I should also like to state, and this has not been mentioned yet, that I had a discussion with Reich Marshal Göring at the Berghof about the whole question, and he, at that time, quite clearly agreed with me: We soldiers must reject lynch law under any circumstances. I requested him in this awkward position in which we found ourselves to approach Hitler once more personally, to persuade him not to compel us to give an order in these matters or to draft an order. That was the situation.
DR. NELTE: We are now turning to questions relating to prisoners of war.
KEITEL: May I just say finally that an order from the OKW was never submitted and never issued.
DR. NELTE: There is hardly any problem in the law of warfare in which all nations and all people are so passionately interested as the prisoner-of-war question. That is why, here too, the Prosecution have stressed particularly those cases which were considered to be violations of laws for prisoners of war, according to the Geneva Convention, or to international law in general.
Since the OKW, and you as its Chief, were responsible for prisoner-of-war questions in Germany, I should like to put the following questions to you: What had been done in Germany to make all departments and offices of the Wehrmacht acquainted with international agreements which referred to prisoners of war?
KEITEL: There was a special military manual on that subject, which I think is available, and which contained all the clauses in the existing international agreements and the provisions for carrying them out. That is, I think, Directive Number 38, which applied to the Army and the Navy, and also to the Luftwaffe as a military manual. That was the basis, the basic order.
DR. NELTE: How was that put into practice? Were people who were concerned with such questions in practice instructed, or was it sufficient to draw their attention to the Army directives?
KEITEL: Every department right down to the smallest unit had these directives, and every soldier up to a certain point was instructed on them. Apart from that, no further explanations and regulations were issued at the beginning of the war.
DR. NELTE: I am thinking of the courses of instruction instituted in Vienna for that particular purpose. Do you know that they took place in Vienna?
KEITEL: It is known to me that such matters were the subject of courses of instructions suitable for those people who were actually in contact with prisoner-of-war matters. They took the form of training courses.