DR. NELTE: Did you hear anything of the meeting or discussion with Hitler in November 1937? I am referring to a conference in which Hitler, as it is alleged, made public his last will.
KEITEL: I already stated under oath at the preliminary interrogation that I did not know about this, and that I saw a document or the minutes or a record of this meeting at this Trial for the first time. I believe it is the Hossbach document and I do not remember that Von Blomberg gave me any directions to take preparatory steps after this conference. That is not the case.
DR. NELTE: Did you know of any of Hitler’s intentions regarding territorial questions?
KEITEL: Yes. I must answer that in the affirmative. I learned of them, and I also knew from public political discussions that he proposed to settle in some form, gradually, sooner or later, a series of territorial problems which were the result of the Treaty of Versailles. That is true.
DR. NELTE: And what did you think about the realization of these territorial aims, I mean the manner in which they were to be solved?
KEITEL: At that time I saw these things and judged them only according to what we were capable of in military terms. I can only say, when I left the troops in 1935, none of these 24 divisions which were to be established existed. I did not view all this from the standpoint of political aims, but with the sober consideration: Can we accomplish anything by attack and the conduct of war if we have no military means at our disposal? Consequently for me everything in this connection revolved around the programs of rearmament, which were to be completed in 1943-1945, and for the Navy in 1945. Therefore, we had 10 years in which to build up a concentrated Wehrmacht. Hence, I did not consider these problems acute even when they came to my attention in a political way, for I thought it impossible to realize these plans except by negotiations.
DR. NELTE: How do you explain the general directives of June 1937 for preparation for mobilization?
KEITEL: This document is actually an instruction for mobilization kept in general terms and was in line with our traditional General Staff policy before the war and before the World War, the World War I, that on principle something of the kind must be prepared beforehand. In my opinion, this had nothing to do with any of Hitler’s political plans, for at that time I was already Chief of Staff under Blomberg, and General Jodl was at that time the Chief of the National Defense Division. Perhaps it sounds somewhat arrogant for me to say that we were very much satisfied that we were at last beginning to tell the Wehrmacht each year what it had to do intellectually and theoretically. In the former General Staff training which I received before the World War, the chief aim of these instructions was that the General Staff tours for the purpose of study should afford an opportunity for the theoretical elaboration of all problems. Such was the former training of the Great General Staff. I no longer know whether in this connection Blomberg himself originally thought out these salient ideas of possible complications or possible military contingencies, or whether he was perhaps influenced by the Führer.
It is certain that Hitler never saw this. It was the inside work of the General Staff of the Wehrmacht.
DR. NELTE: But in it you find a reference to a “Case Otto,” and you know that that was the affair with Austria.