International Military Tribunal - The Nuremberg Trials - Complete Tribunal Proceedings (V. 5)

May I just refer to the pre-1938 period—that is, the pre-OKW period—to two documents, one of which is new. The first document I desire to mention without reading is EC-177. I do not want to read it. It is Exhibit USA-390. My Lords, those are the minutes, shortly after the Nazi rise to power, of the working committee of the Delegates for Reich Defense. The date is the 22d of May 1933. Keitel presided at that meeting. The minutes have been read. There is a long discussion as to the preliminary steps for putting Germany on a war footing. Keitel regarded the task as most urgent, as so little had been done in previous years; and perhaps the Tribunal will remember the most striking passage where Keitel impressed the need for secrecy: Documents must not be lost; oral statements can be denied at Geneva.

And I submit, if I may be allowed to make this short comment, it is interesting to see in those very early days of 1933 that the heads of the Armed Forces of Germany contemplated using lying as a weapon.

My Lord, the next document I desire to refer to is a new one, and it is EC-405, Exhibit GB-160. I desire to refer to this shortly because, in my submission, it fixes Jodl with knowledge of, and complicity in, the plan to reoccupy the Rhineland country, contrary to the Versailles Treaty. The Tribunal will see that these are the minutes of the working committee of the Reich Defense Council, dated the 26th of June 1935.

The Court will see that, a quarter of the way down the page, Subparagraph F, Lieutenant Colonel Jodl gives a dissertation on mobilization preparation; and it is only the fourth and fifth paragraphs on that same page, the last paragraph but one from the bottom, that I desire to read:

“The demilitarized zone requires special treatment. In his speech of the 21st of May and other utterances, the Führer has stated that the stipulations of the Versailles Treaty and the Locarno Pact regarding the demilitarized zone are being observed. To the aide-mémoire of the French chargé d’affaires on recruiting offices in the demilitarized zone, the Reich Government has replied that neither civilian recruiting authorities nor other offices in the demilitarized zone have been entrusted with mobilization tasks, such as the raising, equipping, and arming of any kind of formations for the event of war or in preparation therefor.

“Since political complications abroad must be avoided at present”—I stress the “at present”—“under all circumstances, only those preparatory measures that are urgently necessary may be carried out. The existence of such preparations or the intention of making such preparations must be kept in strictest secrecy in the zone itself as well as in the rest of the Reich.”

My Lord, I need not read more. I submit that fixes Jodl clearly with knowledge of the forthcoming breach of Versailles.

My Lord, the day before the Rhineland was reoccupied on the 7th of March 1936, the Defendant Keitel issued the directive which has been read before, Document C-194, Exhibit USA-55, ordering an air reconnaissance and certain U-boat movements in case any other nation attempted to interfere with that reoccupation.

My Lords, I pass now to the 4th of February 1938, when the OKW was formed. My Lords, shortly after its formation there was issued a handbook, which is a new exhibit, from which I want to read short passages. The number of the exhibit is L-211. It is Document GB-161. Now, this is dated 19 April 1938; “top secret; Direction of War as a Problem of Organization.” I read only from the appendix which is entitled, “What is the War of the Future?”; and if the Court will kindly turn over to the second page, I am going to read, 12 lines from the bottom of the page, the line beginning “Surprise”:

“Surprise as the requisite for quick initial success will often require hostilities to begin before mobilization has been completed or the armies are fully in position.

“A declaration of war is no longer necessarily the first step at the start of a war.

“According to whether the application of the rules of warfare create greater advantages or disadvantages for the warring nations, will the latter consider themselves at war or not at war with the neutral states.”

It may, of course, be said that those were only theoretical words and they might apply to any other nation which might be minded to make war on Germany. The Court can use its judicial notice of the conditions of things in Europe in 1938 and ask itself whether Germany had any potential aggressor against her.

But, My Lord, I emphasize that passage because I submit it so clearly envisages exactly the way in which Germany did make war in 1939 and in the subsequent years.

My Lord, I now start to tread the road which has been trodden so many times and which will be trodden so many times again, the road from 1938 to 1941: the final act of aggression. My Lord, I believe that I can treat this, so far as Keitel and Jodl are concerned, in a very few sentences, because I submit that the documents which are already in, which have been read and reread into the record, demonstrate quite clearly that Keitel, as would only be expected, he being Chief of the Supreme Command of all the Armed Forces, and Jodl, as only would be expected also, he being Chief of the Operations Staff, were vitally and intimately concerned with every single act of aggression which took place successively against the various victims of Nazi aggression.

My Lord, Your Lordship has in front of you the document book and perhaps the trial brief in which those documents are set out under the heading. If I might take first the aggression against Austria, Your Lordship will remember, in Jodl’s diary on the 12th of February 1938, how Keitel, who was something more than a mere soldier, put heavy pressure upon Schuschnigg—that is Document 1780-PS, Jodl’s diary—how on the following day Keitel writes to Hitler—Document 1775-PS, Exhibit USA-75—suggesting the shamming of military action and the spreading of false but quite credible news.

Then the actual operation orders for “Operation Otto,” Exhibits USA-74, 75, and 77, all of the 11th of March 1938, are OKW orders for which Keitel is responsible.

THE PRESIDENT: What are the numbers of them?

MR. ROBERTS: My Lord, Documents C-102, C-103, and C-182. One of them is actually signed or initialed by Keitel, and two are initialed by Jodl. Those are the operation orders for the advance into Austria, the injunction, if the Tribunal remembers, to treat Czech soldiers as hostile and to treat the Italians as friends.

My Lord, that is the first milestone on the road, the occupation of Austria. My Lord, the second is, is it not. . .

THE PRESIDENT: Well, perhaps if you are going to pass on to another, we had better adjourn now until 2 o’clock.

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MR. ROBERTS: May it please the Tribunal, I had got to the commencement of the alleged aggression against Czechoslovakia; and the Tribunal will remember that the leading exhibit on that matter is the file 388-PS, Exhibit Number USA-26, the “Fall Grün” file. My Lords, that file, in my submission, contains copious evidence against both Keitel and Jodl, showing that they were taking the natural part of the Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces and the head of the Operations Staff.

May I remind the Tribunal of Item 2. I do not want to read any of these. I might just refer to the notes of a meeting on the 21st of April 1938. The important thing to notice is that Keitel and the Führer met alone, showing the intimate connection between Keitel and the Führer. And it was at that meeting that preliminary plans were discussed, including the possibility of an incident, namely, the murder of the German Ambassador at Prague.