THE PRESIDENT: My interruption was made because you asked the defendant a question about somebody being reproached for something or other by the members of the General Staff, and that seems to me to be totally irrelevant.
DR. NELTE: The last question which I put was whether there had been any possibility of Field Marshal Keitel’s obtaining a release from his position. May I assume, Mr. President, that this question is relevant?
THE PRESIDENT: You may certainly ask that question as to whether he asked to be relieved of his command. As a matter of fact, Dr. Nelte, that question was asked before, the question at which I interrupted you; and I have the answer written down, that Keitel asked for a command, even if only of a division.
DR. NELTE: That was the question which he put to Reich Marshal Göring. He came to him, Göring, and put the question to him. Now I want to ask whether there existed any possibility of Keitel’s obtaining a release from his position from Hitler?
GÖRING: The question whether a general could ask for and obtain his release from the Führer has played an important role in these proceedings generally. Actually, one has to make a distinction between two phases, peace and war.
In times of peace a general could ask for his release. Unless he was in a prominent and definitely important position, and very well known to the Führer, such a request for release was granted without question. If he was in an especially important position and well known to the Führer, then, using all his persuasive powers, with all the means at his disposal the Führer appealed to him to remain at his post. If, however, a general had asked the Führer for his release and had given as a reason that in principle he was of a different political opinion, either domestic or foreign, then without doubt he was retired, even if not on that very day. But at the same time it would have given rise to an extraordinary suspicion on the part of the Führer concerning the person.
During the war, the matter was entirely different. The general, like every soldier, was obliged to do his duty, to obey orders. The Führer had issued the statement that he wanted no requests for release, neither from generals nor any other important state personalities. He himself would decide if a person were to resign or not. He himself could not resign if things became unpleasant now, he considered that desertion.
If, in spite of this, a general submitted a request for release in wartime and this was refused, he certainly could not insist upon it. If he resigned notwithstanding, he violated the law and from that moment was guilty of desertion.
Field Marshal Keitel might have asked the Führer, “Have me transferred to a different office.” But the Führer disliked exceedingly to make any changes in his immediate circle; and during the war—that I know from his own words—he would not have agreed to a change, particularly with regard to Field Marshal Keitel with whom he was used to working, unless the Field Marshal had become ill and thereby really unable to continue his duties.
DR. NELTE: Were these considerations of which you have just spoken likewise the determining factor in the retirement of Field Marshal Von Brauchitsch?