Do you say that General Westhoff is wrong?
GÖRING: Yes. This is not in accordance with the facts. General Westhoff is referring to a statement of Field Marshal Keitel. This utterance in itself is illogical, for I could not accuse Keitel because he would not draw my attention to it, as the guarding was his responsibility and not mine.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: One of the Defendant Keitel’s officers dealing with this matter was a general inspector, General Röttich. I do not know if you know him.
GÖRING: No.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, General Westhoff, as one could understand, is very anxious to assure everyone that his senior officer had nothing to do with it, and he goes on to say this about General Röttich:
“He was completely excluded from it by the fact that these matters were taken out of his hands. Apparently at that conference with the Führer in the morning, that is to say, the conference between Himmler, Field Marshal Keitel, and Göring, which took place in the Führer’s presence, the Führer himself always took a hand in these affairs when officers escaped.”
You say that is wrong? You were at no such conference?
GÖRING: I was not present at this conference, neither was General Westhoff; he is giving a purely subjective view, not the facts of the case.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: So that we find that—you think that—Westhoff is wrong? You see, Westhoff, he was a colonel at this time, I think, and now he finishes as a major general, and he asks that the senior officers be asked about it; he says this: “It should be possible to find out that Himmler made the suggestion to the Führer—to find that out from Göring who was present at the conference.” Again and again Westhoff, who after all is a comparatively junior officer, is saying that the truth about this matter can be discovered from his seniors. You say that it cannot.
GÖRING: I would not say that. I would like just to say that General Westhoff was never present for even a moment, therefore he cannot say, I know or I saw that Reich Marshal Göring was present. He is assuming it is so, or he may have heard it.