Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression [Page 425]
An interrogation of Raeder concerning this book went as follows:
"Q. I have here a document, C-156, which is a
photostatic copy of the work prepared by the High
Command of the Navy, and covers the struggle of the
Navy against the Versailles Treaty from 1919 to 1935. I
ask you initially whether you are familiar with the
work?
"A. I know this book. I read it once when it was
edited.
"Q. Was that an official publication of the Germany
navy?
"A. This Captain Schuessler, indicated there, was
Commander in the Admiralty. Published by the OKM, which
was an idea of these officers to put all these things
together.
"Q. Do you recall the circumstances under which the
authorization to prepare such a work was given to him?
"A. I think he told me that he would write such a book
as he told us here in the foreword.
"Q. In the preparation of this work he had access to
the official naval files, and based his work on the
items contained therein ?
"A. Yes, I think so. He would have spoken with other
persons, and he would have had the files, which were
necessary.
"Q. Do you know whether before the work was published,
a draft of it was circulated among the officers in the
Admiralty -for comment?
"A. No, I don't think so. Not before it was published.
I saw it only when it was published.
"Q. Was it circulated freely after its publication?
"A. It was a secret object. I think the upper commands
in the Navy had knowledge of it.
"Q. It was not circulated outside of the naval circles?
"Q. What then is your opinion concerning the comments
contained in the work regarding the circumventing of
the provisions of the Versailles Treaty?
"A. I don't remember very exactly what is in here. I
can only remember that the Navy had always the object
to fulfill the word of the Versailles Treaty, but
wanted to have some advantages. But the flying men were
exercised one year before they went into the Navy.
Quite young men. So that the word of the Treaty of
Versailles was filled. They didn't belong to the Navy,
as long as they were exercised in flying, and the
submarines were developed but not in Germany, and not
in the Navy, but in Holland. There was a civil bureau,
and in Spain there was an Industrialist; in Finland,
too, and
[Page 426]
they were built much later when we began to act with
the English government about the Treaty of thirty-five
to one-hundred, because we could see that then the
Treaty of Versailles would be destroyed by such a
treaty with England, and so in order to keep the word
of Versailles, we tried to fulfill the word of
Versailles, but tried to have advantages.
"Q. Would the fair statement be that the Navy High
Command was interested in avoiding the limited
provisions of the Treaty of Versailles regarding the
personnel and limits of armaments, but would it attempt
to fulfill the letter of the treaty, although actually
avoiding it?
"A. That was their endeavor".
Raeder had his explanations:
"Q. Why was such a policy adopted?
"A. We were much menaced in the first years after the
first war by danger that the Poles would attack East
Prussia and so we tried to strengthen a little our
very,very weak forces in this way, and so all our
efforts were directed to the aim to have a little more
strength against the Poles, if they would attack us; it
was nonsense to them of attacking the Poles in this
state, and for the Navy a second aim was to have some
defense against the entering of French forces into the
Ostsee, or East Sea, because we knew the French had
intentions to sustain the Poles from ships that came
into the Ostsee Goettinger, and so the Navy was a
defense against the attack by the Poles, and against
the entrance of French shipping into an Eastern Sea.
Quite defensive aims.
"Q. When did the fear of attack from Poles first show
itself in official circles in Germany would you say?
"A. When the first years they took Wilma. In the same
minute we thought that they would come to East Prussia.
I don't know exactly the year, because those judgments
were the judgments of the German government ministers,
of the Army and Navy Ministers, Groner and Noske.
"Q. Then those views in your opinion were generally
held existing perhaps as early as 1919 or 1920, after
the end of the First World War?
"A. Oh, but the whole situation was very, very
uncertain, and about those years in the beginning, I
can not give you a very exact thing, because I was then
two years in the Navy archives to write a book about
the war, and how the cruisers fought in the first war.
Two years, so I was not with these things."
The same kind of aims and purposes are reflected in the
table
[Page 427]
of contents of a history of the German Navy, 1919 to 1939,
found in captured official files of the German Navy (C-17).
Although a copy of the book itself has not been found, the
project was written by Oberst Scherff, Hitler's special
military historian. The table of contents however, is
available. It refers by numbers to groups f documents and
notes in the documents, which evidently were intended as
working material for the basis of the chapters to be written
in accordance with the table of contents. The title of this
table of contents fairly establishes the navy planning and
preparations that were to get the Versailles Treaty out of
the way, and to rebuild the navy strength necessary for war.
Some of the headings in the table of contents read:
"Part A (1919 -- The year of Transition.)
"Chapter VII.
First efforts to circumvent the Versailles Treaty and
to limit its effects.
"Demilitarization of the Administration, incorporation
of naval offices in civil ministries, etc.
Incorporation of greater sections of the German
maritime observation station and the sea-mark system in
Heligoland and Kiel, of the Ems-Jade-Canal, etc. into
the Reich Transport Ministry up to 1934;
"Noskos' proposal of 11 August 1919 to incorporate the
Naval Construction Department in the Technical High
School, Berlin; "Formation of the "Naval Arsenal Kiel".
"(b) The saving from destruction of coastal fortifications and guns.
"1. North Sea. Strengthening of fortifications with new
batteries and modern guns between the signing and the
taking effect of the Versailles Treaty; dealings with
the Control Commissioninformation, drawings, visits of
inspection, result of efforts."
*******
"2. Baltic. Taking over by the Navy of fortresses Pilau
and Swinemunde; "Salvage for the Army of one-hundred
and eighty-five movable guns and mortars there.
"3. The beginnings of coastal air defense.
"Part B (1920-1924. The Organizational New Order)
"Chapter V.
"The Navy
"Fulfilment and avoidance of the Versailles Treaty
"Foreign Countries
The
original plaintext version
of this file is available via
ftp.
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Volume
I Chapter IX
Preparation for Aggression
1933-1936
(Part 6 of 14)