[A recess was taken.]

JODL: Yes. You have only inserted the word “again.” That is not in my diary. This entry I made personally, because Keitel told me that during lunch Reichenau and Sperrle had carried on warlike conversations, that they had talked about the new rearmament of Germany.

MR. ROBERTS: Very good. Now, in March—I think this is common ground—you signed or initialed one or two orders for the “Operation Otto.”

JODL: Yes; but at that time it was not called Otto but “For the March into Austria.”

MR. ROBERTS: Hitler, when he heard that Schuschnigg was going to obtain the opinion of the people by plebiscite, decided to invade at once, did he not?

JODL: Yes, I was told, when he heard that there was to be a grotesque violation of public opinion through the trick of a plebiscite, he said that he would certainly not tolerate this under any circumstances. This is what I was told.

JODL: No; he would not tolerate public opinion being abused through this trick. That is how it was told to me.

MR. ROBERTS: So the Armed Forces of Germany then marched into Austria? That is right?

MR. ROBERTS: And Austria, from that day, received all the benefits of National Socialism, is that right?

JODL: That is a political question. At any rate it could perhaps have become the happiest country on earth.

MR. ROBERTS: I wasn’t asking what it could have become, but what it received. It received the SS, the Gestapo, the concentration camps, the suppression of opponents, and the persecution of Jews, didn’t it?

JODL: Those are questions with which I did not concern myself. Those questions you have to put to the competent authorities. In addition it received me as artillery commander; and they loved me; I only want to confirm that.

JODL: The people who were under my jurisdiction were very happy about this officer; I can say that.

JODL: No, they did not have to be. At any rate, after I had been away for a long time, they certainly did not have to write enthusiastic letters to me, letters which I received throughout the war from these Austrians to whom my heart belonged.

JODL: I never saw Schuschnigg. He doesn’t know me and I do not know him. I don’t know...

MR. ROBERTS: I quite realize that. I can’t imagine my question is not admissible, but if you don’t want me to put it—it is one of a series of questions—I won’t.

JODL: I was told that the Führer had decided: “I do not want a martyr, under any circumstances, but I cannot liberate him; I must put him in honorary custody.” That was the impression I had during the entire war.

JODL: That I do not know. Those are not questions that you can put to me, for I was a soldier and not the commandant of a concentration camp.

MR. ROBERTS: That is an honor that one would be glad to dispense with, isn’t it?

DR. EXNER: Please, I must protest against questions like that, purely political and based purely on legal questions and on matters which the defendant cannot at all answer through his own knowledge. It is not a fact whether Schuschnigg was happy.

MR. ROBERTS: My Lord, in my respectful submission, these questions are perfectly proper; they are questions the like of which have been put by every counsel who has cross-examined both for the Prosecution and the Defense.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Roberts, the Tribunal thinks that the cross-examination is proper.

[Turning to the defendant.] The only question I ask in conclusion is that Schuschnigg was kept in prison or kept in confinement for several years without any charge and any trial. That is right, isn’t it?

MR. ROBERTS: You knew, did you not, when you signed those orders for the march into Austria, that Germany had given an assurance in May 1935 to respect the territorial integrity of the state of Austria and that on the 11th of July 1936 there had been entered into by your Government and the Austrian Government an agreement by Germany to recognize the full sovereignty of the Federal State of Austria? Did you know of these things?

JODL: At that moment I did not know that; in my position as a colonel in the General Staff that did not concern me in the least. What would that have led to?

MR. ROBERTS: I am passing from Austria with this one last question: Is there an entry in your diary—it is a passage in L-172, the basis for the draft of your speech—that after the Anschluss Czechoslovakia was enclosed by pincers and was bound to fall a victim? My Lord, that is Page 290 of Book 7. Do you remember that passage?

JODL: In the first draft which I made for my Gauleiter speech it was put down exactly what strategic improvements had taken place through the various actions of the Führer, in retrospect, but only these strategic results....

MR. ROBERTS: Well, but—again I do not want to stop you, but did you say that—something to this effect—and I will give you the document if you like—that Czechoslovakia was enclosed by pincers and was bound to fall a victim?

JODL: In the first draft I set down that through the taking over—through the Anschluss of Austria—the strategic situation of Czechoslovakia had become so hopeless that at any time it must fall a victim to a pincers attack; a strategic retrospect about facts, indisputable facts.

MR. ROBERTS: I accept that, Witness. Now I go very shortly to the case of Czechoslovakia. I only want to deal really with a couple of documents. I want to deal with item 17, which the Tribunal will find on Page 29 of Book 7. And it is marked—if you’ll hand it up—and I have flagged that for you, Witness, item 17.

MR. ROBERTS: And I do not propose to read it again, because it was read very recently; but you agree, do you not, you said yesterday, the problem was this: First of all, you must have a surprise attack; if you were going to attack at all, you must have a surprise attack.

MR. ROBERTS: You must have a surprise attack first, and your troops would take 4 days to get into their battle position.

MR. ROBERTS: And therefore you must know the time, the incident which is going to be the cause of the attack; you must know the time when the incident is going to take place.

JODL: Yes, I said that one would either have to predetermine the time or one must know it in advance; otherwise the demands could not be carried out.

JODL: I testified to that at length yesterday. Either one of the many had to be exploited or perhaps one would have to help the situation along a bit; but, as I said, those are General Staff considerations which, when we capture them from the French, you consider entirely irrelevant.

MR. ROBERTS: It is set down at the end of the document on Page 30 that either the Wehrmacht or the counterintelligence section would be charged with the manufacture of the incident in the last paragraph.

JODL: Yes, I therefore wrote: “In case the counterintelligence service is not charged with the organization of an incident aside from that”—“in case.” These are all theoretical deliberations of the General Staff in a situation, which I depicted quite accurately yesterday, where such incidents already occurred every day.

MR. ROBERTS: I know. Then, if this had taken place, the world would have been told that because of that incident Germany had been compelled to go to war?

JODL: I do not believe that this would have been reported to the world. Rather, I believe the true reason would have been told the world, which, furthermore, was made known constantly through the press, that 3½ million Germans cannot be used as slaves by another people permanently. That was the issue.

MR. ROBERTS: If the world is going to be told the truth, what is the earthly good of manufacturing an incident?

JODL: I testified as to that yesterday—I can only repeat what I said yesterday at length: I knew the history of war too well not to know that in every war things like that happen—the question as to who fired the first shot. And Czechoslovakia at that time had already fired thousands of shots which had fallen on this territory.

MR. ROBERTS: Now, I say, Witness, subject to correction, that you are not answering the question at all. The question was a very short one and you make a long speech about something quite different. The question is, if the truth was sufficient to justify your going to war, why should you want to manufacture an incident? If you can’t answer it, say so.

JODL: Well, it isn’t at all confirmed that I wanted to bring about an incident. I wrote, “in case ... not.” We never prepared one and that is surely the essential thing.

MR. ROBERTS: I won’t argue any further with you. I have put my point and will leave it. But now I want, on quite another point, to refer to the last paragraph on Page 29, the same document:

“Even a warning of the diplomatic representatives in Prague is impossible before the first air attack, although the consequence could be very grave in the event of their becoming victims of such an attack.”

“...death of representatives of friendly or confirmed neutral powers.”

That means an air raid before there has been any declaration of war or any warning to the civilian population, doesn’t it?

JODL: That meant that I called the attention of the Führer, through this document, to the fact that on the basis of his decree that result could or would come about.

JODL: It cannot be said under what conditions such an action would be launched. These are all theoretical tasks for our General Staff. How and if that was translated into practice, that no one can say, whether with justice or injustice; that depended on the political decision.

MR. ROBERTS: I will show you later how those thoughts were carried into practice in the case of other countries. So we will leave that document altogether now and I will leave the case of Czechoslovakia. Now you were recalled to the OKW on the 23d of August 1939, from your artillery employment. We know that, don’t we?

MR. ROBERTS: That was a great compliment to the opinion that the Führer had of you, wasn’t it?

JODL: The Führer was not responsible for my being called back. I do not know whether he knew about it at all. I do not believe so.

MR. ROBERTS: Very good. On a very small point, Witness, you told the Court yesterday or the day before that you never had a conference with the Führer, I think, until September 1939; but your diary, on the 10th of August 1938—it is Page 136 of Book 7—your diary said you attended a conference at the Berghof with the Army chiefs and the Air Force groups. Didn’t you meet the Führer then?

JODL: That which you asserted in your first sentence, I did not say. What I said was, word for word:

“On 3 September I was introduced to the Führer by Field Marshal Keitel, and on this occasion, at any rate, I spoke with him for the first time.”

That is what I testified to, word for word, yesterday. I had seen the Führer a dozen times before then and I had heard him when he delivered his big speeches, after he was Reich Chancellor and Supreme Commander.

MR. ROBERTS: Yes, I accept that. It is quite likely that I was wrong. Now, with regard to the Polish campaign, did I hear you right when you said that Warsaw was only bombed after leaflets had been dropped?

JODL: That applies to the period of the siege of Warsaw. The terror attack, I might say, which was to hit the entire city through artillery bombardment, that took place after two previous warnings.

MR. ROBERTS: It is a matter of history, is it not, that Warsaw was bombed, with many other Polish towns, in the early hours of the 1st of September 1939 before any declaration of war? Isn’t that a matter of history?

JODL: As far as this historical fact is concerned, Field Marshal Kesselring, who is very well informed about this, testified to that here in detail. He said—and also Reich Marshal Göring—that on this date the militarily important objectives throughout Poland were attacked but not the population of Warsaw.

MR. ROBERTS: Very good. You are quite right, now Kesselring—If the Tribunal wants the reference, he gave evidence as to the bombing of Warsaw, the English transcript, Page 5731 (Volume IX, Page 175).

[Turning to the defendant.] Now, I suppose the result of the Polish campaign was naturally a source of satisfaction to all of you?

JODL: The military development of the Polish campaign, from the military point of view, was extremely satisfactory to us. Of course things happen in life that would give more satisfaction than a military action.

MR. ROBERTS: Well, now, I want you to look at a letter. This is—My Lord, this is a new exhibit, D-885, and it is GB-484.

MR. ROBERTS: Very good. Now, it is written to Police President Dr. Karl Schwabe, Brünn, Moravia, Police Presidency, dated October 28, 1939:

“My dear Police President: For your enthusiastic letter of 22 September, I thank you heartily. I was quite particularly pleased about it. This wonderful campaign in Poland was a grand opening for this hard and decisive struggle and has brought about for us an unusually favorable point of departure politically as well as militarily. The difficult part for the people as well as the Armed Forces is still ahead.”—I propose to read it without comments and comment afterward.

“But the Führer and his associates are full of the greatest confidence; for the sanctimonious British will not succeed in throttling our economy, and militarily we are without worry. Decisive is the will of the people to stick it out, and this the many strong-willed and devoted men who are today at the head of the districts and in other responsible posts will take care of. This time we will show that we have better nerves and greater unity. That you, Police President, will contribute your weighty share to keeping the Czechs at it and not let them perk up, of this I am convinced.”

“Thanking you heartily once more for your words of appreciation which exceed my modest contribution in the shadow of the powerful personality of our Führer. I am with a Heil Hitler.”

Why did you call the British sanctimonious? Because they keep treaties and don’t have concentration camps and don’t persecute Jews? Is that why you thought we were sanctimonious, because we don’t break treaties?

JODL: No, that was not the reason. The reason was that the political situation generally was represented that way, and that I was actually of that opinion at the time.

“Decisive is the will of the people to stick it out, and this the many strong-willed and devoted men who are at the head of the districts and in other responsible posts will take care of.”

MR. ROBERTS: Well, but I mean we have one or two Gauleiter here, Gauleiter Sauckel, for instance; in a large area like Thuringia, he couldn’t do much by himself, could he? He would have to have some SS or Gestapo, wouldn’t he?

JODL: We are not at all concerned with that here. The fact is that these Gauleiter actually directed the organization of the State and the administration in this war in a noteworthy way. Despite the catastrophe the people were much better taken care of than in the years 1914-18. That is uncontested and it is to the credit of these people.

JODL: Even in the most terrible conditions at the end every man in Berlin received his normal rations. It was a model of organization, I can only say that.

MR. ROBERTS: And a model of organization because no opposition to the government or the Party was allowed, was it?

JODL: Certainly, it made it easier on one hand, and on the other hand, led to terrible catastrophes about which, of course, I only heard here for the first time.

MR. ROBERTS: Very good. Well, the letter speaks for itself, and I will go along. May I just ask you about this last sentence:

“That you, Police President, will contribute your weighty share to keeping the Czechs at it and to not let them perk up...”

JODL: Since he was Police President in Brünn, it was his task to see that quiet and order were maintained in Brünn and not to tolerate a Czech uprising at our backs while we were at war. That is a matter of course. I did not say that he was to murder or germanize the Czechs at all, but he had to keep them in order.

MR. ROBERTS: Very good. I pass from that now and I want to go to the various campaigns in the West. Now, with regard to Norway, of course you knew that your country had given its solemn word repeatedly to respect the integrity of Norway and Denmark, did you not?

MR. ROBERTS: Very good; and we know there was an assurance at the beginning of the war to reassure all these western neutrals, and there was another assurance on the 6th of October; and you say that in November Hitler decided to invade Denmark and Norway?

MR. ROBERTS: I know you did. Please don’t always say that. I have got to ask you to go over the same ground from the other angle, you see. “Norway,” as your speech said—and I am quoting from Page 291 of Book 7—perhaps you had better give it to him—Page 11 of your notes...

“In the meantime we were confronted by a new and urgent problem: The occupation of Norway and Denmark....

“In the first place there was danger that England would seize Scandinavia and thereby, besides effecting a strategic encirclement from the north, would stop the import of iron and nickel which was of such importance to us for war purposes. Secondly, it was with the realization of our own maritime necessities”—“Notwendigkeiten”—that is the word, isn’t it—“Notwendigkeiten”...

My Lord, that ought to be “necessary” and not “imperative”—“erforderten.”

“...which made it necessary for us to secure free access to the Atlantic by a number of air and naval bases.”

[Turning to the defendant.] You wanted air bases and U-boat bases, didn’t you?

JODL: Militarily they were tremendously important to us, there is no doubt about that; but the prerequisites to taking them, those were the reports which we had, the threat to Norway.

MR. ROBERTS: What I suggest to you, you see, is this: In this, like the case of the other three Low Countries—in this case, you simply made an excuse. You thought England might do something, although she had not done it for months, and you breached Norway’s neutrality at your own chosen time. Is that right?

JODL: In order to answer that question “yes” or “no,” one would have to undertake a very thorough study of all the historical documents on both our own and the other side. Then one can say if it is correct or not. Before that has been decided, only a subjective opinion exists. I have mine, and you have another.

MR. ROBERTS: Yes. And I point out to you that it was Germany on every occasion who violated the neutrality. The other countries, the Allies, did not.

JODL: In the case of Norway, the English did that first in the case of the Altmark by laying mines and by firing upon German ships in Norwegian territorial waters. That has been proved indisputably. There is no doubt about that.

MR. ROBERTS: The Altmark, as you very well know, Witness, was not an occupation at all; it was merely the act of the British Navy in taking British prisoners from a German prison ship, and I imagine your Navy would have done the same if they had had the chance. What is the good of talking about the Altmark? It was not an occupation at all.

JODL: But it was a violation of international law as far as Norwegian sovereignty was concerned. You could only request that Norway do that, but you yourselves could not carry out a combative action in Norwegian waters. I know the regulations in this connection exactly.

MR. ROBERTS: Why should you break your word to Norway and cause untold suffering and misery to the inhabitants of that country because the British went into the territorial waters and took out a few hundred prisoners? What is the logic of it? Why should the Norwegians suffer for it?

JODL: You are just quoting one small example from the tremendously real picture of England’s occupation, but there are hundreds of them.

JODL: I can only say that we were under the definite subjective impression that we carried through an enterprise, in the last second, for which British troops were already embarked. If you can prove to me that is not true, I shall be extremely grateful to you.

MR. ROBERTS: Well, now I am going to call your attention to the only outside evidence that you have produced about that, because it was read rather hurriedly—quite rightly, yesterday.

[Turning to the Tribunal.] My Lord, it is in Jodl’s Document Book 2, and it is Page 174. Well, My Lord, it begins at Page 174. My Lord, that is on the left-hand top corner. Page 174 says that Albrecht Soltmann was an expert specialist, that he evaluated files from the British landing brigade, and that he examined diaries. That is on the second page, and the bottom of Page 175:

“The documents and statements by prisoners showed that a short time before our landing in Norway the British invasion troops had been embarked on destroyers. On the following day they were again disembarked and remained in the vicinity of the port of embarkation. They were then reembarked after the German invasion of Norway for the second time and transported to Norway. What intention the English pursued in the embarkation of their troops before our landings could not be determined from the documents and from the statements of prisoners. Whether they intended to occupy Norway before our invasion could at that time only be conjectured, because the prisoners did not make any exact statements in this respect. The conjectures are based on the special equipment of these British troops. Insofar as I could evaluate the documents and statements furnished by prisoners they did not contain proof of the English plans with regard to Norway.”

“Have not the results of all documents and statements furnished by prisoners been to the effect that in the invasion of Norway we arrived only just ahead of the English?

“Answer: ‘Yes, the information in the documents and the statements furnished by prisoners could be interpreted to mean that in our invasion we were just ahead of the English. However, whether this was considered unmistakable evidence I cannot judge.’ ”

And then they deal with French documents captured in a railway train. The witness does not know anything about them.

[Turning to the defendant.] That is pretty poor evidence, isn’t it, on which Norway was to be invaded, contrary to all the treaties and all the assurances?

JODL: I quite agree with you on that; you are quite correct. But that is only because Soltmann was unfortunately not the expert in this field. He was not even an officer of the General Staff. I had forgotten that. We had further and quite different evidence which lay before me on my desk; namely, all the commands carried by the English landing brigade. They confirmed our assumptions absolutely and definitely.

MR. ROBERTS: You have told the Court yesterday what a stickler you were about international law, how keen you were to see that international law was observed. You knew that was against international law, didn’t you?

JODL: These matters were not in our regulations, but only the provisions which applied to the Wehrmacht. The concept of an aggressive war was not found in any regulation. We went only by the Geneva Convention and the Hague Land Warfare Regulations.

MR. ROBERTS: I mean if an honorable German gives his word he keeps it, does he not? He does not break his word without saying that he is going to depart from it, does he, an honorable German?

JODL: That seems to be a practice which is generally observed all over the world when human beings work together, but not in the sphere of politics.

MR. ROBERTS: If that is your code of honor, why is it not grossly dishonorable for Germany to break her word over and over and ever again? Or would you rather not answer that question?

JODL: No, you would do better to put that question to the people who were responsible for German politics.

MR. ROBERTS: Very well, I will leave that. Now I want to come to the invasion of Holland, Belgium, and the Netherlands. I beg your pardon, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.

You have no doubt at all, have you, on the documents that in the event of war in the West, it was always Hitler’s intention to violate the neutrality of those three small countries?

JODL: From the beginning, in his orders for the attacks in the West, he had the intention to go through Belgium; but he had reservations with regard to Holland for a long time, which were only rescinded later—I believe in the middle of November. Regarding Holland his intentions were not specific. Regarding Belgium his intentions in that direction were known comparatively early, that is, about the middle or the early part of October.

MR. ROBERTS: You could not, of course—I mean Germany naturally wanted to wage an offensive war and an offensive war in somebody else’s country. That is the ambition, naturally, isn’t it?

MR. ROBERTS: Yes. You couldn’t attack in the West unless you attacked through Belgium, could you?

JODL: In any event, any other attack was tremendously difficult and was highly doubtful. I have already said that.

MR. ROBERTS: Yes. That is why, of course, France built the Maginot Line, so that you couldn’t attack her frontally.

Well, now, if you secured the coast of Belgium and Holland, you secured air bases from which you could annihilate England or Great Britain. That is what you hoped, wasn’t it?

JODL: No doubt the strategic position of Germany in the battle against England improved through our having the coast; that is true.

MR. ROBERTS: Yes. May I just remind you of a few documents which the Tribunal know already. I do not intend to read them, but the first document in order of date is 375-PS, USA-84, dated 25 August 1938. It is during the Fall Grün time. That was the Air Force appreciation which, in the last paragraph of the document, Page 11, I think, it says:

“Belgium and the Netherlands in German hands would represent an extraordinary advantage in the air war against Great Britain....”

JODL: Yes, but this document, I believe, has already been characterized as a ridiculous piece of paper, being the work of an insignificant captain.

MR. ROBERTS: He seems to have been a very good judge, at any rate, judging what happened afterwards.

Well now, the next document—I know you were in Austria, but no doubt you heard about it from Keitel—was the Chancellery meeting the 23d of May 1939. That is L-79, it is Book Number 7, Page 275. Do you remember there that the Führer said:

“The Dutch and Belgian air bases must be militarily occupied. Declarations of neutrality must be ignored....

“In this matter, considerations of right and wrong or treaties have no significance....

“The Army will have to take positions essential to the Navy and the Air Force. If Belgium and the Netherlands are successfully occupied and held, if France is also defeated, then fundamental conditions for a successful war against England will have been secured....

“Daily attacks by the German Air Force and Navy will cut her life lines.”

There wasn’t any doubt as to the policy of the Führer in May 1939, was there?

JODL: It was in Court here that I first heard about this conference and about the things which were purportedly discussed at that time; and I am not able to judge whether it is correct, for I did not hear it, not even from Keitel, not even later.

MR. ROBERTS: Very good. Did you hear about the speech made by the Führer on the 22d of August 1939?

[Turning to the Tribunal.] I do not know if the Court has got this. It is not in the Document Book; 798-PS, in Document Book Number 4. There are some loose copies, My Lord.

“Those countries”—Holland, Belgium—“and Scandinavia will defend their neutrality by all available means. England and France will not violate their neutrality.”

You always thought Hitler was a good prophet, didn’t you? You thought Hitler was a good judge.

MR. ROBERTS: And he was a good judge that England and France would keep their word, whereas Germany would break hers.

MR. ROBERTS: Very good. Now, I want to come to the document which you put in yesterday.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, wait a minute. Defendant, what do you mean by saying you don’t know that? Do you mean that you did not know the document? You said, “I don’t know that.”

JODL: I do not know what the Führer actually said in his conference on the 22d of August. I did not even know that a discussion had taken place, for I was in Vienna. I only know what is ostensibly in documents which have been submitted here.

MR. ROBERTS: Now I want to put the whole Document L-52. Dr. Exner, quite properly of course, read some extracts; but I want to read some more. Have you got copies for the Tribunal?

Now, L-52 was Hitler’s memorandum on the 9th of October 1939. May I point out that the 9th of October 1939 was 3 days after his renewed assurances to the western neutrals.

[Turning to the Tribunal.] My Lord, what I am now reading from, starting with the outside page, is the 5th page. It is Page 27 of the original, which appears in the bottom right-hand corner.

[Turning to the defendant.] I read the paragraph on Page 25 of your original, Witness.

“Germany’s military means of waging a lengthy war are, as far as our main enemy is concerned, the Air Force and the U-boat arm.

“The U-boat can even today, if ruthlessly employed, become an extraordinary threat to England. The weaknesses of German U-boat warfare lie in the great distance of approach to the scene of their activity, in the extraordinary danger attached to these approaches, and in the continual threat to their home bases. That England has not, for the moment, laid the great mine fields as in World War I, between Norway and the Shetland Islands, is possibly connected—provided the will to wage war exists at all—with a shortage of necessary blockade materials. But if the War lasts long an increasing difficulty to our U-boats must be reckoned with in the use of these only remaining inward and outward routes. Every creation of U-boat bases outside these constricted home bases would lead to an enormous increase in the striking power of this arm.”

Is that a covert reference to the Norwegian bases, do you think, giving access to the Atlantic?

JODL: I do not believe so. I believe it is a general correct naval strategic consideration and can apply just as well to a base at Murmansk which, for instance, we already had at that time, or in Spain, or in some other state that was neutral at the time; but it is not a reference to Norway, for I have declared under oath that at the time, the Führer never gave a thought to Norway, not the slightest thought, before he received the report from Quisling.

“The German Air Force: It can only succeed in effective operations against the industrial center of England and her south and southwest ports, which are gaining in importance during the war, when it is no longer compelled to operate offensively from our present small North Sea coast by tremendously devious routes involving long flights. If the Dutch-Belgian area were to fall into the hands of the English and French, then the enemy air forces, in order to strike at the industrial heart of Germany, would need to cover barely a sixth of the distance required by the German bomber to reach really important targets. If we were in possession of Holland, Belgium, or even the Straits of Dover as jumping-off bases for German air attacks, then, without a doubt, Great Britain could be struck a mortal blow, even if the strongest reprisals were attempted.

“Such a shortening of the air approaches would be all the more important to Germany because of our greater difficulties in fuel supply. Every 1000 kilograms of fuel saved is not only an asset to our national economy, but means that 1000 kilograms more of explosive can be carried in the aircraft; that is, 1000 kilograms of fuel would become 1000 kilograms of bombs. This also leads to economy in aircraft, in mechanical wear and tear, and above all, in the precious blood of soldiers.”

My Lord, it is two pages on, and Your Lordship will see “41” nearly at the top of the page, with an asterisk, and the heading, “The German Attack.” Has Your Lordship got it?

MR. ROBERTS: “The German Attack. The German attack is to be launched with the fundamental object of destroying the French Army, but in any case it must create a favorable initial situation which is a prerequisite for a successful continuation of the war. Under these circumstances the only possible area of attack is the sector between Luxembourg in the south and Nijmegen in the north, excluding the fortress of Liège. The object ... is to attempt to penetrate the area Luxembourg-Belgium, and Holland in the shortest possible time and to engage and defeat the opposing Belgian-French-English forces.”

I suppose I can’t ask you to say what is your opinion of the honesty of giving those western neutrals a guarantee on the 6th of October and saying that is the only possible means of attack in that memorandum of the 9th. I suppose that is a question of politics, is it?

JODL: That is a political question, but the declarations were always made only on the condition of the strictest neutrality of these countries. But this neutrality was not kept, for British fliers flew over this area by day and by night.

MR. ROBERTS: Why should the wretched people of the Netherlands and Belgium be destroyed and mutilated because British airmen fly over their territory—destroyed and mutilated by the German Army? What is the logic of your remark at all?

[Turning to the Tribunal.] My Lord, there was one more passage from that document I should like to read. If Your Lordship is thinking of adjourning, perhaps I might read it, and then I will have finished with the document. My Lord, it is the next page, and it is toward the end of the page. It is against the lettering—the number L-52. It is just above, “Time of Attack.”

[Turning to the defendant.] It is on your Page 52, Witness, at the very beginning, or just at the end of Page 51: