“We must travel this road from our deepest conviction. The Russian travels along it. We can only maintain ourselves in this war if we take part in it with holy zeal, with all our fanaticism.
“Not I alone can do this, but it can only be done with the aid of the man who holds the production of Europe in his hand, with Minister Speer. My ambition is to have as many warships for the Navy as possible so as to be able to fight and to strike. It does not matter to me who builds them.” (D-443)
In a speech on the same subject by Doenitz as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy to the Commanders in Chief on 15 February 1944, he had this to say:
“From the very start the whole of the officer corps must be so indoctrinated that it feels itself co-responsible for the National Socialist State in its entirety. The officer is the exponent of the state; the idle chatter that the officer is non-political is sheer nonsense.” (D-640)
Doenitz’s position was made unmistakably clear in a speech which he made to the German Navy and the German people on Heroes’ Day, 12 March 1944:
“German men and women!
“* * * What would have become of our country today, if the Fuehrer had not united us under National-Socialism! Split into parties, beset with the spreading poison of Jewry and vulnerable to it, and lacking, as a defense, our present uncompromising world outlook, we would long since have succumbed to the burdens of this war and been subject to the merciless destruction of our adversaries. * * *” (2878-PS) A speech by Doenitz to the Navy on 21 July 1944 shows his fanaticism:
“Men of the Navy! Holy wrath and unlimited anger fill our hearts because of the criminal attempt which was intended to have cost the life of our beloved Fuehrer. Providence wished it otherwise—watched over and protected our Fuehrer, and did not abandon our German fatherland in the fight for its destiny.” (2878-PS)
And then he goes on to deal with the fate which should be meted out to the traitors.
The abolition of the German military salute and the adoption of the Nazi salute in the German forces was due to Doenitz along with Goering and Keitel (2878-PS).