dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
JODL: This, of course, is grotesque. The example that the Fuehrer allegedly mentioned in his talks with Field Marshal Keitel, that the German Ambassador had been murdered by the people of Prague, was not even known to me. General Keitel did not tell me; I only heard of it here. Apart from that, I think it is useless to go on discussing it as we did exactly the opposite. We gave the order to General Toussaint to protect the German Embassy in Prague and to protect the lives of the people in it, because, in fact, at one stage it had been seriously threatened.
DR. EXNER: This is proved by Exhibit AJ-9, Document Jodl-62, third volume of the document book, Page 200. That again is the interrogatory of General Toussaint, who was a military attaché in Prague at that time. The third question is as follows: "Is it true or not that in the summer of 1938 you received the order to defend the German Embassy at Prague and to protect the lives of all the Germans in the Embassy?" And his answer is: "Yes, it is true. I remember this order was given to me by telephone probably in September 1938..."- and so on and so forth. Then in Question 4... "It is true that the German Embassy..."
THE PRESIDENT: The witness has already said once it was so.
DR. EXNER: [Turning to the defendant.] Then I shall only refer to the testimony of Toussaint. In addition it has been said that the incident had been staged by us. We need not go into that in detail. Did the incident really happen?
JODL: No, there was neither a preparation for the incident, nor was it necessary. Incidents kept multiplying day after day, and the solution was a political one and entirely different.
DR. EXNER: So that this note, which we have often read, remained purely theoretical, did it?
JODL: It was merely work on paper, an idea, which was not really necessary at all But it has already been made clear that as soon as the political discussions started I made continuous efforts to prevent the provocations, apparently desired on the part of the Czechs, from leading to any military measures on our part.
DR. EXNER: Did the signatory powers in Munich at the end of September know of Germany's military preparations? Did the statesmen there know that we were militarily prepared?
JODL: The Prosecution gave me the distinct impression that that had become known only today, and that it was unknown in the autumn of 1938 at Munich. But that is quite impossible. All the world knew of the calling up of the eight age groups in Czechoslovakia in September. The whole world knew of the total mobilization on 23 September. A political correspondent of The Times wrote an article on 28 September against this Czechoslovakian mobilization. Nobody was surprised that immediately after the signing of the Munich Pact, on 1 October, we marched into...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner . . .
DR. EXNER: Well, that ends this subject. Is it true that in August 1938 you prepared a new operational plan of which you had already spoken on 7 July? A new plan based on the previous one?
JODL: Yes. Already before the solution brought about by the Munich Pact, I, on my own initiative, drew up a secret operational plan for the protection of all the German borders. It was so arranged that the borders only were to be protected while the bulk of the Army was to be kept in reserve in the center of Germany. That complete plan was available here during my interrogation. It is now no longer contained in Document 388-PS, but there is a reference made to it.
DR. EXNER: On Page 40, Volume I of our document book, I again read an extract from 388-PS. At the very end the following is stated: "... after the conclusion of Green, it must be made possible to put a provisional deployment into action soon." And then: ". . . first the Wehrmacht will guarantee the protection of the German frontiers, including those of the newly acquired lands, while the bulk of the Army and of the Air Force will remain at our disposal. Such a future 'frontier protection' deployment should be executed separately on the various fronts." Why did you prepare this "frontier protection" deployment? what was the cause of it?
JODL: The reason was that once the necessity for an operation against Czechoslovakia had become superfluous, through the problem being solved in some way, we would no longer have had any deployment plan at all. And as no other intention of the Fuehrer was known to me, I on my own initiative drew up a plan for this operation which would be suitable for any eventuality.
DR. EXNER: Did you know anything about the intentions of the Fuehrer, after the Munich Agreement, to go even further and occupy Bohemia and Moravia?
JODL: No, I had no idea of that. I knew of his speech of 26 September where he said: "Now we are facing the last problem to be solved." I believed in that assurance, and this is proved by the fact that during those days-it was about 10 or 11 September-I suggested to Field Marshal Keitel, then General Keitel, that he should ask the British Delegation, whose arrival had been announced, to come to Iglau in Moravia, because many Germans who were living there had been threatened by armed Czechoslovakian Communists. This of course was a suggestion which I would never have made if I had had any idea that the Fuehrer nourished any further intentions concerning Bohemia and Moravia.
DR. EXNER: These further intentions of the Fuehrer were recorded on 21 October 1938 in a directive. Did you know about that in the OKW, or what was the position?
JODL: No, I did not know about it. I did not see it. I only saw it here in this courtroom during my preliminary interrogation.
DR. EXNER: Then were you transferred to . . .
JODL: I was transferred to Vienna as Artillery Commander of the 44th Division stationed there.
DR. EXNER: That was the end of October, was it not?
JODL: The end of October.
DR. EXNER: How did you imagine further military developments would be? But, of course, you have already answered that.
JODL: Actually, I expected an easing of the political tension and a period of peace. I can certainly say that.
DR. EXNER: And what happened to you then?
JODL: As I knew of no other plans, I transferred my home to Vienna taking all my furniture with me. Naturally I would never have done that if I had had the faintest idea that war was pending, because I knew that in the event of war I was to become the Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff and so would have to return to Berlin. I asked General Keitel to help me to become the Commander of the 4th Mountain Division in Reichenhall, from 1 October 1939, a request which again it would never have entered my mind to make if I had any idea of what was going to come.
DR. EXNER: Did you as Artillery Commander in Vienna remain in contact with the OKW?
JODL: No, hardly at all. I had no connections with the OKW. I received no military documents from the OKW during all that period.
DR. EXNER: And who informed you then about the situation during that time?
JODL: Nobody. During that time I knew no more about what was going on or what was intended than any lieutenant in my artillery.
DR. EXNER: Did you have private correspondence with Keitel?
JODL: I received one letter from General Keitel. It was, I think, at the end of July 1939. He personally gave me the good news that quite probably I would become Commander of the 4th Mountain Division in Reichenhall on 1 October, and that General Von Sodenstern would become Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff, now on peacetime footing, on 1 October.
DR. EXNER: Did you help to draw up the plan for the occupation of the remaining parts of Czechoslovakia?
JODL: No, I did not. During this occupation I remained in Vienna for the time being and temporarily became Chief of Staff of the 18th Army Corps at Vienna. Then, later on, I was transferred to Brunn in Czechoslovakia together with the entire 44th Division.
DR. EXNER: When did you hear about the whole thing?
JODL: It was through the orders of my divisional staff that I heard of that operation in March of 1939, some 2 or 3 days beforehand.
DR. EXNER: Was this move into Czechoslovakia the carrying out of Case Green which you had originally drafted?
JODL: No; it had no longer anything to do with that. There were completely different troop units, and not even half of the troops provided for in 1938 were actually used for the march into Czechoslovakia in 1939.
DR. EXNER: Now, during that period when you were in Vienna there was a conference with the Fuehrer on 23 May 1939, which has often been mentioned here, concerning the disregarding of neutrality, et cetera. It has often been stated that Warlimont was present there as your representative. What was the position? Was he your representative?
JODL: With great persistence it has been said again and again that General Warlimont took part in the conference as the representative of Jodl, or even, it was once said, as his assistant. There is no question of that. He was my successor but not my representative. And even if it is repeated again and again, it still does not make it true. He was my successor.
DR. EXNER: You had left the OKW, had you not?
JODL: Yes, I had completely left the OKW. The fact that quite accidentally Warlimont became my deputy later on has nothing whatsoever to do with the events of May 1939.
DR. EXNER: When did you hear for the first time of this meeting in May 1939? '
JODL: Here in Nuremberg in 1946.
DR. EXNER: Did you have any contact with Party leaders meanwhile, or with Austrian National Socialists?
JODL: No, not at all; with nobody.
DR. EXNER: Or with these defendants here?
JODL: No, not with them either.
DR. EXNER: Once during that time the Fuehrer went to Vienna with Keitel I think they were there 2 days or so. Did you have to report to him on that occasion?
JODL: Yes, coming from Prague he visited Vienna quite unobtrusively, and on that occasion I spoke a few words to General Keitel, but I did not talk to the Fuehrer.
DR. EXNER: You were not presented to him?
JODL: No.
DR. EXNER: What was your war appointment to be?
JODL: As I have already said, in the event of a war I was to become Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff.
DR. EXNER: What about your private personal plans for that summer?
JODL: For that summer I already had tickets for a cruise in the eastern Mediterranean on 23 September 1939.
DR. EXNER: On 23 September 1939 the voyage...
JODL: The voyage was to start at Hamburg; I had already paid for the tickets.
DR. EXNER: When did you buy the tickets? Do you remember?
JODL: I bought them about the second half of July.
DR. EXNER: When did you return to Berlin?
JODL: I am not absolutely certain about the exact date, but I imagine that it was on 23 or 24 August-according to a telegram which reached me unexpectedly in Brunn.
DR. EXNER: If you had not received that telegram, when would you have had to go to Berlin?
JODL: In case of a general mobilization I would have had to go to Berlin anyway.
DR. EXNER: And did you now have to report to the Fuehrer in Berlin?
JODL: No, I did not report to him, either. I only reported, of course, to General Keitel and to the Chief of the General Staff! of the Army and the Air Force and to the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.
DR. EXNER: Mr. President, I have now completed that subject, and I thought that this would be a convenient time to adjourn.
THE PRESIDENT: Can you tell us how long you are likely to be?
DR. EXNER: I very much hope-certainly it will be in the course of tomorrow morning; but shall we say until noon?
DR. GUSTAV STEINBAUER (Counsel for Defendant Seyss-Inquart): Mr. President, as Counsel for Dr. Seyss-Inquart, I have to ask on behalf of my client that he may be permitted to be absent from the session for 2 days, to prepare his defense.
THE PRESIDENT: Certainly. [The Tribunal adjourned until 5 June 1946 at 1000 hours.]
THE MARSHAL: If it please the Tribunal, the report is made that Defendant Seyss-Inquart is absent.
PROFESSOR DR. HERBERT KRAUS (Counsel for Defendant Schacht): Mr. President, in agreement with the Prosecution I ask permission to submit a memorandum by Hitler, concerning the Four Year Plan of 1936. It is a certified copy, certified by a British officer in Dustbin Camp. I have numbered it Exhibit Schacht-48. In the afternoon session of 1 May my friend Dr. Dix referred to this memorandum, which could not at that time be incorporated into the record. Dr. Schacht then quoted a few passages from this memorandum. The President stated that we could submit the memorandum at a later date on condition, of course, that the Prosecution agreed. The Prosecution has acquiesced and I therefore trust that I may now be permitted to submit it. Furthermore I am handing in a number of English translations. I regret I have not yet been able to have translations made in the other languages, and I ask permission to supply those translations later on.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kraus, until the other translations are actually made, the documents will not become part of the record.
DR. KRAUS: No. The English translations are available, and the others are not yet ready. May I submit them later?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly. And they will then become part of the record.
DR. KRAUS: Yes, as a supplement to the document book.
DR. EXNER: Generaloberst, you told us yesterday that you were the Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff during the war and that your main task consisted in the preparation of military operational plans. That is correct, is it not?
JODL: That is correct.
DR. EXNER: Then, where did you get the plans? Who decided what plans you had to make?
JODL: It was the same as in any other military staff. The Commander-in-Chief-in this case the Fuehrer personally-received data for the decisions to be made: maps, strength returns of both our own and enemy forces, and information about the enemy. He then made his own decisions, and thereupon I would set my general staff to work, giving these decisions the military form necessary for the entire machinery of the Wehrmacht.
DR. EXNER: Now, in the course of these tasks and studies you also had to work on operations which were never actually carried out?
JODL: I have prepared a great number of such operations. Of the total number of operations for which I prepared orders and instructions there was only one which I definitely knew would be carried out; that was the operation against Yugoslavia. In the case of all the other operational plans, the decision as to whether it would be carried out or not remained undecided for a long time. As an example of operational plans which had been drafted in every detail but which were never carried out, I mention the invasion of England, the march into Spain, the seizure of Gibraltar, the seizure of Malta, the capture of the Fischer Peninsula near Petsamo, and a winter attack on Kandalakscha on the Murmansk Railway.
DR. EXNER: Then, did these tasks of yours cover all the theaters of the war?
JODL: At the beginning of the war the work of my general staff did not apply to theaters of war at all, but the Fuehrer's instructions went only to the branches of the Wehrmacht-that is to the Army, the Navy and the Air Force; and it was only in the Norwegian campaign that circumstances developed for the first time so that the Armed Forces Operations Staff was made responsible for a theater of war. And this condition changed completely when in the beginning of 1942 the Fuehrer himself assumed supreme command in the Army. Kesselring has already been asked about this, but did not answer. However, it stands to reason that the Fuehrer, as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, could not issue orders through Jodl to himself in his capacity of Commander-in-Chief of the Army and then have them carried out through Generaloberst Zeitzler. Consequently a separation came about. From that moment on he, with the General Staff of the Army, directed the entire Eastern Front, while the Armed Forces Operations Staff became responsible for the general staff work of all the other theaters of war.
DR. EXNER: Now, the witness Field Marshal Paulus stated before the Tribunal that the OKW was responsible for the order to hold Stalingrad; and, as a matter of fact, both Keitel and Jodl have been repeatedly accused by the foreign press of having given that disastrous order. Is that true?
JODL: No, that is not true. The witness, for whom I feel the deepest sympathy and with whom I have worked in the most comradely fashion possible, could not have known anything at all about it. The facts are as follows: The moment danger threatened, the decision that Stalingrad must be held was made by the Fuehrer during a private conversation with Generaloberst Zeitzler and contrary to the latter's advice. Zeitzler told me so himself on his return from this interview. At a later stage, when blizzards were already raging across the steppes of the Don, the question of a break-through by the Stalingrad garrison was discussed again. Field Marshal Keitel, Generaloberst Zeitzler, and I were present on this occasion.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner, I do not quite see how that is relevant, although Field Marshal Paulus may have said something about it. I mean, he may have given some evidence on the fighting at Stalingrad, and he undoubtedly did; but I do not see how it bears upon the case before us, or how it bears upon the case for Jodl.
DR. EXNER: Mr. President, this has already settled the matter. It was necessary to clear up Field Marshal Paulus' error. But this has already settled the matter. [Turning to the defendant] We now come to the time when you were recalled from Vienna to Berlin in 1939. What state of affairs did you find in Berlin on your arrival?
JODL: I found a completely incomprehensible state of affairs in Berlin-at least it was incomprehensible to me. Nobody knew what was really true or what was bluff. The pact with Russia sustained all our hopes for the preservation of peace, hopes which were immensely increased and strengthened by the surprise cancellation of the attack ordered for 26 August. None of the soldiers to whom I spoke expected a war with the Western Powers at that time. Nothing had been prepared except the operations for the attack on Poland. There was only a defensive deployment of troops on the West Wall. The forces stationed there were so weak that we could not even man all the pillboxes. The actual efforts for the preservation of peace, however, efforts I have heard about here from the Reich Marshal, the name of Dahlerus all these negotiations remained unknown to me insofar as they were not published in the press. But there is one thing I can say in conclusion. When the declaration of war was received from England and France it was like a blow from a cudgel for us soldiers who had fought in the first World War. And I heard in confidence from General Stapf-today the matter is no longer confidential-that the Reich Marshal reacted in exactly the same way.
DR. EXNER: Do you know when Poland mobilized?
JODL: That I cannot say. I only know that at the moment when I arrived in Berlin and was being informed by General Von Stulpnagel for the very first time about the situation and our own strength, a Polish deployment was already in progress along the frontier, as well as the German one.
DR. EXNER: That in itself already answers the accusation brought against you in the trial brief, namely "planning against Poland." Had you prepared a plan against Poland?
JODL: No. Not by a single stroke of the pen did I participate in the preparations for the Polish war.
DR. EXNER: Then I am right in saying, to sum up, that when you left Berlin there was not yet a plan of operations against Poland?
JODL: No.
DR. EXNER: And when you returned to Berlin the plan was ready?
JODL: Yes. The plan of attack was completely worked out.
DR. EXNER: Did you hear the Fuehrer's speech of 22 August 1939 which has been so often quoted here?
JODL: No; on that day I was still in Vienna.
DR. EXNER: When did you hear of that speech?
JODL: For the first time here in Nuremberg.
DR. EXNER: Do you remember the meeting in the Fuehrer's special train on 9 September 1939, described here by General Lahousen? Can you remember that?
JODL: Yes, I remember that meeting perfectly.
DR. EXNER: What was the subject of conversation during that meeting while you were on the Fuehrer's train?
JODL: I met the Fuehrer in the so-called command car, in the chartroom, where Field Marshal Keitel, Canaris, and Lahousen were; and then Canaris made a brief report on the information he had received from the West and expressed the opinion that a French attack in the Saarbrucken sector was imminent. The Fuehrer contradicted this, and so did I. Apart from that nothing else was discussed.
DR. EXNER: Then Lahousen's statement is correct that you were only present during that particular part of the discussion?
JODL: As far as I am concerned I have not a word of objection to raise against Lahousen's statement. Absolutely correct.
DR. EXNER: Frequent mention has been made during this Trial of the artillery and air bombardment of Warsaw. Did you participate in the giving of the orders for this?
JODL: Yes, I participated insofar as the Commander-in-Chief of the Army had applied to the Fuehrer for permission for the artillery to bombard Warsaw as soon as the deployment of artillery units had been completed. The Fuehrer refused this. He said, "What is happening here because of the Poles is madness." He ordered me to draft new leaflets-which I did personally and immediately- and have them dropped again over the city of Warsaw. It was only when this renewed demand to cease the hopeless resistance had proved absolutely unsuccessful that he sanctioned artillery bombardment and air attacks on the fortress of Warsaw-and I emphasize the word "fortress."
DR. EXNER: When issuing orders, did you have anything to do with the co-ordination of German and Soviet Russian operations?
JODL: Yes. When we were still 3 days' march away from the Vistula, I was informed to my great surprise-by, I believe, the representative of the Foreign Office-while I was entering the Fuehrer's headquarters, that Soviet Russia would occupy the Polish territories . . .
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant, if it is convenient to you, I think you might speak a little faster.
JODL: ...that the Polish territories east of an agreed demarcation line would be occupied by Soviet Russian troops at the appointed time. When we were approaching this agreed demarcation line, which was shown to me on a map-the line was the East Prussian Lithuanian border, Narew, Vistula, San-I telephoned to our military attaché in Moscow and informed him that we could probably reach individual points of this demarcation line in the course of the following day. Shortly afterwards I was informed over the telephone that the Russian divisions were not yet ready. When, the day after the next, we reached the demarcation line and had to cross it in pursuit of the Poles, I once again received news from Moscow, at 0200 hours, that the Soviet Russian divisions would take up their position along the entire front at 0400 hours. This maneuver was punctually carried out, and I then drafted an order to our German troops that wherever they had contacted the troops of the Soviet Union, and in agreement with them, they were to withdraw behind the demarcation line.
DR. EXNER: Do you know on what day all this happened?
JODL: I cannot tell you exactly when the troops reached the line, but I would say it was about 14 or 15 September.
DR. EXNER: We shall now deal with aggressive wars against the neutral countries...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner, now all that the defendant has just been telling us seems to be to me a simple waste of our time, with absolutely no relevance to this case at all; and why you let him do it, I do not know.