PAULUS: I cannot say exactly how long the period of preparation lasted, but I would estimate that it lasted 2 to 3 weeks.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Do you know who had given the orders for the preparation of the plan?
PAULUS: I assume that they originated from the same source, namely, the OKW via the High Command of the Army. The Chief of the General Staff of the Army had given to Major General Marx the same documents that he had given me.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): At the conferences on the Plan Barbarossa how many members of the General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces were usually present?
PAULUS: The departments concerned, the Operational Department, the Department for Foreign Armies, the General Quartermaster for Supplies, and the Chief of Transportation. Those were generally the chief departments which were involved.
THE TRIBUNAL: (Mr. Biddle): How many members of the General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces were familiar with the orders and directives as they were being signed?
PAULUS: In the course of time, that is, up to December, while the actual marching orders were being prepared, more or less, all General Staff officers had knowledge of the plan. Just how many had been informed previously, in the individual periods, is something which I can no longer say exactly.
THE TRIBUNAL (Major General I.T. Nikitchenko, Member for the U.S.S.R.): What exactly did the General Staff of the German Army represent? Did it deal exclusively with the elaboration of technical questions, was it the apparatus elaborating technical problems according to instructions of the Supreme Command, or, again, was the General Staff an organization which prepared, elaborated, and submitted its findings to the Supreme Command independently?
PAULUS: It was a technical executive body which had the task of carrying out existing instructions.
THE TRIBUNAL (Gen. Nikitchenko): Therefore the General Staff was merely a technical apparatus?