KEITEL: Of course I remember the Case Otto, which indicated by its name that it concerns Otto von Hapsburg. There must have been—were of course—certain reports about an attempted restoration, and in that case an intervention, eventually an armed one, was to take place. The Führer, Adolf Hitler, wished to prevent a restoration of the monarchy in Austria. Later this came up again in connection with the Anschluss. I believe that I can omit that now and perhaps explain later. In any event, we believed that on the basis of the deliberations by the Army some sort of preparations were being made which would bring into being Case Otto, because the code word was “Case Otto comes into force.”
DR. NELTE: You mean to say that no concrete orders were given in regard to Case Otto on the basis of this general directive?
KEITEL: You mean the Anschluss at the beginning of February?
DR. NELTE: I beg your pardon?
KEITEL: I can state here only what I experienced when Hitler sent me to the Army. I went into General Beck’s office and said: “The Führer demands that you report to him immediately and inform him about the preparations which have already been made for a possible invasion of Austria”, and General Beck then said, “We have prepared nothing; nothing has been done, nothing at all.”
DR. NELTE: The Prosecution contends that you participated in planning the action against Austria as it was put into effect in March of 1938. I have here the directive regarding Case Otto, C-102.
Can you still affirm that the whole matter was improvised?
KEITEL: I remember that this order was not issued to the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and to the other Commanders-in-Chief until the whole project was under way. Nothing had been prepared. It was all improvised and this was to be the documentary registration of facts which were being put into practice. The commands were given verbally and individually regarding what was to be done and what actually was done on the morning of 12 March, when Austria was invaded.
DR. NELTE: I must now return to the events preceding the case of Austria. You know that in General Jodl’s diary it is stated: “Schuschnigg signs under strongest political and military pressure.” In what manner did you participate in this conference at the Obersalzberg which took place with Schuschnigg?
KEITEL: May I add to my previous answer that we can see from this that the invasion took place on the morning of 12 March and the order was issued late in the evening of 11 March. Therefore this document could not have had any real influence on this affair. Such an order cannot be worked out between 10 in the evening and 6 in the morning.