THE PRESIDENT: We are not dealing with the SA or the organizations at the present moment. If you have any motion to make, you will kindly make it in writing, and we will now proceed with the part of the Trial with which we are dealing.
HERR BOEHM: Mr. President, will you permit me one more remark? The minutes of December 17 and 18, 1945 I have received today.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you mean the transcript of it?
HERR BOEHM: I received today the German transcript for the 18th and 19th of December 1945. You see, it is not a fact that we receive the transcript the day after or a few days after the session. I received it weeks later, after I asked for it repeatedly. I have asked the appropriate offices repeatedly to give me a copy of the document book in German, and I have still not received it.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we will inquire into that. One moment.
[There was a pause in the proceedings while the Judges conferred.]
THE PRESIDENT: Will the last counsel who was speaking stand up?
I am told that the reason for the delay in the case you have mentioned was that there had been an error in the paging and therefore the transcripts of those shorthand notes had to be recopied. I understand that the delay ordinarily is not anything like so long as that delay.
HERR BOEHM: But I hardly believe that in the case of the translation of the document book the delay is due to those reasons. But even if the delay in this particular case should be justified, it means that week after week I am hampered in my defense. I do not know the day before what is going to be presented, and I do not know until weeks afterwards what has been presented. I am therefore not in a position to study the evidence from the standpoint of a Defense Counsel. I do not even know what is contained in the document book. I am thus obviously handicapped in my defense in every way. The Prosecution keeps saying that it will furnish the documents on time. This is apparently not the case.
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps you will kindly make your complaint in writing and give the particulars of it. Do you understand that?
HERR BOEHM: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
MR. ROBERTS: May it please the Tribunal, it is my duty to present the evidence against Keitel and also against the Defendant Jodl and I would ask the Tribunal for permission, if it is thought right, that those two cases should be presented together in the interest of saving time, a matter which I know we all have at heart.
The story with regard to Keitel and Jodl runs on parallel lines. For the years in question they marched down the same road together. Most of the documents affect them both, and in those circumstances, I submit, it might result in a substantial saving of time if I were permitted to present the cases against both of them together.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
MR. ROBERTS: Then I shall proceed, if I may, on that basis.
My Lords, may I say that I fully recognize that the activities of both these defendants have been referred to in detail many times and quite recently by Colonel Telford Taylor, and my earnest desire is to avoid repetition as far as I possibly can. And may I say I welcome any suggestions, as I travel the road, which the Tribunal have to make, to make my presentation still shorter.
There is a substantial document book, Document Book Number 7, which is a joint document book dealing with both the defendants. Practically all the documents in that book have already been referred to. They nearly all, of course, have a German origin. I propose to read passages from only nine new documents and those nine documents, I think, are shown in Your Lordship’s bundle and in the bundles of your colleagues.
May I commence by referring, as shortly as may be, to the part of the Indictment which deals with the two defendants. That will be found on Page 33 (Volume I, Page 77) of the English translation. It begins with “Keitel” in the middle of the page, and it says, “The Defendant Keitel between 1938 and 1945” was the holder of various offices. I only want to point out there that although the commencing date is 1938 the Prosecution rely on certain activities of the Defendant Keitel before 1938, and we submit that we are entitled so to do because of the general words appearing on Page 28 of the Indictment (Volume I, Page 68) at the head of the appendix:
“The statements hereinafter set forth following the name of each individual defendant constitute matters upon which the Prosecution will rely inter alia as establishing the individual responsibility. . . .”
And then the Tribunal will see:
“. . . Keitel used the foregoing positions, his personal influence, and his intimate connection with the Führer in such a manner that: He promoted the military preparations for war set forth in Count One. . . .”
If I may read it shortly—he participated in the planning and preparation for wars of aggression and in violation of treaties, he executed the plans for wars of aggression and wars in violation of treaties, and he authorized and participated in War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity.
Then, “The Defendant Jodl between 1932 and 1945 was” the holder of various positions. He “used the foregoing positions, his personal influence, and his close connection with the Führer in such a manner”—and this is not to be found in the text relating to Keitel—“that: He promoted the accession to power of the Nazi conspirators and the consolidation of their control over Germany. . . .”
May I say, My Lords, here, that I know of no evidence at the moment to support that allegation that he promoted the Nazi rise to power before 1933. There is plenty of evidence that he was a devoted, almost a fanatical admirer of the Führer, but that, I apprehend, would not be enough.
And then it is alleged against Jodl that he promoted the preparations for war, that he participated in the planning and preparation of the war, and that he authorized and participated in War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity.
My Lords, with regard to the position of the Defendant Keitel, it is well-known that in February of 1938 he became Chief of the OKW, Supreme Commander of all the Armed Forces, and that Jodl became Chief of the Operations Staff; and that is copiously proved in the shorthand notes and in the documents. Perhaps I ought to refer to his position in 1935, at the time when the reoccupation of the Rhineland was first envisaged. Keitel was head of the Wehrmachtsamt in the Reich War Ministry, and that is proved by a Document 3019-PS, which is to be found in Das Archiv; and I ask the Court to take judicial notice of that. It is not in the bundle.
Jodl’s positions have been proved by his own statement, Document 2865-PS, which is also Exhibit USA-16; and in 1935 he held the rank of lieutenant colonel, Chief of the Operations Department of the Landesverteidigung.
May I just refer to the pre-1938 period—that is, the pre-OKW period—to two documents, one of which is new. The first document I desire to mention without reading is EC-177. I do not want to read it. It is Exhibit USA-390. My Lords, those are the minutes, shortly after the Nazi rise to power, of the working committee of the Delegates for Reich Defense. The date is the 22d of May 1933. Keitel presided at that meeting. The minutes have been read. There is a long discussion as to the preliminary steps for putting Germany on a war footing. Keitel regarded the task as most urgent, as so little had been done in previous years; and perhaps the Tribunal will remember the most striking passage where Keitel impressed the need for secrecy: Documents must not be lost; oral statements can be denied at Geneva.
And I submit, if I may be allowed to make this short comment, it is interesting to see in those very early days of 1933 that the heads of the Armed Forces of Germany contemplated using lying as a weapon.
My Lord, the next document I desire to refer to is a new one, and it is EC-405, Exhibit GB-160. I desire to refer to this shortly because, in my submission, it fixes Jodl with knowledge of, and complicity in, the plan to reoccupy the Rhineland country, contrary to the Versailles Treaty. The Tribunal will see that these are the minutes of the working committee of the Reich Defense Council, dated the 26th of June 1935.
The Court will see that, a quarter of the way down the page, Subparagraph