The mass dropping of explosives and fire bombs on entire areas does not tolerate a doubt and the use of the atom bomb has produced the final evidence thereto. manner, miserably died in their houses, were buried, suffocated or burnt to death, I am surprised at the indignation of the Prosecution about the loss of about 30,000 men who lost their lives on the battle field or on ships which were a rmed and carried war material and often enough bombs which were destined for the attack on German cities. Moreover, most of these men died in combat, that is by mines, aircraft and especially in attacks on convoys, actions which also according to British conception were lawful.
The German Naval Warfare Command regarded these men as combatants. The British Admiralty takes the opposite standpoint in the orders for the merchant navy, although Oppenhein, the well known British export of international law, even before the outbreak of the first world war, defended the thesis that the crew is to be treated the same as combatants. He points to the century old and especially in England upheld practice to take the crew of merchant ship prisoners of war. He finds this principle confirmed in the 11th Hague convention of 1907 and recognizes the crew of the merchant navy as potential members of the navy. The legal position in their defense against a war ship is described as "entirely analogical to the position of the population of an unoccupied territory who takes up arms in order to combat inva ding troops."
It is wellknown that this unit is a combat one, according to para.2 of the Hague Convention on land warfare, and without considering whether the individual actually makes use or not of his weapon. Accordingly, Oppenheim refuses to make any distinction, among members of occupying forces, between persons who are enrolled in the enemy navy and those who are not. it certainly was unassailable in the year 1942, at a time when there were no more unarmed enemy ships and when the neutrals who happened to enter at all the zone of operations were moving in enemy convoys exclusively, which made them, just like enemy ships, solid members of the military system of the enemy forces. They all had lost any peaceful character and were considered as guilty of active resistance. Active resistance against acts of war is not permitted to any non-combatant in land warfare and results in his being punished as a partisan. And should in the war on sea, a ship's crew be entitled to the combatant's privileges, without suffering any of its disadvantages? Should this crew be permitted to participate in all possible acts of war, even in the firing of guns and underwater bombs, and yet remain noncombatant? Such an interpretation renders illusory the entire concept of a non-combatant. It cannot make any difference, whether or not only a part of the crew has anything to do with the serving of the guns. The ships as an entirety represents a fighting unit and on board a commercial ship more people had actually something to do with the serving of weapons as on board a submarine. the guns along with gunners of the Navy and the use of their weapons was regulated according to the admiralty's orders. The crows of ships were accordingly combatants and thus it was a legitimate aim of hostilities to destroy them by the use of arms. of ships and crews, which is considered by the prosecution as a particular sign that the "laconia" order bore the character of a murder-order. There has been enough discussion concerning the meaning of this sentence as an argument for the prohibition of saving. It may, taken out of its context,give cause for misunderstanding.
But whoever tries to read the entire order, cannot misunderstand it. It appears to me as decisive that in accordance with its origin, it was never meant to be a murder-order and has not been interpreted as such by the commanders. This is proven by the declarations and statements of dozens of submarine commanders. In its context, it could not even have been interpreted as a murder-order. In fact, in the next paragraphs it was explicitly ruled that as far as possible certain members of the crew should be brought back as prisoners. enough cleverness not to conserve, if it gives such a murder-order at all, a few witnesses of its crime. not believed in such a murder-order. Otherwise it would not have given order to its captains and leading engineers to escape capture by German submarines, by camouflaging as plain sailors while in the life-boats. According to the interpretation by the Prosecution, such an order would indeed have meant that the captain would have been shot by the submarine along with all the other members of the crew. "rescue-ships" as an evidence of the intention to kill shipwrecked people. However, only the individual, who is either in the water or in the life-boat is shipwrecked. A shipwrecked combatant who is again on board a ship is nothing but a combatant and accordingly the legitimate aim of an attack. I have already pointed out, during the hearing of evidence, the shooting-down of German sea rescue planes with intent to kill the rescued airmen, in order to show that the enemy command acted according to the very same interpretation. deposition of witnesses, on which the Prosecution tries to base its interpretation of the "Laconia" order. In my opinion, the deposition of the first naval lieutenant Heisig, as made here before the Tribunal, is irrelevant. His former affidavit is wrong and we know why, from the witness Wagner. Here, before the Tribunal, Heisig has explicitly denied that in Grand-Admiral Doenitz address to the cadets of the submarine school in September 1942 there has been any question that shipwrecked people should be shot at. Rather he has personally drawn a conclusion out of the words that totalitarian war must be waged against ship and crew, and by the reference to bombing war.
His interpretation may be explained by the fresh impression of the bombing of Luebeck, whi he had just experienced. The other listeners did not share this interpretation. In fact, they did not even think of it. This is evident according to the deposition of 3 persons who have heard the address. The further assertion of Heissig, that an officer unknown to him had taught him, on an unknown occasion, that one should order the men below deck, when exterminating shipwrecked people, I consider as an improvisation of his phantasy, which appears, to be easily excited. If such had really been the case, then such astonishing an occurrence, which would have been in contradiction with all educational principlesof the navy, would have made such an impression on a young officer, that he would have conserved some recollection of the full circumstances of such an instruction.
ly. Because he had - there is no doubt about it - at least hinted to a few submarine commanders that the "Laconia" order demands or at least approves of the killing of shipwrecked. Moehle received this interpretation neither from Admiral Doenitz himself, nor from the chief of staff, nor from the first assistant, Commander Hessler, that means from none of the officers who alone would have been authorized to transmit such an interpretation to the chief of a flotilla. How Moehle actually arrived at this interpretation has not found any explanation by the trial in my opinion. He maintains: by the fact that Korvettenkapitaen (Lt. Com.) Kuppisch from the staff of the BdU (Commander of the Submarines) had told him the story of "U 386" a boat, the Commander of which had been reprimanded for not having shot Allied airmen drifting in a rubber boat. This explanation of Moehle cannot be correct. It is proven beyond any doubt by the war diary and by witnesses that the commander of "U 386" had been reprimanded because he did not take on board the airmen concerned and brought them back. The whole affair with "U 386", furthermore, took place a year after the Laconia incident in September 1943 and Lt. Cmdr. Kuppisch who was supposed to have told it had already been killed in action as U-Boat commander in August 1943. about the "Laconia" order. not caused this briefing to be given nor did they know anything about it. Considering the frequent personal contacts between the U-Boat commanders and the staff of the Commander of the U-Boats this can only be explained by the fact that the few commanders who Moehle thus briefed did not take his words seriously. order, given by Moehle? Criminal responsibility presupposes in the first place some kind of guilt, i.e. the possibility to foresee the result. Considering the close contact with his flotilla chiefs and commanders, for whom alone the Laconia order was intended, Admiral Doenitz could not foresee that a flotilla chief could give such an interpretation to that order without making any attempt for clearing it up with the commander of the U-Boats. Such a conduct is beyond anything that could reasonably be expected. Therefore, any guilt is excluded. Criminal responsibility requires another criterion, namely results must be proved.
This also is entirely lacking. The prosecution has not even made a serious attempt to prove that one of the commanders, briefed by Moehle in that direction, actually shot once at shipwrecked. in the case of Kapitaen-Leutnant (Lt. Sen. Grade) E c k. It is significant that this case was not presented by the prosecution but by the defense. as the prosecution wants it understood. He was not concerned with the destruction of human lives but with the removal of wreckage and floats from which the Allied airplanes could deduce the presence of a German U'boat in this area. For this conduct two of his officers together with him have been condemned to death and hereby punished with a severity which will not be understood any more in normal times. ly has been shot at are so obviously unsuitable for proofing this accusation that I need not deal with it any further. The testimony about the sinking of the "Noreen Mary" bears the stamp of phantasy in various points and, in the case of the attack on the "Antonico", the intention to destroy shipwrecked is out of question because all was over in 20 minutes and the night was dark. of the Naval Warfare Command concerning a dozen cases in which Allied forces had allegedly shot at German shipwrecked. It appears to me that every one of these instances is better than that of the prosecution and some appear rather convincing. I value therefore all the more the sober attitude taken up by the Naval War Command of these cases when giving their opinion on these cases to the Fuehrer's Headquarters.
It namely points out that:
1. Part of the incidents occurred during combat operations.
2. shipwrecked, swimming in the water, might easily 3. so far no written or verbal order by an command for incidents presented by the prosecution.
In the same written opinion to the Fuehrer's Headquarters the Naval Warfare Command rejects reprisals by destroying enemy shipwrecked; that was on 14 September 1942, three days before the "Laconia order". As the latter Came to the Knowledge of the Naval Warfare Command as a wireless order, it would doubtlessly have been cancelled in accordance with the opposite view point just expressed to Fuehrer's Headquarters if it had been understood as an order for the shooting of ship-wrecked. of the prosecution. It consists in the first place of the number of the rescued allied sailors. It amounted, according to a survey of the British Minister of Transport in 1943, to 87% of the crows. Such a result is simply not compatible with an order for destruction. that is after the Laconia order, rejected allconsiderations of actions against shipwrecked. directive to the U-boats to take action against life boats or shipwrecked was considered unbearable by the Naval warfare Command, as it was against the innermost feeling of every sailor. Command Witt about British aviators shooting at the shipwrecked of submarines, most decidedly rejects the idea to attack the foe who has become defenseless in combat as it was incompatible with our principles of warfare. German submarines had received an order to murder the shipwrecked has been strikingly disproved. The Grand Admiral Doenitz stated here that he had never allowed the spirit of his submarine men to be endangered by mean acts. With losses from 70 to 80 %, he could only replenish his troops with volunteers if he kept the fight clean, in spite of its being tough. And if the Tribunal remembers the declaration of the 67 commanders in British captivity, it will have to admit that he created a bearing and a spirit which survived defeat.
and several legal considerations regarding naval warfare, in order to clarify the most important problems discussed here from the point of view of the defense. in naval warfare, and the question of what is permissible according to international law is most closely connected with what is necessary according to the military standpoint. I, therefore, in examining this point of the indictment, deeply regret that the Charter of this Tribunaldeprives the accused offices of a privilege guaranteed them by the Geneva Convention. i.e., the passing of judgment by a military tribunal making use of the laws and regulations applicable to its own officers. According to Article 3 of the Charter, I am not allowed to question the competency of this tribunal. I can therefore only request the Tribunal to make up for the unfairness that I see in the above mentioned article of the Charter by applying the same standards, where military evaluation and moral justification of actions of these German Admirals is concerned, as the tribunal would apply to Admirals of their own countries. A soldier, due to his practical knowledge of procedure in warfare not only on the part of his own country but also of the adversary, is keenly perceptive of the dividing line between combat and war crimes. He knows that the interpretation of international law concerning what is allowed or forbidden in naval warfare is decisively governed by the interests of his country. An insular power like Great Britain, having long and sensitive sea lanes and a strong surface fleet, has always looked at these questions from a different angle than the continental powers. The The attitude of the United States, from the renunciation of submarine warfare by the Root-resolution of 1922 to the unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan in 1941, reveals how a change in strategic position entails also a change in legal evaluation. No one can know to what degree the development of airforces and the efficacy of bombs will increasingly force navies under water and render obsolete all previous conceptions of submarine warfare.
prevent a man of law from settling controversial questions of law and policy pertaining to naval war at the expense of those whose professional duty it is to direct navies. storm of indignation. It seems significant to me that the English historian Bell judges in these very days, in a paper intended only for official use of the Foreign Office, the right to such indignation, as follows:
"It is an old rule of military honornever to belittle the strategy and of war.
It is unfortunate that the cries people". Grand Admiral Doenitz which are not concerned with naval war.
To begin with there is the charge of preparation of aggressive wars. It is known how much this very accusation is being contradicted by the professional officers of probably all allied countries. In answer to such attacks in public, Justice Jackson formulated for the press (4th December 1945 Stars and Stripes, European:Ed., 5 December 1945,) the ideas of the prosecution regarding this subject, as follows:
"I have made it clear that we do not prosecute these militarists and lead it into war.
Not because they conducted the war, but because they have been driving to war."
of Grand Admiral Doenitz against the charge of preparing aggressive wars I need only point to the result of the evidence. At the beginning of the war he was/relatively young commander; his only task was the training and instruction of submarine crows; he did not belong to the General Staff in the meaning of the indictment and did not participate in any of the addresses which were presented here as proof of war intentions. The charge that he had advocated the occupation of submarine bases in Norway is likewise disproved. attack upon Spain in order to capture Gibraltar. The conquest of Gibraltar against the will of Spain was absolutely impossible and out of the question during the entire war, and especially so in 1943. dangerous setbacks on all fronts, at the time when Admiral Doenitz was appointed Supreme Commander of the Navy on 1 February 1943. This fact may be significant for the participation in the so-called conspiracy. The prosecution is not very clear about the precise moment at which they want to fix the beginning of the responsibility of participation. In the indictment of individuals, intimate connection with Hitler since 1932 is mentioned. This, however, is obviously an error. Admiral Doenitz became acquainted with Hitler only in the fall of 1943, on the occasion of submitting a military report, and in the following years talked to him briefly, and always only about military problems, altogether 8 times and never alone. Since, aside from this fact, thedefendant never belonged to any organization which is accused of conspiracy by the prosecution, I see no connection of any kind to this conspiracy prior to 1 February 1943. as has been illustrated by the British prosecutor by the example of the railroad assassins. This idea of guilt, retroactive on past events, is very difficult to absorb for the German Jurist. The continental concept of law is reflected by the formulation of Huge Grotius:
"To participate in a crime a person must not only prevent it."
a special creation of Anglo-Saxon justice in our eyes, then this applies even more to the retroaction of the so-called conspiracy. A judgment laying claim to international validity, one which should be understood by the peoples of Europe and especially by the Germans, must be based upon generally recognized principles of law. This, however, is not the case regarding a retroactive guilt. combatting certain typical crimes, it seems to me entirely inapplicable to the review of events such as are being discussed here. of a normal military career, entirely free of politics. The appointment was based upon the proposal of his prodecessor, GrandAdmiral Raeder, for whom the proven abilities in the direction of U-boat warfare alone were decisive. An acceptance of the appointment was required just as little as on the occasion of the appointment to any other military position. Admiral Doenitz entertained only the thought, as any officer might well have done in a similar position, that is, the question of whether he would be equal to the task and whether he could accomplish it in the best interest of the navy and of the people. All other considerations, which the prosecution apparently expected of him during this period, namely, the legitimacy of the party program and of the policy of the Party from 1922 on, as well as of the German internal and foreign policy since 1933, can be but fictions; they have nothing to do with the facts. Fictions of such nature are not limited by time nor by reality. Is the responsibility for past measures on taking over a high position to extend only to acts of the present cabinet or is it to extend to acts of former cabinets, and up to what period? Is it to include one's Allies? Such considerations are logical and cannot be refuted; however, they lead to unacceptable results and show the impracticability of the idea of retroaction regarding the so-called conspiracy.
is difficult enough, if events not of a criminal but of a military and political nature are involved. Of what meaning are such concepts as "voluntary accession" and "knowledge of the common plan" when in times of the greatest danger an officer assumes the task to prevent the collapse of the sea-warfare?
Even the prosecution seems to realize this. For, corresponding to their general idea, they attempt to link Admiral Doenitz with the conspiracy in a political way. This is accomplished by the assertion that he became a member of the Reich-Cabinet by virtue of his appointment to the SupremeCommand of the Navy.
of the Army and of the Navy were invested with the rank of Reich Minister and upon the order of Hitler were to participate in the Cabinet meetings. invested with the rank of Reich Minister. Also he is not a member of the Cabinet, if one is only permitted to participate in it upon special orders. This implies exactly, that he was only to be consulted on professional problems, but never had the authority to gather information about other departments. One cannot, however, speak of a political task and consequently of a political responsibility without the existence of such an authority. For an activity as a Minister, any local basis is lacking. According to the German compulsory service law there existed for the entire Wehrmacht but one minister, the Reich War Minister. This position remained unoccupied after the resignation of General Field Marshal von Blomberg. The business of the Ministry was conducted by the Chief of the High Command of the Wehrmacht. A new ministry was not created, neither for the Army nor for the Navy. The Commanders in Chief of the Army and of the Navy therefore would have had to be ministers without portfolio. Since however they headed a department, namely the Army and the Navy, such an appointment would have constituted a contradiction to all usages of the state law. The task to countersign such laws, in which the minister participates within his jurisdiction, is to be considered as the basic symbol of all ministerial activity. Commander of the Navy. I have shown this to the Tribunal by the example of the Prize laws. That is to say, that even by and rather because of taking into consideration of the legal standards of a democratic system, the Supreme Commander of the Navy cannot be designated as a member of the Reich Cabinet, because he lacked all authority of participation in legislative acts and every collective responsibility for policies assumed. His task was and remained a military one even though, for reasons of etiquette, he was put on an equal basis in rank with other Reichministers. constitutional sense no longer existed during the war and consequently stated that the actual governing was carried out by those who participated, in the discussions of the situation in the Fuehrer Headquarters.
of a purely military nature, where incoming reports were presented, military measures discussed and military orders issued. Questions of foreign policy were mentioned exceptionally only if they had any connection with military problems; they were, however, never discussed and no decision was rendered on them in these Fuehrer conferences on the situation. Internal policy and the security system was not on the plan for discussion at all. Insofar as nonsoldiers participated, they were attendants, listeners, who gathered information for their respective departments. The SS Reichsfuehrer or his deputy were present for the Command of Waffen SS and during the last year of war also for the reserve Army. he was at the Fuehrer's Headquarters. Notes, taken down by whoever accompanie him on all these meetings and discussions of the Supreme Commander are all in possession of the Prosecution. As the Prosecution has not presented a single one of these notes, from which it would appear that the Supreme Commander participated in reporting on or in discussions of affairs of political nature, one can assume that such notes do not exist. Thus the testimony of witnesses has been confirmed, according to which the Fuehrer Conferences had nothing to do whatever with governing in a political sense, but were an instrument of purely military leadership. happened and occurred since 1943, and which in the course of this trial have been denoted as criminal, does not exist. Consequently I shall deal with those individual allegations only by which the prosecution tries to directly connect Admiral Doenitz with the conspiracy. To proceed in that manner I believe I am the more justified, as a short tine ago the Tribunal denied me the right of cross examination of witnesses in the Katyn case with the argument that no one w accusing Admiral Doenitz in connection with the Katyn case. I conclude, therefore, that at any rate in the eyes of the Tribunal, he is accused of such cases only wherein he allegedly directly participated.
To begin with, this applies to the Fuehrer's order for the extermination of sabotage commandos dated 18 October 1942. The Prosecution has tried to establish that this order had been expounded to Admiral Doenitz in detail, together with all possible objections, shortly after his assumption of the position of commander-in-chief of the navy. It has failed to establish such a claim. In fact, Doenitz as he himself admits did read or had explained to him the order in question, in fall 1942, in his capacity of commander of submarines, and in the same form in which the front commanders received it. objections against this order on the part of the OKW. Indeed, not all these circumstances could be discernible to one who received this order at the front. For such a man it was a matter of reprisal against saboteurs who were only externally soldiers but did not fight according to the regulations which are binding on soldiers. Whether such reprisals were admissible at all according to the Geneva Convention, and to what extent, was not capable of being judged, not did it fall within the competence of the recipient of the order. Any superior officer, at any rate, has probably recognized that the order not to grant any pardon and to deliver such persons, in certain cases, to the SD, was in itself an offense against the rules of war. However, as the essence of any reprisal is to avenge a wrong on the part of the enemy with wrong on one's own part, such recognition does not prove anything concerning the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the reprisal order. If no one but the government of the state is competent to order reprisals, then hundreds or thousands of German officers cannot be required today to consider themselves especially competent, and to presume to verify orders whose actual and legal bases were entirely unknown to them. In this case the principle prevails, at least for the front commander that the subordinate may, when in doubt, rely on the order as given. a few months later, when he had become commander in chief of the Navy, had the opportunity and also the obligation to inform himself as the basis of the order issued by the command. This requirement fails to recognize the duties of a commander-in-chief of to Navy. He has to wage naval war. The whole German naval war, especially the submarine war, was in the spring of 1943, owing to huge losses inflicted by the enemy air force, on the verge of collapse.
These were the worries with which the now commander-in-chief had to cope in addition to an abundance of now problems concerning the navy which were coming up. How can one require such a man, as in the quietest of times, to cope with an order of remote date, which had nothing whatever to do with naval warfare. On the contrary, a special paragraph explicitly excluded prisoners taken during naval operations. command. The naval units were under the control of the naval command only in those matters which belonged to the duties of the Navy, i.e. naval warfare and artillery coast defense. to the Naval Warfare Command to the Wehrmacht commander of the theater of war in which their basis was established. Orders concerning such measures of war on land were given without any collaboration on the part of the Naval Warfare Command and their execution was not reported to it. Just as hardly anyone can think seriously of holding a general responsible for the German submarine war, just so little in my opinion does it seem justified to hold an Admiral responsible for orders given in land warfare.
Mr. President, I have come to the end of aparagraph.
THE PRESIDENT: Certainly. We will break off.
(A recess was taken until 1400 hours) (The hearing reconvened at 1400 hours,)
DR. KRANZBUEHLER: Before the noon recess I was discussing the fact that units of the Navy were not directly subordinate to SKL in matters of naval warfare. complete ingerance of the Admiral of the fleet and of his colleagues in the naval warfare command, about the delivery to the Security Service of the crow of the Norwegian torpedo boat MTB 345 after their capture by units of Admiral von Schrader. As demonstrated by the depositions of the witnesses and the records of the Oslo war crimes Court, the naval warfare command received only a combat report concerning the capture of the vessel and the number of prisoners. Any further details, the discovery on beard of material for sabotage and of civilian suits, their finding of sabotage orders and the treatment of the crow as saboteurs according to the order given by the command, were dealt with as a territorial matter between Admiral v. Schrader and the Whermacht Commanding Officer for Norway. The decision concerning the fate of the crow came from the fuehrer headquarters in reply to a question of Gauleiter Torbevon. Not only there is no eviden ce that the naval warfare command took part in these territorial questions, but this must be considered as refuted according to the evidence submitted end of the chain of command which has been demonstrated. tablish a participation in the so-called conspiracy for committing war crimes, the submitting of Admiral Wagner's record concerning the good treatment of prisoners of war clearly influence the units fighting on the Western front, and that many cases of going over to the enemy were being reported. He ordered an examination of the question of a withdrawal from the Geneva Convention.
Thus he wanted to convince his own soldiers that they could no me rely upon good treatment as prisoners of war, and to create accor dingly a reaction against the enemy propaganda. Two days later Hitler reverted to this idea, but now another reason was put into the foreground . He defined the enemy warfare in the East and the bomb attacks on the German civilian population as a downright renunciation of international law by the enemy , and desired, on his side, to free himself from any obligations by withdrawing from the Geneva convention. Once more, he wanted the Wehrmacht's opinion and addressed himself directly to the Grand-Admiral. The latter did not answer. The point of view of the military leaders on this matter was unanimously in the negative. tion, a ten minute's conversation took place between Grand-Admire Doenitz, Colonel-General Jodl and ambassador Hewel; in the cours of this conversation Doenitz expressed his negative attitude. According to the notes of Admiral Wagner he said that "it would be better to take the measures considered to be necessary without previous announcement and to save at any rate one's face before the world ". sign to expose hundreds of thousands of Allied prisoners of war to arbitrary murder.
This is not surprising, as ther e is no question of a record, bu a condensation of a long conversation into 4 sentences. The precise wording was done the day after the conversation only by Admiral Wagner. The latter declares himself that the Grand-Admiral had disapproved of any "wild measures" which were apt to pu us in the wrong from the beginning and had considered as permissi ble only such measures which, according to the enemy's attitude, were actually justified and imperative in each case. As Wagner the author of the transcript, should himself know best what he meant with this, I personnally cannot add anything to this decla ration.
The interpretation of the Prosecution is not supported by any other circumstances. There was no question at all of keeping any measures secret. They would have to be made known, no matter whether they were meant to deter our own deserters or to make reprisals.
Wagner's note does not mention anything about any kind of concrete measures to be taken, and all witnesses that were present at this discussion on the situation in Hitler's headquarter state that not a word was spoken about that subject. The idea to kill prisoners of war could therefore, not possibly occur to any of the participants in the discussion, noted down by Wagner. Ribbentrop and Fritsche, that Hitler besides the action concerning the generals evidently had prepared another one in which only Goebbels and Himmler were to participate and which by chance came to Ribbentrop's knowledge. In this action the shooting of thousands of prisoners of war seems to have been taken into consideration as a reprisal against the air attack on Dresden. Hitler, very wisely, did not utter a murmur indicating such idea to the generals. This action was not taken up any further and reprisals were not executed.
Herewith I come back to facts. It is a fact that Admiral Doenitz disapproved of the leaving the Geneva-Convention and that Hitler, owing to the attitude of all military leaders, who clearly opposed it, did not follow up the idea any more. It is a fact that no measures violating international law, were taken by the German as a result of the remark criticized by the Prosecution and it is lastly a fact, that the enemy-sailors who were made prisoners were grouped in a prisoner of war camp of the nav and that they were treated in an exemplary way to the last day of the war. to prisoners of war of the navy, may reasonably not be charged with having thrown over board all standards of law and morals wi regard to prisoners of war.
As certified by an English Commander : when the prisoner of war camp of the navy was taken ever 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 statements after what in these proceedings otherwise has been heard of failures in the treatment of prisoners of war not only on the German side. against humanity, I should like to draw your attention to the fact, that Admiral Doenitz is not accused by Article 4 for directly having committed crimes against humanity. In the individual accusation not oven participation in the conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity was contended. That I would say, is the admission that there is in fact no relation between his activity and the crimes against humanity spoken of by the Prosecution. Nevertheless the Prosecution has presented some documents which apparently should prove a participation in the responsibility for certain crimes against humanity. again and again :"What did Admiral Doenitz knew of these crimes?