DR. NELTE: In this case were you especially charged with the adaptation of the plan which we later learned to know as Plan Barbarossa?
PAULUS: Yes, to the extent of which I told you yesterday.
DR. NELTE: Field Marshal Brauchitsch, your former Commander-in-Chief and superior, in an affidavit presented by the Prosecution has made a statement about the treatment of military plans. With the permission of the Tribunal, I should like to ask you to tell me whether this statement by Field Marshal Von Brauchitsch is also your opinion. I quote:
“When Hitler decided to use military pressure or force to achieve his political aims, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, if he was involved, first received orally a sort of orientation or a corresponding order.”
Is that your opinion also?
PAULUS: I have no knowledge of that.
DR. NELTE: Generaloberst Halder, your immediate superior, in an affidavit which also has been submitted by the Prosecution, has said the following about the handling of such military operational things:
“Special military affairs were the responsibility of those parts of the Wehrmacht, that is, Army, Navy, and Air Force, which were immediately under the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht, that is to say, under the command of Hitler, who was at the same time the Chief of the Reich.”
Is that your opinion likewise?
PAULUS: I ask you please to repeat this once more because I could not understand exactly what you meant.