“2. Even at the beginning of military complications and conflicts the SS came to be the actual forerunner and standard bearer of a policy of conquest and power.
“3. After the commencement of the military actions the Reichsführer SS devised methods which always appeared appropriate, which were concealed at first, or were hardly apparent, at least from the outside, and which enabled him in reality to build up his power under the guise of protecting the annexed or occupied territories from political opponents.
“4. From the occupation of the Sudeten territory, beginning with the organization of political unrest, that is, of so-called liberation actions and ‘incidents,’ the road leads straight through Poland and the Western areas in a steep curve into the Russian territory.
“5. With the directives for the Barbarossa Plan for the administration and utilization of the conquered Eastern territories, the Wehrmacht was, against its intention and without knowledge of the conditions, drawn further and further into the subsequent developments and activities.
“6. I (Keitel) and my colleagues had no deeper insight into the effects of Himmler’s full powers, and had no idea of the possible effect of these powers.
“I assume without further discussion that the same holds true for the OKH, which according to the order of the Führer made the agreements with Himmler’s officials and gave orders to the subordinate army commanders.
“7. In reality, it was not the Commander-in-Chief of the Army who had the executive power assigned to him and the power to decree and to maintain law in the occupied territories, but Himmler and Heydrich decided on their own authority the fate of the people and prisoners, including prisoners of war in whose camps they exercised the executive power.
“8. The traditional training and concept of duty of the German officers, which taught unquestioning obedience to superiors who bore responsibility, led to an attitude,—regrettable in retrospect,—which caused them to shrink from rebelling against these orders and these methods even when they recognized their illegality and inwardly refuted them.
“9. The Führer, Hitler, abused his authority and his fundamental Order Number 1 in an irresponsible way with respect to us. This Order Number 1 read, more or less:
“ ‘1. No one shall know about secret matters which do not belong to his own range of assignments.