Then, on 26 September, it says:

The Prosecution have stated that 1 October had long before been decided on as the date for aggression. Will you tell me what significance that date, 1 October 1938, had for Case Green?

JODL: I have already said that, I believe. I explained that the new mobilization year had started, and that no order contained a fixed date for the beginning of the campaign against Czechoslovakia.

DR. EXNER: Did you believe that the conflict might be localized?

JODL: I was certainly convinced of that, because I could not imagine that the Führer, in the position we were in, would start a conflict with France and Britain which had to lead to our immediate collapse.

DR. EXNER: And the entries in your diary probably show your concern about incidents?

JODL: Yes. In my diary on 8 September there is reference to a conversation with General Stülpnagel. According to that, Stülpnagel was at the moment very worried lest the Führer should depart from his oft-defined attitude and allow himself to be dragged into military action, in spite of the danger of France’s intervention.

According to the entry in my diary I replied that actually at the moment I shared his worries to some extent.

DR. EXNER: This is an entry which the Tribunal will find on Page 26 of the first volume of my document book. Once again it is an extract from Document 1780-PS, and it is the entry of 8 September 1938.

[Turning to the defendant.] You have already said, have you not, what your worries were? Our weakness?

JODL: It was out of the question with five fighting divisions and seven reserve divisions in the western fortifications, which were nothing but a large construction site, to hold out against 100 French divisions. That was militarily impossible.

DR. EXNER: On 24 August, in a letter addressed to Schmundt, you referred to the importance of an incident for the tasks of the Wehrmacht in this case. You have been gravely accused of that, and I want you to tell me what the significance of that statement is.

Your Honor, it is 388-PS, and it is on Page 35 of the first volume. It is an extract from the often quoted Document 388-PS: It is a report made at the time of the “X” Order and the preliminary measures.

[Turning to the defendant.] Please, will you state what you intended in this work of the General Staff?

JODL: The Führer’s order of 30 May which I have already explained, assuming that it ever came to this action, left no other choice than to attack on a previously decided date. This could only follow as the result of an incident, because without provocation the operation was out of the question; and it was not to be attempted if too long a time had passed.

The Army, in order to be ready for such a surprise break-through of the Czech fortifications, required 4 days of preparation. If nothing happened after those 4 days, the military preparations could no longer be kept secret and the surprise element would disappear. Therefore, nothing else remained but either a spontaneous incident in Czechoslovakia, which would then 4 days later have resulted in military action, or a date which had to be decided on previously. In that case an incident had to happen during those 4 days which the Army required for deployment.

The Führer’s demands could, in fact, not be solved in any other way from the point of view of the General Staff. My letter to Major Schmundt was meant to explain that difficult situation to the Führer.

At that time incidents occurred every day. May I remind you that since the first partial mobilization in Czechoslovakia the Sudeten Germans liable to be called for military service had mostly evaded the order. They escaped over the border into Germany, and the Czechoslovakian border police shot at them. Bullets were shot over daily into Germany. All together, more than 200,000 Sudeten Germans crossed the border in that manner.

From that point of view the conception of an incident was not so mean and criminal as it might have been, for instance, if peaceful Switzerland had been involved. If I said, therefore, how keenly interested we would be in such an incident, that was meant to express that if one resorted to military action at all—all this is, of course, purely theoretical—one might use just such an incident as a casus belli.

DR. EXNER: And how do you explain this remark of yours: “...unless the intelligence department is ordered to organize this incident in any case”?

That is at the end of Page 38 in the second paragraph. It is an extract from 388-PS.

JODL: Yes, I had too much knowledge of European military history not to know that the question of the first shot—the apparent cause of war, not the inner cause of war—has played an important part in each war and on each side.

The responsibility for the outbreak of war is always attributed to the enemy; it is not characteristic of Germany alone, but of all European nations who have ever been at war with one another. In the case of Czechoslovakia the deeper cause of the war was quite apparent. I need not describe the condition in which 3½ million Germans found themselves who were supposed to fight against their own people. I myself was able to watch that tragedy in my own house. In this case, the deeper cause of the war, was firmly established, and Lord Runciman, who came on that mission from London, left no doubt about it whatsoever. In such a situation I certainly had no moral scruples about exaggerating one of these incidents, and, by means of a counteraction in vigorous reply to the Czech doings and activities, extending and enlarging such an incident in order that if the political situation allowed it, and England and France did not interfere—as the Führer believed—we might find a really obvious reason for taking action.

DR. EXNER: Gentlemen of the Tribunal, there is one point to which I wish to draw your attention. In my opinion it is once more a mistake in translation. I refer to the second paragraph from the bottom on Page 36. It is the report about the incident. The second but last paragraph on Page 36 states: “...that Case Green may be set in motion as a result of an incident in Czechoslovakia which will give Germany provocation (Anlass) for military intervention.” The translation in English of these last words is a “provocation”; “Anlass” is translated as “provocation.”

THE PRESIDENT: What are you saying? What is the alteration?

DR. EXNER: I believe that the translation is not correct. I am not absolutely certain but I would like to call the Tribunal’s attention to it. “Anlass” means “prétexte” in French—which as far as we know is “pretext.”

THE PRESIDENT: But, Dr. Exner, there is no difference in the meaning of the words, whether it is “provocation,” or whether it is “cause.”

DR. EXNER: “Provocation” sounds a bit more aggressive, does it not? I just want to call your attention to it. In the German it is “cause” and not “provocation.”

[Turning to the defendant.] Now the Prosecution calls these considerations, which we have just talked about, criminal ideas and connects them with the supposedly planned murder of the German Ambassador in Prague. We are said to have planned that murder so as to have a cause for marching into Czechoslovakia. What do you have to say to that?

JODL: This, of course, is grotesque. The example that the Führer allegedly mentioned in his talks with Field Marshal Keitel, that the German Ambassador had been murdered by the people of Prague, was not even known to me. General Keitel did not tell me; I only heard of it here. Apart from that, I think it is useless to go on discussing it as we did exactly the opposite. We gave the order to General Toussaint to protect the German Embassy in Prague and to protect the lives of the people in it, because, in fact, at one stage it had been seriously threatened.

DR. EXNER: This is proved by Exhibit AJ-9, Document Jodl-62, third volume of the document book, Page 200. That again is the interrogatory of General Toussaint, who was a military attaché in Prague at that time. The third question is as follows:

And his answer is:

Then in Question 4...

THE PRESIDENT: The witness has already said once it was so.

DR. EXNER: [Turning to the defendant.] Then I shall only refer to the testimony of Toussaint. In addition it has been said that the incident had been staged by us. We need not go into that in detail. Did the incident really happen?

JODL: No, there was neither a preparation for the incident, nor was it necessary. Incidents kept multiplying day after day, and the solution was a political one and entirely different.

DR. EXNER: So that this note, which we have often read, remained purely theoretical, did it?

JODL: It was merely work on paper, an idea, which was not really necessary at all.

But it has already been made clear that as soon as the political discussions started I made continuous efforts to prevent the provocations, apparently desired on the part of the Czechs, from leading to any military measures on our part.

DR. EXNER: Did the signatory powers in Munich at the end of September know of Germany’s military preparations? Did the statesmen there know that we were militarily prepared?

JODL: The Prosecution gave me the distinct impression that that had become known only today, and that it was unknown in the autumn of 1938 at Munich. But that is quite impossible. All the world knew of the calling up of the eight age groups in Czechoslovakia in September. The whole world knew of the total mobilization on 23 September. A political correspondent of The Times wrote an article on 28 September against this Czechoslovakian mobilization. Nobody was surprised that immediately after the signing of the Munich Pact, on 1 October, we marched into...

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner...

DR. EXNER: Well, that ends this subject.

Is it true that in August 1938 you prepared a new operational plan of which you had already spoken on 7 July? A new plan based on the previous one?

JODL: Yes. Already before the solution brought about by the Munich Pact, I, on my own initiative, drew up a secret operational plan for the protection of all the German borders. It was so arranged that the borders only were to be protected while the bulk of the Army was to be kept in reserve in the center of Germany. That complete plan was available here during my interrogation. It is now no longer contained in Document 388-PS, but there is a reference made to it.

DR. EXNER: On Page 40, Volume I of our document book, I again read an extract from 388-PS. At the very end the following is stated:

And then:

Why did you prepare this “frontier protection” deployment? What was the cause of it?

JODL: The reason was that once the necessity for an operation against Czechoslovakia had become superfluous, through the problem being solved in some way, we would no longer have had any deployment plan at all. And as no other intention of the Führer was known to me, I on my own initiative drew up a plan for this operation which would be suitable for any eventuality.

DR. EXNER: Did you know anything about the intentions of the Führer, after the Munich Agreement, to go even further and occupy Bohemia and Moravia?

JODL: No, I had no idea of that. I knew of his speech of 26 September where he said: “Now we are facing the last problem to be solved.”

I believed in that assurance, and this is proved by the fact that during those days—it was about 10 or 11 September—I suggested to Field Marshal Keitel, than General Keitel, that he should ask the British Delegation, whose arrival had been announced, to come to Iglau in Moravia, because many Germans who were living there had been threatened by armed Czechoslovakian Communists. This of course was a suggestion which I would never have made if I had had any idea that the Führer nourished any further intentions concerning Bohemia and Moravia.

DR. EXNER: These further intentions of the Führer were recorded on 21 October 1938 in a directive. Did you know about that in the OKW, or what was the position?

JODL: No, I did not know about it. I did not see it. I only saw it here in this courtroom during my preliminary interrogation.

DR. EXNER: Then were you transferred to...

JODL: I was transferred to Vienna as Artillery Commander of the 44th Division stationed there.

DR. EXNER: That was the end of October, was it not?

JODL: The end of October.

DR. EXNER: How did you imagine further military developments would be? But, of course, you have already answered that.

JODL: Actually, I expected an easing of the political tension and a period of peace. I can certainly say that.

DR. EXNER: And what happened to you then?

JODL: As I knew of no other plans, I transferred my home to Vienna taking all my furniture with me. Naturally I would never have done that if I had had the faintest idea that war was pending, because I knew that in the event of war I was to become the Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff and so would have to return to Berlin. I asked General Keitel to help me to become the Commander of the 4th Mountain Division in Reichenhall, from 1 October 1939, a request which again it would never have entered my mind to make if I had any idea of what was going to come.

DR. EXNER: Did you as Artillery Commander in Vienna remain in contact with the OKW?

JODL: No, hardly at all. I had no connections with the OKW. I received no military documents from the OKW during all that period.

DR. EXNER: And who informed you then about the situation during that time?

JODL: Nobody. During that time I knew no more about what was going on or what was intended than any lieutenant in my artillery.

DR. EXNER: Did you have private correspondence with Keitel?

JODL: I received one letter from General Keitel. It was, I think, at the end of July 1939. He personally gave me the good news that quite probably I would become Commander of the 4th Mountain Division in Reichenhall on 1 October, and that General Von Sodenstern would become Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff, now on peacetime footing, on 1 October.

DR. EXNER: Did you help to draw up the plan for the occupation of the remaining parts of Czechoslovakia?

JODL: No, I did not. During this occupation I remained in Vienna for the time being and temporarily became Chief of Staff of the 18th Army Corps at Vienna. Then, later on, I was transferred to Brünn in Czechoslovakia together with the entire 44th Division.

DR. EXNER: When did you hear about the whole thing?

JODL: It was through the orders of my divisional staff that I heard of that operation in March of 1939, some 2 or 3 days beforehand.

DR. EXNER: Was this move into Czechoslovakia the carrying out of Case Green which you had originally drafted?

JODL; No; it had no longer anything to do with that. There were completely different troop units, and not even half of the troops provided for in 1938 were actually used for the march into Czechoslovakia in 1939.

DR. EXNER: Now, during that period when you were in Vienna there was a conference with the Führer on 23 May 1939, which has often been mentioned here, concerning the disregarding of neutrality, et cetera. It has often been stated that Warlimont was present there as your representative. What was the position? Was he your representative?

JODL: With great persistence it has been said again and again that General Warlimont took part in the conference as the representative of Jodl, or even, it was once said, as his assistant. There is no question of that. He was my successor but not my representative. And even if it is repeated again and again, it still does not make it true. He was my successor.

DR. EXNER: You had left the OKW, had you not?

JODL: Yes, I had completely left the OKW. The fact that quite accidentally Warlimont became my deputy later on has nothing whatsoever to do with the events of May 1939.

DR. EXNER: When did you hear for the first time of this meeting in May 1939?

JODL: Here in Nuremberg in 1946.

DR. EXNER: Did you have any contact with Party leaders meanwhile, or with Austrian National Socialists?

JODL: No, not at all; with nobody.

DR. EXNER: Or with these defendants here?

JODL: No, not with them either.

DR. EXNER: Once during that time the Führer went to Vienna with Keitel. I think they were there 2 days or so. Did you have to report to him on that occasion?

JODL: Yes, coming from Prague he visited Vienna quite unobtrusively, and on that occasion I spoke a few words to General Keitel, but I did not talk to the Führer.

DR. EXNER: You were not presented to him?

JODL: No.

DR. EXNER: What was your war appointment to be?

JODL: As I have already said, in the event of a war I was to become Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff.

DR. EXNER: What about your private personal plans for that summer?

JODL: For that summer I already had tickets for a cruise in the eastern Mediterranean on 23 September 1939.

DR. EXNER: On 23 September 1939 the voyage...

JODL: The voyage was to start at Hamburg; I had already paid for the tickets.

DR. EXNER: When did you buy the tickets? Do you remember?

JODL: I bought them about the second half of July.

DR. EXNER: When did you return to Berlin?

JODL: I am not absolutely certain about the exact date, but I imagine that it was on 23 or 24 August—according to a telegram which reached me unexpectedly in Brünn.

DR. EXNER: If you had not received that telegram, when would you have had to go to Berlin?

JODL: In case of a general mobilization I would have had to go to Berlin anyway.

DR. EXNER: And did you now have to report to the Führer in Berlin?

JODL: No, I did not report to him, either. I only reported, of course, to General Keitel and to the Chief of the General Staff of the Army and the Air Force and to the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.

DR. EXNER: Mr. President, I have now completed that subject, and I thought that this would be a convenient time to adjourn.

THE PRESIDENT: Can you tell us how long you are likely to be?

DR. EXNER: I very much hope—certainly it will be in the course of tomorrow morning; but shall we say until noon?

DR. GUSTAV STEINBAUER (Counsel for Defendant Seyss-Inquart): Mr. President, as Counsel for Dr. Seyss-Inquart, I have to ask on behalf of my client that he may be permitted to be absent from the session for 2 days, to prepare his defense.

THE PRESIDENT: Certainly.

[The Tribunal adjourned until 5 June 1946 at 1000 hours.]

Morning Session

[The Defendant Jodl resumed the stand.]

THE MARSHAL: If it please the Tribunal, the report is made that Defendant Seyss-Inquart is absent.

PROFESSOR DR. HERBERT KRAUS (Counsel for Defendant Schacht): Mr. President, in agreement with the Prosecution I ask permission to submit a memorandum by Hitler, concerning the Four Year Plan of 1936. It is a certified copy, certified by a British officer in Dustbin Camp. I have numbered it Exhibit Schacht-48. In the afternoon session of 1 May my friend Dr. Dix referred to this memorandum, which could not at that time be incorporated into the record. Dr. Schacht then quoted a few passages from this memorandum. The President stated that we could submit the memorandum at a later date on condition, of course, that the Prosecution agreed. The Prosecution has acquiesced and I therefore trust that I may now be permitted to submit it.

Furthermore I am handing in a number of English translations. I regret I have not yet been able to have translations made in the other languages, and I ask permission to supply those translations later on.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kraus, until the other translations are actually made, the documents will not become part of the record.

DR. KRAUS: No. The English translations are available, and the others are not yet ready. May I submit them later?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly. And they will then become part of the record.

DR. KRAUS: Yes, as a supplement to the document book.

DR. EXNER: Generaloberst, you told us yesterday that you were the Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff during the war and that your main task consisted in the preparation of military operational plans. That is correct, is it not?

JODL: That is correct.

DR. EXNER: Then, where did you get the plans? Who decided what plans you had to make?

JODL: It was the same as in any other military staff. The Commander-in-Chief—in this case the Führer personally—received data for the decisions to be made: maps, strength returns of both our own and enemy forces, and information about the enemy. He then made his own decisions, and thereupon I would set my general staff to work, giving these decisions the military form necessary for the entire machinery of the Wehrmacht.

DR. EXNER: Now, in the course of these tasks and studies you also had to work on operations which were never actually carried out?

JODL: I have prepared a great number of such operations. Of the total number of operations for which I prepared orders and instructions there was only one which I definitely knew would be carried out; that was the operation against Yugoslavia. In the case of all the other operational plans, the decision as to whether it would be carried out or not remained undecided for a long time.

As an example of operational plans which had been drafted in every detail but which were never carried out, I mention the invasion of England, the march into Spain, the seizure of Gibraltar, the seizure of Malta, the capture of the Fischer Peninsula near Petsamo, and a winter attack on Kandalakscha on the Murmansk Railway.

DR. EXNER: Then, did these tasks of yours cover all the theaters of the war?

JODL: At the beginning of the war the work of my general staff did not apply to theaters of war at all, but the Führer’s instructions went only to the branches of the Wehrmacht—that is to the Army, the Navy and the Air Force; and it was only in the Norwegian campaign that circumstances developed for the first time so that the Armed Forces Operations Staff was made responsible for a theater of war. And this condition changed completely when in the beginning of 1942 the Führer himself assumed supreme command in the Army. Kesselring has already been asked about this, but did not answer. However, it stands to reason that the Führer, as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, could not issue orders through Jodl to himself in his capacity of Commander-in-Chief of the Army and then have them carried out through Generaloberst Zeitzler. Consequently a separation came about. From that moment on he, with the General Staff of the Army, directed the entire Eastern Front, while the Armed Forces Operations Staff became responsible for the general staff work of all the other theaters of war.

DR. EXNER: Now, the witness Field Marshal Paulus stated before the Tribunal that the OKW was responsible for the order to hold Stalingrad; and, as a matter of fact, both Keitel and Jodl have been repeatedly accused by the foreign press of having given that disastrous order. Is that true?

JODL: No, that is not true. The witness, for whom I feel the deepest sympathy and with whom I have worked in the most comradely fashion possible, could not have known anything at all about it. The facts are as follows: The moment danger threatened, the decision that Stalingrad must be held was made by the Führer during a private conversation with Generaloberst Zeitzler and contrary to the latter’s advice. Zeitzler told me so himself on his return from this interview. At a later stage, when blizzards were already raging across the steppes of the Don, the question of a break-through by the Stalingrad garrison was discussed again. Field Marshal Keitel, Generaloberst Zeitzler, and I were present on this occasion.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner, I do not quite see how that is relevant, although Field Marshal Paulus may have said something about it. I mean, he may have given some evidence on the fighting at Stalingrad, and he undoubtedly did; but I do not see how it bears upon the case before us, or how it bears upon the case for Jodl.

DR. EXNER: Mr. President, this has already settled the matter. It was necessary to clear up Field Marshal Paulus’ error. But this has already settled the matter.

[Turning to the defendant.] We now come to the time when you were recalled from Vienna to Berlin in 1939. What state of affairs did you find in Berlin on your arrival?

JODL: I found a completely incomprehensible state of affairs in Berlin—at least it was incomprehensible to me. Nobody knew what was really true or what was bluff. The pact with Russia sustained all our hopes for the preservation of peace, hopes which were immensely increased and strengthened by the surprise cancellation of the attack ordered for 26 August. None of the soldiers to whom I spoke expected a war with the Western Powers at that time. Nothing had been prepared except the operations for the attack on Poland.

There was only a defensive deployment of troops on the West Wall. The forces stationed there were so weak that we could not even man all the pillboxes. The actual efforts for the preservation of peace, however, efforts I have heard about here from the Reich Marshal, the name of Dahlerus—all these negotiations remained unknown to me insofar as they were not published in the press. But there is one thing I can say in conclusion. When the declaration of war was received from England and France it was like a blow from a cudgel for us soldiers who had fought in the first World War. And I heard in confidence from General Stapf—today the matter is no longer confidential—that the Reich Marshal reacted in exactly the same way.

DR. EXNER: Do you know when Poland mobilized?

JODL: That I cannot say. I only know that at the moment when I arrived in Berlin and was being informed by General Von Stülpnagel for the very first time about the situation and our own strength, a Polish deployment was already in progress along the frontier, as well as the German one.

DR. EXNER: That in itself already answers the accusation brought against you in the trial brief, namely “planning against Poland.”

Had you prepared a plan against Poland?

JODL: No. Not by a single stroke of the pen did I participate in the preparations for the Polish war.

DR. EXNER: Then I am right in saying, to sum up, that when you left Berlin there was not yet a plan of operations against Poland?

JODL: No.

DR. EXNER: And when you returned to Berlin the plan was ready?

JODL: Yes. The plan of attack was completely worked out.

DR. EXNER: Did you hear the Führer’s speech of 22 August 1939 which has been so often quoted here?

JODL: No; on that day I was still in Vienna.

DR. EXNER: When did you hear of that speech?

JODL: For the first time here in Nuremberg.

DR. EXNER: Do you remember the meeting in the Führer’s special train on 9 September 1939, described here by General Lahousen? Can you remember that?

JODL: Yes, I remember that meeting perfectly.

DR. EXNER: What was the subject of conversation during that meeting while you were on the Führer’s train?

JODL: I met the Führer in the so-called command car, in the chartroom, where Field Marshal Keitel, Canaris, and Lahousen were; and then Canaris made a brief report on the information he had received from the West and expressed the opinion that a French attack in the Saarbrücken sector was imminent. The Führer contradicted this, and so did I. Apart from that nothing else was discussed.

DR. EXNER: Then Lahousen’s statement is correct that you were only present during that particular part of the discussion?

JODL: As far as I am concerned I have not a word of objection to raise against Lahousen’s statement. Absolutely correct.

DR. EXNER: Frequent mention has been made during this Trial of the artillery and air bombardment of Warsaw. Did you participate in the giving of the orders for this?

JODL: Yes, I participated insofar as the Commander-in-Chief of the Army had applied to the Führer for permission for the artillery to bombard Warsaw as soon as the deployment of artillery units had been completed. The Führer refused this. He said, “What is happening here because of the Poles is madness.” He ordered me to draft new leaflets—which I did personally and immediately—and have them dropped again over the city of Warsaw. It was only when this renewed demand to cease the hopeless resistance had proved absolutely unsuccessful that he sanctioned artillery bombardment and air attacks on the fortress of Warsaw—and I emphasize the word “fortress.”

DR. EXNER: When issuing orders, did you have anything to do with the co-ordination of German and Soviet Russian operations?

JODL: Yes. When we were still 3 days’ march away from the Vistula, I was informed to my great surprise—by, I believe, the representative of the Foreign Office—while I was entering the Führer’s headquarters, that Soviet Russia would occupy the Polish territories...

THE PRESIDENT: Defendant, if it is convenient to you, I think you might speak a little faster.

JODL: ...that the Polish territories east of an agreed demarcation line would be occupied by Soviet Russian troops at the appointed time. When we were approaching this agreed demarcation line, which was shown to me on a map—the line was the East Prussian Lithuanian border, Narew, Vistula, San—I telephoned to our military attaché in Moscow and informed him that we could probably reach individual points of this demarcation line in the course of the following day. Shortly afterwards I was informed over the telephone that the Russian divisions were not yet ready.

When, the day after the next, we reached the demarcation line and had to cross it in pursuit of the Poles, I once again received news from Moscow, at 0200 hours, that the Soviet Russian divisions would take up their position along the entire front at 0400 hours. This maneuver was punctually carried out, and I then drafted an order to our German troops that wherever they had contacted the troops of the Soviet Union, and in agreement with them, they were to withdraw behind the demarcation line.

DR. EXNER: Do you know on what day all this happened?

JODL: I cannot tell you exactly when the troops reached the line, but I would say it was about 14 or 15 September.

DR. EXNER: We shall now deal with aggressive wars against the neutral countries...

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner, now all that the defendant has just been telling us seems to be to me a simple waste of our time, with absolutely no relevance to this case at all; and why you let him do it, I do not know.

DR. EXNER: You have been accused of having used your personal influence and your close relations with the Führer to attack a whole series of neutral countries. Tell me, is that true?

JODL: No, it is untrue. I remember that a witness here spoke of a sinister influence, of a key position of a sinister kind—at any rate, something sinister. But my influence on the Führer was unfortunately not in the least as great as it might, or perhaps even ought to have been in view of the position I held. The reason lay in the powerful personality of this despot who never suffered advisers gladly.

DR. EXNER: When did you first hear of a plan for a possible occupation of Norway?

JODL: The Führer first spoke to me—I think it was in mid-November 1939—at any rate, a fairly long time after Grossadmiral Raeder had first spoken to him. At that first conference, which I believe took place on 10 October, I had not yet heard of anything nor did the Führer give me any information. But in the middle of November he spoke to me about it. I first learned the details during the oral report made by the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, which took place on 12 November and at which I was present.

DR. EXNER: In this connection I would draw your attention to Document C-64, Exhibit GB-86, Page 46 of the document book. But I do not need to read it aloud. Volume I, Page 46.

What was the Führer’s point of view?

JODL: The general attitude of the Führer at that time was—it is also established in writing: “I am not at all interested in extending the theaters of war, but if the danger of an occupation of Norway by England really exists and if that is true, then the situation would be quite different.”

DR. EXNER: Was anything ordered at that time?

JODL: Nothing was ordered at that time, but he merely instructed me to think this problem over generally. The preliminary work, as has been proved by documents, began on 27 January 1940.

DR. EXNER: That may be seen from Document C-63, Exhibit GB-87.

Were you at that time of the opinion that the assurance given by Hitler in December and October 1939 that Norwegian neutrality would be respected—were you of the opinion that this assurance was given for the purpose of lulling Norway into a state of security, as has been alleged by the Prosecution?

JODL: That allegation can be definitely refuted, and by means of a few dates which I shall now enumerate. These assurances, these political assurances, were given by the Führer—or by the Reich Government, I do not know which—on 2 September and 6 October. On 9 October the Führer read and signed the famous memorandum known as Document L-52. I do not know whether the Tribunal is aware of the fact that it is a personal memorandum by the Führer.

DR. EXNER: That is Document L-52, Exhibit USA-540. It is printed on Page 48, Volume I, of my document book.

In this memorandum—for whom was the memorandum prepared?

JODL: This memorandum, as I think is obvious from the document, went out to the three Commanders-in-Chief and to the Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces. It was dictated word for word by the Führer himself and was completed in 2 nights.

DR. EXNER: I shall read Paragraph 2, printed on Page 48 of my document book:

JODL: It is quite out of the question that the Führer, in this extremely secret memorandum, could have mentioned anything but his true purpose at that particular time. That, however, is all the more comprehensible since it was not until 1 day later, namely 10 October, that Grossadmiral Raeder first mentioned these fears to the Führer.

DR. EXNER: Was the occupation of Norway a very weighty decision for the leadership?

JODL: It was a terribly weighty decision. To put it shortly—it meant gambling with the entire German fleet. The result of it was that we had to defend a coastline of over 3,000 kilometers, and that meant that nearly 300,000 men were lying idle there. The decision, therefore, depended on really reliable information that Norway was threatened by actual danger. That is the reason why no definite date was fixed for this operation “Weserübung,” and the reason why I at a later date suggested that the forces for the Norway operation, in case it became necessary, and for an attack in the West, should be completely separate from each other.

DR. EXNER: What were the reasons why the occupation had to be prepared in every detail?

JODL: The reasons are quite openly and definitely stated in the order of 1 March 1940 which is Document C-174...

DR. EXNER: That is Exhibit GB-89.

JODL: Yes; we had to be prepared in any case.

THE PRESIDENT: Is that Document 174-PS, or what?

DR. EXNER: It is not printed in my document book. It refers to a document which the British Prosecution has submitted under Exhibit GB-89.

THE PRESIDENT: But 174 must mean something, must it not? The document said Document 174.

DR. EXNER: Document C-174.

MR. ROBERTS: My Lord, it is C-174.

THE PRESIDENT: C-174. Very well.

MR. ROBERTS: And it was put in by Mr. Elwyn Jones, in Document Book 3.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

DR. EXNER: Now, you say in your diary that the Führer was searching for a justification. The meaning has already been explained here; but you yourself should know best what the meaning is, since you wrote it yourself. What does it mean?

JODL: The Führer said in those days, when I wrote it—not in a diary, but in my notebook, my memorandum book—he said: “To carry out a decision of this kind I need absolutely reliable information with which I can really justify this decision before the world and prove that it was necessary. I cannot tell, I only heard the following from Herr Quisling...” And for this reason he kept the Intelligence Service in particular very busy at this time, in order to get even more precise information for the Führer about these many reports which we received...

DR. EXNER: Now, Grossadmiral Raeder has explained the facts from which England’s plans could be deduced. Have you anything to add to that, or is the question settled?

JODL: On the whole, Grossadmiral Raeder has already submitted all the information. There is one thing which remains in my memory and which is also written in my notebook. That is the special insistence, quite openly advocated in the French press, that under all circumstances Germany must be cut off from the Swedish ore supplies. Then came the mine-laying in Norwegian territorial waters; and then came the Altmark case which, according to my study of international law, was a flagrant breach of the agreement ruling the rights and duties of neutral states in naval warfare, and Articles 1 and 2...

DR. EXNER: Regarding the first two points which the witness has mentioned, I should like to draw attention to Document 1809-PS—that is, his diary, Exhibit GB-88, Page 53 of Volume I of my collection. There is an entry on 10 March: