MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: He was suffering from the fact that the Führer was losing confidence in him? Was that what was causing his suffering?
BODENSCHATZ: That may have been part of the reason, but differences of opinion arose about the Luftwaffe.
MR. JUSTICE. JACKSON: Now, in the spring of 1943 it was apparent to you and apparent to him that the war was lost for Germany, was it not?
BODENSCHATZ: I cannot say that. The Reich Marshal did not tell me in 1943 that the war was lost, but that there were great difficulties, that it would become very dangerous; but that the war was definitely lost—I cannot remember that the Reich Marshal at that time, in the spring of 1943, made a statement to me of that kind, or a similar one.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The Reich Marshal had given his assurance to the German people, had he not, that it would not be possible for them to be bombed, as Warsaw, Rotterdam, and other cities were bombed?
BODENSCHATZ: As far as I know, he did not give the assurance in those words. Before the war, when our Air Force was growing—I mean at the beginning of the war, when the great successes in Poland and in France were manifest—he said to the German people that the Air Force would do its job and do everything to spare the country from heavy air raids. At the time that was justified. It was not clearly foreseen then that matters would develop differently later.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Then he had given his assurance to the German people, had he not, that the Luftwaffe would be able to keep enemy bombers away from Germany?
BODENSCHATZ: I cannot remember that he gave an official assurance to the German people in the form of a decree or a big speech. At times it was said that the German Air Force, after the successes in Poland and France, was at its peak. I do not know of any official statement whereby it was made known to the German people.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: At all events, it became apparent in the spring of 1943 that any such assurance, if it had been given, was misleading?
BODENSCHATZ: In the year 1943 the conditions were entirely different, owing to the fact that the British and American Air Forces came into the picture in such large and overwhelming numbers.