As they came to power and when they had attained power, the Nazis had two alternatives: to collaborate with and expand the Reichswehr, or to ignore the Reichswehr and build up a separate army of their own. The generals feared that the Nazis might do the latter. So they were the more ready to play along with the Nazis. Moreover, the Nazis offered the generals the chance of achieving much that the generals wished to achieve in the expansion of German armies and frontiers. And so the generals climbed onto the Nazi bandwagon. They saw it was going in their direction for the present. No doubt they hoped later to take over the direction themselves. In fact, it was ultimately they who were taken over by the Nazis. Hitler attracted the generals to him with the glitter of conquest and then succeeded in submerging them politically. As the war proceeded they became his tools.
But if the leaders of the Armed Forces became the tools of Naziism, it is not to be supposed that they were unwitting, or that they did not participate fully in many of the actions which are charged as criminal. The willingness, indeed eagerness, of German officers to become partners of the Nazis will be fully developed.
A. Composition and Functions of The General Staff and High Command Group.
During the first World War there was an organization in the German Armed Forces known as the Great General Staff. This name persists in the public mind, but the Grosse Generalstab no longer exists in fact. There has been no such single organization, no single German General Staff, since 1918. But there has of course been a group of men responsible for the policy and acts of the Armed Forces. The fact that these men have no collective name does not prevent us from collecting them together. Men cannot escape the consequences of their collective acts by combining informally instead of formally. The essence of a general staff or a high command lies not in name but in function. And the men comprised within this group do constitute a functional group, welded together by common responsibility, of those officers who had the principal authority and responsibility under Hitler, for the plans and operations of the German armed forces.
(1) Structure and Organization of the German Armed Forces. When the Nazis came to power in 1933 the German Armed Forces were controlled by a Reich Defense Minister, at that time Field Marshall von Blomberg. Subordinate to von Blomberg were the chiefs of the army staff (at that time von Fritsch), and of the naval staff, the defendant Raeder. Owing to the limitations imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, the German Air Force at that time had no official existence whatsoever.
In May 1935, at the time that military conscription was introduced in Germany, there was a change in the titles of these offices but the structure remained basically the same. Field Marshall von Blomberg remained in supreme command of the armed forces, with the title of Reich Minister for War and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Von Fritsch became Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and Raeder Commander-in-Chief of the Navy. The army and naval staffs were renamed “High Commands”—Oberkommando des Heeres and Oberkommando der Kriegsmarine, from which are derived the initials by which they are usually known (OKH and OKM).
The German Air Force came into official and open existence at about this same time, but it was not put under von Blomberg. It was an independent institution under the personal command of Goering, who had the double title of Air Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force.
In February 1938 a rather fundamental reorganization took place, both in terms of personnel and organizational structure. Although Raeder survived the reshuffle, von Blomberg and von Fritsch were both retired from their positions, and Blomberg’s ministry, the War Ministry, was wound up. This ministry had contained a division or department called the Wehrmachtamt or “Armed Forces Department,” the function of which was to coordinate the plans and operations of the Army and Navy. From this Armed Forces Department was formed a new over-all Armed Forces authority, known as the High Command of the Armed Forces—Oberkommando der Wehrmacht—usually known by the initials OKW. As the Air Force as well as the Army and the Navy was subordinated to OKW, coordination of all Armed Forces matters was vested in the OKW, which was in effect Hitler’s personal staff for these matters. It combined staff and ministerial functions. Keitel was appointed chief of the OKW. The most important department of OKW was the operations staff, of which Jodl became the chief. Jodl’s immediate subordinate was Warlimont, with the title of Deputy Chief of The Armed Forces Operations Staff from 1941. (The genesis of this department is explained in L-79.)
This reorganization and establishment of OKW were embodied in a decree issued by Hitler on 4 February 1938 (1938 RGBl., Part I, page 111):
“DECREE ON THE COMMAND OF THE ARMED FORCES