dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: He was asked: "Have you any idea at all why these people were handed over to the SD?" In answering that question I want you to tell me who was responsible for their being handed over. This was your officers, your outfit; that was the general in command of the Norwegian coast, Admiral Von Schrader in command of this section, whose people captured the crew. That is your own officers. Is it true what you told the Court yesterday that the crew were captured by the SD? Have you any reason to believe Lieutenant Fanger is not telling the truth?
THE PRESIDENT: What is that you were quoting from then?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: It is the shorthand notes taken on the trial of the SS.
THE PRESIDENT: Has it been admitted?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: No, My Lord, it has not been, but it was within Article 19.
FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBUEHLER: I do not know the document which has been used. May I have it, please? Shorthand notes which I have not seen are being used; and according to the Tribunal's ruling on cross-examinations they must be given to me when the witness is heard.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, with great respect, but this point arose yesterday when the defendant made certain statements with regard to Admiral Von Schrader. I am questioning these statements, and the only way I can do it is to use documents which I did not otherwise intend to use. I shall, of course, let Dr. Kranzbuehler see them in due course.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you a copy of the German? That was to have been given in German, that evidence.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I have only the English transcript and I am willing to let- Dr. Kranzbuehler see it, but it is all I have.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you got any other copy you can hand him?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: No, I only was sent one copy.
THE PRESIDENT: After you are through with it, will you please hand that copy to Dr. Kranzbuehler?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, have you any reason to suppose, Defendant, that your officer, Lieutenant Fanger, is not telling the truth when he says that these men were captured by Admiral Von Schrader?
DOENITZ: I have no reason to question that statement because the whole affair is completely unknown to me. I have already stated that the incident was not reported to me nor-as I can prove-to the High Command of the Navy; and I told you yesterday that I could only assume, in consequence, that these men-here it is, in Paragraph 6-were captured on an island, not by the Navy but by a detachment of the Police. Consequently Admiral Von Schrader said that they were not Navy prisoners but Police prisoners and must be handed back to the Police; and for this reason he did not make a report. I assume that that is what happened. I myself cannot furnish the full details of this story or explain how it came about, because it was not reported to me at the time.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: That is the point I will get to in a moment. It nowhere states in this document that they were captured by the Police, and in fact that they were captured by the forces under Admiral Von Schrader, who attacked this island to which this boat was moored.
DOENITZ: I do not know about that. The document says that the men reached the island-the reason is not clear. That the men were brought back from the island afterwards in some sort of boat is quite clear; but naturally they might remain Police prisoners if they were captured there by the Police or the coast guards. That is the only explanation I can think of, in view of Admiral Von Schrader's personality.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I lust asked you-your own officer, Lieutenant Fanger, says they were captured by Admiral Von Schrader's troops, and you say if Lieutenant Fanger says that you have no reason to believe he is not telling the truth, is that right?
DOENITZ: Yes. My estimate of Von Schrader's personality caused me to assume yesterday that it happened like that. Since I am informed today of a Lieutenant Fanger's statement, things may have happened differently for I may be wrong.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Will you look at the end of Paragraph 8, the last sentence: "There was an interview between Blomberg of the SS and Admiral Von Schrader...." And then the last sentence: "Admiral Von Schrader told Blomberg that the crew of this torpedo boat were to be handed over in accordance with the Fuehrer orders to the SD."-and then they were handed over. And the official of the SD who carried out this interrogation stated at the trial: ". . . that after the interrogation he was of the opinion that the members of the crew were entitled to be treated as prisoners of war, and that he so informed his superior officer." Despite this report and the representations of a superior officer the crew were dealt with under the Fuehrer order and executed, and it describes how they were shot and their bodies secretly disposed of. Do you say you never heard about that?
DOENITZ: No. I do say that and I have witnesses to prove it. If the SD official thought that these men did not come under that head, he would have been obliged to report that to his superiors and his superiors would have been obliged to take the appropriate steps.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You say, you already take the position that the Navy had interrogated them, the Navy Intelligence said they should be treated as prisoners of war, and Admiral Von Schrader said they should be handed over to the SS and that the SS examined them and said they should be treated as prisoners of war, and despite that these men are murdered? And you say you knew nothing about it? Did your Kapitan zur See Wildemann say anything to you concerning this? W-i-l-d-e-m-a-n-n.
DOENITZ: I do not know him.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Let me try to bring him to your recollection. At this time he was an officer on the staff of Admiral Von Schrader and dealt with this matter. NOW, Kapitan Wildemann, and I suppose we should assume, unless you know anything to the contrary, that he is a trustworthy officer, says: "I know that Von Schrader made a written report on this action, and I know of no reason why the handing over of the prisoners to the SD should not have been reported on." Do you still say you never got any report from Von Schrader?
DOENITZ: Yes, I still say that I did not receive any report, and I am equally convinced that the High Command of the Navy did not receive it either. I have a witness to prove that. I do not know where the report went. Admiral Von Schrader was not directly responsible to the High Command of the Navy; and the report may have been sent to the OKW, if this report was made at all. At any rate the High Command of the Navy did not receive a report on this particular matter, hence my assumption that these men were captured on the island in the first place by the Police. Otherwise, I think Admiral Von Schrader would have reported it.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Before you make any further statement, I would like you to have in mind something further that Kapitan Wildemann said, which you know probably quite well, "After the capitulation Admiral Von Schrader many times said that the English would hold him responsible for handing over the prisoners to the SD," and Admiral Von Schrader was under orders to proceed to England as a prisoner when he shot himself. Did you know Admiral Von Schrader shot himself?
DOENITZ: I heard it here.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Did you know he was worried about being held responsible for this order?
DOENITZ: No, I had not the slightest idea of that. I only heard of his suicide here.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Are you still telling the Tribunal that Admiral Von Schrader made no report to you? Do you remember a few days after the capture of this M.T.B. Admiral Von Schrader received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross?
DOENITZ: Yes, but that has no connection with this matter. He did not make a report on this matter and he did not go to Berlin for his Knight's Cross either, as far as I remember.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Two other officers, Oberleutnant Nelle and Seeoberfahnrich Bohm were decorated; and in the recommendations and citations the capture of this M.T.B. was given as the reason for this decoration. You say you knew nothing about it?
DOENITZ: I know nothing about it and I cannot know anything about it, because the competent superior officers would have dealt with these decorations and not myself. The High Command of the Navy did not receive a report on this matter; otherwise it would have been passed on to me. I have that much confidence in my High Command, and my witness will testify that he did not receive it either and that he must have done so if it had gone to the Navy.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My final question, and I leave this subject: Admiral Von Schrader was your junior officer, and according to you, a very gallant officer. Do you want the Tribunal to understand that the responsibility which broke and made Admiral Von Schrader commit suicide was his responsibility, that he never consulted you and you were taking no responsibility for his acts? Is that what you want the Tribunal to understand?
DOENITZ: Yes. I will swear to that; because if Admiral Von Schrader really committed suicide on account of this incident, then he did make a mistake because he treated naval personnel, engaged in a naval operation, in a wrong manner. If that is correct, he acted against orders. In any case, not even the slightest hint of the affair reached me.
THE PRESIDENT: Sir David, will you ask the witness what he meant when he said that Von Schrader was not directly under the Navy? He was under Admiral Ciliax, wasn't he, who was on leave at this time?
DOENITZ: I said that he was not directly under the High Command of the Navy in Berlin. So if Admiral Von Schrader made any report on the affair, the report did not come to me directly but went to his immediate superior, who was in Norway.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: And that immediate superior was Admiral Ciliax who was on leave-but omit the leave for the moment; his immediate superior was Admiral Ciliax?
DOENITZ: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I want to put it perfectly fairly: Do you mean that for operations in Norway Admiral Ciliax was acting under the commander-correct me if I am wrong-was it General Von Falkenhorst? I cannot remember, perhaps you can help me. Do you remember that this Admiral was acting under the commander-in-chief in Norway so that you will tell the Tribunal. . .
DOENITZ: Yes, as far as territory was concerned Admiral Ciliax was not under the High Command of the Navy but under the Wehrmacht Commander for Norway, General Von Falkenhorst; but I can only say that if Schrader's suicide is connected with this affair, then the Commando Order was not properly carried out when these men, who were naval personnel and had been sent into a naval action, were not treated as prisoners of war. If that is what happened- I do not know-then a mistake was made locally.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: But at any rate you say that despite these decorations for this action you as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy knew nothing about it at all. That is what you say?
DOENITZ: I awarded the Knight's Cross to Admiral Von Schrader for entirely different reasons. I awarded it. I knew nothing about decorations awarded to the other people you mentioned. It has nothing to do with me because their immediate superiors would attend to that. Nor do I know whether these awards are really connected with the story or if they were given for other reasons. I still cannot imagine-and I do not believe-that a man like Admiral Von Schrader would treat naval personnel in this way. The document does not say that they were killed in a naval action but that the>, were captured on an island. It seems to me peculiar that the High Command of the Navy should have received no report on it, since orders to that effect had been given, and that the Wehrmacht report should make no reference to it in accordance with the Commando Order. All these factors are against it. I personally am unable to form an opinion as to the affair.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Defendant, I am not going into details. You may take it from me that the evidence at the trial has been that this cutter was attacked by two naval task forces. If Dr. Kranzbuehler finds I am wrong I will be happy to admit it. But we will pass on to another subject. Time is going. Would you turn to Page 105 of the document book?
DOENITZ: Then I can only say that it is a clear violation of orders and that the High Command of the Navy was not informed.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I want you to come to this next point, 105 in the German, 71 in the English document book. Now we needn't have any trouble about this document because it is signed by you. It is a memorandum about the question of more labor for shipbuilding; and you are probably very familiar with it. But will you look at the first sentence?
DOENITZ: I beg your pardon, but what page is it?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Page 105, Exhibit GB-211 (Document Number C-195), English Page 71.
DOENITZ: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, if you would look at the first sentence, "Furthermore, I propose reinforcing the shipyard working party by prisoners from the concentration camps...." I don't think we need trouble with coppersmiths, but if you will look at the end of the document, the very last, you will see Item 2 of the summing-up reads: "12,000 concentration camp prisoners will be employed in the shipyards as additional labor. Security service agrees to this." Now, that is your document, so...
DOENITZ: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: So we may take it that you were familiar with the fact of the existence of concentration camps?
DOENITZ: I have never denied it.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: And I think you went further, didn't you, when asked about this on 28 September? At that time you said: "I generally knew that we had concentration camps. That is clear. "Question: 'From whom did you learn that?' "Answer: 'The whole German people knew that.' " Don't you remember saying that?
DOENITZ: Yes. The German people knew that concentration camps existed; but they did not know anything about the conditions and methods therein.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: It must have been rather a surprise for you when the Defendant Von Ribbentrop said he only heard of two: Oranienburg and Dachau? It was rather a surprise to you, was it?
DOENITZ: No, it was not at all surprising, because I myself only knew of Dachau and Oranienburg.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: But you say here you knew there were concentration camps. Where did you think you were going to get your labor from? What camps?
DOENITZ: From these camps.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Did you think that all your labor was going to be German or that it was going to be partly foreign labor?
DOENITZ.: I did not think about that at all. I should like to explain now how these demands came to be made. At the end of the war I was given the task of organizing largescale transports in the Baltic Sea. Gradually the necessity arose to move the hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken refugees out of the coastal areas of East and West Prussia where they were exposed to starvation, epidemics, and bombardment and to bring them to Germany. For this reason I made enquiries about merchant shipping, which was not actually under my jurisdiction; and in so doing I learned that out of eight ships ordered in Denmark, seven had been destroyed by saboteurs in the final stage of construction. I called a meeting of all the departments connected with those ships and asked them, "How can I help you so that we get shipping space and have damaged ships repaired more quickly?" I received suggestions from various quarters outside the Navy, including a suggestion that repair work, et cetera, might be speeded up by employing prisoners from the concentration camps. By way of justification, it was pointed out, in view of the excellent food conditions, such employment would be very popular. Since I knew nothing about the methods and conditions in the concentration camps, I included these proposals in my collection as a matter of course, especially as there was no question of making conditions worse for them, since they would be given better food when working. And I know that if I had done the opposite I could have been accused here of refusing these people an opportunity of having better food. I had not the slightest reason to do this, as I knew nothing about any concentration camp methods at the time.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I am sure we are grateful for your explanation. But I just want you to tell me, after you had proposed that you should get 12,000 people from concentration camps did you get them?
DOENITZ: I do not know. I did not do anything more about that. After the meeting I had a memorandum prepared and submitted to the Fuehrer...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Keep to the answer. The answer is that you do not know whether you got them or not, assuming that you did get them.
DOENITZ: I did not get them at all. I had nothing to do with shipyards and consequently I do not know how those responsible for the work in the shipyards received their additional workers. I just do not know.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: But you held a position of some responsibility; if you get 12,000 people from concentration camps into the shipbuilding industry, they would have to work alongside people who weren't in concentration camps, would they not?
DOENITZ: Certainly, yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Are you telling this Tribunal that when you ask for and you may have got 12,000 people out of concentration camps, who work alongside people not in concentration camps, that the conditions inside the concentration camps remain a secret to the other people and to all the rulers of Germany?
DOENITZ: First of all, I do not know whether they came. Secondly, if they did come, I can very well imagine that they had orders not to talk; and thirdly, I do not even know what camps they came from and whether they were not people who had already been put into other camps on account of the work they accomplished. At any rate, I did not worry about the execution or methods, et cetera, because it was none of my business; I acted on behalf of the competent non-naval departments which required workmen in order to carry out repairs more quickly, so that something could be done about repairs for the merchant navy. That was my duty, considering the arrangements which I had to make for the re-transport of these refugees. I would do exactly the same thing again today. That is the position.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well now, just look a little down the document to the fourth paragraph, after it says, "Translator's note." If you will look at the English, the paragraph beginning: "Since elsewhere..." Have you found that? This is as you have told us, after you express your worry about the sabotage in the Danish and Norwegian shipyards. I just want you to look at your proposal to deal with saboteurs. "Since elsewhere measures for exacting atonement taken against whole working parties among whom sabotage occurred have proved successful and, for example, the shipyard sabotage in France was completely suppressed, possibly similar measures for the Scandinavian countries will come under consideration." That is what you were suggesting, Defendant, a collective penalty against the whole working party where any sabotage occurred; isn't that so?
DOENITZ: Yes. May I give an explanation in that connection?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: That is all right. But otherwise, it is so?
DOENITZ: Agencies outside the Navy connected with shipbuilding stated at that meeting that sabotage had been prevented in France by the introduction of certain measures for exacting atonement. Through an affidavit by an officer who attended the meeting and drafted the minutes or the short memorandum, I have now ascertained that these measures at that time meant the withholding of the additional rations issued by the management of the shipyard. That is what that meant. And, secondly, to come to Norway and Denmark, I told these people: "It is impossible for us to build ships there with our foreign currency and our materials, only to have them smashed up by sabotage-and assuredly with the co-operation of the shipyard workmen-when they are nearly ready. What can we do against that?" The answer I received was that the only way was to keep them away from saboteurs and to round them up in camps.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: The whole of this explanation that you have given us is in this document which is in front of the Tribunal. Have you anything to add to what is in the document?
DOENITZ: Right. I have to add that the workmen were to be treated in exactly the same way as our own workmen who were also housed in barracks. The Danish and Norwegian workers would not have suffered the slightest discomfort.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I want you to look at one more sentence: "By the employment of the working parties concerned as concentration camp workers, their output would not only be increased by 100 percent but the cessation of their previously good wages might possibly result in their being considerably deterred from sabotage..." That fairly represents your view of the way to treat Norwegian and Danish workers, does it not? DtiNITZ: This was a safety measure to allow us to get control of the sabotage.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well now, just turn back to Page 70 of the English document book, Page 103 in the German document book. This is an extract from the minutes of a meeting between you and Hitler on 1 July 1944, signed by yourself. Have you got it?
D0NITZ: Not yet.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Page 70 in the English, Page 112 in the German text (Exhibit Number GB-210).
D0NITZ: I have got it.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: In connection with the general strike in Copenhagen, the Fuehrer says: "The only weapon to deal with terror is terror. Court-martial proceedings create martyrs. History shows that the names of such men are on everybody's lips whereas there is silence with regard to the many thousands who have lost their lives in similar circumstances without court-martial proceedings." Silence with regard to those who are condemned without trial! Do you agree with that statement of Hitler's?
DOENITZ: No.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Then why did you distribute it to Operations for circulation if you didn't approve of it?
DOENITZ: I do not agree with this procedure, but it expresses an idea of the Fuehrer's. This was not a discussion between the Fuehrer and myself; it represents notes on the military situation generally, made by the officer who accompanied me, and contains widely differing points.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Will you try and answer my question? It is a perfectly simple one. It is: Why did you distribute that to Operations for circulation? What was there in these few lines that was of interest to your officers? What did you think was valuable for your officers to know in that dreadful piece of savagery that I have just quoted to you?
DOENITZ: It is very easy to explain that. The officer who made the minutes included it in order to inform our shipyard establishments that there was a general strike in Copenhagen. That one paragraph from the long situation discussions was included so that the shipyard establishments would know that there was a strike in Copenhagen. That was the whole point.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I am suggesting to you, Defendant, that you circulated that to your officers to inculcate ruthlessness among them. That is my suggestion. What do you say to that?
DOENITZ: I say that is entirely wrong. I may tell you also that I did not even hear the Fuehrer make that statement, but it is possible that it was taken down by the accompanying officer, Wagner, for the reason which I have just given you, to warn our people of the general strike in Copenhagen.