KEITEL: Yes.
DR. NELTE: Good. Before our discussion about the problem of aggressive war I asked you a question which, in order to save time, I would not like to repeat. However, it seems to me that the question I put to you in order to get your opinion on aggressive war must be asked again in this connection because an attack on a neutral country, a country which had been given a guarantee was bound to cause particular scruples on the part of people who have to do with these things, with the waging of war.
Therefore, I put this question to you again in this case and ask you to describe what your attitude and the soldiers’ attitude was to it.
KEITEL: In this connection, I must say we were already at war. There was a state of war with England and France. It would not be right for me to say that I interfered in the least with these matters, but I regarded them rather as political matters, and, as a soldier, I held the opinion that preparations for military actions against Norway and Denmark did not yet mean their outbreak and that these preparations would very obviously take months if such an action was executed at all and that in the meantime the situation could change. It was this train of thought which caused me not to take any steps in regard to the impossibility to consider and to prepare strategically this intervention in Norway and Denmark; therefore, I left these things, I must say, to those who were concerned with political matters. I cannot put it any other way.
DR. NELTE: When did the preparations for this action start?
KEITEL: I think the first deliberations took place already in October 1939; on the other hand, the first directives were issued only in January, that is to say, several months later. In connection with the discussions before this Tribunal and with the information given by Reich Marshal Göring in his statements, I also remember that one day I was ordered to call Grand Admiral Raeder to the Führer. He wanted to discuss with him questions regarding sea warfare in the Bay of Heligoland and in the Atlantic Ocean and the dangers we would encounter in waging war in this area.
Then Hitler ordered me to call together a special staff which was to study all these problems from the viewpoint of sea, air, and land warfare. I remembered this also upon seeing the documents produced here. This special staff dispensed with my personal assistance. Hitler said at the time that he himself would furnish tasks for this staff. These were, I believe, the military considerations in the months from 1939 to the beginning of 1940.
DR. NELTE: In this connection I should only like to know further whether you had any conversation with Quisling at this stage of preliminary measures?
KEITEL: No, I saw Quisling neither before nor after the Norway campaign; I saw him for the first time approximately one or two years later. We had no contact, not even any kind of transmission of information. I already stated in a preliminary interrogation that by order of Hitler I sent an officer, I believe it was Colonel Pieckenbrock, to Copenhagen for conferences with Norwegians. I did not know Quisling.
DR. NELTE: As to the war in the West, there is once more in the foreground the question of violation of neutrality in the case of Luxembourg, Belgium, and Holland. Did you know that these three countries had been given assurances regarding the inviolability of their neutrality?