dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Tell me just this about the Athenia . You told us the other day that you gave these orders, and then washed your hands of the matter. Nearly a month later. . .
RAEDER: I have already said I had nothing further to do with it, for you know...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You had nothing to do with it. Nearly a month later the Propaganda Ministry put out this suggestion, I think you said on Hitler's orders-that the Athenia had been sunk by Churchill. Did you not feel that it was your duty as Grand Admiral and head of the German Navy to make any protests against this disgraceful, lying suggestion, that the First Lord of the British Admiralty had deliberately sent to their deaths a lot of British and American subjects? Did you not think it was your duty to do that?
RAEDER: I spoke to Hitler about it-but it had happened without our having any idea about it. I was extremely embarrassed about it when the First Lord of the Admiralty was attacked in that, one can say, boorish manner but I could not change anything subsequently and Hitler did not admit that he...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: So you did not bother about that, as I understand it, you didn't bother at all...
RAEDER: Yes, I had misgivings about it, and I was very indignant about it. Please do not keep twisting what I say...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Did you translate your indignation into actions? That is what I am asking.
RAEDER: Into what kind of action?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Any action.
RAEDER: Yes, that Hitler should get Goebbels to contradict that article? That Hitler would not do if he himself had been the author of the article.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, I just want to get it clear. You did nothing when you knew that Von Blomberg and Von Fritsch, who were old friends and comrades of yours, had been framed up by sections of these Nazi plotters; you did nothing about that? You did nothing to protest against the treatment meted out to Von Blomberg or Von Fritsch? You did nothing, did you?
RAEDER: No, but at that time I did not know anything about the background, as you yourself said this morning. I knew nothing about the background. Later when I became acquainted with the details I gradually put the whole picture together. At that time I was not in a position to assume that such methods would be at all possible. SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE Well, I put to you your own statement that you made a year ago. I just want to get it quite clear that the first time in your life that you were moved to protest was, I think, in March 1945, when you saw the actual marks of torture on the hands of your friend, Herr Gessler, and at that time the Soviet troops were over the Oder and the Allies were over the Rhine, and that was the first time that you made any protest when you took off your Party Golden Emblem, wasn't it? That was the first protest you ever made in your naval, military, political career; is that right?
RAEDER: Not a bit of it. I did not really know what was going on.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well then-I put it again. In March 1945 you took off the Party Golden Emblem when you saw the marks of torture on your friend Gessler's hands. Isn't that right?
RAEDER: When Dr. Gessler, who in spite of my objections had been kept for several months in a concentration camp, returned from the concentration camp and informed me that he was in extremely pitiful condition, and that in spite of my request in August, when he was sent to the concentration camp and when I had asked the Fuehrer through Admiral Wagner for Dr. Gessler to be questioned quickly because he was certainly innocent in connection with the assassination attempt, so that he could be released as soon as possible, then...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, my question is, was it then that you took off the Party Emblem. You can answer that. You can give your explanation later.
RAEDER: Yes, but wait a moment.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: But up to then you did not make any protest against anything that Hitler did, except the purely military one on the invasion of the Soviet Union?
RAEDER: I always made serious protests, and that I have proved here, and the adjutant, General Schmundt, told me, "You will be most successful if you try to influence the Fuehrer personally when you are alone with him and tell him quite openly what you think." This is important enough to mention and I must say it. Well, Dr. Gessler came back from the concentration camp and told me that during his first interrogation-at that time I had not yet had a chance to intervene-he had been tortured. That was the first time that I heard that anywhere in Germany anybody was tortured. There is a letter from Dr. Gessler about that-that I told him immediately, "I am going to the Fuehrer at once to tell him about this because I cannot imagine that he knows about that.'' Gessler begged me-when he confirmed that letter-for goodness sake not to go to the Fuehrer then, because that would endanger his, Gessler's, life. I said I would answer for it that nothing would happen to him, and that I would still try to approach the Fuehrer. During the whole of the ensuing period I attempted to approach the Fuehrer, who was not at headquarters. When I was informed in April that he was in Berlin, which was already under heavy attack, I tried to approach the Fuehrer day after day by calling Admiral Voss over the telephone. That was no longer possible, and after I received that information the first thing I did was that I went, together with my wife, to the lake which was behind our house and tore off my Party Emblem and threw it into the lake. I told that to Admiral Voss but unfortunately I could not tell it to the Fuehrer any more. That can be seen from the letter which Dr. Gessler wrote, and we would have liked to have him as a witness, but his state of health did not permit it.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: That was your first protest.
RAEDER: It was not my first protest. That is twisting my words.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any other cross-examination?
COL. POKROVSKY: On 18 May 1946, during the morning session of the Tribunal you testified that during your service as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy you twice made application to resign. The first time you tried to resign was in November 1938 when you were dealing with the building up of the Navy, and Hitler was not pleased with your plans, and the second time was when Hitler, without your knowledge, permitted his adjutant who was a naval officer to marry a certain young girl. Is that not so?
RAEDER: Yes, but I put in further applications for resignation which were not so sensational, once in 1937, and I believe even in 1935, when I was not in good health. But these were two typical examples which show how such things came about.
COL. POKROVSKY: I understood that in the first of these two cases Hitler finally persuaded you not to resign.
RAEDER: Yes.
COL. POKROVSKY: And in the second case, he complied with your wish but he never forgot it.
RAEDER: Yes.
COL. POKROVSKY: In fact, you resigned only in January 1943, is that not so?
RAEDER: In actual fact, yes. But I must add that during the war I felt I could not leave the Navy, which was already in such a difficult situation, and I believed I enjoyed its confidence to a certain extent so that I could be useful.
COL. POKROVSKY: On the morning of 18 May you said here in the Court in regard to your resignation, that it seemed to you then that Hitler, at that particular moment, wanted to get rid of you. Is that so?
RAEDER: At that moment I had the impression, when he made such serious accusations and when he considerably contradicted his previous judgments, that maybe he wanted to get rid of me, and l therefore considered that that was a particularly favorable moment to leave.
COL. POKROVSKY: The question of successors was solved by your naming a few people to Hitler.
RAEDER: Yes.
COL. POKROVSKY: And among them was the Defendant Doenitz. Did you mention his name?
RAEDER: Yes. I mentioned his name. I informed the Fuehrer of that in writing, first Carls, second, in case he wanted to concentrate on submarine warfare, Grossadmiral Doenitz, who was the highest authority in that field.
COL. POKROVSKY: And does it not seem to you, after your answer to my questions, that the answer which you gave to Dr. Laternser on 18 May, when you mentioned the absolute impossibility of resigning from the general staff, was not a proper answer? It was possible to resign, was it not?
RAEDER: Yes, but in this case, of course, there were two prerequisites. The first was that Hitler himself did not like me any more and I knew it, so that it would not be insubordination if I threw up my post for some reason or other. Secondly, because it was possible, as I pointed out in that conversation, for the change to take place under peaceful conditions so that the Navy would not suffer by it. If I had left because of a quarrel, then that would have had a very bad effect on the Navy because it might have meant a certain split between the Navy and Hitler, and I had particularly to preserve unity, at that critical moment of the war.
COL. POKROVSKY: I would like you to understand my question correctly.
RAEDER: Yes, I understand...
COL. POKROVSKY: I am not asking you about the prerequisites which might have been required for granting an application for resignation. I am asking you a question in principle: Was it possible or was it not possible to resign? After all, you did resign. You resigned from your post as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.
RAEDER: Yes, but I had been in the service for 15 years, and I could tell him, "If that is the way you yourself judge me, then there is no sense in your continuing to work with me." That was a favorable opportunity which made it permissible for me to ask him to release me. But what one could not do was to throw up the job and give the impression of being insubordinate. That had to be avoided at all costs, I would never have done that. I was too much of a soldier for that.
COL. POKROVSKY: I have already heard what I wanted to hear from you in reply to my question. Now, I will pass on to the next question. You maintain that all the time you were striving towards normalizing relations with the Soviet Union, is that correct?
RAEDER: I am sorry; I could not understand what you said.
COL. POKROVSKY: You maintain that during your service you always strove to make the relations between Germany and the Soviet Union quite normal, is that not so?
RAEDER: I was always in favor of the Bismarck policy, that we should have a common policy with Russia.
COL. POKROVSKY: If I understood your testimony correctly the day before yesterday and on Friday, in 1940, already, you had knowledge of the fact that Hitler intended to attack the Soviet Union.
RAEDER: In September 1940 for the first time I heard certain statements from Hitler himself that he was thinking of a war with Russia, given certain circumstances. Even in the directive he mentioned one of these prerequisites, one of these circumstances. He did not say to me at that time that in any circumstances he wanted to wage war, but that we had to be prepared, as it says in Paragraph 1, that before crushing England we might have to fight against Russia. And from September on I began to make objections to him.
COL. POKROVSKY: Was there not a case of an incident when you maintained that the explanations which had been given by official governmental organs or agencies for an attack on the Soviet Union gave you and the others the impression that it was a deliberate propaganda, and in fact they were quite repulsive in their effect? Do you remember that?
RAEDER: The propaganda made by Hitler made an impression? I did not quite get it. . .
COL. POKROVSKY: I believe that you once expressed in writing the view that the OKW and the Foreign Ministry explained to the German people the reasons for attacking the Soviet Union in such a way as to give the impression that it was deliberate propaganda, and the total effect was repulsive. Do you not remember it?
RAEDER: Oh, you mean the broadcasts emanating from the Foreign Office when the war started? Yes, that was Hitler's propaganda to make the German people understand the reason for this war. That is right. As regards breaking the Pact.. .
COL. POKROVSKY: I would like you to take a look at one document. This is a document written by you, and I would like you to tell us whether this document contains the precise subject matter of my question.
RAEDER: Where is it?
COL. POKROVSKY: "The propagandistic . . ."
RAEDER: "The propagandistic"-shall I read it? "The propagandistic, political and military announcements given out at the beginning of the war by the Foreign Office and the High Command of the Armed Forces, which were to justify the breaking of the Pact because of breaches by the Soviet Union, found very little credence among the people as well as among the Armed Forces. They showed too clearly that they were propaganda for a certain purpose and had a repulsive effect." (USSR-460.) I know that at that time Hitler himself drafted these documents, together with Goebbels.
COL. POKROVSKY: In connection with this question I have another question for you. Am I to understand you in this way; that your divergence of opinion with Hitler over foreign policy, and in particular in regard to aggressive wars, was less strongly defined than your difference of opinion about the question of the marriage of a naval officer with a certain girl? Did you understand me?
RAEDER: No, they were two quite different things. Those were military questions where the political decisions remained with the Fuehrer. I was very insistent about the moral issues also, where they concerned the Pact, but I did not send him any written ultimatum because in this matter it would have been unsoldierly. I did not have the final decision, he had it; whereas in the case of Albrecht, it was up to me to decide-to say yes or no-and not to sign that which I was supposed to sign.
COL. POKROVSKY: You are saying now that this is a question of morals. Does it not seem to you that an unprovoked attack on a country with which Germany had a nonaggression treaty-do you not think that such a question is always connected with the question of morals?
RAEDER: Of course; that is what I said myself, that in this case too I laid special stress on the moral issue. But in spite of that, as the highest man of the Navy, I was not in a position to hold out the threat of resignation at that moment. I was too much of a soldier to be able to do that, to be able to leave the Navy at a moment like that.
COL. POKROVSKY: In answer to questions put to you by your counsel here in this courtroom you testified that your speech, which was delivered by you on 12 March 1939-that is Page 169 of the Russian text in the Raeder document book, My Lord-the speech where you praised Hitler and Hitler's policies-you mentioned that this speech was not in accord with your true opinion. Is it so or is it not?
RAEDER: No, that is not correct. I said that we had had the experience that the Communists and Jews, from 1917 to 1920, had strongly undermined our power of resistance, and that for this reason it could be understood, if a National Socialist government took certain measures against both of them in order to stem their influence, which was excessive. That was the sense of my statements and I made absolutely no mention of any further steps which might come into question.
COL. POKROVSKY: In short, you are saying now that when you delivered that speech on 12 March 1939, that this speech was fully in accord with your ideas and your views. Is that correct?
RAEDER: Yes, it was, or I would not have made it. It was in accord insofar as I had to recognize that the National Socialist Government had in some way to stem that influence which was generally recognized to be excessive, and as I said yesterday, the National Socialist Government had issued the Nuremberg Laws, which I did not entirely approve of where they went to extremes. But if the Government was so disposed, it was not possible for me in an official public speech, which I gave on the orders of that Government, to express my personal views which were different. That had to be considered within this address to the nation.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you be able to finish in a very few moments? It is now five minutes past five.
COL. POKROVSKY: I think, My Lord, that only about 10 minutes will be sufficient for me. I have only about three or four more questions left.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
COL. POKROVSKY: [Turning to the defendant.] In order to save time I am not going to argue with you in regard to the motives which made you deliver the speech. It was important for me that you should confirm what you said, and that is, that this speech was in accord with your views and ideas. Now I will pass on to the next question. On 29 September 1941, your Chief of Staff, Admiral Fricke-do I pronounce his name correctly? Is it Fricke or Fricker?
RAEDER: Fricke, yes, Chief of the Staff of the Naval Operations Staff.
COL. POKROVSKY: Admiral Fricke published a directive in regard to the future fate of Leningrad. Do you know what document I mean, or must this document be shown to you?
RAEDER: No. I know that document very well.
COL. POKROVSKY: This directive was published with your consent?
RAEDER: I did not give a specific order for it because there was no necessity for passing it on. May I just explain briefly how it was. I had...
COL. POKROVSKY: Yes, and I would like you to be brief.
RAEDER: Quite briefly, yes. I had requested Hitler when I heard that he intended in the course of the war to bombard Leningrad, that he should spare the port and dock installations because they would be useful for us later, as we had to keep moving our bases back to the East on account of the British air attacks in the Baltic. Shortly before the date which you have mentioned Admiral Fricke had been at the Fuehrer's headquarters-I do not know for what reason-and had there spoken with the Fuehrer in my absence, and the Fuehrer had explained to him that plan to bombard Leningrad, especially with aircraft, and he used those very exaggerated words which were then written down in the document. The Navy had absolutely nothing to do with the shelling of Leningrad. We received no orders for that. We were only interested in that one thing which I mentioned before, that the shipyards and port installations should be spared. The Fuehrer had informed Fricke that unfortunately he was not in a position to do that because the attack, especially if made with aircraft, could not be directed quite so precisely. All we could do was to inform Generaladmiral Carls that Leningrad, in case it should be taken, could not be used as a base, and Generaladmiral Carls had to stop the preparations which he had already begun by allocating German workers and probably also machinery which was intended to be used in Leningrad later on. Carls had to know of that and, as the document says, the so-called Quartermaster Department of the Navy had to know about it, and that was why Admiral Fricke passed on that paper. Unfortunately he included in this paper the expressions used by Hitler, which had nothing to do with the whole affair as far as we were concerned, because we had nothing to do with the shelling. By so doing he did not assume in any way the responsibility, in the sense that he approved it. He only believed that he had to pass on Hitler's wording of the order. The Navy had nothing to do with the matter.
RAEDER: It would not have been necessary to pass it on, and unfortunately and very clumsily that expression used by Hitler was entered in that document. However, nothing happened and that document was not passed on from Generaladmiral Carls to our Finland Commander. That is the whole story.
COL. POKROVSKY: It seems to me the question is becoming more complicated. I asked you a simple question. Your Chief of Staff, Chief of Operations, published a directive. Did you know about the directive?
RAEDER: No. That is not a directive-that can be seen also from the photostat-because the letter had not been submitted to me for passing on, and that shows that it was not considered to be very important. It was not a directive to undertake any operation or anything important. It was just a directive to stop anything that might have been done with regard to bases; so that really nothing happened. Thus, when that document was passed on by Admiral Fricke, nothing happened at all. It was quite superfluous.
COL. POKROVSKY: You are talking about the destruction of one of the biggest cities of the Soviet Union. You are talking in this document about razing the city to the ground, and you maintain now that it is a more or less trifling question, that this question was not important enough to be reported to you, as Fricke's Chief? Do you want us to believe that?
RAEDER: Of course. It is not a question of the shelling of Leningrad, with which we had nothing to do at all. It was the minor question which concerned us, the question as to whether we would later be able to establish a naval base there, and whether we could bring workers and machines and such things to Leningrad. That was a minor issue. The shelling of Leningrad was a major issue.
COL. POKROVSKY: I think that the Tribunal will be able to understand you correctly and to draw the necessary conclusions, both from this document and from your testimony. Now, I have one last question for you. On 28 August 1945, in Moscow, did you not write an affidavit as to the reasons for Germany's defeat?
RAEDER: Yes, I took special pains with that after the collapse.
COL. POKROVSKY: My Lord, we submit this document to the Tribunal in the form of excerpts, Document Number USSR-460. In order to save time I would like you to hear several excerpts from this affidavit. [Turning to the defendant.] You will be shown where they can be found on the original, and you can say whether it was correctly read into the record and whether you acknowledge and confirm it. "My Attitude Towards Adolf Hitler and the Party. Disastrous influence on the fate of the German State...." Did you find this place?
RAEDER: Yes, I have it.
COL. POKROVSKY: "Unimaginable vanity and immeasurable . . ."
DR. SIEMERS: Would you be kind enough to give me a copy so that I can follow?
COL. POKROVSKY: "Unimaginable vanity and immeasurable ambition were his main peculiarities; running after popularity and showing off, untruthfulness, vagueness, and selfishness, which were not restrained for the sake of State or People. He was outstanding in his greed, wastefulness, and effeminate unsoldierly manner." Then, a little further on: "It is my conviction that Hitler very soon realized his character, but made use of him where it suited his purpose, and burdened him perpetually with new tasks in order to avoid his becoming dangerous to himself." On Page 24 of your document you give another characteristic; "The Fuehrer continued to attach importance to the fact that from the outside his relations to me seemed normal and good. He knew I was well thought of in all the really respectable circles of the German people, and that in general everybody had great faith in me. This cannot be said of Goering, Von Ribbentrop, Dr. Goebbels, Himmler and Dr. Ley. " Now I will ask you to find Page 27.
RAEDER: But there is something missing. "In the same way, as for instance, Baron Von Neurath, Count Schwerin van Krosigk, Schacht, Dorpmueller and others," who were on the other side.
COL. POKROVSKY: Evidently it was not correctly translated to you. I will read this passage into the record. Now, on Page 27, this place is underlined in red pencil: "Doenitz' strong political inclination to the Party..."