The Nuremberg Trials (Vol.7). International Military Tribunal

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СКАЧАТЬ this afternoon, because I understand that the case against the Defendant Hess will be presented afterwards; and it is important that he should finish that day, so that the Chief Prosecutor may have a full day for his opening statement.

      M. MOUNIER: Mr. President, both yesterday and today I have yielded most willingly to the wishes of the Tribunal. I understand perfectly your anxiety to expedite the trial as much as possible, and in view of this, I shortened the remarks which I was going to make to you this morning. For this reason, too, I state in the name of the French Prosecution that I shall now forego the presentation of the cases of the other defendants, which were on the schedule. I merely ask the Tribunal to refer to the files which we have submitted, except in the case of Keitel and Jodl. If it please the Court, my friend and colleague, M. Quatre, will make a few remarks about these two defendants at the beginning of this afternoon’s session. He will try to make them as short as possible. In that way the British Delegation will have the two hours which it needs to present the case of Hess.

      Consequently, may it please the Court, M. Quatre will take the floor for an hour at two o’clock and then give way to the British Delegation.

      THE PRESIDENT: Another question that I would like to ask you, M. Mounier, as to the documents against the other defendants, other than Keitel and Jodl, have they been furnished to the defendants concerned in them?

      M. MOUNIER: Yes, they have, Mr. President.

      THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.

      [The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.]

      Afternoon Session

       Table of Contents

      M. CONSTANT QUATRE (Assistant Prosecutor for the French Republic): Mr. President, Your Honors, I have the honor today to bring to a close the presentation of the French Prosecution by recapitulating the charges against the Defendants Wilhelm Keitel and Alfred Jodl. Before going into my statement, I shall ask the Tribunal for permission to present a few observations. First of all, to spare the time of the Tribunal, we have joined the two defendants in the same brief. Their activities were carried on so much in common that in separating them we would run the risk of tedious repetitions and for this reason, I am condensing as far as possible what I have to say.

      This presentation consists of three parts. In an introduction, I have endeavored to show the position of the two defendants in the general design of their activities. The first part following this deals with the preparation of plans of aggression, and will only be mentioned. It has already been sufficiently expounded so that it need not be brought up again.

      The second part will claim my special attention. It concerns the responsibility incurred by the defendants for the crimes committed in the course of the war. In this connection, I shall not mention all the documents, testimonies, and interrogatories concerning these two defendants. If their guilt is a function of the repetition of their crimes, its main characteristic is the criminal intent which caused these crimes to be carried out. This criminal intent is made particularly clear by the few documents to which I have limited myself. I shall ask the Tribunal’s permission to make a few intentionally brief quotations from these.

      The documents quoted will be first quoted under the session number, which you will find written in red in the margin of the copy before you. I shall thereupon indicate the original number. If the document has already been submitted, I shall furnish the date at which it was submitted and the number under which it was submitted.

      As Chief of the National Socialist Party and subsequently as Chancellor of the Reich, Hitler endeavored to gain sole control of the German Army. He wanted the unity which he had established between Party and State to prevail throughout the Army, the State, and the Party. Only under these conditions would the war machine be capable of fulfilling its function. The initial impulse would come from the Party, the State would translate it into action, and the Army would impose it, if necessary, both at home and abroad.

      To achieve this aim it was necessary first of all to impose legislation which would in fact bring the whole military organization under the Führer’s orders. It was also necessary to take steps to eliminate personalities too unyielding to submit to these measures. The execution of Von Schleicher in 1934 and the disgrace of Blomberg in 1938 are two examples. All that remained was to provide for their replacement by military chiefs whose conscience was sufficiently elastic to allow them to play the part of faithful executives. Keitel and Jodl were among these.

      Their personal convictions and their rapid rise to eminence prove this. Questioned on 3 August 1945 by Colonel Ecer of the Czechoslovakian Military Judiciary, the Defendant Keitel spoke thus of his relations with Hitler and the National Socialist Party, (Exhibit Number RF-1430, formerly Document Number RF-710):

      “In my innermost thoughts I was a faithful supporter of Adolf Hitler and my political convictions were National Socialist. When the Führer accorded me his confidence, my personal contact with him further influenced me towards National Socialism. Today I am still a firm partisan of Adolf Hitler, which does not imply that I adhere to all the points of the program and policy of the Party.”

      On 7 November 1943, in a speech delivered in Munich to the leaders of the Reich and of the provinces on the strategic position of Germany at the beginning of the fifth year of the war, Jodl made the following statement by way of peroration, Exhibit Number RF-1431, Document Number L-172, submitted by the American Prosecution of 27 November 1945 under Number USA-34:

      “At this moment I should like to testify, not only with my lips but from the bottom of my heart, that our trust and confidence in the Führer are boundless.”

      Keitel, who entered the Army in 1901, was still a colonel in 1931. Jodl, who was 3 years younger, was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel only in 1932, in spite of the opportunities offered by the war of 1914-18. The past years had brought them only mediocre advancement. Those which lay before them were to lead them to the heights of honor and responsibility. They saw their star rising at last simultaneously with that of the new master of Germany. The immediate result was their admission to public life.

      During the years preceding the war, Keitel did not cease to exercise high functions in the most exalted ranks of the German Armed Forces. As he was in special favor with the new master of Germany, he adopted every possible means of strengthening the influence of Nazi ideology within the Army from the moment of Hitler’s accession to power. His activities in the Armed Forces Department were particularly fruitful. This was a ministerial organization which temporarily replaced the Reich Ministry of War and was responsible among other things for the preparation and co-ordination of plans affecting the German Army. The defendant’s period in office is rendered the more noteworthy by the fact that sweeping changes in organization had just been effected. The Reichswehr of the professional soldier was replaced by the Wehrmacht, recruited by compulsory military service. It was not enough to call the whole youth of Germany to the flag; it had to be clothed and fed and supplied with powerful modern weapons. This increase in the number of men under arms, these beginnings of a military economy and of a policy of rearmament, were largely due to the efforts of the defendant, who at that time enjoyed, in fact if not in theory, the prerogatives of a Minister of War.

      On 4 February 1938, when Hitler abolished the War Ministry and proclaimed himself Commander-in-Chief, he transferred the chief powers of the Ministry to the High Command of the Armed Forces and its chief, Keitel, became at the same time Chief of the Führer’s personal staff.

      The defendant was to retain these functions until the German Army capitulated. As Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces, Keitel did not exercise direct authority over the three СКАЧАТЬ