ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-EIGHTH DAY Thursday, 6 June 1946

JODL: I recall this incident especially well because about 1 hour before I had said the same thing to the Führer, that we should clear up the situation with an ultimatum. An hour later, without knowing about this, the Reich Foreign Minister made the same remark, and he fared considerably worse than I did. The Führer said:

“Is that how you size up the situation? The Yugoslavs would swear black is white. Of course, they say they have no warlike intentions, and when we march into Greece they will stab us in the back.”

DR. HORN: Generaloberst, is it true that the Foreign Office from the very outbreak of the Russian war was completely eliminated from Eastern questions, that Ribbentrop complained personally and through his liaison man, Ambassador Ritter, and that he had no success with his suggestions to the Führer?

JODL: I know that Ambassador Ritter, who came to see me very often, repeatedly complained in private talks about having such a large part of its field of activity taken away from the Foreign Office, and I must assume that that was not only the opinion of Ambassador Ritter but also the opinion of the whole Foreign Office as well as of the Foreign Minister.

DR. HORN: In your testimony you have already mentioned the fact that the Wehrmacht was against Hitler’s intention to renounce the Geneva Convention. Do you know that Ribbentrop also energetically opposed Hitler’s intention, and that after the objections of the Wehrmacht had been rejected at the beginning, Ribbentrop then succeeded in inducing Hitler to give up his intention?

JODL: Put that way, I cannot confirm it fully. One thing I know for certain: the Foreign Office informed me in writing of its unfavorable attitude toward this suggestion or idea of the Führer. For me that was conclusive proof that the Reich Foreign Minister held this point of view. I recorded this unfavorable attitude of the Foreign Office—together with the unfavorable attitude of the Army, Navy, and Luftwaffe—in a short memorandum, and submitted it to the Führer. To what extent the Reich Foreign Minister personally remonstrated with the Führer about the matter, I cannot say with certainty.

DR. HORN: Is it true that Von Ribbentrop spoke against the chaining of English prisoners of war as reprisal for the chaining of German prisoners of war, and in agreement with the OKW induced Hitler to discontinue this measure?

JODL: That is true. The Reich Foreign Minister, the Foreign Office, repeatedly remonstrated with the Führer to withdraw the order concerning the chaining of Canadian prisoners, and it must be assumed that these many objections, which were also supported by the OKW, finally succeeded in having the order withdrawn.

HERR BÖHM: In the Tuesday afternoon session you discussed the question of terror-fliers. In this connection you stated that by making inquiries and observations you wanted to prevent the ‘cause’ for the decision regarding the intended treatment of this question. The Prosecution submitted two documents on this question. One was the record of an alleged talk between Ribbentrop, Göring, and Himmler at Klessheim, the other an opinion by Ambassador Ritter, who has already been mentioned. I would like to hear from you as to whether you know anything about Ribbentrop’s attitude toward the handling of the question of terror-fliers, especially whether Ribbentrop advocated that this question be dealt with according to the Geneva Convention, and whether he thought that it was possible to deviate from this Convention only if decisive military necessities demanded it, and even in that case only by expressly indicating beforehand to the protective powers that it intended to depart from the Geneva Convention?

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Horn, can’t you put that question more shortly; what does he know about it?

DR. HORN: Is it true, Generaloberst, with regard to the question of terror-fliers, that Von Ribbentrop, in the same way as the Wehrmacht, was against departing from the Geneva Convention, and he put this view to Hitler?

JODL: To this I can say—again from talks with Ambassador Ritter—that I knew that the Reich Foreign Minister advocated official procedure, that is, official notice that we could no longer consider certain acts of terror as belonging to regular warfare. That was the original point of view of the Foreign Office. To this I said at the time that the Führer would probably not be interested as I had concluded from his oral instructions. As it turned out, the suggestion, such as the Reich Foreign Minister intended to make, was never put forward, or at least I never saw it.

DR. HORN: Do you know anything of a peace feeler by English officers on behalf of General Alexander, backed up by the English Government, in 1943?

JODL: I know very well that at that time, in Athens, an Englishman—I believe it was an English captain—established contact with us. This captain said that he came from English headquarters in the southeastern area. I was present when the Reich Foreign Minister reported to the Führer about this matter, and I know he suggested that this contact be tried to see what results it might bring. That was done; the Führer agreed; but I heard nothing more about the matter, and apparently nothing came of it.

DR. HORN: Do you know anything about any further peace attempts of Ribbentrop, especially after the Polish campaign, after Dunkirk and 1943?

JODL: I only knew of the attempts and intentions after the Western campaign. At that time the Führer spoke quite openly and frankly with everyone. I myself, as well as the Reich Foreign Minister, heard the Führer agree that peace would be concluded with England at any time only if part of our former colonies were given back to us.

DR. HORN: Is it true that the Defendant Von Ribbentrop suggested to Hitler that Hungarian Jews, insofar as they wished to do so, be permitted to emigrate?

JODL: I recall that too. Shortly after the occupation of Hungary by our troops, at about the beginning of May 1944, there was a conference at the Berghof, at which a decision was to be reached. The Führer wanted to hear our views as to whether the Hungarian Army should be dissolved, or whether it should be left as it was. At the end of this discussion, which was of a purely military nature, the Reich Foreign Minister said to the Führer, “Can we not send all the Hungarian Jews by ship to some neutral country?” The Führer answered, “That is easier said than done. Do you think that is possible? No one would take them. Besides, it is technically impossible.” That is my recollection of this talk.

DR. HORN: You spoke yesterday of the expulsion of the Danish Jews, and you said that this expulsion took place on Himmler’s orders. An affidavit by a Colonel Mildner has been submitted to me, in which it is asserted that this expulsion took place on the orders of the Reich Foreign Minister. Is that statement true?

JODL: Before this Himmler-Führer conference, which caused me to send my teletype message to the Wehrmacht Commander in Denmark, I never heard a word about the Jews being deported from Denmark, and I never heard that the Foreign Office had any part in it.

DR. HORN: Did you ever get to know anything about the basic attitude of the Defendant Von Ribbentrop toward the Jewish question?

JODL: Apart from this suggestion about the Hungarian Jews, I do not recall any talk by the Reich Foreign Minister, at which I was present, in which there was any mention of Jews.

DR. KRAUS: Did I understand you correctly, Generaloberst, when you testified yesterday that in 1935 it was decided to set up 36 divisions?

DR. KRAUS: I am interested to know how many divisions were ready by 1 April 1938? I am interested in this key date because on that day the financial aid of the Reichsbank stopped. Can you tell me how many divisions were ready on 1 April 1938?

JODL: At that time there were about 27 or 28 divisions actually ready—that is, as regards personnel and materiel.

JODL: I do know that only one Panzer division was ready at that time, one cavalry division, one mountain division, and the rest were probably infantry divisions. The other Panzer divisions were not yet equipped, and they existed only as skeleton formations.

DR. KRAUS: I would like to know to what extent this armament was increased between that date and the outbreak of the war on 1 September 1939—that is, increased from 27 divisions?

JODL: From the autumn of 1938 on, the picture became much more favorable because the preparations in the armament industry were now producing results, and plenty of equipment was being delivered for the divisions; also, because from this time on, the trained age groups were beginning to come in. Therefore, in the late autumn of 1938, we were in a position to set up approximately 55 divisions—including reserve divisions—even though some of them may have been only poorly equipped. In 1939—as I said before, according to my recollection—there were between 73 and 75 divisions.

DR. KRAUS: Therefore, the number of divisions set up after March or April of 1938, after President Schacht left the Reichsbank, increased by 200 percent in 15 or 16 months, whereas it took more than 3 years to set up 27 divisions?

JODL: That is true, except that these 55 divisions, or rather these 75, were still very short of equipment in the same way as the small number in the spring of 1938, or in April 1938, which I mentioned. But the fact that from that time on armament went much faster was due—as I have said—to the very nature of things.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Witness, you testified yesterday that the Intelligence Service during Kaltenbrunner’s time was better organized than before. Please tell me, what position did Kaltenbrunner hold during your time in the OKW?

THE PRESIDENT: Just a moment. Dr. Kauffmann, you have asked a general question. We have had all of Kaltenbrunner’s positions given to us more than once. What is it you want to know?

DR. KAUFFMANN: Mr. President, Kaltenbrunner only testified quite generally to the fact that his intelligence service was connected with the military Intelligence Service. This witness can tell us what this connection of the military Intelligence Service with the other intelligence service amounted to, especially as regards its scope and its influence on policy as a whole.

THE PRESIDENT: I didn’t understand you to ask him anything about the Intelligence Service. You asked him a quite general question about what relations he had had with the OKW during the time that the defendant was connected with the OKW, in perfectly general terms. It might have involved an answer which would take about an hour.

DR. KAUFFMANN: May I restate the question which apparently did not come through properly?

Witness, you testified yesterday that in Kaltenbrunner’s time the whole Intelligence Service was better organized than before that time—that is, under Canaris. Now, I ask you what position did Kaltenbrunner have within the Intelligence Service?

THE PRESIDENT: What is the particular question that you want to ask? The Tribunal do not think that you ought to ask general questions of this nature. If you have got anything particular that you want to know about, you can ask it.

DR. KAUFFMANN: What did Kaltenbrunner do during the situation discussions which took place daily?

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kauffmann, it is scarcely possible to imagine any more general question than that with reference to Kaltenbrunner: What was his activity over a number of years?

DR. KAUFFMANN: Mr. President, I said, during the situation report, that is, the daily military conferences—how did Kaltenbrunner conduct himself? What did he do? What did he say? Did he report? What did his reports consist of? That, in my opinion, is a concrete question.

DR. KAUFFMANN: I am asking about the time after his appointment as Chief of the Reich Security Main Office, the time from 1943 on. That is the only time which is in question.

THE PRESIDENT: You can ask him with reference to particular conferences, certainly. Why not ask him with reference to particular conferences, if you know any?

JODL: As far as I recall, until the spring of 1945 when the headquarters were finally moved to the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Kaltenbrunner did not take part in any situation discussions. I cannot recall ever seeing him at a discussion in the Führer’s headquarters.

JODL: 1945. From the spring of 1945—that is, from the end of January, I frequently met Kaltenbrunner in the Reich Chancellery. Before that time he came to the Führer’s headquarters, from time to time, and talked to me there—especially about taking over the Canaris Intelligence Service—but he was not present at the situation conferences of the Führer.

JODL: Before he took over the Intelligence Service from Canaris—he took it over on 1 May 1944—before he took over the Intelligence Service, he sent me from time to time very good reports from the southeastern area, and these reports first called my attention to his experience in the Intelligence Service. He then took over the Intelligence Service, and although I was against it at first, after I had expressed my views to him I even supported him, for I had the impression that the man knew his business. After that, of course, I constantly received reports from Kaltenbrunner as I previously had received them from Canaris. Not only did I receive the daily reports from agents, but from time to time he sent what I should call a political survey on the basis of the individual agent’s reports. These comprehensive situation reports about the political situation everywhere abroad attracted my special attention because they summed up our whole military situation with a frankness, soberness, and seriousness which had not been at all noticeable in Canaris’ reports.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Witness, you also testified yesterday that after the daily military situation conference was ended, Hitler gathered around him his trusted confidants and his political men. I ask you now: Was Kaltenbrunner in this circle of confidants?

JODL: I never heard of Kaltenbrunner being in this private circle of the Führer, and I never saw him there. What I saw was a purely official attitude.

FLOTTENRICHTER OTTO KRANZBÜHLER (Counsel for Defendant Dönitz): Generaloberst, Grossadmiral Dönitz is accused of calling on the Navy to continue to fight in the spring of 1945. Did you yourself, as a responsible military adviser, advise the Führer at that time to capitulate?

JODL: I did not advise him to capitulate at that time. That was completely out of the question. No soldier would have done that. It would have been of no use.

FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: Not even after the failure of the Ardennes Offensive in February 1945?

JODL: Not even after the failure of the Ardennes Offensive. The Führer realized the situation, as a whole, as well as we did, and probably much sooner than we did. Therefore, we did not need to say anything to him in this connection.

JODL: In the winter of 1944 there were many reasons for not doing this, apart from the fact that the question of capitulation or discontinuing resistance concerns only the Supreme Commander. The reasons against it were, primarily, that we had no doubt there could be only unconditional surrender, for the other countries left us in no doubt on that score; and even if we had had any doubt as to what faced us, it was completely removed by the fact that we captured the English “Eclipse”—the gentlemen of the British Delegation will know what that is. It was exact instructions about what the occupying power was to do in Germany after the capitulation. Now, unconditional surrender meant that the troops would cease to fight where they stood on all the fronts, and be captured by the enemy facing them. The same thing would happen as happened in the winter of 1941 at Vyazma. Millions of prisoners would suddenly have to camp in the middle of winter in the open. Death would have taken an enormous toll.

Above all, the men still on the Eastern Front, who numbered about 3½ million, would have fallen into the hands of the enemy in the East. It was our endeavor to save as many people as possible by sending them into the western area. That could only be done by drawing the two fronts closer together. Those were the purely military opinions which we held in the last stages of the war. I believe that in years to come there will be more to say about this than I can say or wish to say today.

JODL: I believe I met him in 1932 when he was chief of the organizational department of the Army.

DR. NELTE: And from that time, except for the time you were in Vienna, you always worked with him?

JODL: There was a time when Field Marshal Keitel was not in the War Ministry but in the field. I believe that was in 1934-35. I then lost sight of him. Otherwise I was with him all the time.

DR. NELTE: Was your work with him only official, or did you have personal relations with him?

JODL: In the course of the years, as a result of all we went through together, these relations became very personal.

DR. NELTE: The Prosecution have characterized Field Marshal Keitel as one of the most powerful officers of the Wehrmacht. They charge him with using this position to influence Hitler. Other circles represented here called Keitel, weak, and accused him of not being able to achieve his purpose in his position.

I do not want to ask any questions which have previously been asked and answered; but there are questions which have been previously answered in various ways—as you have heard—and only a person like you can answer them, a person who worked with the Field Marshal for more than a decade. Therefore, please tell me briefly—making your sentences short—what the official relations were between Keitel and Hitler.

JODL: The official relations between the Führer and Field Marshal Keitel were exactly the same as between the Führer and me, but on a somewhat different level. They were purely official, especially in the beginning. They were interspersed, just as in the case of all other higher officers, by constant clashes between a revolutionary and a Prussian officer bound by tradition.

DR. NELTE: Then, these clashes, the result of differing opinions, were a daily occurrence?

JODL: They were a daily occurrence and in effect led to extremely unpleasant scenes, such scenes as made one ashamed, as a senior officer, to have to listen to such things in the presence of young adjutants. The entry in my diary proves that on 19 April 1940, for instance, Field Marshal Keitel threw his portfolio on the table and left the room. That is a fact.

THE PRESIDENT: No, Dr. Nelte. If you want him to confirm the evidence which the Defendant Keitel has given, why don’t you ask him whether he confirms it?

DR. NELTE: These are questions, Mr. President, which I have not submitted to Field Marshal Keitel. My line of questioning became necessary because between the questioning of the defendant...

THE PRESIDENT: The question you put to him was: What were his relations with the Führer? You could not have put it any wider than that, and you certainly covered that with the Defendant Keitel.

THE PRESIDENT: You have put the question to Keitel, and Keitel answered it at great length.

DR. NELTE: Mr. President, after Keitel was questioned, a witness appeared here who would discredit the statement of Field Marshal Keitel, if what he says is true. Therefore, in order to clarify, I must...

THE PRESIDENT: That is the very reason why I asked you whether you wanted this witness to confirm what the Defendant Keitel said, and—if you did—why you didn’t ask him whether he did confirm the evidence of Keitel.

DR. NELTE: Generaloberst, you have heard that we can simplify the question on this matter. I submit to you that which the witness Gisevius said here, in this room, about Field Marshal Keitel. It was, for the main part, in contradiction to what Field Marshal Keitel, and the other witnesses questioned about Keitel, had said. I point out that Gisevius did not speak from his own knowledge, but that he was given information from the OKW. If you want to consider that, please answer the question now: According to your knowledge of these things, is it true what Field Marshal Keitel said under oath—and which was confirmed by others, with the exception of Gisevius—or is it true what Gisevius said?

JODL: Only that is true which Field Marshal Keitel said. I experienced it on thousands of days. What the witness Gisevius said in this connection are general figures of speech. Apart from Hitler, there was no powerful man; there was and could be no influential man next to him.

DR. NELTE: The witness Gisevius mentioned an example to prove that Keitel prevented certain reports from being presented to Hitler. Since you had a part in this document, I should like to have this one document presented to you, and ask you to comment on it. It is Document 790-PS. This document is not an actual set of minutes, but a note for the files, as you see. It is about the White Book which was prepared on the alleged Belgian and Dutch violations of neutrality. And in this connection, the witness Gisevius said:

“I believe that I should cite two more examples which I consider especially significant. First of all, every means was tried to incite Keitel to warn Hitler before the invasion of Belgium and Holland, and to tell him—that is, Hitler—that the information which had been submitted by Keitel regarding the alleged violation of neutrality by the Dutch and Belgians was wrong. Counterintelligence”—that is Canaris—“was to produce these reports which would incriminate the Dutch and Belgians. Admiral Canaris, at that time, refused to sign these reports.... He told Keitel repeatedly that these reports, which were supposedly produced by the OKW, were wrong.

“That is one instance when Keitel did not transmit to Hitler that which he should have.”

Generaloberst, I ask you to confirm, after you have looked over this document, that these notes show that Field Marshal Keitel and you were expected to cover false reports, and that on the basis of the Canaris report—contained in Part A—the OKW refused to cover this White Book. Is that true?

JODL: I understand the question, and I should like to establish the facts here briefly, and tell how it really was as far as I can without being choked with disgust.

I was present when Canaris came to the Reich Chancellery with this report to Field Marshal Keitel, and submitted to him the draft of the White Book of the Foreign Office. Field Marshal Keitel then looked through this book and listened carefully to the essential remarks which Canaris made, at the wish of the Foreign Office, to the effect that the intelligence needed perhaps some improvement, that he was to confirm that military action against Holland and Belgium was absolutely necessary, and that, as it says here, a final really flagrant violation of neutrality was still lacking. Before Canaris had said another word, Field Marshal Keitel threw the book on the table, and said, “I will not stand for that. How could I assume responsibility for a political decision? In this White Book are, word for word, the reports which you yourself—Canaris—gave me.”

Whereupon Canaris said, “I am of exactly the same opinion. In my opinion, it is completely superfluous to have this document signed by the Wehrmacht, and the reports which we have here, as a whole, are quite sufficient to substantiate the breaches of neutrality which have taken place in Holland and in Belgium.” And he advised Field Marshal Keitel against signing it.

That is what took place. The Field Marshal took the book with him, and I do not know what happened after that. But one thing is certain, that the imaginary reports of this Herr Gisevius turn everything upside down. All these reports about the violations of neutrality came from these people who now assert that we had signed them falsely. This is one of the most despicable incidents of world history.

DR. NELTE: Generaloberst, Admiral Canaris played a part in this case. Gisevius said, “It was not possible for Admiral Canaris to submit an urgent report to Hitler on his own initiative.” He asserts that Canaris gave reports to Field Marshal Keitel who did not submit them. I ask you, is that true?

JODL: Of course, I did not follow up every document that came to Field Marshal Keitel; but Field Marshal Keitel submitted everything which was considered necessary for the Führer to know about. I have already said that if Canaris had not been satisfied in this connection, he could have gone to the Führer directly. He had only to go into the next office and inform the Führer’s chief adjutant, or he had only to tell me.

THE PRESIDENT: If you don’t know, why don’t you say so? If you don’t know whether he gave it to the Führer or not, say so.

DR. NELTE: I only asked whether the testimony is true, that Admiral Canaris could not go to Hitler. I wanted you to answer that question.

THE PRESIDENT: Now, will you tell me what page in the shorthand notes this evidence is of Gisevius?

DR. NELTE: The evidence about Keitel is in the transcript of the session of 26 April 1946 (Volume XII, Pages 265 to 271).

DR. NELTE: I now want to show you two affidavits which you signed together with Field Marshal Keitel, which have also been submitted to the Tribunal. These are the Affidavit Number Keitel-9, High Command of the Wehrmacht and General Staff, and the Affidavit Number Keitel-13, Development of the Conditions in France, 1940 to 1945, and the military competencies.

DR. NELTE: I will not read these affidavits or parts of them. On the subject of rearmament—that is, regarding General Thomas, who was also given here as a source of information—I should like to ask you a few questions.

You know that the Prosecution submitted a voluminous book here, Document 2353-PS, which is a description of the rearmament, written by General Thomas. As General Thomas was also given by the witness Gisevius here as a source of information, I must question you about Thomas. In his affidavit, which is attached to Document 2353-PS, he said that on 1 February 1943 he was released from the OKW. Do you know whether that is true or not?

JODL: As far as I can recall, he was assigned to the group of officers for special employment by the High Command of the Wehrmacht. He was therefore at the disposal of Field Marshal Keitel.

DR. NELTE: Did he not have a special assignment when he was made available for special employment?

DR. NELTE: I only wanted to ascertain that also after 1 February 1943, General Thomas was still given assignments by the OKW, especially that of writing this book which has been submitted here, is that true?

JODL: That is true, that he was engaged in writing what might be called the “History of Rearmament.”

JODL: I know of that from the time when the two men worked together—that was only before the war and at the very beginning of the war, and the relations were good.

JODL: I have no exact recollection of any reports about our own rearmament. I can only recall reports about the war potential of our enemies. I remember those.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Nelte, are you going to be much longer, because it is 10 minutes past 5, and if you are not going to conclude tonight we had better adjourn.

[The Tribunal adjourned until 6 June 1946 at 1000 hours.]

Morning Session

DR. NELTE: General, yesterday in answer to my last question about General Thomas you said that he regularly made reports on the war potential of enemy powers to you and Field Marshal Keitel. Were these important reports always submitted to Hitler?

JODL: These reports, with detailed graphic descriptions, sketches, and drawings, were regularly submitted to the Führer and often occasioned violent disputes, because the Führer considered this representation of the enemy potential as greatly exaggerated.

DR. NELTE: Did you and Field Marshal Keitel hold the point of view that the representations of General Thomas were well-founded?

JODL: Field Marshal Keitel and I were both of the opinion that, after a very careful study of enemy achievements in armament production, these statements of Thomas were doubtless on the whole completely accurate.

DR. NELTE: You heard the witness Gisevius say that Thomas was supposed to have been an opponent of Hitler’s war leadership. In the course of years and in the reports made, did you ever realize this fact?

JODL: I did not observe this. The only thing that I observed was that he objected to this exaggerated optimism in which the Führer habitually indulged, and that perhaps in his basic attitude he was of a pessimistic rather than an optimistic nature.

DR. NELTE: Was General Thomas dismissed from his position as head of the Economic Armament Office of the OKW through Keitel’s efforts?

JODL: No, at the time he retired from active service General Thomas was under Minister Speer, but Minister Speer no longer cared to work with him and requested the Führer that he be dismissed from the armament office which Minister Speer had taken over. And that was done by the Field Marshal on the order of the Führer.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Nelte, how is the evidence about General Thomas relevant to the case of Keitel—how is the question of whether General Thomas was acting against the supposed interests of Germany or not relevant to the cases of either Keitel or Jodl? The evidence of Gisevius was relevant to the case of the Defendant Schacht. It seems to me—and I think, to the Tribunal—to be entirely irrelevant to the case of either the defendant whom you represent or the case of the Defendant Jodl. What does it matter to us whether General Thomas was acting in order to try and overthrow Hitler or not?

DR. NELTE: The question which concerns the Defendant Keitel is whether Field Marshal Keitel submitted and supported the reports handed in by Thomas. The witness Gisevius said here, referring to Thomas as a source of information, that these reports of Thomas were kept from Hitler. Therefore this evidence...

THE PRESIDENT: We went into that yesterday and now the Defendant Jodl has said that the reports of Thomas were submitted to the Führer. But what I was pointing out to you was that the question whether Thomas was making his reports honestly or not is a matter which is entirely irrelevant.

DR. NELTE: Not as to the credibility of Gisevius’ sources of information, in my opinion; but I will withdraw this question. However, in this connection I must ask one more question with regard to the other source of information, Canaris.

[Turning to the defendant.] Canaris was a regular and frequent guest in the Führer’s headquarters and a guest of yours. What were the relations of Field Marshal Keitel to his oldest office chief?

JODL: The relations between Field Marshal Keitel and Canaris from the first day to the last were remarkably friendly, and unfortunately one of too much blind confidence.

JODL: I know that even after the 20th of July Field Marshal Keitel did not believe the charges against Canaris and that after the arrest of Canaris he supported his family with money.

JODL: I mentioned that once before. Canaris always tried to maintain especially good relations with Himmler and Heydrich so that they would not distrust him.

DR. NELTE: What can you say about the attitude of Field Marshal Keitel to Hitler’s plan in October 1939, the plan to attack in the West?

JODL: I know that Field Marshal Keitel was apparently strongly impressed by the attitude of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and the General Staff of the Army and also raised a warning voice against this attack in the West. I know it, although I did not experience it personally; but Schmundt told me about it later—I know that during this time he also had a controversy with the Führer which led to the first request to resign. This is what I can report according to what Schmundt told me; I did not witness it myself, nor did Field Marshal Keitel tell me about it personally then.

DR. NELTE: In Document 447-PS, which the Prosecution submitted—these are the guiding principles for special tasks issued with Directive Number 21—under I, 2b, is the now famous paragraph according to which, in the operational area of the Army, the Reichsführer SS is given special tasks on behalf of the Führer in connection with the preparation of a political administration, resulting from the inevitable conflict between two opposing political systems. So much for the brief citation. I will not hand the document to you since you are certainly well acquainted with it, and to make the matter brief I will only ask you to tell the Court how Field Marshal Keitel reacted to the issuing of this order.

JODL: The claim of the Führer to infringe upon the sovereignty of the Army in its operational area with Himmler and the Police led to days of bitter disputes with the Führer. The same disputes had already taken place when Terboven was appointed in Norway. One need only read my entries in my diary, 1780-PS. Of course I know today why the Führer insisted on this point of view under all circumstances and why he forced the Police, under Himmler, into the operational area. It was against all our rules. It was against all previous agreements with the Police and with Himmler, but in the end the Führer put this measure through in spite of resistance all along the line.

DR. NELTE: The Prosecution asserted here that in 1940 Field Marshal Keitel gave the order to kill General Weygand, at that time Chief of the General Staff of the French Army. This statement is based essentially on testimony of the witness General Lahousen. I have a few brief questions to put to you on this matter. Was Field Marshal Keitel competent to order the killing of a general?

DR. NELTE: I ask this because Lahousen’s testimony made it appear as if this order had been given by Field Marshal Keitel to Admiral Canaris. If we assume that such an order was issued by Hitler, this would have been a politically highly important act considering the importance of Weygand.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Nelte, this is all argument, and you are putting your questions in an entirely leading form. The real objection to it is that it is argumentative. Go on.

DR. NELTE: If such an order had been given, could it have remained unknown to you?

JODL: I cannot imagine that Field Marshal Keitel, charged with the ordering of the murder, would not have spoken about it to me.

JODL: I never heard a single word about the Weygand case. I heard only one thing when Himmler reported to the Führer in my presence: “I have given Weygand a very nice villa in Baden. He is completely provided for there in such a way that he can be satisfied.” That is the only thing I ever heard in which the name of Weygand figured.

DR. NELTE: The witness Lahousen was also heard in the case of General Giraud. Did you also know anything of this case of Giraud which attracted much attention?

JODL: I heard a little more about the Giraud case. Shortly after the successful flight of Giraud, Field Marshal Keitel told me once in a conversation that he was having Giraud watched by Canaris so that he would not, as the Führer always feared, go to North Africa and there direct the formation of the Colonial Army against us or, so that he could be arrested in the event that he should rejoin his family in the territory actually occupied. That is what he told me. Several months later he said to me again, “I have now withdrawn this assignment to Canaris because the Führer has given it to Himmler. If two agencies are concerned with it there will only be difficulties and differences.” The third time I heard about the Giraud case was when Field Marshal Keitel told me that a deputy of Giraud—I believe it was about the end of 1943 or in the spring of 1944—approached the counterintelligence service and said that Giraud, who could not agree with De Gaulle in North Africa, asked whether he might not return to France. I told Field Marshal Keitel then that we absolutely must agree to that immediately because that was extremely favorable for us politically. That is the only thing I ever heard about the Giraud case. Nothing else.

DR. NELTE: The day before yesterday you spoke about the talks in the Führer’s train in September 1939, at which General Lahousen was also present. In this connection you said, “I have no objections to Lahousen’s statement.” But to avoid misunderstandings, I should like you to say whether you mean by that that all the testimony of Lahousen, which also referred to Giraud and Weygand, is credible and correct, or only the part regarding your presence in the Führer’s train?

JODL: Of course, I meant only those statements of Lahousen which he made about me. As for the other statements which were made here, I have my own opinion, but perhaps that is not appropriate here.

DR. NELTE: Yesterday, in answer to a question by Dr. Stahmer, you spoke about the dispute on the occasion of the 80 RAF officers who escaped. In order to clarify this question, which weighs heavily against Field Marshal Keitel, I should like to know the following: Did you hear that Keitel objected violently because the recaptured RAF officers were turned over to Himmler, that is, to the Gestapo?

JODL: When I stood at the curtain for those 1 or 2 minutes, I heard the Führer say first of all: