If I may sum up briefly, we heard Hitler’s bursts of temper on this subject almost every day, but we did nothing, not knowing what we could do. Hitler declared that this was against the Hague Convention and illegal, that it was a method of waging war not foreseen in the Hague Convention and which could not be foreseen. He said that this was a new war with which we had to contend, in which new methods were needed. Then, to make it short, as I have already testified in the preliminary investigation, these orders—this order itself and the well-known instructions that those who did not carry out the first order should be punished—were issued in a concise form and signed by Hitler. They were then distributed, I believe, by the Chief of the Operations Staff, Jodl. I might add that many times the commanders who received these orders asked questions about how they were to be applied, particularly in connection with the threat that they would be punished if they did not carry them out. The only reply we could make was, “You know what is in the orders,” for we were not in a position to change these signed orders.
DR. NELTE: The Prosecution have accused you personally of having issued the order to kill the English saboteurs captured in the Commando operations at Stavanger. In this connection I submit to you Documents 498-PS, 508-PS, and 527-PS. [The documents were submitted to the defendant.]
This, Mr. President, was a Commando mission in the vicinity of Stavanger. The troops who fell into German hands had to be killed, according to the Führer decree. There was a remote possibility of interrogating these persons, if that was demanded by military necessity. In this case the Commander-in-Chief in Norway, General Von Falkenhorst, dealt with the matter. He turned to the OKW, as he has already testified in the minutes of an interrogation.
[Turning to the defendant.] Would you make any statement in this connection?
KEITEL: I was interrogated on this subject, and in the course of the interrogation I was confronted with General Von Falkenhorst. As I recall, I did not remember his having asked me questions regarding the carrying out of this order. I did not know of it. Even the event itself was no longer in my memory, and I remembered it again only after I had seen the documents. During the interrogation, I told the interrogator that I had no authority to change that order, that I could refer any one concerned only to the order, as such. As regards my confrontation with General Von Falkenhorst, I should like to say only what is stated here in the minutes, “He obviously shelved the answers and altered his earlier statements, but did not deny them. Keitel did not deny having had this talk with me but denied that the subject of it was what I said.”
DR. NELTE: Mr. President, I can only say that this is a summary of the interrogation of General Von Falkenhorst, a document which was submitted by the Prosecution without having a document number.
[Turning to the defendant.] Have you finished your statement?
KEITEL: Yes. I believe that suffices.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Nelte, the Prosecution did not put in this document, did they? They have not offered it in evidence?
DR. NELTE: I believe they did.