The defendant is to state whether such a causal relation did exist, and to what extent the OKW and he himself were at all competent in these matters.
KEITEL: Document UK-25, the Führer Order of the 16 September 1941, as has just been stated, is concerned with communist uprisings in occupied territories, and the fact that this is a Führer order has already been mentioned. I must clarify the fact that this order, so far as its contents are concerned, referred solely to the Eastern regions, particularly to the Balkan countries. I believe that I can prove this by the fact that there is attached to this document a distribution list, that is, a list of addresses beginning, “Wehrmacht Commander Southeast for Serbia, Southern Greece, and Crete.” This was, of course, transmitted also to other Wehrmacht commanders and also to the OKH with the possibility of its being passed on to subordinate officers. I believe that this document, which, for the sake of saving time, I need not read here, has several indications that the assumption on the part of the French Prosecution that this is the basis for the hostage law to be found in Document Number 1588-PS is false, and that there is no causal nexus between the two. It is true that the date of this hostage law is also September—the number is hard to read—but, as far as its contents are concerned, these two matters are, in my opinion, not connected. Moreover, the two military commanders in France and Belgium never received this order from the OKW, but they may have received it through the OKH, a matter which I cannot check because I do not know.
Regarding this order of 16 September 1941, I should like to say that its great severity can be traced back to the personal influence of the Führer. The fact that it is concerned with the Eastern region is already to be seen from the contents and from the introduction and does not need to be substantiated any further. It is correct that this order of 16 September 1941 is signed by me.
DR. NELTE: We come now to the second individual fact, “Nacht und Nebel.” The Prosecution charges you of having participated in the Nacht und Nebel decree of 12 December 1941, Document Number L-90...
KEITEL: May I say one more thing regarding the other question?
DR. NELTE: Please, if it appears to be necessary. In the communication of 2 February 1942 we find the words, “In the annex are transmitted: 1) A decree of the Führer of 7 December 1941...” You wanted to say something more; if it is important, please. Do you have Document Number L-90?
KEITEL: L-90, yes.
DR. NELTE: What was the cause for this order, so terrible in its consequences?
KEITEL: I must state that it is perfectly clear to me that the connection of my name with this so-called “Nacht und Nebel” order is a serious charge against me, even though it can be seen from the documents that it is a Führer order. Consequently I should like to state how this order came about. Since the beginning of the Eastern campaign and in the late autumn of 1941 until the spring of 1942, the resistance movements, sabotage and everything connected with it increased enormously in all the occupied territories. From the military angle it meant that the security troops were tied down, having to be kept on the spot by the unrest. That is how I saw it from the military point of view at that time. And day by day, through the daily reports we could picture the sequence of events in the individual occupation sectors. It was impossible to handle this summarily; rather, Hitler demanded that he be informed of each individual occurrence, and he was very displeased if such matters were concealed from him in the reports by military authorities. He got to know about them all the same.
In this connection, he said to me that it was very displeasing to him and very unfavorable to establishing peace that, owing to this, death sentences by court-martial against saboteurs and their accomplices were increasing; that he did not wish this to occur, since from his point of view it made appeasement and relations with the population only more difficult. He said at that time that a state of peace could be achieved only if this were reduced and if, instead of death sentences—to shorten it—in case a death sentence could not be expected and carried out in the shortest time possible, as stated here in the decree, the suspect or guilty persons concerned—if one may use the word “guilty”—should be deported to Germany without the knowledge of their families and be interned or imprisoned, instead of lengthy court-martial proceedings with many witnesses.