as has been emphasized again and again
during the war and after the collapse, but that the Indictment extends
its scope to large circles in Germany which had nothing to do with
National Socialism, some of whom were even direct enemies of National
Socialism.
(1) For this very reason it seemed to me extremely important to clear up
the question of the violation of the Treaty of Versailles in the course
of the presentation of evidence in the Raeder case. I have endeavored to
do so with the approval of the Tribunal, and I am firmly convinced that
I have succeeded. I need not discuss each of the violations, which have
been treated in detail and which the Prosecution has produced in
Document C-32. It should be sufficient if I refer to the extensive
evidence as well as to the following facts:
Every single point was either a mere trifle or else a military
measure—such as for example the antiaircraft batteries—based
exclusively on the notion of defense. Raeder has plainly admitted that
treaty infractions did occur, but the trivial nature of the infractions
showed that these measures could not possibly have been connected with
an intention to wage wars of aggression.
Moreover, I need only point out that from the legal point of view a
treaty violation cannot _ipso jure_ be a crime. Certainly the violation
of a treaty between nations is no more permissible than the violation of
a contract between private firms in commercial law. Such a violation is,
however, not a punishable action, much less a crime. Even on the basis
of the argument of the Prosecution, such action would be punishable only
if the violation had been undertaken with criminal intent, that is, if
it had been aimed at a war of aggression in contradiction to the Kellogg
Pact. However, not even the Prosecution will be able to maintain this,
and it has already indirectly intimated as much by refraining from
taking up these points during the cross-examination of witnesses.
(2) The position is somewhat different with regard to a charge which the
Prosecution discussed in detail only during cross-examination, namely,
the charge concerning the participation of the German Navy in U-boat
constructions in Holland; in this connection the Prosecution has relied
upon Document C-156, the book by Kapitän zur See Schüssler entitled,
_Der Kampf der Marine gegen Versailles_, as well as on statements
contained in the notes of the naval historian, Admiral Assmann, found in
Document D-854.
These documents prove that the German Navy had a share in a U-boat
designing office in Holland, the firm N. V. Ingenieurskantoor voor
Scheepsbouw. This participation occurred during the period before the
Navy was under Raeder’s command. The Tribunal will recall that Raeder
did not become Chief of the Naval Command until 1 October 1928, whereas
participation in the designing office in Holland dates back to 1923 and
the following years.
May I emphasize, however, that in not a single instance was a U-boat
built for the German Navy, and that consequently no U-boats were
obtained or put into commission by the German Navy. In this connection I
refer to the Versailles Treaty, Exhibit Number Raeder-1; Article 188 _et
sequentes_ of the Treaty of Versailles contain the terms with regard to
the Navy. According to Article 188, Germany was bound to deliver her
U-boats to the Allied nations or to dismantle them. This obligation
Germany fulfilled completely. Moreover, Article 191 stipulates the
following; I quote: “The construction and purchase of all submarine
vessels, even for commercial purposes, is forbidden in Germany.”
It appears from this clear treaty clause that participation in the Dutch
firm was not a violation of the Treaty of Versailles. According to
Article 191, Germany was only forbidden to construct or purchase
U-boats, moreover, strictly speaking, only in Germany.
As a matter of fact, no U-boat was built in Germany in violation of the
Treaty, and no U-boat was built for Germany abroad either. Participation
in a foreign designing office was not forbidden, nor was this the
purpose of the Treaty of Versailles. The point was merely that Germany
should not create a U-boat force for herself. The Navy, however, was
permitted to participate in a designing office so as to keep abreast of
modern submarine construction, to gather information for the future, and
to lay the foundation for an eventual construction of submarines, when
permitted, by training technical experts (See Exhibit Number Raeder-2,
Lohmann Affidavit). The afore-mentioned documents, submitted by the
Prosecution, prove that the submarines designed by the Dutch firm and
built abroad were put into service abroad, namely by Turkey and Finland.
Even if one were to take the view that designing work also was
prohibited, then what was said under Figure (1) also applies. The
designing was limited to only a few submarines, so that this small
number in itself proves that there cannot have been any intention of
waging wars of aggression.
(3) In case the High Tribunal should be unable to follow this train of
thought as a sole argument, I may point out in addition that the lack of
an aggressive intention is also evident from the fact that the trivial
violations of the treaty were in a certain way compensated. I refer to
the second affidavit of Admiral Lohmann, Exhibit Number Raeder-8, which
shows that according to the Treaty of Versailles Germany was allowed to
build 8 armored ships, whereas in fact she only built 3; it shows also
that instead of 8 cruisers only 6 were built up to 1935, and that
instead of 32 destroyers or torpedo boats, only 12 destroyers and no
torpedo boats were built. In fact, with regard to the really important
weapons, and especially those which may be considered as offensive
weapons, the Navy kept far below the maximum permitted by the Treaty of
Versailles, and this indeed to such an extent that by comparison the
trivial violations in naval matters hardly count.
(4) According to the Weimar Constitution of 11 August 1919, Articles 47
and 50 (Exhibit Number Raeder-3), the President of the Reich had supreme
command of all the Armed Forces. In order to be valid, the decrees of
the Reich President required the countersignature of the Reich
Chancellor or the Reich ministers concerned, in this case, the Minister
of Defense. I quote: “Responsibility is assumed through the
countersignature.” Thus, from the point of view of constitutional law it
is absolutely clear that the responsibility rests with the Minister of
Defense or the Reich Government and the President of the Reich. It is,
of course, true that before 1928, that is, before Raeder became the
responsible Chief of the Naval Command, the Navy took a number of
measures without the knowledge of the Reich Cabinet. But the evidence
which I presented, especially the statement of the former Reich Minister
Severing, shows that, contrary to the statements of the Prosecution, no
secret measures were taken after Raeder became Chief of the Naval High
Command. Severing has confirmed that the Müller-Stresemann-Severing
Cabinet, in a Cabinet meeting of 18 October 1928, obtained a clear
picture of the secret measures of the Armed Forces by interrogating
Raeder as Chief of the Naval High Command and Heye as Chief of the Army
Command.
Both Raeder and Heye, after they had given an explanation, were obliged
and directed by the Cabinet, in conformity with the afore-mentioned
paragraphs of the Reich Constitution, to take no future measures without
the knowledge of the Minister of Defense or the Cabinet. At the same
time the Cabinet established that the secret measures taken before
Raeder’s time were only trifling matters, and expressly assumed
responsibility for them. If the Cabinet, in conformity with the
Constitution, assumed the responsibility, this amounted to a legally and
constitutionally effective procedure which exonerated Raeder as Chief of
the Naval High Command and relieved him of responsibility. It appears,
therefore, to be inadmissible that the defendant, who no longer bears
the responsibility, should be made responsible for actions for which the
Cabinet assumed responsibility.
The attitude of the Cabinet in the Cabinet meeting of 18 October 1928
further shows that none of these actions can have had as their basis any
criminal intent to wage a war of aggression, for even the Prosecution
will not desire to assert that men like Stresemann, Müller, and Severing
intended to wage wars of aggression, but instead will have to believe
Severing when he says that Stresemann, Müller, and he himself assumed
responsibility for these violations only because they were based purely
on conceptions of defense. One will also have to believe Severing’s
words that such conceptions of defense were justified, since in the
twenties the danger that Germany might be attacked, for instance by
Poland, was quite real, and she would then not have been in a position
to defend herself with the small Armed Forces allowed her by the
Versailles Treaty. This danger was particularly evident in connection
with Polish border incidents in East Prussia and Silesia and during the
occupation of Vilna, and it even increased when all attempts of
Stresemann and Müller failed to achieve adherence to the promise to
disarm which the other powers had given in the Versailles Treaty.
How difficult Germany’s position was and how justified measures of
defense were, Justice Jackson himself admitted in his opening speech,
when he said, I quote:
“It is quite possible that Germany in the twenties and thirties
was confronted with desperately difficult tasks, tasks which
would have justified the boldest measures, but not war.”
I shall not even go as far as Mr. Justice Jackson, but I believe that
these measures taken by the Navy are certainly covered by his own
concept of “boldest measures.”
The British prosecutor, Mr. Elwyn Jones, attempted during the
cross-examination of Severing to prove that Raeder did not observe the
obligations imposed on him in the Cabinet meeting of 18 October 1928,
because Severing, according to his testimony, was not informed of the
construction abroad of the small submarines for Turkey and Finland. In
this connection, two things must be considered:
a. During his testimony Severing did not remember the details, but only
the fundamental and decisive questions; with regard to the details, he
naturally relied on the competent minister, in this case, the Reich
Defense Minister.
b. According to Severing’s testimony it was an exception that the Chief
of the Naval High Command appeared before the entire Cabinet on 18
October 1928. Raeder as Chief of the Naval High Command was not obliged
to inform all the members of the Cabinet, but was, in accordance with
the Constitution, merely obliged to inform the Reich Defense Minister,
and that Raeder did. What the Reich Defense Minister then for his part
submitted to the other members of the Cabinet and to the Reichstag was
not only beyond Raeder’s knowledge, it was also outside Raeder’s
responsibility, and solely within that of the Reich Defense Minister and
the Cabinet.
In conclusion may I point out the following: If, despite all this, the
Prosecution wishes to look upon these violations of the Treaty of
Versailles on the part of the Navy as evidence of an intention to wage a
war of aggression, then the Social Democrat or Democrat governments of
that time bear the responsibility. Thereby the Indictment on this point
collapses, for to take the governments of that time to task for the
intention of waging wars of aggression would lead the Prosecution on
this point to an _ad absurdum_.
(5) The treaty violations during the period from 1933 until the
Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 show the same factual and juridical
picture. During these 2 years no important expansion of naval armament
took place either. The only disputable accusation made by the
Prosecution in this respect is contained in Document D-855, which was
submitted during cross-examination. This is the report of
Flottenintendant Thiele. According to this it was decided in March 1935,
that is, a few months before the naval agreement, to prepare plans for
the _Scharnhorst_ and the _Gneisenau_ with a displacement of 27,000
tons, although the maximum of 10,000 tons fixed by the Treaty of
Versailles was still formally in force at that time for another 3
months, in contrast to a maximum displacement of 35,000 tons provided
for in the Naval Agreement of 1935.
Here it should be taken into consideration that in March 1935 Germany
could already count on the speedy conclusion of an Anglo-German
agreement, whereas the period between the planning and the completion of
a battleship is a much longer one, which cannot be counted in months,
but only in years. As a matter of fact, the _Scharnhorst_ and
_Gneisenau_ were only commissioned in 1938 and 1939, 3 and 4 years
respectively after the naval pact (see Exhibit Number Raeder-2, Lohmann
Affidavit).
The other matters submitted by the Prosecution are again trifles; for
instance, the selection (not the construction, as the Prosecution says)
of four or five merchantmen (see C-166), or the construction of 5
E-boats of 40 tons each (see C-151), which for technical reasons were
built in place of 12 torpedo boats of 200 tons each. The Prosecution
cannot in all seriousness turn these facts into grave accusations,
especially as the afore-mentioned deviations from the Versailles Treaty
were known to foreign technical specialists or—as the witness
Schulte-Mönting correctly put it—were an “open secret.”
(6) And now I come to the decisive juridical aspect of all developments
up to the summer of 1935. In the field of international law the same
principle applies as in the field of internal commercial law: Breaches
of agreement are considered adjusted and settled with the signing of a
new agreement. In the present case the Anglo-German Naval Treaty of 18
June 1935—Exhibit Number Raeder-11—represents the new agreement. This
naval agreement deviates completely from the Versailles Treaty both with
regard to high-tonnage vessels and with regard to U-boats. It is only on
the basis of what is permitted Germany by this new agreement that the
insignificance of earlier violations of the Versailles Treaty, not at
the time covered by existing agreements, becomes apparent.
10,000-ton cruisers were replaced by 35,000-ton battleships, and the ban
on the construction of U-boats was replaced by the acknowledgement of
equal rights with regard to U-boat tonnage. Germany’s demands were not
unreasonable; on the contrary, in the document mentioned, His Majesty’s
Government in the United Kingdom explicitly confirmed the German
proposal to be “... an exceedingly important contribution to future
limitation of naval armaments.”
This agreement between Britain and Germany concluded the debate on the
Versailles Treaty both factually and juridically, as far as the Navy is
concerned. This naval agreement was generally welcomed in Britain and
Germany at that time, and it was supplemented by a new agreement on 17
June 1937 (see Exhibit Number Raeder-14). As proof of the fact that the
Navy violated the naval agreement, too, with aggressive intentions, the
Prosecution has raised two charges:
(1) In the Agreement of 1937 both contracting governments were bound to
a mutual exchange of information, which was to take place annually,
within the first 4 months of every calendar year, and was to contain
details of the building program. According to Document C-23, the Navy
violated this obligation insofar as it gave lower figures for the
displacement and the draught of the battleships _Bismarck_ and _Tirpitz_
which were being built at the beginning of 1938, namely, as 35,000 tons
instead of 41,700 tons. That this violation of the treaty did occur is
openly admitted by Raeder, but again it is not such a serious violation
as the Prosecution contends, that is, it is not a violation which shows
proof of criminal intent. That is clear from the detailed evidence I
have presented and from the testimonies of witnesses which I need not
repeat here; it will be sufficient if I refer to the absolutely
convincing expert testimony of the ship-building director, Dr. Süchting,
which I have submitted as Exhibit Number Raeder-15. According to this,
the increase in tonnage demanded by the Navy during the construction
served a purely defensive idea, namely, that of increasing the armor
plating of the battleships and of arranging the bulkheads in such a way
that the battleships would be virtually unsinkable. This defensive idea,
Dr. Süchting emphasizes, actually proved to be correct during the attack
on and sinking of the battleship _Bismarck_. If it was only a question
of a defensive idea, no aggressive intentions can be construed from this
treaty violation.
With regard to the juridical aspect, it must be added that in the Naval
Agreement of 1937, Articles 24, 25, and 26 conceded to the contracting
governments the right to deviate, under certain circumstances, from the
contracted agreements and especially from the tonnage limitation of
battleships, if any other sea powers should build or acquire larger
battleships. This case, stated in Article 25, had actually arisen, and
so the violation of the agreement consisted in the fact that the Navy,
although now entitled to build larger battleships, neglected to inform
Britain of her desire to make use of that right. It was, therefore, only
a violation of the obligation to exchange information. How meaningless
this measure was is proved by the alteration of the Anglo-German Naval
Agreement by virtue of the London Protocol of 30 June 1938, which I have
submitted as Exhibit Number Raeder-16.
Already on 31 March 1938, that is, only 6 weeks after the date of
Document C-23, Britain on her part had stated, according to the London
Protocol of 30 June 1938, that she must make use of the afore-mentioned
right granted by Article 25, and therefore proposed that the battleship
tonnage be increased from 35,000 to 45,000. This agreement was then
signed by both countries on 30 June 1938, and thus the violation of the
treaty evident from Document C-23, became illusory.
(2) The British prosecutor raised a second charge by submitting Document
D-854 during cross-examination. It consists of notes made by Admiral
Assmann for his historical writings; on Sheet 15 of these notes he
writes that Germany abided by the terms of the Anglo-German Naval
Agreement least of all in the sphere of U-boat building and that 55
U-boats were allowed by the treaty up to 1938, but 118 were actually
completed or begun. These statements by Assmann are actually incorrect,
and in reality Germany strictly followed all the stipulations of the
Anglo-German Naval Agreement with regard to U-boat building. Despite the
assurance of equality of rights Germany by the Naval Agreement of 1935
voluntarily limited herself to 45 percent; but the right to increase
this percentage at any time by friendly agreement with Britain was
reserved for her. The presentation of evidence has shown (see the
testimony of Raeder and Schulte-Mönting) that in December 1938
corresponding negotiations took place between the British Admiral Lord
Cunningham and Grossadmiral Raeder, during which His Majesty’s
Government approved the increase to 100 percent. It was not clear at the
time when this evidence was presented, whether this approval had also
been given in writing, as was to be assumed. Meanwhile I have been able
to establish that such a document must have existed; I was able to
gather this from the afore-mentioned Assmann Document D-854 in which on
Page 169, in connection with Page 161, the letter in question dated 18
January 1939 is mentioned. In conclusion it remains to be said that the
figure of 55 U-boats mentioned by Assmann corresponds to 45 percent,
whereas the figure of 118 U-boats corresponds to 100 percent;
accordingly Assmann, and therefore the Prosecution as well, are wrong.
Actually there was no violation at all of the naval agreement with
regard to U-boats.
[_A recess was taken._]
DR. SIEMERS: I now come to the allegation of the Prosecution that
Grossadmiral Raeder took part in a conspiracy to wage wars of
aggression, and in particular supported Hitler and National Socialism
despite his alleged knowledge that Hitler from the beginning had the
intention of waging wars of aggression.
(1) How did Raeder establish contact with Hitler, and was he able, or
even bound, at that time to realize an intention on the part of Hitler
to wage wars of aggression?
As I have said, it is a fact that Raeder before 1933 had nothing to do
with National Socialism and knew neither Hitler nor his Party
collaborators; he met Hitler on 2 February 1933, when he and the other
commanders were introduced to Hitler by Baron von Hammerstein. As Chief
of the Naval High Command Raeder had only one superior, Reich President
Von Hindenburg, who, according to the Constitution and the Defense
Law,[39] was the Supreme Commander of the whole Armed Forces.
Hindenburg, as Reich President, had appointed Hitler Reich Chancellor,
and thus a connection was of necessity created between Hitler and the
Armed Forces. There was thus no question of any decision on the part of
Raeder. As Hindenburg’s subordinate, he had as a soldier to submit to
the political decision which Hindenburg had taken as President of the
Reich. The constitutional basis with regard to the Armed Forces was in
no way altered by the fact that Hitler came to power. As Chief of the
Naval High Command Raeder took as little part in this political decision
as he had done on previous occasions when Müller, who was a Social
Democrat, or Brüning, who belonged to the Center Party, became Reich
Chancellors.
Nor was there any cause for Raeder to resign his post on account of this
internal political decision, for Hitler had explained to him and the
other high officers at the first conference on 2 February 1933, and
particularly also on the occasion of the first naval report in the same
month, that nothing in the Armed Forces would be changed and that the
Armed Forces must remain aloof from politics, as laid down in the
Constitution and the Defense Law.
The testimony of Raeder and Schulte-Mönting proves that during the naval
report Hitler explained his fundamental ideas in regard to a peaceful
policy, in which connection, in spite of the amicable revision of the
Versailles Treaty to which he aspired, it was essential to come to an
understanding with England by means of a treaty providing for the
development of the Navy within the general limitations of naval
armament. During this conversation Hitler clearly indicated that he did
not want a naval armament race and that the development of the Navy
should take place only in friendly agreement with England. This
principle was absolutely in line with the viewpoint of Raeder and the
Navy, and it was therefore quite out of the question for Raeder to tell
his superior, Hindenburg, that on account of Hitler he could no longer
head the Navy.
Now the Prosecution maintains that the leading personalities in Germany
at that time already knew Hitler’s true intentions from his book _Mein
Kampf_, and has cited as proof several quotations, partly torn from
their context, from Hitler’s propaganda book of 1924. This argument of
the Prosecution does not seem to hold good, because Hitler wrote this
book as a private individual belonging to an opposition party. In this
Trial it has several times been pointed out that the statements of
foreign private individuals are irrelevant even when these foreigners
are well known, and subsequently—as in Hitler’s case—received a
position in the government. Raeder could assume, as could anyone else,
that as Reich Chancellor Hitler would not uphold all the Party doctrines
which years before he had defended as a member of the opposition,
particularly since the statements of Hitler on military matters
contradicted these former Party ideas. Moreover, the Navy relations with
England were always of foremost importance and in this connection Hitler
himself had said in his book _Mein Kampf_, Page 154: “But for such a
policy there was only one possible partner in Europe: England.”
(Document Book 2, Document Number Raeder-20, Page 119.)
In rebuttal of the quotations submitted by the Prosecution it must also
be said that they are all taken from the 1933 edition and that, in spite
of great pains, the General Secretary’s office has been unable to
procure an earlier edition, particularly the first edition of 1925 and
1927. It is a known fact that in later years Hitler himself made changes
on many points in numerous places in his book, consequently the
quotations from the 1933 edition cannot be taken as a basis on their
face value.
Ought Raeder in the following years to have realized that Hitler desired
to abandon the fundamental idea of an understanding with England, and is
it possible to agree with the argument of the Prosecution that Raeder
should have refused further collaboration at some time before 1939? I
believe that this question must be answered in the negative for reasons
which appear quite naturally from various facts which the Prosecution or
the Defense submitted in evidence:
Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and the Prosecution reproaches Raeder
because he thereupon took an oath in which he named the Führer in the
place of the fatherland. (Record of 15 January 1946, Volume V, Page
262.) This point was sufficiently clarified in the presentation of
evidence. Therefore I need only refer to the error which the Prosecution
made in its assertion; the Prosecution itself produced Document D-481
which shows the oath of allegiance taken by the soldiers of the Armed
Forces on Hitler’s orders. The document is a law signed by Hitler,
Frick, and Blomberg and it shows that it was not Raeder who replaced the
word “Vaterland” by “Hitler,” but that Hitler himself demanded that all
soldiers should take the oath to him as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed
Forces. Before Hitler demanded this oath, which he had cleverly devised
and which proved so fateful in the future, Raeder had neither been
informed nor had his advice been asked on the wording. He was simply
summoned to the Reich Chancellery without knowing the reason. The
question as to what kind of oath is to be taken by a soldier is again a
political one, a question of legislation, upon which Raeder as a soldier
and Commander-in-Chief of the Navy had no influence.
The Prosecution charges Raeder with having been informed of many
political decisions and with having, as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy,
made strategic plans and preparations on the occasions of such political
measures. The Prosecution referred to the withdrawal from the League of
Nations on 14 October 1933, the occupation of the Rhineland on 7 March
1936, the Austrian Anschluss in March 1938, the incorporation of the
Sudetenland in the autumn of 1938, and the establishment of the
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939.[40]
The documents in question are in the main those marked in the footnote,
and I can refer to them jointly in this connection. There is one fact
common to all of these decisions, namely, that Raeder did not
politically take part in any of them. Raeder was never consulted
beforehand and as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy he had no authority to
participate in such decisions. Raeder did nothing more than take note of
these documents and reports, and then issue the orders necessary for
precautionary military measures in case the country became involved in
war. It seems quite incomprehensible that the commander-in-chief of a
branch of the Armed Forces should be reproached for having made
strategic preparations in the event of political complications. I
imagine that it is customary all over the world that an admiral never
takes part in political decisions, while at the same time he is obliged
to make certain precautionary preparations depending upon such political
decisions of the government. This is another example of the discrepancy
I have already mentioned affecting the position of a military commander,
which, although the Prosecution considers it to be a political one, is
in reality purely military. There is hardly any doubt that the military
commands of foreign countries involved in these political decisions or
interested in them were also at the same time taking precautionary
military measures.
A military commander could not judge whether these political decisions
of Hitler were crimes or even violations of international law, all the
less since he was never summoned to the consultations. Neither the
withdrawal from the League of Nations, as a result of the failure of all
endeavors to induce the other countries to disarm in the spirit of the
Versailles Treaty, nor the occupation of the Sudetenland or the
establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, can be
regarded as criminal activities, in the sense of the Indictment, of a
disinterested commander-in-chief. They were certainly deviations from
the Versailles Treaty, but even the British Prosecutor, Sir Hartley
Shawcross, declared on 4 December 1945 in this courtroom that “many
objections against Versailles were possibly justified.”[41] And even
Justice Jackson, as quoted above, said that the boldest measures would
have been justified for the purpose of revising this treaty, but not a
war.
All these measures taken by Germany were in fact carried out without a
war, and therefore come under the heading of measures which Justice
Jackson considers justified, all the more so since they were all
silently condoned by foreign countries, or even agreed upon by treaty,
as for instance in the case of the incorporation of the Sudetenland by
the Munich Agreement of September 1938, or, as in the case of Austria,
by agreement with that country.
In the cases of Austria and of the establishment of the Protectorate of
Bohemia and Moravia, the Prosecution quite justifiably, looking at these
cases objectively and retrospectively, points out that Hitler employed
extremely dubious and possibly criminal means to achieve his aims;
however, this can have no significance as far as the Commander-in-Chief
of the Navy is concerned, since it has been firmly established that he
was not informed of these activities, much less of the means employed
therein. It has been established in particular that Raeder was neither
informed of the details of the Austrian Anschluss nor of the kind of
conference which ultimately led to an agreement with President Hacha. He
was not told of the discussions with Hacha, nor of the threat of a
bombardment of Prague, which was made in the course of these
discussions; I refer in this connection to the testimony of the
witnesses Raeder and Schulte-Mönting. In the eyes of Raeder, therefore,
these constituted measures permissible under international law, or else
agreements which gave him no cause to interfere or to question Hitler,
quite apart from the fact that as a military commander he had no right
whatsoever to do so.
Moreover, had military complications arisen, land operations only would
have been involved, as is quite obvious from the location of the
countries concerned. It would have amounted to an impossible situation
if the disinterested Commander-in-Chief of the Navy had seen fit to
concern himself with these things although hardly any naval preparations
were required. In the case of Czechoslovakia, for example, Document
388-PS lays down, as far as the Navy was concerned, only that it was to
participate in possible Army operations by commitment of the Danube
flotilla which for this purpose was placed under the orders of the High
Command of the Army; this flotilla consisted of very small ships, a few
gunboats, if I remember correctly.
In this connection I also quote Sir Hartley Shawcross when on 4 December
1945 he spoke of the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934: “By
entering into it”—Hitler—“persuaded many people that his intentions
were genuinely pacific ...”[42]
Accordingly, Raeder too had reason to be convinced. It is true that
Raeder belonged to the Secret Cabinet Council created in February 1938.
But it is also true, and has been proved in the meantime, that the
Secret Cabinet Council was just a farce. It is therefore unnecessary to
deal with this point which the Prosecution originally considered so
important.
The claim of the Prosecution that Raeder was a member of the Government
and a Reich minister has been refuted in the same way. This assertion of
the Prosecution has from the outset been somewhat incomprehensible.
Document 2098-PS, presented by the Prosecution, only states with
absolute clarity that Von Brauchitsch, the Commander-in-Chief of the
Army, and Raeder, the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, held—I quote—“a
rank equivalent to that of a Reich minister.” This proves that he was
not a minister, although for reasons of etiquette he held a rank equal
to that of a Reich minister, and it follows that this decree of Hitler
did not assign a political task to Raeder, as the Prosecution would like
to have it.
Moreover, this decree does not even give him the right to participate in
Cabinet sessions at his own will, but only, as Hitler says in the
above-mentioned document, “upon my order.” This simply means that Raeder
might have been called upon by Hitler to participate in a Cabinet
session when technical naval problems were being discussed. In reality
this hypothetical and politically insignificant case never arose.
Nor can membership in the Reich Defense Council—Document
2194-PS[43]—be considered incriminating. In the first place the council
was concerned, as the text says, only with “preparatory measures for the
defense of the Reich,” that is, neither with political activities nor
with activities connected in any political sense with aggressive war.
Furthermore, according to Document 2018-PS, a later Führer decree of 13
August 1939, and contrary to the claim of the Prosecution, Raeder never
belonged to the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich set up
at that time, for the simple reason that he was not a minister. Actually
other countries, too, possess institutions like a defense council or
defense committee. I call attention to the fact that already long before
the first World War the British Government had a defense committee which
was of much greater importance[44] than the equivalent institution in
Germany.
As the final matter in this connection, I wish to point out that the
claim of the Prosecution that Raeder was a Party member has also proved
untenable. It is true that Raeder received the gold insignia of honor
from Hitler; but this was only a decoration; it could not mean anything
else, because a soldier could not be a member of the Party. That is
clear beyond all doubt from Paragraph 36 of the Reich Defense Law, which
forbids soldiers to engage in politics and to be members of a political
organization.[45]
I also refer to the evidence, which proved amply that Raeder never had
connections with the Party, that indeed he more than once had arguments
with Party circles and that he was unpopular with typical National
Socialists because of his political and particularly his religious
attitude. Goebbels, for instance, positively detested him, and this was
not surprising, because on the one hand he always prevented the Party
from gaining any sort of influence on the officers’ corps of the Navy,
while on the other, in contrast to the Party, he supported the Church to
the greatest extent, and saw to it that the morale of the Navy was
founded on a Christian basis. I refer in this connection to the typical
National Socialist phrase of Bormann:
“National Socialist and Christian concepts are incompatible.”[46] In the
same document Bormann, as he so often did, expressed views devoid of all
civilized standards and attacked Christianity so strongly, and so
violently advocated the elimination of all Christian ideas, that this
attitude by the Party is sufficient proof that Raeder, as a devout
Christian, could never have entertained relations with the Party.[47]
I have already stated that in 1933 Hitler said that it would be one of
the fundamentals of his policy to make Germany sound and strong by
peaceful means, and that for such peaceful development it was absolutely
necessary to acknowledge British hegemony and come to an agreement with
Britain about the size of the German fleet—if possible, even to come to
an alliance. These ideas coincided with Raeder’s fundamental attitude,
which he explained in detail during his examination here. As far as my
defense is concerned, it may remain an open question whether and when
Hitler abandoned that basic thought. In any case, Hitler always
emphasized this basic thought to Raeder and actually supported it with
deeds; this ever-recurring thought can be traced through all the years
up to the outbreak of war, and it was in the pursuit of this basic
principle that the Anglo-German Naval Agreement was concluded in 1935
and the second Anglo-German Naval Agreement in 1937, that an agreement
on submarines was reached with Lord Cunningham in 1938, and that the
London protocol on the subject of battleships was signed on 30 June
1938. Thus, throughout the years of the reconstruction of the German
Navy the same idea was always predominant, namely, of achieving
agreement with Britain, of acknowledging Britain’s supremacy and of
avoiding any difference which might lead to a break with Britain.
Looking back now in cognizance of all the documents and all the facts
proved during this Trial, Hitler may be assumed at some time, probably
in 1938, to have become unfaithful to his own principles and thereby
guilty of bringing about the tragic fate of Germany. However, in judging
the accusations made against Raeder, the decisive issue is not what must
subsequently, in the light of all known facts, be acknowledged as
objectively true; the real issue is only whether Raeder realized, or was
even able to realize, Hitler’s deviation from his own ideas, and the
answer to that is “no.” Raeder could not have guessed, much less have
known, that Hitler at some time became untrue to his own political ideas
which he had repeatedly stressed and demonstrated, and thus guilty of
kindling the frightful conflagration of World War II.
Raeder could not have suspected or known that during the period
immediately preceding the war Hitler spoke to him, too, in words which
were at variance with his thoughts and also different from his actions.
As far as the Navy in particular was concerned, the relatively slow
rebuilding of the German fleet showed that Hitler proposed to remain
faithful to the ideas which I described. There was no indication at all
of a change of mind on Hitler’s part in this field, for a change of mind
would surely have resulted in a naval rebuilding program bigger than the
one which Hitler actually carried out. At the very least he would then
have made full use of possibilities offered by the Anglo-German Naval
Agreement. According to the Naval Agreement, the German fleet was
allowed a total tonnage of 420,595 tons,[48] yet actually this maximum
was never utilized. Even with regard to battleships, Germany remained
short of the Naval Agreement, with the result that the battleships
_Bismarck_ and _Tirpitz_ were not available in the first year of the
war, and thus could not take part in the occupation of Norway; the
_Bismarck_ was completed only in August 1940, and the _Tirpitz_ in 1941.
According to the Naval Agreement, Germany was allowed the same tonnage
in submarines as England. In reality, however, U-boat construction was
so slow that at the beginning of the war in 1939, as the evidence has
proved, Germany had only the small number of 26 U-boats available for
Atlantic service. And further, according to Document L-79, known as the
“Little Schmundt,” it was laid down as late as the end of May 1939
that—I quote—“no change will be made in the ship-building program.”
All this must have firmly convinced the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy
from his personal point of view and his sphere of work that Hitler
wanted to stand by his much-stressed basic principle of avoiding war.
Raeder’s firm conviction in this respect—this seems to be an important
consideration—was to a large extent confirmed by the attitude of
foreign countries. Winston Churchill, in his book _Great
Contemporaries_, wrote in 1935:
“It is not possible to form a just judgment of a public figure
who has attained the enormous dimensions of Adolf Hitler, until
his lifework as a whole is before us ... We cannot tell whether
Hitler will be the man who will once again let loose upon the
world another war in which civilization will irretrievably
succumb, or whether he will go down in history as the man who
has restored honor and peace of mind to the great Germanic
nation, and brought it back serene, helpful, and strong to the
forefront of the European family circle.”
One year later, at the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936, the
representatives of the foreign countries appeared in a body and greeted
Hitler in a manner which, in its approval bordering on enthusiasm,
appeared incomprehensible to many skeptically inclined Germans.
Subsequently, the foremost politicians and members of various
governments visited Hitler and reached complete understanding with him,
and finally, in the autumn of 1938, agreement was again reached under
Chamberlain and Lord Halifax; an agreement which strengthened Hitler
immeasurably, and by which he sought to prove to the Germans how
expedient all his actions had been, since they were thus approved by
foreign countries. The joint declaration, which Chamberlain and Hitler
issued in Munich on 30 September 1938, can never be overestimated in its
importance. I would, therefore, like to quote the first two decisive
sentences from it:
“We have had a further discussion today, and are agreed that the
question of Anglo-German relations is of primary importance for
both countries and for Europe.
“We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German
Naval Treaty as symbolic of the desire of our two nations never
again to wage war against each other.”
I think that these references are sufficient. Now, can one demand of a
German admiral, who has never been a politician, but always only a
soldier, that in judging Hitler he should have looked farther ahead than
the great British statesmen, Chamberlain and Churchill? Surely the very
question indicates that the answer is “no.”
The Prosecution can seriously confront these numerous aspects only with
a few documents which might indicate Raeder’s knowledge of Hitler’s
aggressive plans. The Prosecution has indeed presented innumerable
documents of which Raeder or the Naval Operations Staff or the High
Command of the Navy were stated to have received copies, but in a
considerable number of instances the Prosecution could not say anything
beyond the fact that Raeder received a copy of the documents; for the
most part no real connection existed, nor was it alleged by the
Prosecution. Naturally, it is not surprising that for the sake of
uniformity military documents went to all branches of the Armed Forces,
even if in certain cases one branch of the Armed Forces was not at all,
or only vaguely, concerned with them. Of all these documents which have
been submitted in the case of Raeder, only the four documents which,
because of their importance, the Prosecution described as key documents,
could be really incriminating. These are Hitler’s four speeches to the
Commanders-in-Chief of 5 November 1937, 23 May 1939, 22 August 1939, and
23 November 1939.[49]
The Prosecution claims that these speeches prove participation in the
conspiracy, and that it is clearly evident from them that Hitler wanted
to wage wars of aggression. I would therefore like to deal with these
documents individually and in detail, and in doing so, show why they
cannot modify the general picture I have presented.
Undoubtedly these key documents are of the utmost importance for the
subsequent historical findings on what trains of thought motivated
Hitler; they are important because they are expressions of Hitler’s
opinion and because, in spite of the tremendous amount of captured
documentary material, there are hardly any written notes of Hitler. One
is tempted, of course, to accept the conclusion that the contents of
these documents must be true because they are statements made before a
small circle, where Hitler would naturally express himself more openly
than in his public speeches. Even though I by no means fail to recognize
their value, I nevertheless believe that the Prosecution overestimates
the importance of these four documents by far. Certainly, they are to
some extent key documents, since they provide the key to an
understanding of Hitler’s mind and methods, but they are not a key to
the real intentions of Hitler, and more particularly they do not provide
a scale for any conclusions which those who listened to the speeches
must, in the opinion of the Prosecution, needs draw from them.
Therefore, in order fully to explain the value of the documents, I would
like first of all to mention several general points which apply
generally to each of these four documents and limit their evidential
value, which the Prosecution has overestimated. None of these speeches
was taken down in shorthand, so that the actual text of the speeches is
not available. Accordingly, in the record of the address of 5 November
1937, Hossbach correctly chose the indirect form of speech, and
Generaladmiral Böhm in his record of the speech of 22 August 1939[50]
did the same. Surprisingly and not quite correctly, Schmundt chose the
direct form of speech in his record of 23 May 1939, although it was not
a verbatim record; however, he was at least careful to state at the
beginning that Hitler’s words were being reproduced “in essence.”
The feeblest documents, that is to say, the two versions of the speech
of 22 August 1939 which the Prosecution has submitted, are written in
the direct form of speech, and the authors of these documents, whose
names are unknown, have not even deemed it necessary to add some sort of
note as Schmundt did. However this may be, in considering the documents
it must be kept in mind that they were not reproduced word by word and
that therefore the reliability of the reproduction depends on the manner
of work and attitude of the author of the document, especially on
whether and to what extent he made notes during the speech, and when he
prepared his record. In this connection it is important to note that, as
Document 386-PS shows, Adjutant Hossbach wrote the record a full 5 days
later, namely on 10 November, though the speech itself had already been
made on 5 November. In the case of Schmundt, the date of the record is
missing altogether, and in the two Prosecution documents on the speech
of 22 August 1939 there is also no date. The last two documents also
lack any signature, so that in this case it is not even possible to say
who bears the responsibility for the record. The same applies to the
document on the speech of 23 November 1939. All these formal
deficiencies allow considerable doubt concerning evidential value and
reliability of the documents to be entertained.
It is different in the case of the Böhm document, who in his affidavit
certifies that he wrote down Hitler’s speech as it was being made, that
he noted down the exact text of particularly important passages, and
that he edited the final draft, submitted here, on the same evening.
Since in all these documents the true text is not available, it is
obvious how important it is if one can at least establish that the
record was made simultaneously with the speech, or at least on the same
day and not, as in the case of Hossbach, 5 days later. Even with the
best of memories the best adjutant, who has to handle many new matters
every day, cannot possibly after 5 days give an absolutely reliable
reproduction of a speech.
The second point is just as important, namely, that unlike other
military documents these are not official documents with a distribution
list, that is, they are not documents which were subsequently sent to
those concerned. That the documents were not sent to Raeder was
established in the evidence by him and by the witness Schulte-Mönting,
apart from the fact that it is already apparent from the lack of a
distribution list on the document. This point, in particular, seems to
me of great importance. Listening to a speech once—and it will be
recalled that Hitler spoke extremely quickly—does not induce the
listener to draw conclusions in a way which the reading of the record
might, since the record allows for a check and recheck of the contents
of the speech. We who have come to know these speeches in the
proceedings in their written form and have again and again checked their
wording, naturally invest certain words and phrases with more importance
than we would have done if we had heard them as part of a quickly
delivered address. In addition, all of us are readily inclined to lend
more importance to the various phrases, because from our present
standpoint and in view of our more extensive knowledge we can now survey
everything much more easily; for we have not only one speech on which to
base our opinions, but all of them and in addition all the many other
documents showing the historical development. In discussing these
documents it must always be borne in mind that listeners are inclined to
react to the spoken word quite differently, and that often, even after
only a few hours, the reports of various listeners differ from one
another.
The Prosecution considers these speeches of Hitler to be the basis of
the conspiracy, and says that on these occasions Hitler consulted with
the commanders, reached a certain decision, and concluded a certain plan
of conspiracy with them. The Prosecution is bound to maintain this,
because one can only speak of a conspiracy when something is being
planned in common. In reality, the assertion of the Prosecution that an
influential group of Nazis assembled to examine the situation and make
decisions is incorrect; the occasion took the form of an address by
Hitler alone, and no discussion and no consultation took place. Nor was
any decision reached, either; Hitler just spoke quite generally about—I
quote—“possibilities of development.”[51] If one can speak of decisions
at all, it was a decision solely on the part of Hitler. All this
contradicts the existence of a real conspiracy. Altogether I have the
impression that, in its conception of a conspiracy to wage wars of
aggression, the Prosecution has conceived an entirely false picture of
the real distribution of power within the National Socialist State. In
my opinion the Prosecution fails to recognize the characteristics of a
dictatorship, and indeed it may be very difficult to understand the
immeasurable dictatorial power of Hitler if one has not personally lived
through all of those 12 years in Germany, in particular the growth of
Hitler’s power from its first beginnings until it finally developed into
a dictatorship wielding the most cruel and horrible terror. A dictator
like Hitler, who moreover quite obviously exercised immense powers of
suggestion and fascination, is not a president of a parliamentary
government. I have the impression that in judging the situation as a
whole the Prosecution has never completely relinquished the idea of a
parliamentary government nor taken the uncompromising ways of a dictator
into account.
The idea of a conspiracy between him and the members of the Cabinet or
between him and the commanders was quite contrary to Hitler’s own
nature, as the testimony of several witnesses showed in the course of
the Trial. This was proved with particular emphasis by the testimony of
the Swedish industrialist, Dahlerus, who by reason of his excellent and
extensive connections both with Britain and Germany was in the course of
time able to obtain an objective picture of both countries, and who
during his negotiations with Chamberlain and Halifax on the one hand,
and Hitler and Göring on the other, was best able to recognize the
difference between the parliamentary British Government and the German
dictatorship of Hitler. The account of Dahlerus proves convincingly that
the difference was irreconcilable. After he had spoken with Chamberlain
and Halifax, a discussion with the Cabinet naturally took place before a
final decision was taken. On the other hand, when in the night of 26 to
27 August 1939[52] Dahlerus had a discussion of decisive importance with
Hitler, at which only Göring was present, Hitler at once made six
propositions, without saying a word to any of the Cabinet members or any
of the military commanders, without even consulting Göring who sat by
silently; proposals, moreover, which did not exactly tally with what he
himself had told Sir Nevile Henderson a short time before. A stronger
argument against a conspiracy with commanders or members of the Cabinet
can hardly exist, unless it be the equally important fact which the
witness Dahlerus added, namely, that during the entire 2½ hours Göring
did not dare say a single word, and that it was humiliating to see the
degree of servility which Hitler demanded even of Göring, his closest
associate.[53]
All these Hitler speeches are full of contradictions. Such
contradictions naturally impair clarity of thought, and they rob
individual ideas of their importance. When reading the documents in
their entirety, the number of contradictions becomes evident, as the
witness Admiral Schulte-Mönting correctly pointed out during his
examination and cross-examination. It is just because of such
contradictions and often illogical thinking that the evidential value of
the documents is diminished. Naturally it is difficult for a military
adjutant like Hossbach or Schmundt to record unclear and contradictory
trains of thought; and it is also easy to understand that a military
adjutant will be inclined to introduce as clear a line of thought as
possible, and will in consequence be misled into applying to certain
ideas which have become clear to him more stress than they were actually
given in the speech itself. To this can be added a remark of Raeder, who
not only points to the contradictions, but especially to Hitler’s
overactive imagination, and very appropriately calls him a “master of
bluff.”[54]
Moreover, in every speech of that type Hitler followed a very definite
tendency. He had a definite purpose in view, namely, to bring about the
desired impression on all or some of his hearers, either by intentional
exaggeration or by making things appear deliberately harmless. While he
spoke, Hitler followed the intuition of the moment; as Schulte-Mönting
termed it, he wandered from his notes. He thought aloud and wished to
carry his hearers away, but he did not want to be taken at his word.[55]
Everyone will agree with me that such practices and such purposefully
designed speeches give no clear indication at all of Hitler’s true views
at the time. In addition, there is this to be said about all these
documents in general:
Following his address of 23 May 1939—known as the “Little
Schmundt”—Raeder had an interview with Hitler alone in which he called
Hitler’s attention to contradictions in his address and also to the
contradiction arising out of Hitler’s assurance to Raeder personally
that he, Hitler, would under all circumstances settle the case of Poland
equally peacefully. Hitler thereupon put Raeder’s mind completely at
rest and told him that he had a firm hold on matters, politically. This
was stated by the witness Schulte-Mönting[56] who added that Hitler
allayed Raeder’s misgivings about the contradiction between the speech
of 23 May 1939 and his other statements by telling him that for him,
Hitler, there were three grades of keeping matters secret: Firstly, by
private conversation with one partner; secondly, the thoughts he kept to
himself; and thirdly, some ideas which he himself did not fully think
out.
I believe this way of thinking as explained by Hitler himself
illustrates most strikingly how little reliance could ultimately be
placed on statements which he made before a small or a large group of
people. It seems to me quite plausible, therefore, that Raeder based his
deliberations neither on Hitler’s general speeches nor on the address
before the commanders which was discussed here, but went solely by what
Hitler told him in private discussion. In this respect, the statements
of Sehulte-Mönting, Böhm, and Albrecht[57] all prove that as late as
1939 Hitler was still, in private conversation, repeatedly giving Raeder
the explicit assurance that there would be no war; and he did this
whenever for some reason or other Raeder was particularly anxious and
drew Hitler’s attention to the dangers ahead.
In conclusion, therefore, I believe it may be said that the so-called
key documents are extremely interesting in assessing Hitler from a
psychological point of view, but that their evidential value as regards
Hitler’s real intentions is very limited and slight. One cannot reproach
Raeder for not letting himself be guided by the tendentious and
deliberate speeches which Hitler made before his commanders on the spur
of the moment, and preferring to rely on assurances which Hitler himself
gave him and on the fact that until the summer of 1939, until the very
outbreak of the war, these assurances were in perfect accord with the
facts and with Hitler’s actions, that is, with the four naval agreements
and the Munich Pact.
It is understandable that Raeder did not permit this basic attitude to
be shaken by these speeches to the commanders-in-chief, though they were
undoubtedly of a questionable nature, but that he held steadfastly to
his belief that Hitler would not deceive him. The fact that we now
subsequently realize that Hitler did after all deceive Raeder in his
private conversations with him, and also by his special second and third
grade of secrecy, does not indicate any guilt on Raeder’s part, but
solely on Hitler’s. The vast amount of material in this connection does
not indicate that in 1938 and 1939 Raeder planned a war of aggression in
violation of international law, but reveals only that Hitler planned a
war of aggression in violation of international law.
This completes my general treatment of the key documents and I now ask
the Tribunal’s permission to add a few points on each individual
document, since the Prosecution again and again stressed these documents
as the basis for the charge of conspiracy.
Hossbach Document, discussion of 5 November 1937 in the Reich
Chancellery:
The crucial passages of this document are obvious, and the Prosecution
has cited them often enough. But in dealing with this document it should
be taken into consideration that both Göring and Raeder stated here that
Hitler announced in advance his intention of following a certain trend
or purpose in his speech. Hitler was dissatisfied with the measures
taken by Field Marshal Von Blomberg, and especially by Generaloberst Von
Fritsch, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and felt that progress in
the rearmament of the Army was too slow. Hitler therefore intentionally
exaggerated, and since this was known only to Göring and Raeder, it is
natural that the impression which the speech made on Neurath, who had no
idea of this intention, was entirely different and considerably
alarming.
It is interesting to note that apparently Hitler did not fully get what
he wanted, because the last two paragraphs of the document indicate that
to some extent Blomberg and Fritsch saw through Hitler’s scheme, and
that his exaggerations did not deceive them. Though Hitler did not
permit discussion on such occasions, Blomberg and Fritsch intervened in
this instance and pointed to the need for preventing Britain and France
from becoming Germany’s adversaries. Blomberg explained the reasons for
his protest, and in the penultimate paragraph of the document Fritsch
showed unmistakably that he was skeptical of Hitler’s words by remarking
that under such circumstances he would not be able to take his planned
vacation abroad scheduled to begin on 10 November. It is also
significant that Hitler thereupon came round and, in contrast to his
earlier statements, said that he was convinced of Britain’s
nonparticipation, and that consequently he did not believe in military
action against Germany on the part of France either.
That Hitler’s ideas in this document are quite impossible is also
evident from the fact that he based his statements on a truly fantastic
notion, namely, an Italian-French-British war or, equally fantastic, a
civil war in France. In contradictory terms Hitler spoke in his speech
on the one hand of an application of force, on the other of an attack by
Poland against East Prussia, which could only refer to a defensive
aspect—and in regard to Czechoslovakia he said that in all probability
Britain and France had already privately written that country off. This
reference is an indication that Hitler was prepared to negotiate, which
was borne out by actual developments. He said that Austria and
Czechoslovakia would be brought to their knees, but nevertheless in the
following year, in March and September 1938, he carried on negotiations
and settled both questions without war. This fact in particular seems
significant, because it proved to Raeder in the course of later events
that he was right in not ascribing undue importance to Hitler’s strong
words of 5 November 1937, for in spite of these words Hitler in reality
did carry on negotiations at a later date.
During his interrogation Raeder also rightly pointed out that the second
extensive naval pact had been concluded with England only a few months
earlier and that as a result he could not seriously expect Hitler to
abandon a line of policy which he himself had initiated.
And finally, there is this point: The whole document deals with
political questions on the one hand, and with possible land operations
on the other. Raeder had nothing to do with political questions because
he is no politician, while Neurath as Foreign Minister naturally had
reason to give Hitler’s political attitude more consideration. It is
also significant that Neurath testified here that as a result of this
speech he too asked Hitler about his personal attitude, and that he
refused to remain Foreign Minister because Hitler told him that those
were his true intentions. To me it seems typical of Hitler to tell one
person, Neurath, that perhaps he would go to war, and to tell another,
Raeder, that he would under no circumstances wage war. This divergence
in explaining his position was obviously caused by the fact that at that
time he no longer relished Neurath as Foreign Minister, because he
realized that with regard to the foreign policy which he proposed to
follow, Neurath would not be as submissive as the successor whom he had
in view, Ribbentrop. On the other hand at that time he still wanted at
all events to retain Raeder as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy. This is
another instance of how Hitler’s actions were determined by a certain
ultimate purpose, and how he always and without the slightest inhibition
followed the principle that the end justifies the means.
Hitler’s speech of 23 May 1939, the so-called “Little Schmundt,” USA-27:
Here again Hitler expressed himself in a highly questionable fashion; he
speaks of a program of attack, of the preparation of a systematic
attack, and of the decision to attack Poland. I fail in no way to
recognize that there is good reason for the Prosecution to consider this
document as particularly good evidence. I believe, however, that taking
into account the numerous aspects which I pointed out, the value of this
document as evidence in the case of Raeder is very much smaller than the
Prosecution maintains, and very much smaller than a first glance at the
wording of the Schmundt version might warrant. Schmundt obviously made
an endeavor to formulate Hitler’s contradictory, fantastic, and
incongruous statements in a clear way in accordance with his own precise
military manner of thinking. This gives the document a clarity which
does not correspond to Hitler’s speech. We do not know when Schmundt
prepared the document, and he neglected to show the record he had made
to the other participants.
During his examination and cross-examination the witness Admiral
Schulte-Mönting pointed to the contradictions in this particular
document, which I need not repeat here. Paramount importance must
however be given to the contradiction between these words and the words
which Hitler at the same time again and again used in conversation with
Raeder, and which always followed the same line, namely, that he did not
intend to wage war and that he would not make excessive demands.
Raeder was shocked by this speech, and was only calmed by the private
conversation which he had with Hitler directly after the speech, when
Hitler assured him that he would under all circumstances settle the case
of Poland in a peaceful manner, too. Raeder believed him, and he had
every right to assume that Hitler was telling him the truth in answer to
his very precise question. I draw attention to the very exact statements
made on this document during the examination of Raeder and the
examination of the witness Schulte-Mönting.[58] I especially refer to
the statement of Schulte-Mönting that Hitler used the comparison that
nobody would go to court if he had received 99 pfennig when claiming one
mark, and added that in the same way he had obtained what he had
demanded politically, and that consequently there could be no question
of war on account of this last political question, that of the Polish
Corridor. That Raeder himself was absolutely opposed to a war of
aggression, and that in this respect he relied on Hitler’s assurances,
is proved by the statements of all witnesses, not least by the
deposition by Dönitz that on the occasion of the U-boat maneuvers in the
Baltic Sea in July 1939 Raeder, expressed his firm conviction that there
would be no war. Raeder, furthermore, knew that the Navy was absolutely
unfit for a war at sea against Britain; he had explained that to Hitler
again and again. But he was confident that in the Polish question
Hitler, as he had said, would again negotiate; the testimony of the
witness Dahlerus shows that negotiations did in fact take place, and
they were even successful at the beginning. The reason why nevertheless
the attempt finally failed and the second World War began, was explained
in detail by the witness Dahlerus who illustrated the terrible tragedy
of this event.
It seems to me important that up to August 1939 not only the witness
Dahlerus, but also Chamberlain still believed in Hitler’s good will. It
must be said again therefore that one cannot expect Raeder as a soldier
to have been more farseeing and to have recognized Hitler’s dangerous
ideas, if men like Chamberlain, Halifax, and Dahlerus did not even at
that time see through Hitler.
I have myself referred to the seriousness and the incriminating
character of this document, but I ask the Tribunal to take into
consideration that the incriminating material in this document, just as
in the document of 5 November 1937, is of a political nature. As defense
counsel for the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, I have to judge the
facts not from a political but from a military point of view. From a
military point of view, however, it is absolutely impossible to follow
the arguments of the Prosecution, because military leaders are not
authorized to take part in decisions about war and peace, but merely
obliged to carry out such military preparations as the political leaders
consider necessary. In no country of the world does an admiral have to
give his opinion on whether some future war, for which he has to make
plans, will be a war of aggression or a defensive war. In no country of
the world does the decision of the question whether war will be waged
rest with the military, but on the contrary it is always left to the
political leaders, or to the legislative bodies.
Accordingly, Article 45 of the German Constitution stipulates that the
Reich President shall represent the Reich in international relations and
continues: “The declaration of war and the conclusion of peace are
decreed by a law of the State.”
Therefore, the question whether a war was to be waged against Poland
rested with the Reichstag, not with the military leaders. Professor
Jahrreiss has already explained that in view of the constitutional
development of the National Socialist State this decision rested in the
last analysis exclusively with Hitler. For the case of Raeder it is of
no consequence whether Hitler could be regarded as constitutionally
authorized to start a war on his own decision, as he actually did in the
autumn of 1939. The decisive factor is only that at all events the
military leaders were not authorized, either in practice or
constitutionally, to participate in this decision. The Prosecution
cannot possibly maintain that every act of military planning on the part
of Germany was a crime; for the military leaders, who merely receive the
order to work out a certain plan, are neither authorized nor obliged to
determine whether the execution of their plans will later on lead to an
aggressive or a defensive war. It is well known that the Allied military
leaders rightly hold the same view. No admiral or general of the Allied
armed forces would understand a charge being brought against him on the
basis of the military plans which were made on the Allied side, too, a
long time before the war. I do not have to elaborate this point; I
believe it will suffice if I refer to Document Number Ribbentrop-221.
This is a secret document, which, according to the title, deals with the
“Second Phase of the Anglo-French General Staff Conferences.” This
document shows that exact plans, regarding the Allied forces, were
worked out for a war embracing many countries; plans which, according to
this document, include a war in Europe and a war in the Far East. The
document expressly says that the French and British commanders-in-chief
in the Far East—I quote—“worked out a joint plan of operations,” and
it expressly speaks about the importance of possessing Belgian and Dutch
territories as a starting point for the offensive against Germany. The
decisive point about this parallel military case seems to me to be the
fact that this document bears a date from the same month as Hitler’s
much-discussed speech to his commanders-in-chief, namely, May 1939. The
document bears the caption: “London, 5 May 1939.”
I now come to the address of Hitler to the commanders-ih-chief on 22
August 1939 at the Obersalzberg.[59] Regarding the evidential value of
Documents 1014-PS and 798-PS submitted by the Prosecution, I should like
first of all for the sake of brevity to refer to the statements which I
made to this Tribunal in connection with the formal application to
withdraw Document 1014-PS. Although the Tribunal denied this
application, I still maintain that the evidential value attached to
these documents, and particularly to Document 1014-PS, is infinitesimal.
The American Prosecution, in presenting these documents pointed out at
the time[60] that the Tribunal should take into consideration any more
accurate version of this speech which the Defense might be able to
submit. I therefore submitted Exhibit Number Raeder-27,[61] the version
of the witness Generaladmiral Böhm, and I believe that when I submitted
it, I showed convincingly that it is in fact a more accurate version
than those provided by the Prosecution documents. Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe
then put in two documents where Böhm’s version is very scrupulously
compared with the versions 1014-PS and 798-PS; in this way he
considerably facilitated the comparison of these documents for all of
us. So as on my part to assist the Tribunal and the Prosecution in
making this comparison, I requested Generaladmiral Böhm in the meantime
to compare these versions himself and in doing so to use the compilation
of the British Prosecution which I mentioned just now. The result is
contained in Böhm’s affidavit.
When surveying all this material, it becomes clear that Document 1014-PS
is extremely incomplete and inaccurate, all the more so as, apart from
its formal deficiencies, it covers only one and a half pages, and for
this reason alone cannot be an adequate reproduction of a 2½ hour
speech.
Document 798-PS is no doubt more satisfactory, but it also contains
numerous errors, as Böhm’s affidavit shows. Not every sentence may be of
importance, but the point is that some of the most important passages
from which a charge against the commanders-in-chief might at best be
deduced were actually, according to Böhm’s sworn statement, never spoken
at all. According to Böhm’s affidavit, it is not true that Hitler said
that he had decided as early as the spring of 1939 to attack the West
first and the East later. Nor did he use the words: “I only fear lest at
the last moment some swine will come to me with an offer of mediation;
our political aims reach further.” And, most important of all, the
following words were never used either: “Annihilation of Poland ranks
foremost; the aim is to liquidate the living forces, not to reach a
certain line;” Hitler only spoke of the breaking-up of the military
forces.
These differences in individual words and phrases are very important,
because they concern the sharp phrases to which the Prosecution has
frequently drawn attention, and from which the intention of a war
violating international law, and even the intention to murder civilians,
can be derived. If these phrases had been spoken, one could justly
accuse the commanders-in-chief who were present of having waged the war
and carried out Hitler’s orders in spite of the criminal end in view.
However, if these sentences were not used but, as Böhm testified under
oath, other sentences referring merely to military aims, then the
Prosecution cannot reproach any of the commanders-in-chief present for
having remained at their posts. No one can in earnest demand of an
admiral that he should resign his post a few days before the outbreak of
a war, and thus shake the military power of his own country. I am quite
aware of the fact that the most serious reproaches can be made against
Hitler’s attitude following the time of the Munich Agreement until the
outbreak of the war in Poland, although, and this is decisive for the
Raeder case, not against the military command, but exclusively against
the political leader. We know that Hitler himself realized this and for
that reason evaded all responsibility by his suicide without, either
during or at the end of the war, showing the slightest regard for the
life and the welfare of the German people.
I come now to Hitler’s speech to the commanders-in-chief on 23 November
1939.[62] I shall deal with it quite briefly, and if you will permit me,
Mr. President, I should like to do this now before the Tribunal
adjourns, because the subject which follows is rather longer.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
DR. SIEMERS: I think I can be relatively brief with regard to this last
key document, which again fails to give the date on which the record was
made and lacks a signature; we do not therefore know the author of this
document. It is not an official transcript; and it again pursues a
special objective. Early in November 1939 a serious difference had
arisen between Hitler and the generals because Hitler wanted to start
the offensive in the West immediately, whereas the generals were of a
different opinion, and apparently hoped that the outbreak of a real
World War might still be avoided. Hitler’s dissatisfaction and annoyance
with his generals are clearly evident. In consequence, by repeating, as
usual, his past deeds, he strives to show what he has accomplished, and
also to show that he has always been right. It is an absolutely typical
Hitler speech reminiscent of his public speeches, in which he also loved
to boast and to glorify himself as a genius. Hitler, after all, belonged
to those people who always believe themselves to be right, and avail
themselves of every opportunity to prove it. He also took the
opportunity of using threats in order to nip in the bud the resistance
in high military circles which had become known to him, thus
strengthening his dictatorship. It is absolutely typical when he says in
this document, literally: “I shall not shrink from anything and I shall
destroy anyone who is against me.” This was recognized by foreign
military leaders, too. I draw attention for example to General
Marshall’s official report,[63] which speaks about the “lack of
far-reaching military planning” and about the fact that the German High
Command did not have an all-embracing strategic plan, and points out in
this connection that “Hitler’s prestige reached the stage at which one
no longer dared to oppose his views.”
Finally it remains to be mentioned that this last key document dates
from a time when the war was already in progress, and that the military
leaders cannot be blamed if in all their plannings during a war they
strove to attain victory. The Allies too were planning at the same time.
I refer to Documents Number Ribbentrop-222 and Exhibit Number Raeder-34;
the former dates from 1 September 1939 and is a secret letter from
General Gamelin to Daladier containing the basic idea that it was
necessary to invade Belgium in order to wage the war outside the French
frontier. The other document also deals with military plans; it is a
secret letter from General Gamelin to General Lelong, Military Attaché
to the French Embassy in London, dated 13 November 1939, and also
concerns the operation which the Allies had planned in Holland and
Belgium.
[_The Tribunal adjourned until 17 July 1946 at 1000 hours._]