dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. EXNER: Hitler demanded verification of this opinion and Jodl arranged for the necessary investigations in a conference with his staff at Reichenhall, which was obviously misunderstood by the Russian Prosecution. On 2 August Hitler ordered improvements to be made in the deployment possibilities in the East-a measure which was no less indispensable for defense than for an offensive. Toward the end of August-this is the order of 27 August- 10 infantry divisions and 2 Panzer divisions were brought into the Government General in case a lightning action should become necessary for the defense of the Romanian oil fields. The German troops, now totaling 25 divisions, were indeed intended to appear stronger than they really were, so that an action should become unnecessary. This is the meaning of Jodl's order for counterespionage (Document Number 1229-PS). Had there been offensive intentions at that time, there would presumably have been an attempt to make Germany's forces appear smaller than they were. At the same time Hitler appears to have given the Army General Staff orders-without Jodl knowing anything about it-to prepare an operational plan against Russia for any eventuality. In any case, the Army General Staff, General Paulus, worked on operational plans of this kind as from the autumn of 1940. Unfavorable information then accumulated after the Vienna arbitration on 30 August 1940. If Jodl was to believe his utterances, Hitler was becoming convinced that the Soviet Union had firmly resolved to annihilate Germany in a surprise attack while she was engaged against Britain. The leaders of the Red Army had, according to a report of 18 September, declared a German-Russian war to be inevitable (Document Number C-170). In addition, reports came in of feverish Russian preparations along the demarcation line. Hitler counted on a Russian attack in the summer of 1941 or winter of 1941-42. He thus decided, should the discussions with Molotov fail to clear up the situation favorably, to take preventive steps.
DR. EXNER: For in that case the only chance for Germany lay in offensive defense. For this eventuality, preparatory measures were ordered by Hitler on 12 November 1940 (Document Number 444-PS). The failure of the discussions with Molotov decided the question. On 18 December 1940 Hitler gave orders for the military preparations. Should the coming months clear up the situation, all the better. But it was necessary to be prepared in order to deliver the blow in the spring of 1941 at the latest. This was presumably the latest possible moment, but also the earliest, since more than 4 months were required for the deployment. Jodl, as an expert, emphatically pointed out to Hitler the enormous military risk which could be run only if all political possibilities of averting the Russian attack were really exhausted. Jodl became convinced at that time that Hitler actually had exploited every possibility. The situation grew worse. According to reports which were received by the Army General Staff at the beginning of February 1941, 150 Russian divisions, that is, two-thirds of the total Russian strength known, had deployed opposite Germany. Yet only the first stage of the German deployment had begun. The Soviet Government's telegram of friendship to the participants in the Belgrade Putsch on 27 March 1941 destroyed Hitler's last hope. He decided upon an attack, which however had to be postponed for more than a month owing to the Balkan war. The deployment was undertaken in such a manner that the mechanized German units, without which the attack could not be conducted at all, were brought to the front only during the last 2 weeks, that is, after 10 June. Genuine preventive war is one of the indispensable means of self-preservation, and was indisputably permitted according to the Kellogg-Briand Pact. The "Right of Self-Defense" was understood by all the signatory states. If the situation was wrongly construed, the German military leaders cannot be blamed for their error.
DR. EXNER: They had reliable reports on Russian preparations which could only make sense if they were preparations for war. The reports were later confirmed. For when the German attack met the Russian forces, the German command received the impression of running into a gigantic deployment against Germany. General Winter developed this here in detail in addition to Jodl's statements, particularly with regard to the enormous number of new airports near the line of demarcation, and he drew particular attention to the fact that the Russian staff units were provided with maps of German territories. Field Marshal Von Rundstedt also confirmed this as a witness before the Commission. This will come before the Tribunal during the further course of the Trial. Jodl firmly believed that Hitler would never have waged war against Russia unless he had been absolutely convinced that no other path was open to him at all. Jodl was aware that Hitler fully appreciated the danger of a two-front war and would jeopardize victory over England-which he thought was assured-only in the utmost emergency. Jodl simply did his job as an officer of the General Staff. He was convinced, and still is today, that we were waging a genuine preventive war. I come now to Point (10) of the trial brief, concerning war against the United States. That Jodl had no desire to supplement the number of our enemies with a world power is obvious, and is also shown by documents. Now what is the position with regard to the responsibility for these campaigns? A declaration of war is a decision in the field of foreign politics, the most important one in the whole of this field. It depends on the constitutional structure of the concrete state as to who is responsible for this decision-politically, criminally, and morally-and on the way the formation of a decision in the field of foreign politics takes place in the state according to its constitution. Professor Jahrreiss has said of this that in the Fuehrer State it is exclusively the Fuehrer who has to make this decision.
DR. EXNER: Anyone who advises him about this cannot be responsible, for, if what the Fuehrer orders is legally right, he who influences this order cannot be acting illegally. The Charter obviously represents the opinion that those who in any way participate in the Fuehrer's decision or influence it are coresponsible. If we take this legal conception as authoritative the question of responsibility crystallizes into a problem of competence. In every community the tasks of its organs must be limited; there must be rulings on competence laying down what each official is called upon to do and not to do. Thus in all states the relations between the military and the civil administration are naturally regulated, just as within the military and within the administration the tasks and the relations between their thousands of offices are regulated. If things were otherwise, chaos would reign. Particularly in wartime the problem of competence in the relations between the political and military leadership is important. The military being the most important instrument of policy, the assistant may easily try to become master, in other words, the military may try to interfere in politics. It was German tradition to avoid this. The Bismarck Reich took great pains to keep the officers far removed from politics; they had no right to vote, were not allowed to go to political meetings, and in fact any statements on politics made by an officer were looked upon askance. For this might in some way be looked upon as taking sides, which was severely prohibited. The military were to be politically blind, completely neutral, and were to adhere to a sole point of view, which was that of legitimacy, that is, subordination to the legitimate ruler. Thus in the years 1866 and 1870 when there was danger of war, it was not Moltke but Bismarck who advised the king as to the political decision. This changed during the last years of the first World War. General Ludendorff became the strongest man in the Reich, owing to the force of his personality and the weakness of his political opponents.
DR. EXNER: People often talk of Prussian militarism, and for the time when the military had seized political power this was justified. The Weimar State completely abolished this. The nonpolitical character of the Reichswehr was stressed very emphatically and the military were again limited to their particular field. This went so far that a civilian was made minister for war, who had to represent the Reichswehr politically in the Reichstag. The longest period of office was held by a Liberal Democrat minister, who was meticulously careful to avoid all political influence by the generals. When founding the Wehrmacht Adolf Hitler maintained this sharp distinction between politics and military, indeed he even stressed it in a certain sense. He, who wished to make the whole people political-minded, wanted a nonpolitical Wehrmacht. The soldier was deprived of political rights: He was not allowed to vote or to belong to any party, not even the NSDAP, as long as the old law on military service was in force. In keeping with that, he also kept his generals and highest military advisers away from any part in political affairs. He also remained consistent toward his own party. When, after Fritsch had gone, a new Commander-in-Chief of the Army was to be appointed, it would have been easy enough to have chosen Von Reichenau, who had National Socialist leanings, but he appointed Von Brauchitsch. He did not want any political generals, not even National Socialist ones. His point of view was that he was the Fuehrer, he was the politician; the generals had to see to their own affairs; they knew nothing about politics. He did not even tolerate advice when it concerned politics. The generals did, in fact, repeatedly venture to express doubts as to his political plans, but were obliged to limit themselves strictly to purely military points of view. This sharp division into political and military spheres of competence is, for that matter, not characteristically German.
DR. EXNER: It applies also, if I am correctly informed, to the Anglo-Saxon democracies, and indeed to a particularly pronounced degree. At any rate it was thus under Hitler: He made political decisions, and it was only on their military execution that the generals had any influence. It was their task to make the military preparations corresponding to any political eventualities. But it was Hitler who pressed the button which would set the machine in motion. The "whether" and "when" were decided by the Fuehrer. It was not for them to weigh the advantageousness, the political feasibility, or the legal permissibility. Psychologically this attitude of the Fuehrer became still more pronounced owing to the almost inconceivable mistrust he felt toward his generals. An extraordinary phenomenon; yet, anyone who disregards it can never come to understand the atmosphere which reigned in the Fuehrer's headquarters. It referred-he thought-to the reactionary attitude of the officers' corps. He never forgot that the Reichswehr had fired at National Socialists in 1923. It was, moreover, the natural mistrust of the military dilettante toward the military expert, for he wanted to be a strategist; and also probably the mistrust of the political expert toward political dilettantes in officers' uniform. This mistrust of the political insight of his military entourage was moreover by no means entirely unfounded. For the generals had wanted to put a brake on his rearmament plans, to hold him back from the occupation of the Rhineland, and had expressed objections to his march into Austria and to his occupation of the Sudetenland. And yet all these actions had succeeded smoothly and without bloodshed. The generals felt like gamblers when carrying out the plans, but Hitler was sure of his game. Is it to be wondered at that their political judgment did not carry too much weight with him, and is it to be wondered at that from the other side the apparent infallibility of his political judgment met with more and more recognition?
DR. EXNER: Thus Hitler tolerated no interference in his political plans, and the result of it, as has been drastically represented to us here, was that, had a general raised objections to Hitler's political decisions, he might not actually have been shot, but his sanity would have been questioned. Altogether this man of power detested being given advice. Thus at the beginning of military undertakings the chances of the plan were hardly ever considered in general discussions. None of the important decisions since 1938 came about as the result of advice. On the contrary, the decision often came as a total surprise to the military command. This applies, for instance, to the march into Austria, of which Jodl learned 2 days before it happened, or in the case of the attack on Yugoslavia, which was suddenly decided upon by Hitler and carried out without any preparations within a few days. The alleged "discussions" at the Fuehrer's headquarters, the course of which the witness Field Marshal Milch described so clearly, were nothing but briefings. Within the Wehrmacht the spheres of competence of the individual departments were also, of course, sharply divided, and the method which Hitler used to make these divisions as insurmountable as possible is of interest. This was achieved by the method of secrecy. Enough has been said about this, particularly about the so-called "Blinkers' Order," which forbade anybody to obtain insight into anybody else's work. Thus each department was isolated and strictly limited to its own tasks. Obviously what Hitler desired to achieve by this system was that he should retain the reins in his hands as the only fully informed person. Indeed he strengthened this system still more by only too often playing off individuals, groups, and departments one against the other to prevent any conspiracy among them. Mr. President, I have concluded my paragraph.
DR. EXNER: These methods of isolationism which I mentioned before are interesting, because they often inevitably came into conflict with one of the basic ideas of National Socialism, the Fuehrer Principle; but they were carried through in spite of this, for instance when the competence of two departments covered the same territory, such as the competence of a military commander and of Himmler in the same occupied territory. What was ordered by one did not concern the other, even though the execution of the order might encroach upon the arrangement for which the other was responsible. Thus the military commander was in no way master in his territory. Things were the same in the civil administration too: There was the double role of the Landrat as a State functionary and the Kreisleiter as a Party functionary, of the Reichsstatthalter and the Gauleiter. Everywhere there was a dualism of powers and therefore a dissipation of power. There was method in this; it prevented lower organs becoming too strong and safeguarded the power of the supreme leadership. It may be said epigrammatically that the Fuehrer Principle was realized only in the Fuehrer. What was the position of Jodl's sphere of competence within all this machinery? He was the Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff, which divas a department of the OKW coming under Keitel. Jodl's main task was, as the name of the department implies, to assist the Supreme Commander in the operational leadership of the Armed Forces. He was the Fuehrer's adviser on all operational questions-in a certain sense the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces. The task of this Chief of the General Staff, in all countries in which this arrangement is known, is not that of giving orders but of advising, assisting, and carrying out. This goes to show that Jodl's position has frequently been misunderstood during the course of this Trial. (1) He was not Keitel's Chief of Staff, but the chief of the most important department of the OKW, though he had nothing to do with the other departments and sections of the OKW.
DR. EXNER: Here I have to make an interpolation in deviation from my manuscript. He was also not Keitel's deputy. In Berlin Keitel was represented by the senior departmental chief, and that was Admiral Canaris. At the Fuehrer's headquarters there was only the Armed Forces Operations Staff, for whom Jodl reported directly to the Fuehrer. He had nothing to do with the other sections of the OKW. (2) It is also a mistake that Jodl is designated by the Prosecution as the commander of one campaign or another. He had no power of command, let alone command of an army. (3) It was equally wrong when it was repeatedly said that Warlimont was present at the meeting of 23 May 1939 as Jodl's deputy or assistant. Warlimont was in the OKW at the time; Jodl had left the OKW in October 1938 and had nothing more to do with Warlimont in May 1939. What is indicated by all this with reference to Jodl's responsibility for the real or alleged wars of aggression? In general, one can only be made responsible for what one does criminally when one should not do it, and for what one has criminally neglected to do when one ought to have done it. What an officer or an official has or has not got to do is a question of competence. So this is where the problem of competence assumes its importance for us. Let us look at it more closely: Jodl is accused of having planned and prepared certain wars which were breaches of international law. This reproach would be justified only if it was within his competence to examine, before he carried out his task, the legality of the war which might be waged, and to make his co-operation dependent on this decision. This must be very definitely contested. Whether or not to wage a war is a political question and is the politician's concern. The question of how to wage war is the only question concerning the Armed Forces. The Armed Forces can suggest that the war is, in view of the opponent's strength, too risky, or that the war cannot be waged at a particular season, but the final decision rests with the politicians.
DR. EXNER: I could, to be sure, imagine that the Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff might become at least morally guilty of complicity in a war of aggression if he had incited the decisive quarters to bring about a war, or if, drawing attention to military superiority, he had advised the political leadership to exploit the propitious moment in order to carry out extensive plans of conquest. In such a case one could call him an accomplice, because he, over and above his military task, intervened in politics and provoked the decision for war. But if he plans and carries out the plan of a possible war, that is, in case the political leadership decides on war, he does nothing but his evident duty. One should consider the extraordinary consequences which would arise from a different conception: The competent authority would declare war, and the Chief of the General Staff, who regards this war as contrary to international law, would fail to co-operate. Or the Chief of General Staff happens to be of the same opinion as the head of the State, but one of the army commanders has objections and refuses to march, while another one has doubts and has to think it over first. Can war be waged at all in this case, be it a war of defense or a war of aggression? Such a conception of law would, in the future, lead to highly problematical results. The Security Council of the Allied Nations has decided to set up a World Police with the task of protecting world peace against aggression. At the same time the creation of a World General Staff has been considered which would have to plan and carry out this punitive war. Now let us imagine that the Security Council decides on a punitive war and the Chief of the General Staff replies that in his opinion there is no aggression. Would not the whole security apparatus in this case depend on the subjective opinion of a single nonpolitical person, that is, would it not in fact become illusory?
DR. EXNER: I need only add one more thing in passing: If this opinion should prevail, what efficient man would still decide to become a regular officer, if, on reaching a high position, he would risk being put on trial for crimes against the peace in case of defeat? Moreover, for that matter, it is wrong, even if only for practical reasons, to impose on a general the duty of examining the legality of a war. The general will only seldom be in a position to judge whether the state to be attacked by him has broken its neutrality or whether it threatens to attack or not. And, furthermore, the conception of a war of aggression and of a war contrary to law is, as Professor Jahrreiss has explained, still completely unclarified and contested among scholars of international law. Yet a general, who lives far apart from all these considerations, is expected to recognize that it is his duty to carry out a legal investigation? But even if he had recognized the war as illegal, just let us imagine the really tragic position in which this general would find himself. On one hand there is his obvious duty toward his own country, which he has taken an oath as a soldier to fulfill, on the other side this obligation not to support any war of aggression, a duty which forces him to commit high treason and desertion, and to break his oath. One way or the other he will become a martyr. The truth is this: As long as there is no superstate authority which impartially establishes whether, in a concrete case, such a duty does exist for the individual, and as long as there is no superstate authority which will protect against punishment for high treason and desertion people who fulfill this duty, an officer cannot be held criminally responsible for a breach of the peace.
DR. EXNER: Whatever the circumstances, one thing must be pointed out: On the one hand the Prosecution reproaches the generals for not having been simply soldiers, but also politicians; on the other hand, it demands of them that they should remonstrate against the political leadership and sabotage its resolutions-in short, that they should not simply be soldiers, but politicians. The Prosecution do actually acknowledge this up to a certain point. They say that it is not intended to punish the generals for having waged war-for this is their task-but they are reproached for having caused the war. And the second argument, which often recurs, is that without the generals' help, Hitler could not have waged these wars, and that makes them coresponsible. This argument contradicts itself. For the help which the generals gave Hitler consisted in planning and carrying out military operations, that is, in waging the war, for which, in the opinion also of the Prosecution, they cannot be criminally charged. Let us examine this more closely: Jodl is said to have caused wars. It has been sufficiently proved that he played absolutely no part in the launching of the Polish campaign. And it was this very campaign which, with strategic necessity, brought about all the further happenings. Actually one need not examine the origins of the individual wars at all to be able to say, in view of all that we know now, that in this assertion there lies an enormous overestimation of Jodl's power in the Hitler State. The decision to start the war was far removed from his influence. On this very point advice from the generals was not heard. At most, purely military considerations could be submitted. And the Norwegian campaign was the only one of all these campaigns which a military man advised Hitler to carry out for reasons of strategic necessity. But that was not Jodl. As regards the latter, the assertion that he caused wars would be founded on nothing.