dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
JODL: The contents, as I have already said, were an over-all picture of the strategic situation. Here, before the Tribunal naturally only the introduction was read. This introduction painted a picture of what lay behind us, but not from the political point of view, rather from the strategic angle. I described the operational necessity for all the operations of the so-called wars of aggression. In no way did I identify myself with the National Socialist Party, but, as is only natural for a General Staff officer, with my Supreme Commander; for at that time it was no longer a question of National Socialism or democracy. The question was the "to be or not to be" of the German people. And there were patriots in Germany too, not only in the neighboring states; and I shall count myself among these patriots while I have breath. Moreover, it is not important to whom one speaks, but it is important what one says and what one speaks about. Besides, I may also state that I delivered that same speech to the military-district commanders and to the senior officers of the reserve army.
DR. EXNER: The beginning and the end of the speech contain a eulogy of the Party and the Fuehrer that is incontestable. Why did you include that in a purely objective military speech?
JODL: It was impossible for me to begin a speech of that kind with a critical controversy about the Party or about my Supreme Commander. It was necessary to create confidence between the officer and the Party leader; for this confidence was not only necessary in order that the speech would serve its purpose; this confidence was the prerequisite for victory. Moreover, I should like to make an important point; that which the Prosecution submitted as Document Number L-172...
DR. EXNER: Is that the Gauleiter speech?
JODL: That is not the Gauleiter speech at all; it is not the speech which I delivered. That is nothing else but the "wastepaper basket" version of this speech. It is the first rough draft which was completely revised and altered because it contained many things which were not important. The entire nucleus of the speech, namely the section about the situation at the time, the part dealing with the enemy and the means at his disposal and his intentions, all that is missing. The things contained in this document are many hundreds of notes for the speech which were' sent to me by my staff. I compiled my speech from these notes, and then I returned all this material to my staff.
DR. EXNER: Then it is not the manuscript of your speech?
JODL: It is in no way the manuscript; that looks entirely different.
DR. EXNER: Now we shall turn to a different point. Which leaders of the Party did you get to know from the time of the seizure of power until the outbreak of the war?
JODL: Not mentioning the soldiers, Reich Minister Frick alone. I was with him twice when the questions of Reich reform were to be discussed.
DR. EXNER: And which of the defendants here present did you know before 1939, or before the beginning of the war?
JODL: Of the defendants here, I knew only the Reich Marshal, Grossadmiral Raeder, Field Marshal Keitel, and Minister Frick; no one else.
DR. EXNER: In the meantime, had you concerned yourself at all with the literature of National Socialism?
JODL: No.
DR. EXNER: Did you participate in Reich Party rallies?
JODL: In the year 1937, in my official capacity, I participated the last 3 days in Nuremberg, when the Labor Service, the SA, and the Wehrmacht were reviewed.
DR. EXNER: Did you participate in the commemorations at Munich, that is, every year on 9 November?
JODL: No. I really did not belong there.
DR. EXNER: Can you tell us what your position was with respect to the semi-military units of the Party?
JODL: These semi-military organizations sprang up like mushrooms after the seizure of power; but only the SA under Rohm tried to seize complete power. The witness Gisevius said here that there was no Rohm Putsch. That is correct, but it was just about to happen. At that time in the Reich War Ministry we were armed to the teeth, and Rohm was a real revolutionary, not a frock coat insurgent. When the Fuehrer intervened in June 1934, from that moment there were no more conflicts between the Wehrmacht and the SA. The Wehrmacht became all the more suspicious of the units of the SS, which from that moment multiplied in an extraordinary fashion. The Army, one can very well say, was never reconciled to this dualism of two armed organizations within the country.
DR. EXNER: Now I should like to quote various excerpts from your diary-Document Number 1780-PS, Page 2 of the first volume of the document book-in order to show that Jodl again and again concerned himself with this infiltration of the SS into the Army. On 19 April-that is the second paragraph-or before that, on 22 March, there is an entry to this effect. Then on the 19th of April: "H. visits chief of the Armed Forces Department; tells him his misgivings concerning development of the SS." In the French translation this "H" is replaced by "Heydrich." That, of course, has no sense, for Heydrich certainly had no misgivings concerning the development of the SS; but the "H" quite obviously stands for "Harder," who was Quartermaster General. I do not know whether this correction was made in the French document book. I am sorry to say that I noted quite a few mistakes in translation in the English and French document books and have applied to the General Secretary in this connection to have corrections made. I must certainly say that this large number of errors in translation makes a doubtful impression, especially if for an "H" the word "Heydrich" is substituted, and the chief of the Armed Forces is connected with one of the most unpleasant figures in the SS. I must say that I am filled with misgivings-I must emphasize this-because in the course of the last few months hundreds of documents have been submitted to the Tribunal, the translation of which we could not check. When we did make a check on one occasion we found quite a few defects, as did Dr. Siemers recently.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner, you are supposed to be asking the questions. You are making some long statements now.
DR. EXNER: I should like to refer to the next to the last point of 3 February, on the same page... 1~ PRESIDENT: Professor Exner, we cannot have counsel making long statements which are not in evidence. You cannot make statements of that sort. If there is any mistranslation you can draw our attention to it; but that is not the way to do it, making general statements about the translation of the documents.
DR. EXNER: Mr. President, I do not wish to give any more explanations now, but I should like to quote passages from my document book referring to 3 February...
THE PRESIDENT: You have corrected one apparent mistranslation or misinterpretation of the letter "H." Well, you can do so again, if necessary, in other places. You cannot make general statements about it.
DR. EXNER: I will only read what is permissible. I will read extracts from the document book without making any criticism. I have nothing further to say about that.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
DR. EXNER: It says, on 3 February: "General Thomas reports that the liaison officer to the Ministry of Economy . . . Lieutenant Colonel Drews, visited him by order of Schacht. He was of the opinion that the SS would employ all means to cast suspicion on the Wehrmacht and to force it to the wall in its present weak state." Then it says under the date of 10 February: "Himmler is said to be distressed that senior officers of the Wehrmacht had made unheard of accusations against him." Then perhaps one other passage; from the next document, on Page 4 of the document book, again the same diary, Document Number 1809-PS, the entry of 25 May 1940: "The plan for the unlimited expansion of the SS sounds generally suspicious." Did you, even at that time, have misgivings about the dangers of this dualism that you just mentioned?
JODL: As a man very well versed in history, I had many misgivings about this. Not only did I have misgivings, but even during the war I quite openly expressed these misgivings to Himmler and Bormann.
DR. EXNER: How did it come about that Him Her acquired more and more influence in military spheres?
JODL: That can be explained by the fact that the Fuehrer had the feeling-which perhaps on the whole was right-that a large section of the officer corps opposed his ideas. He saw in this attitude not only an inner political danger but also saw in it a danger to victory, which he believed was to be attained only through ruthless methods.
DR. EXNER: And what practical results came about through this?
JODL: The practical results were these: The SS units were multiplied tremendously; the Police received authority which extended even into the operational sphere of the Army, and later, the Higher SS and Police Leaders were created; the intelligence service was transferred to the SS-where, by the way, it was organized by Kaltenbrunner far better than before-the reserve army was put under the jurisdiction of Himmler, and, in the end, also the entire Prisoners of War Organization.
DR. EXNER: In your diary you express satisfaction at the appointment by the Fuehrer of General Von Brauchitsch as the Commander-in-Chief of the Army. At that time there was a choice between him and General Reichenau. Why were you glad that Brauchitsch was chosen?
JODL: General Von Reichenau was known as a truly political general, and I was afraid that he might perhaps have no scruples in sacrificing all the good old tradition of the Army to the new regime.
DR. EXNER: I should like to refer in this connection to Jodl's diary, Document Number 1780-PS, Page 6, first volume, with the entry of 2 February 1938, second paragraph, and again to the entry of 3 February 1938 to be found on Page 7, where he appears particularly happy: "The chief of the Armed Forces Department informs me that the battle has been won. The Fuehrer has decided that General Von Brauchitsch should be appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Army."
THE PRESIDENT: I do not think you need read this. It simply says that he is in favor of Von Brauchitsch.
DR. EXNER: You thought about the particular consequences for the generals concerned in case Von Reichenau were appointed?
JODL: Yes. There was no doubt that the senior generals, such as Rundstedt, Bock, Adam, List, Halder, and so on, would never have subordinated themselves to Von Reichenau. Did. EXNER: After this introduction, let us turn to the crimes against the laws of war and humanity which have been charged against you. There is very little time left. Therefore, I should like to clarify your participation in the Commissar Decree. A draft by the High Command of the Army on the treatment of Soviet commissars was submitted to you, and you put a notation in the margin of this draft on the grounds of which the Prosecution has accused you . . .
THE PRESIDENT: What is the number of the document?
DR. EXNER: The number of the document is 884-PS, Exhibit Number USSR-351, Page 152, second volume of my document book. The whole is a set of notes on a report. [Turning to the defendants] Perhaps you can tell us this first of all: What connection did you have with this matter, that is, with the treatment of commissars?
JODL: I did not participate in preparing this draft. I was not concerned with prisoners of war nor with questions of martial law at that time. But the draft was submitted to me before it was transmitted to Field Marshal Keitel.
DR. EXNER: All right. Now you added: "We must count on retaliation against German fliers. It is best, therefore, to brand the entire action as retaliation." What do you mean by this statement?
JODL: The intention of the Fuehrer which was set forth in this draft was rejected unanimously by all soldiers. Very heated discussions took place about this also with the Commander-in-Chief of the Army. This resistance ended with the characteristic sentence by the Fuehrer: "I cannot demand that my generals should understand my orders, but I do demand that they follow them." Now, in this case, by my notation I wanted to indicate to Field Marshal Keitel a new way by which one might possibly still circumvent this order which had been demanded.
DR. EXNER: The Prosecution, as you probably remember, have made this order the subject of such a serious charge against the German military authorities because it was drafted before the beginning of the war. These notes are dated 12 May 1941, and there you say: "It is best to brand the entire action as retaliation." What did you mean by that?
JODL: It is correct that, because of his ideological opposition to Bolshevism, the Fuehrer counted on the possible authorization of the commissars (decree) as a certainty. He was confirmed in this belief, and gave his reasons by saying: "I have carried on the war against Communism for 20 years. I know Communism, but you do not know it." I must add that we as well were, of course, to a certain extent under the influence of what had been written in the literature of the entire world about Bolshevism since 1917. We also had had some experiences, for example, the Rate Republic in Munich. Despite that, I was of the opinion that first of all we should wait and see whether the commissary would actually act as the Fuehrer expected them to act; and if his suspicions were confirmed, we could then make use of reprisals. That was what I meant by my notation in the margin.
DR. EXNER: That is to say, you wanted to wait until the beginning of the war; then, you wanted to wait until you had had experiences in this war; and then you wanted to propose measures which, if necessary, could be considered as reprisals against the methods of fighting used by the enemy. Was that what you meant when you said: "It is best, therefore, to brand the entire action as retaliation"? What do you mean by "Man zieht auf"? These words were translated by the Prosecution as...
MR. G. D. ROBERTS (Leading Counsel for the United Kingdom): My Lord, in the examination of my learned friend, Dr. Exner, he has for several minutes now been asking the defendant very long leading questions as to what was the meaning of the passage in that letter. In my submission, that is not evidence at all by the witness; it is a speech by Dr. Exner, and I would ask him not to make another one now.
DR. EXNER: I still think that it is necessary in the presentation of evidence to determine what the defendant thought when he wrote those words.
THE PRESIDENT: You have heard me say on several occasions that when counsel ask leading questions, which put the answer into the mouth of the witness, it carries very little weight with the Tribunal. It is perfectly obvious that if you wanted to ask what the witness meant by his note he could have answered; and that is the proper way to put the question, and not to suggest the answer to him.
DR. EXNER: First of all I put the question, and then I believe I was summarizing the main points of what the witness said. There is also a difficulty here with translation which I should like to overcome; that is, I am not sure about it. "Es wird aufgezogen" or "man zieht es am besten auf als Repressalie" is translated as, "It is best therefore to brand" in English, and in French as stigmatiser. It seems to me as though this were not quite correct, and as though one should say, "It is best to handle it as a reprisal," and in French to say trailer . [Turning to the defendant.] Then what happened?
JODL: I believe one should further explain the expression "aufziehen." The German word "auiziehen" also has something doubtful about it. It has been said that that was a typical military expression used by the Defendant Jodl at that time. That does not mean, as is assumed by the Prosecution, "to camouflage." Rather, I would say literally: "I believe we must handle this operation quite differently," that is, tackle it in a different way. We would say that we would handle the demonstration to the Fuehrer of new weapons in a different way; that means, for instance, "in a different sequence; in a different manner." Among us soldiers "aufziehen," to handle, meant exactly the same as "to tackle" or "to arrange" something. But it did not mean "to deceive."
DR. EXNER: You mean that the word "aufaiehen" has no secondary meaning indicating deception?
JODL: No.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now. [The Tribunal adjourned until 4 June 1946 at 1000 hours.]
DR. EXNER: General, yesterday afternoon we started dealing with war crimes, but today I should like first of all to put a few preliminary questions to you. What position and what tasks were yours during the period of the war?
JODL: I had to deal with the entire general staff work concerning the strategic operational conduct of the war. Then, subordinate to me was the military propaganda department, whose duty it was to co-operate with the press; and thirdly, I was head of an office which, speaking broadly, had to distribute means of communication to the various branches of the Wehrmacht. The whole of this sphere of work took up my time to such an extent that as a rule I worked night after night, until 3 o'clock in the morning. I had no time at all to concern myself with other things. I already had to delegate to my personal adjutant almost all my work with the press, which had to receive daily information.
DR. EXNER: These tasks, which you have just named, were all tasks connected with your office, and that was the Armed Forces Operations Staff, of which you were chief, is that not so?
JODL: Yes, of which I was chief.
DR. EXNER: And one department of the Operations Staff, the main and most important one, was the operations department?
JODL: Yes, operations.
DR. EXNER: And most of your tasks were concerned with this department. The Prosecution say you were Chief of Staff to Field Marshal Keitel. Do you agree?
JODL: That is not correct as has already been shown by the organization which was explained here during Field Marshal Keitel's case. There is a great difference. As Chief of Staff, I would have been Field Marshal Keitel's assistant, concerned with all of his duties. I was, however, only the chief of one of the many departments subordinate to Field Marshal Keitel. Beginning with the year 1941 it became the practice for me and my operational branch to report to the Fuehrer direct on all matters concerned with strategies, while Field Marshal Keitel, using my quartermaster department as a sort of personal working staff, took over all other tasks.
DR. EXNER: Did you, as Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff, have authority to issue orders?
JODL: No-or rather only through my working staff. I was subordinate to Field Marshal Keitel, and even Keitel himself was not a commander but only the chief of a staff. But in the course of this war I naturally decided many operational details myself and signed them myself. There was no disagreement of any sort in these matters with the commanders-in-chief for I had their confidence, and I worked on the best possible terms with them.
DR. EXNER: For someone on the outside it is not quite easy to understand that even though you had no authority to issue orders, SO many orders have been submitted here which were, in fact, signed by you, and signed in different ways-sometimes with your full name, sometimes with a "J." the first letter of your name. Please explain these differences.
JODL: One must differentiate as follows: The decrees which the Fuehrer himself signed, if they were of an operational nature, bear my initial at the end, on the lower right; and that means that I at least assisted in the formulation of that order. Then there were orders which also came from the Fuehrer, though they were not signed by him personally, but were signed "by order, Jodl"; but they always had at the beginning the sentence, "The Fuehrer has decreed," or that sentence was found somewhere in the course of the order. There would be a preamble, usually giving reasons for the order, and then, it would read: "The Fuehrer has therefore decreed."
DR. EXNER: And what was the difference between these two groups of orders? Why was one group of orders signed by the Fuehrer, and the other only by you?
JODL: The difference was merely that the orders signed by me were of less importance.
DR. EXNER: Now, there were other orders which did not begin with "The Fuehrer has decreed," but were signed by you nevertheless. What about these?
JODL: These orders were as a rule signed: "The Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces, by order, Jodl" These were orders which emanated from me, that is, I or my staff formulated them. The Fuehrer himself and Field Marshal Keitel had perhaps been informed of these orders, but not in every case. Then there were other orders, which bear my initial on the first page, in the upper right-hand corner. Those were orders issued by other departments. My initial "J" on the first page was merely an office notation to show that the order had been submitted to me. But it did not mean that I had read it for if, on perusing the first page, I saw that the decree dealt with a matter not connected with my sphere of work, then I initialed it and put it aside, because I had to save time.
DR. EXNER: Now, there is another large volume of -documents, of which some are being used as very incriminating evidence against you; they are not orders but summarized notes. Can you comment on these?
JODL: These summarized notes were an arrangement used on higher staff levels for the convenience of people who had not time to study enormous files. The summarized notes contained, in a short condensed form, a description of some matter or other, frequently the views taken by other departments and sometimes even a proposal. The important point, however, is that it was not an order; it was not a draft of an- order, but it formed the basis for an order.
DR. EXNER: Perhaps the situation will best be clarified if you can explain this to the Tribunal in connection with the draft notes concerning the commissars, which were touched on yesterday. It is 884-PS, Exhibit USSR-351; Volume II of my document book, Page 152. Before you start I should like to call the attention of the Tribunal to an error in the translation. On Page 152, under Figure I, it says: "The OKH has presented a draft for instructions regarding political officials et cetera...regarding commissary..." The English translation says: "The Army High Command presents a statement . . ."; but it is a draft. And I cannot quite follow the French; it says: Confirmation des instructions . It should obviously be projet . In any case the German original says: "The OKH has presented a draft for instructions regarding treatment of political officials et cetera , for the uniform application of the order issued on 31 March 1941." And these are the commissary. The whole of this is a condensed draft. Will you please explain what it means?