Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-14/tgmwc-14-131.05
Last-Modified: 2000/03/13

                                                            
                                                  [Page 106]
                                                            

THE PRESIDENT: Is it, Dr. Siemers?

DR. SIEMERS: Yes, of course. I believe -

THE PRESIDENT: Do the prosecution say that this agreement
was broken?

DR. SIEMERS: Yes. With reference to the remarks just made by
Sir David, I would like to say that I pointed out that
deviation was permitted under these conditions but that
there was an obligation to notify the other partners.
Perhaps that did not come through before.

BY DR. SIEMERS:

Q. Was this agreement concluded, Grand Admiral, in 1937,
from the same point of view which you have already stated?
Are there any other noteworthy facts which led to the
agreement?

A. In 1936, as far as I remember, the treaties so far made
by England with other Powers expired; and England was
therefore anxious to renew them. The fact that we were
invited in 1937 to join in a new agreement by all the
Powers, meant that Germany would henceforth be completely
included in these treaties.

DR. SIEMERS: There seems to be a technical disturbance. The
German is not coming through to me. The witness and the
court reporters cannot hear, either.

(A short recess was taken.)

BY DR. SIEMERS:

Q. The prosecution has accused you of violating this German-
English Naval Agreement, and this charge is based on
Document C-23, Exhibit USA 49, in the British Delegation's
Document Book 10, Page 3. This document is dated 18th
February, 1938; it has been mentioned repeatedly in these
proceedings and begins as follows: "The actual displacement
of the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau is in both
cases 20 per cent greater than the displacement stated to
the British." Then we find a list which shows that the
displacement of the Scharnhorst was given as 26,000 tons but
was actually 31,000 tons, and draught stated one metre less
than was actually the case. The Bismarck and Tirpitz were
listed as 35,000 tons but had an actual displacement of
41,700 and a difference of 80 centimetres in draught.
Therefore, according to what we have seen, there is an
evident infringement of the Treaty. Grand Admiral, I am
assuming that you do not dispute this violation of the
Treaty?

A. No, in no way.

Q. Certainly, at the time of this document there were only
four battleships in question: Scharnhorst, Gneisenau,
Bismarck and Tirpitz -

THE PRESIDENT: It seems you are again stating these things
to the Tribunal - making statements instead of asking
questions of the witness.

DR. SIEMERS: I believe, Mr. President, that I was
incorporating my documentary evidence in order to show the
connection, so as to make clear what we are dealing with. I
was about to put the question, or questions: Were the four
battleships mentioned actually in commission when this
document was drawn up?

A. No, they had not yet been commissioned.

Q. None of these battleships?

A. No.

DR. SIEMERS: If I am permitted to do so, I may say that the
exact dates on which these ships were commissioned - dates
which the defendant can hardly repeat from memory - can be
seen from Point IV of Lohmann's affidavit, Exhibit Raeder 2.

THE PRESIDENT: I think you must prove them. You cannot state
them without proving them.


                                                  [Page 107]

DR. SIEMERS: Yes, certainly, your Honour.

I am referring to Exhibit Raeder No. 2, which has been
submitted to the Tribunal already. This is the affidavit by
Lohmann, Page 5 of Document Book 1, Page 8. I quote:-
  
  "Within the limits defined by the German-English Naval
  Agreement, the German Navy commissioned four battleships.
  I append the dates of laying down, launching and
  commissioning, as far as they can still be determined.
  Scharnhorst - Laid down: exact date cannot be determined.
  Launched: 3rd October, 1936. Commissioned: 7th January,
  1939. Gneisenau - Laid down: date cannot be determined.
  Launched: 8th December, 1936. Commissioned: 31st May,
  1938. Bismarck - Laid down: 1936. Launched: 14th
  February, 1939. Commissioned: 2nd August, 1940. Tirpitz -
  Laid down: 1936. Launched: 1st April, 1939. Commissioned:
  1941."

Admiral Lohmann was unable to ascertain the exact date. The
other ships mentioned under C-23 were laid down but were
broken up later. They had already been broken up in the
summer of 1939. So far there is no question of final
preparation or construction. As an obvious violation of the
Treaty exists, we now have to consider in what light this
violation should be regarded. The prosecution has said that
this violation of the Treaty is criminal since it implies
intended aggression. In order to save time, especially as
technical problems are involved, I should like, before
questioning the defendant further, to submit Exhibit Raeder
15, within the scope of the documentary evidence which I
have submitted with the Tribunal's permission. In my
opinion, this document proves that there was no intention of
aggression.

Exhibit Raeder 15 is an affidavit - I beg your pardon - it
is Document 1, Page 94. This document deals with an
affidavit deposed at Hamburg by Dr. Ing.h.c. Suchting, and
this document is of importance because of its reference to
Document C-23, and for that purpose I should like to quote:-

  "I formerly directed the shipbuilding yard of Blohm &
  Voss in Hamburg. I was with this firm from 1907 to 1945,
  and I am conversant with all questions concerning the
  construction of warships and merchant ships. In
  particular, as an engineer, I had detailed information
  about the building of battleships for the German Navy.
  Dr. Walter Siemers, attorney-at-law, of Hamburg,
  presented to me the Document C-23, dated 18th February,
  1938; and asked me to comment on it. This document shows
  that the Navy - contrary to the previous agreement -
  informed the British that the capital ships Scharnhorst
  and Gneisenau - as well as other intended constructions -
  had a displacement and draught of about 20 per cent less
  than was actually the case. I can give some details to
  explain why this information was given.
  
  I assume that the information given to the British-
  information which, according to Naval Agreement 4, had to
  be supplied four months before the keel was laid down -
  was based on the fact that the capital ships Scharnhorst
  and Gneisenau were originally intended to have a
  displacement of 26,000 tons and a draught of 750 metres
  and the battleship - Bismarck - a displacement of 35,000
  tons and a draught of 790 metres, as stated.
  
  If these battleships were afterwards built with a greater
  displacement and a greater draught, the changes were the
  result of orders or requests made by the Navy while the
  plans were being drafted and which the construction
  office had to carry out. The changes were based upon the
  opinion repeatedly expressed by the Navy, namely, that
  the battleships should be constructed in such a way as to
  be as nearly as possible unsinkable. The increase of the
  tonnage was meant to increase the offensive power of the
  ship" - I beg your pardon, Mr. President. I shall be
  finished in a moment - "The increase of the tonnage was
  not meant to increase the offensive power of the ship but
  was done for defensive and protective purposes."
  
                                                  [Page 108]

I may perhaps point out that in the English text there is a
mistake in translation. In this text the word "not," n-o-t,
is missing. It should read "was not meant"; and here it says
only: " meant."

  
  "As time went on, the Navy attached more and more
  importance top dividing the hull of the battleship into a
  greater number of compartments in order to make the ship
  as unsinkable as possible and to afford the maximum
  protection in case of leakage. The new battleships were
  therefore built broad in the beam with many bulkheads,
  only about ten metres apart, and many longitudinal and
  latitudinal bulkheads outside the torpedo bulkhead. At
  the same time, both the vertical and the horizontal
  armour-plating, are, as far as my information goes,
  heavier and composed of larger plates than those used by
  other navies. In order - "
  

THE PRESIDENT: In other words, his explanation is that they
were altered in the course of construction for technical
reasons. It doesn't matter what the technical reasons are.

DR. SIEMERS: I beg your pardon, Mr. President, but I do
believe that when we are dealing with a clearly-established
violation of a Treaty, the reason for this violation is of
some importance. I do not believe that each and every
violation of a treaty can be described as a war crime. The
point is whether this violation of the Treaty was a war
crime in the sense of the Charter - in other words, whether
it was motivated by the intention of waging a war of
aggression. An insignificant violation of a kind which,
after all, is found in every commercial lawsuit, cannot be a
crime.

THE PRESIDENT: The affidavit is before us. We shall read it.
In fact you have already read the material parts of it.

Now, I think we had better adjourn. How long do you expect
to be?

DR. SIEMERS: Mr. President, it is very difficult for me to
judge that accurately, but I imagine I shall be able to
conclude sometime tomorrow. I hope, Mr. President, that I
shall be able to conclude at noon, but I am asking your
Honour to take into consideration the fact that I am
incorporating my documentary proof in the interrogation; and
that this documentary proof, which in many other cases has
taken hours to present, is thus dealt with simultaneously.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal hopes that you will make your
presentation as short as you possibly can. We have already
been a long time over this defendant.

(A recess was taken.)

DR. SIEMERS: Mr. President, first I make a formal request,
namely that I may have here in the courtroom a second
secretary beside my own, who was here this morning. She has
just been told that she may not come into the courtroom, and
now is standing outside the door.

THE PRESIDENT: All right.

(The defendant Raeder entered the witness box.)

BY DR. SIEMERS:

Q. Grand Admiral, you have just seen the affidavit of Dr.
Suchting. I ask you: Is it true - or rather, not to confuse
you I will ask - what was the original cause of the Navy's
idea of enlarging the battleships by about twenty per cent?

A. Originally there was no intention to enlarge the ships by
twenty per cent. But at the time when we resumed battleship
construction, when we could see that we would in any case
only be allowed a very small number of battleships, it

                                                  [Page 109]

occurred to us to increase their resistance to sinking as
much as possible and to make them as impregnable as
possible. It had nothing to do with stronger armament, or
anything like that, but merely with increasing the
resistance to sinking and to enemy guns. For this reason a
new system was worked out at that time in order to increase
and strengthen the subdivision of the space within the ship.
This meant that a great deal of new iron had to be built
into the ships, which resulted in increased draught and
displacement. This was unfortunate from my point of view; we
had designed the ships with a comparatively shallow draught,
because the mouths of our rivers, the Elbe, Weser, Jade, are
extremely shallow so that ships with a deep draught cannot
navigate all stages of the rivers. Therefore we had built
these ships broad, intending to give them a shallow draught,
and the addition of these many latitudinal and longitudinal
bulkheads increased both the draught and displacement.

Q. Were these disadvantageous changes due partly to a
comparatively limited experience in battleship construction?

A . Yes. As the Naval designers and engineers in the big
shipyards had not built any heavy warships for a very long
time they lacked experience. As a result the Navy High
Command had to issue supplementary orders to the shipyards.
This in itself was a drawback which I tried hard to
overcome.

Q. Did the construction of these four battleships surpass
the total tonnage accorded by the Naval Agreement?

A. No, the total tonnage was not overstepped until the
beginning of the war.

Q. Your Honours, in this connection I should like to refer
to Exhibit Raeder 8, which has already been submitted in
Document Book No. 1, Page 40, under 11. In this affidavit
Vice-Admiral Lohmann gives comparative figures which show
how much battleship tonnage Germany was allowed under the
Naval Agreement. Please take notice of it without my reading
all the figures. What is important is that, according to
comparison with the British figures, Germany was allowed to
have 183,750 tons. At that time she had three completed
armoured cruisers totalling 30,000 tons - which is shown
here - so that according to this affidavit 153,750 tons
still remained.

With reference to Exhibit Raeder 127 I should like to submit
a short correction, because Grand Admiral Raeder, in looking
through the affidavit, observed that Vice-Admiral Lohmann
had made a mistake in one figure. The mistake is unimportant
in terms of the whole, but in order to be absolutely fair
and correct I thought it necessary to point it out to Vice-
Admiral Lohmann.

Instead of 30,000 it should actually be about 34,000 tons,
so that there is a difference, not of 153,750 tons, but of
149,750. According to the Naval Agreement we were allowed to
build 146,000, the final figure, so that the result is not
changed. Admiral Lohmann's mistake - as the Tribunal knows -
can be attributed to the fact that we were very limited in
our material resources.

A. May I add a sentence to what I said before? These
displacements deviated from the terms of the treaty only as
regards the details of construction originally reported and
not from those which gradually resulted from the
constructional additions referred to.

Q. In addition, may I mention the following: The Naval
Agreement of 1937 was changed by the London Protocol of 30th
June, 1938. I refer to Exhibit Raeder 16. My secretary has
just told me that it is not here at the moment; I will bring
it up later. It is the last document in Document Book 1, on
Page 97.

May I remind the Tribunal that Document C-23 is of February
1938. By this London Protocol, at the suggestion of the
British Government, the limitation on battleship tonnage to
35,000 tons was changed because the British Government, as
well as the German Government, realised that the figure of
35,000 tons was too low. As the Protocol shows, effective
30th June, 1938, the battleship tonnage was raised to 45,000
tons. Thereby this difference in the battleship tonnage
referred to in Document C-23 was settled a few months later.

                                                            
                                                  [Page 110]


Now, I shall take up, a new subject, the question of your
participation in the planning and conspiracy to wage wars of
aggression. This is the question of the so-called key
documents which the prosecution presented. Since you, Grand
Admiral, were present during these speeches of Hitler to the
Commanders-in-Chief, I must ask you to comment on these
documents. The first is 386-PSthe so-called "Hoszbach Notes"
- Exhibit USA 25, in the Document Book of the British
Delegation, No. 10, Page 81. It is Hitler's speech of 5th
November, 1937.

Did you ever see this document before the trial began?

A. No. I saw no document and no minutes of any speeches
which Hitler made. No minutes were taken officially. Only in
later years - I believe since 1941 - stenographers were
present who wrote down every word. These are really not
minutes at all, since the document is written in indirect
speech. It was written down by the author five days after
the speech itself, as we have heard.

Q. Although it is a very important document, I have noted
that, in contrast 40 other documents, it has no distribution
list; it was written down five days after the speech, and is
not even marked "secret." Can you explain where these
minutes were set down?

A. I have no insight into the conditions that prevailed. I
can only imagine that the adjutant in question kept the
minutes in his secret cabinet.

Q. Then you only have an over-all impression of this speech,
after eight or nine years?

A. Yes.

Q. The document was read in full here by the prosecution and
it cannot be denied at all that it contains serious
references to a war of aggression. There is, for instance, a
mention in what was to be regarded as his testament, of the
problem of space, of the enemies - England and France it
says that, armament being now completed, the first goal is
to overthrow Czechoslovakia and Austria.

Please explain to the Tribunal what effect the speech had on
you at that time and how it happened that you did not
ascribe such importance to the speech as, for example, Herr
von Neurath, who was also present? And in spite of the
speech how did you retain your opinion that Hitler would
adhere to the old policy and not seek a solution by force?

A. By way of introduction I may say that the assertion
contained in the trial brief that an influential group of
Nazis met in order to examine the situation does not give a
correct picture at all. Hitler called together the persons
mentioned in the document to explain to them the political
possibilities for development and in order to give them any
instructions he might have.

And here I should like to say something general - since
there are a number of Hitler's speeches coming - about the
nature of his speeches. Hitler spoke at great length, he
went very far afield, above all, in every speech he had a
special purpose, depending on the circle of listeners. just
as he was a master of dialectics, he was also a master of
bluff. He used strong expressions, again according to the
objective he was pursuing. He gave full play to fantasy. He
also contradicted himself frequently in successive speeches.
One never knew what his final goal and intentions were. At
the end of such a speech it was very difficult to determine
them. As a rule, his speeches made a greater impression on
people who heard him infrequently than on those already
acquainted with his whole manner of speaking on such
occasions. It was never a question of consultation but, as
has been said, always of giving undisputed orders.

The purpose of the speech on 5th November, 1937, was, as
Reich Marshal Goering said at the beginning -

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