KEITEL: Certainly one would have had to expect that.
DR. NELTE: Only with regard to the great importance of General Weygand’s personality?
KEITEL: Yes.
DR. NELTE: Can you give any other explanation, or any proof that the designs attributed to you, but thanks be to God were never put into practice, had no foundation in fact?
KEITEL: Although it was at a much later date that General Weygand was taken to Germany, on the occupation of the hitherto unoccupied zone of Southern France, I was told by the Führer himself that he had given orders only for the general to be interned in his own home, without being inconvenienced by guards—an honorable arrest and not the treatment accorded to an ordinary prisoner of war. Of course, that was in 1942.
DR. NELTE: Therefore, you finally and repeatedly deny under oath that you gave any order or expressed yourself in any way which might lead your hearers to conclude that you intended or wished General Weygand to be put out of the way?
KEITEL: Yes. I can expressly reaffirm that.
DR. NELTE: The witness Lahousen also spoke of Giraud and described the case much in the same way as that of Weygand. In neither case was he in a position to say from his own first-hand knowledge that you had given such an order, but he reported what Canaris had told him and illustrated his testimony by means of later inquiries. I ask you to tell us what you know about the case of Giraud, which created a sensation at the time and also here, and to say what part you took in discussions regarding Giraud.
KEITEL: Giraud’s successful escape from the Fortress of Königstein near Dresden on 19 April 1942 created a sensation; and I was severely reprimanded about the guard of this general’s camp, a military fortress. The escape was successful despite all attempts to recapture the general, by police or military action, on his way back to France. Canaris had instructions from me to keep a particularly sharp watch on all the places at which he might cross the frontier into France or Alsace-Lorraine, so that we could recapture him. The police were also put on to this job; 8 or 10 days after his escape it was made known that the general had arrived safely back in France. If I issued any orders during this search I probably used the words I gave in the preliminary interrogations, namely, “We must get the general back, dead or alive.” I possibly did say something like that. He had escaped and was in France.
Second phase: Efforts, made through the Embassy by Abetz and Foreign Minister Ribbentrop to induce the general to return to captivity of his own accord, appeared not to be unsuccessful or impossible, as the general had declared himself willing to go to the occupied zone to discuss the matter. I was of the opinion that the general might possibly do it on account of the concessions hitherto made to Marshal Pétain regarding personal wishes in connection with the release of French generals from captivity. The meeting with General Giraud took place in occupied territory, at the staff quarters of a German Army Corps, where the question of his return was discussed. The Military Commander informed me by telephone of the general’s presence in occupied territory, in the hotel where the German officers were billeted.