"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?
To this subject I should like to clear up one point. During the entire war he lived at his staff-headquarters, first on North-Sea coast, since 1940 in France, and in 1943 for a short time in Berlin and then in the camp "Koralle" near Berlin. When he was at the Fuehrer headquarters he lived with the navy staff there. Off duty he associated almost exclusively with naval officers. This may have been a weakness, but it is a fact, which explains the lack of knowledge about certain occurrences. for Armaments to employ 12,000 men from concentration carps as workers in the shipyards proves for the Prosecution that Admiral Doenitz know and approved of the arrest of countless innocent people and their ill-treatment and killing in concentration caps. also knewthat, besides the professional criminals,people arrested for political crimes were kept there. As a ready explained here, the keeping in custody of political adversaries, for reasons of safety, is a mode of acting, executed by all States in times of danger. Knowledge of such an institution can therefore incriminate no one. However, an unusually high number -- out of proportion with the number of the population -- of political arrestees may stamp a regime as a regime of terror. Taking into account a population of 80 million and the 5th year of a grim war, even twice or three times the number of 12,000 men mentioned by Admiral Doenitz would not yet be the sign of a regime of terror. This is a point that the Prosecution will hardly want to stress. 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 concentration camps. All that the Prosecution has put forward against this are assumptions but no proofs. then Minister for Armaments, Speer, according to which the inmates of concentration caps were much better off than in camp than when they worked in industry and that these jobs were much desired. The proposition forwarded therefore did not signify anything inhuman but on the contrary, rather the opposite. measures against sabotage in Norwegian and Danish shipyards where 7 out of 8 new constructions had been the victims.
If need be, the personnel should be entirely or in part replaced by "CC-workers." Because, so it says, a sabotage of such dimensions can only be possible if all the workers silently condone it. We have here a proposition for security measures in which workers who actively or passively participated in sabotage are kept in a camp close to the shipyard whereby their connection to sabotage agents was to be cut off. I do not believe that juridical objections can be raised against such measures of security. punishment measures would be justified in such cases. Prosecution very likely presents thorn only for the purpose of bringing against Admiral Doenitz a general accusation of a brutal attitude towards the inhabitants of occupied territories. For this purpose it even refers to a statement of the Fuehrer at a conference on the military situation in the summer 1944, according to which, terror in Denmark must be fought with terror. The only part Admiral Doenitz had in this statement was that he heard it and that his companion, Admiral Wagner, wrote it down. The Navy had no part in it, nor did it take any measures as result of it. I should like to emphasize the attitude which Admiral Doenitz actually showed towards the population of the occupied territories. There is before the Tribunal a survey concerning the administration of justice by the Naval Court for the protection of the inhabitants of the occupied territories against excesses of members of the Navy. The survey is based on an examination of about 2,000 delicts and part of the judgments rendered are given together with circumstances and reason. Judging from that one can fairly say that the Naval Courts protected the inhabitants in the West as well as in the East, protected them with justice and strictness, that is to say, lives as well as property and the honor of their women. Commander-in-Chief of the Navy as the highest legal authority. According to court regulations he was competent for the confirmation of death penalties meted out to German soldiers.
judgments. What is formulated in one of them applies to all: All soldiers must know that also in occupied territory 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. in which a German prisoner of war, an N.C.O., was presented as an example, because he had in a prison coup unobtrusively and according to plan had communists liquidated, who attracted attention. As Wagner recalled, it was actually the liquidation of ax informer. But the facts were camouflaged in the manner mentioned in order not to give enemy intelligence any clue as to the camp and the person of the NCO. That this order in its true principle was capable of being justified cannot be doubted by anyone, in view of the enormous number of political murders which have been committed with the toleration or assistance of governments engaged in the war, and the perpetrators of which are today extolled as heroes. I cannot, however, seriously consider that the unfortunate camouflaged wording could be proof of a general plan to liquidate communists. An order issued for the protection of communists will reveal the true circumstances. for Soviet prisoners of war and had broken out a dead prisoner's geld teeth. This sergeant was condemned 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 statement in which the Grand Admiral speaks of the "lingering poison of Jewry." Here I wish to say: as he did of its execution. He knew of the evacuation to the Government General of Jews living in Germany. I do not think that this evacuation can be condemned at a time when deportations of Germans on a much larger scale are taking place before the eyes of the world silently looking on. Here, too, I refer to a sentence of long penitentiary terms against 2 German sailors. Together with some Frenchmen they had robbed French Jews. From the opinion of the Court I again quote a sentence which characterizes the general attitude: "That the crime's were committed against Jews does not excuse the defendants in any way."
to include Admiral Doenitz in their interpretation of conspiracy by way of the so-called fanatical Nazi have failed. prominent until his promotion to 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 is without any foundation. He had no reason to participate in National Socialism afterwards, because to him, as a professional officer, every political activity was forbidden according to the Compulsory Service Law. However, he, too, like millions of other Germans,recognized the unique success of Hitler's conduct in social and economic fields and, of course, also the liberation from the obligations of Versailles which concerned him as a soldier especially. Therefore, he Served entirely without political activism but in loyalty to the National Socialist State when he received his promotion to Commander-in-Chief. There was first of all his personal contact with Adolf Hitler. like almost everyone else who had personal connections with this man, he too was most deeply impressed. To the respect for the Head of the State, and faith to the Supreme Commander, which the professional officer is trained in, to this was added the admiration for the Statesman and Strategist. It is difficult to understand completely such an attitude, from, the information as convoyed by this trial, I neither feel qualified nor capable to judge a personality like Adolf Hitler. But one thing seems to me certain, namely that with the art of an export he skilfully concealed the camouflage from the human standpoint, objectionable traits of character, from those of his co-workers to whom he did not dare to reveal this port of his nature.
The Hitler with whom the new Commander-in-Chief of the Navy become acquainted at that time and whom he venerated was therefore entirely different from the the one which the worldrightly or wrongly -- sees today. National Socialism consisted in the fact that in the performance of his military duties he necessarily came in contact with the political authorities of the Reich. Whether he needed more men, more ships, or more arms, it was in the end always political authorities with whom he had to discuss matters. In order to be successful in his demands it was necessary that all political mistrust be eliminated from the very start. He did this intentionally and demanded the same of his subordinates. To him the Party was not an ideological factor but rather the actual representative of the political pow He was linked with it in the common aim to win the war. For the achievement of this aim he c onsidered it as his ally. But for the advantages which one expects of an ally, one must be willing to make certain sacrifices, overlook certain faults, and to ignore controversies. Party which were concomitants of his position and of his duties as a Commander in Chief of the Navy, never led him to participate in anything for which he could not assume the responsibility before his conscience. Exactly some points of the prosecution prove this. The Fuehrer demanded action against the shipwrecked; Admiral Doenitz rejected it. The Fuehrer was for withdrawal from the Geneva Convention; Admiral Doenitz was against it. He stubbornly and successfully resisted the Party's influence upon the Armed Forces. Thanks to his resistance the National-Socialist education al officers did not become political commissars, but were, as genuine officers, merely advisors to their commander, who retained the sole responsibility of 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 Admiral Doenitz until the winter of 1944 - 1945, and afterwards, in spite of a Fuehrer order, never carried out in the Navy.
Thus he never identified himself with the party and therefore certainly cannot be held responsible for its ideological endeavors or its excesses, no more than in foreign politics a government would be ready to assume the responsibility for such things committed by an ally. was not a National Socialist. To the contrary, I want to exactly use him as an example to prove the incorrectness of the thesis that every National Socialist as such must be a criminal. This Tribunal is the solo instance where authoritative personalities of the allied chief powers are occupying themselves intensively with the last twelve years of the German past. It is, therefore, the only hope of very many Germans for the removal of a fatal error which caused the weaker characters of our nation to become hypocrites and thus prove a decisive obstacle on the read to political recovery. the charge that Admiral Doenitz had, out of political fanaticism, protracted the inevitable surrender, then I am doing so because of a particular reason. This charge, which does not seem to have anything to do with the indictment before an international tribunal, weighs particularly heavy in the eyes of the German people. This nation truly knows what destructions and what losses it has yet endured in the months from February until May 1945. I submitted declarations of Darlan, Chamberlain and Churchill from the year 1940, in which these statesmen, in a critical hour of their country, called for desperate resistance, for the defense of every village and of every village and of every house. Nobody will conclude therefrom that those men were fanatical National Socialists. The question of unconditional surrender is, indeed, of such colossal import to a nation, that, in fact, it is possible only after the events to judge whether a statesman who had to face this question did or did not do the right thing. Admiral Doenitz, however, was not a statesman in February 1945, but the supreme commander of the navy. Should he have requested his subordinates to lay down arms at a time when the political authority of the state still considered military resistance as opportune and necessary? Nobody will demand this in earnest.
Hitler esteemed so much, should not have had the duty to point out to Hitler with all due clearness the hopelessness of a prolonged resistance. people, if he had himself considered at that time a surrender was justified. He has not done so, and has stated the reasons herefore. Surrender implies stopping the armies and stopping the population. The German army on the Eastern Front -- still more than two millions strong in February 1945 -and the entire civilian population of the German eastern provinces would therefore have fallen into the hands of the Soviet armies, and this in a bitter cold winter month. Admiral Doenitz, therefore, was of the opinion -shared by Colonel General Jodl -- that the human losses occurring in such a manner would have been far greater than those which a protracting of the capitulation until the warmer season should of needs have caused. Only in future years, when more exact evidence concerning casualties of the army and of the civilian population, both before and after the surrender in the East and in the West, will be available, there will be a possibility to judge the objective truth of such an interpretation. But it may not be said today that such arguments were exclusively founded upon a stern consciousnes of responsibility for the life of the German people. assumption of the office of heard of the State on May 1st 1945, to cease hostilities against the host, but to protract, on the contrary, the surrender to the East for a few days, days in winch hundreds of thousands were able to escape in a Western direction. Since the moment when he got -- to his own complete surprise -- a political task, he has avoided, with an intelligent hand, a threatening chaos; he has prevented desperate acts of masses without leaders, and has assumed responsibility, for the German people, for the gravest action which a statesman can make at all. To come back to the beginning of the indictment, he has not done anything to start this war, but has taken decisive steps to end it. expect, and more than once the unconditional surrender, which the last head of the State has carried out, has been pointed out.
It is for the Tribunal to decide whether, in the future, this nation will be referred to the binding value of the signature of a man who is being outlawed as a criminal, in front of the whole world, by his very partners in the treaty. trial against war criminals is bound to induce in the heart of any lawyer. They weigh upon everyone who bears a co-responsibility for such a trial. I could not better mark the task of all the responsible persons than by quoting the words coined by a British attorney about the trials before the German Reich 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 the public opinion of 1919 had its way, the trials might have presented a grim spectacle, of which future generations would be 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." judgment of History.
THE PRESIDENT: I call on Dr. Siemers for the defendant Raeder.
DR. SIEMERS (Counsel for the defendant Raeder): Gentlemen of the Tribunal, in my final pleading for the defendant Grand-Admiral Dr. Raeder, I should like to keep to the order I chose for my document book and for the which presentation of evidence. I think a survey of the whole case will thus be easier. of 18, that is to say for half a century or so, and in an eventful period, exclusively a soldier, body and soul. Although he has never known anything but his duties as a soldier, the Prosecution has accused him, in this major trial against National-Socialism, not only as a soldier, namely as commanderin-chief of the German Navy, but -- what is singular and decisive -- as a politician, as a political conspirator, and as a government member, altogether three things which he in truth never was. politician, although it was precisely, as I shall demonstrate, his life principle to be completely detached from politics as an officer end to common an officers' coprs and a navy which were likewise committed to remain entirely free from politics. this is primarily due to the fact that they have constructed an entirely foreign motion of the German Wehrmacht, namely the motion of an admiral responsible for the foreign policy and for the outbreak of a war. conception is equally unjustified and unfounded as regards Hitler's NationalSocialist state. True, Hitler has repeatedly placed politics in the forefront of the nation and endeavored to educate the nation in one political direction only. Foreign countries knew this, and they would therefore be all the more surprised by the fact that Hitler refrained from such political interference in one single instance. Every administration, every organization, and every police institution was run by Hitler on political principles with the single exception of the Wehrmacht.
The Wehrmacht, and indeed the navy in particular remained for a long time and far into the war absolutely unpolitical. And n only did Hitler give Raeder an assurance to this effect, but Hindenburg as President, had also given the same assurance. This explains the fact, which has also been made clear in this trial, that up to 1944 an officer could not be a member of the Party or suspend his membership if he was in the Party. why Raeder, as shown by his interrogation, was disconcerted and amazed by these accusations which amount to a political charge. A man who is altogether a soldier cannot understand why he is suddenly and without any relation to his military duties made responsible for things which at no time came within the compass of his activity. of the U-boat warfare, which, for the sake of uniformity, has already received the attention of Dr. Kranzbuehler for Raeder, too. case of Norway and Greece -- that time and again the discrepancy between the points of view of politics and of the military is the following: Raeder acts as commander-in-chief on the basis of military considerations, and the Prosecution calls him to account out of political considerations, thus considering military actions as political ones. tions which have been raised against Raeder already far the period before 1933, which means before National-Socialism. For this time the peculiarity has to be added that Hitler, the head of the alleged conspiracy for the waging of wars of agression, does not oven yet rule in Germany, and yet there is already supposed to exist a common conspiracy between Hitler and a part of the defendants. 1928 as Chief of the Naval Command, had at that time nothing at all to do with National-Socialism, and he did not even know Hitler and his co-workers in the Party.