With regard to the story of Germany’s secret rearmament in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, I would refer the Court to the Document C-156, which is already before the Court as Exhibit Number USA-41 and which the Tribunal will find at Page 26 of the document book. That document, as the Tribunal will remember, was A History of the Fight of the German Navy against Versailles, 1919 to 1935, which was published secretly by the German Admiralty in 1937. The Tribunal will remember that that history shows that before the Nazis came to power the German Admiralty was deceiving not only the governments of other countries, but its own legislature and at one stage its own Government. Their secret measures of rearmament ranged from experimental U-boat and S-boat building to the creation of secret intelligence and finance organizations. I only propose to trouble the Tribunal with a reference to the last paragraph at Page 33 of the document book, which refers to the role of Raeder in this development. It is an extract from Page 75 of this Document C-156, and it reads:
“The Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral . . . Raeder, had received hereby a far-reaching independence in the building and development of the Navy. This was only hampered insofar as the previous concealment of rearmament had to be continued in consideration of the Versailles Treaty.”
As an illustration of Raeder’s concealment of rearmament, I would remind the Tribunal of the Document C-141, Exhibit Number USA-47, which is at Page 22 of the document book. In that document Raeder states that:
“In view of Germany’s treaty obligations and the disarmament conference, steps must be taken to prevent the first S-boat half-flotilla—which in a few months will comprise new S-boats of the same type—from appearing openly as a formation of torpedo-carrying boats, as it was not intended to count these S-boats against the number of torpedo-carrying boats allowed us.”
The next document, C-135, which will be Exhibit Number GB-213, and which is at Page 20 of the document book, is of unusual interest because it suggests that even in 1930 the intention ultimately to attack Poland was already current in German military circles. This document is an extract from the history of war organization and of the scheme for mobilization. The German text of this document is headed “850/38,” which suggests that the document was written in the year 1938. The extracts read:
“Since under the Treaty of Versailles all preparations for mobilization were forbidden, these were at first confined to a very small body of collaborators and were at first only of a theoretical nature. Nevertheless, there existed at that time . . . an ‘Assembling Order,’ and ‘Instructions for Assembling,’ the forerunners of the present-day scheme for mobilization, also an assembling organization and adaptable instructions for assembling which were drawn up for each ‘A-year’ (cover-name for mobilization year).
“As stated, the ‘Assembling Organization’ at that time was to be judged purely theoretically, for they had no positive basis in the form of men and materials. They provided nevertheless a valuable foundation for the establishment of a war organization as our ultimate aim.”
Paragraph 2:
“The crises between Germany and Poland, which were becoming increasingly acute, compelled us, instead of making theoretical preparation for war, to prepare in a practical manner for a purely German-Polish conflict.