DR. NELTE: The French Prosecution have presented a document which bears the Number 1650-PS. This is an order, or, rather, an alleged order, from the OKW ordering that escaped prisoners of war who are not employed are to be surrendered to the Security Service. After what you have just told us, you will have to give an explanation of that. I am showing you, in addition, Document 1514-PS, an order from the Wehrkreiskommando VI (Area Command), from which you will be able to see the procedure adopted by the OKW in connection with the surrender of prisoners of war to the Secret State Police.
KEITEL: First of all, I want to discuss Document 1650-PS. To begin with, I have to state that I did not know of that order, that it was never in my hands, and that so far I have not been able to find out how it came to be issued.
DR. NELTE: Wouldn’t you like to say, first of all, that the document as such is not a document of the OKW?
KEITEL: I am coming to that.
DR. NELTE: I am afraid you must start with that in order to clear up the matter.
KEITEL: The document starts like a document which has been confiscated in a police department. It starts with the words, “The OKW has ordered as follows:”; after that come the Numbers 1, 2, 3 and then it goes on to say, “In this connection I order...”, and that is the Supreme Police Chief of the Reich Security Head Office; it is signed by Müller, not Kaltenbrunner but Müller. I have certainly not signed this order OKW 1 to 3, and I have not seen it; there is no doubt about that. The fact that technical expressions, “Stage 3 b” et cetera, are used proves that in itself. These are terms used by the police and they are unknown to me. I must say, therefore, that I am not sure how this document was drafted. I cannot explain it. There are assumptions and possibilities, and I should like to mention them briefly because I have given a great deal of thought to the matter. First, I do not believe that any department of the OKW, that is, the Chief of Prisoners of War Organization or the Chief of the General Wehrmacht Office, could have issued this order independently without instructions to do so. I consider that quite impossible, as it was completely contrary to the general tendency. I have no recollection that I have ever received any instructions of this kind from Hitler or that I have passed any such instruction on to anybody else. I conclude that even if this may look like an excuse, there were, of course, other channels which the Führer used without regard to competency. And, if I must supply an explanation, such orders could have been given through an adjutant without my knowledge. I emphasize that this is a supposition and that it cannot absolve me from blame.
There is only one thing that I would like to say, and that is with reference to the Document 1514-PS. This is a captured order from the Wehrkreiskommando VI, at Münster, dated 27 July 1944, in other words, the summer of 1944. It deals with escaped prisoners of war and how they are to be dealt with. It says “Reference,” and then it quotes seven different orders from the year 1942 up to the beginning of July 1944. This order deals with the question of escaped prisoners of war and ought to have been incorporated in this document, if the military office of Wehrkreis VI had had such an OKW order. That fact is remarkable, and it led me to the conclusion that there never was a written order and that the military authorities in question never received such an order at all. I cannot say more about it since I cannot prove it.
DR. NELTE: You know that the Prosecution have submitted an order, according to which Soviet Russian prisoners of war were to be marked by means of tattooing, so that they could be identified. Would you please make a statement on that?
KEITEL: The facts are as follows: During the summer of 1942, the Führer called the Quartermaster General of the Army to headquarters for a report lasting several hours, at which the Führer asked him to report on conditions in the Eastern rear army territory. I was suddenly called in and told that the Quartermaster General was saying that thousands of Russian prisoners of war were escaping every month, that they disappeared among the population, immediately discarded their uniforms, and procured civilian clothes, and could no longer be identified. I was ordered to make investigations and to devise some means of identification which would enable them to be identified even after they had put on civilian clothing. Thereupon I sent instructions to Berlin, saying that such an order should be prepared but that investigations should first be made by the international law department of the Foreign Office to find out whether such an order could be given at all; and, secondly, whether it could be carried out technically.
I should like to say that we were thinking of tattoo marks of the kind found on many seamen and bricklayers in Germany. But I heard no more about it. One day I met the Foreign Minister at headquarters and talked to him about the question. Foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop knew about the inquiry submitted to the Foreign Office and considered the measure extremely questionable. That was the first news I had about the subject. I gave immediate instructions, whether personally or through the adjutant I cannot remember, that the order was not to go out. I had neither seen a draft nor had I signed anything. At any rate I gave an unmistakable order: “The order is in no circumstances to be issued.” I received no further detailed information at the time. I heard nothing more about it and I was convinced that the order had not been issued.