GEN. RUDENKO: And so you assure the Tribunal that you first heard about Hitler’s schemes to attack the Soviet Union from the conversation with Ribbentrop?
KEITEL: No, no. After having been absent from Berchtesgaden for about two weeks, partly on leave and partly on duty in Berlin, I returned to headquarters at Berchtesgaden; and then on one of the subsequent days, probably during the middle of August, I heard for the first time ideas of that kind from Hitler. That was the basis for my deliberation and my memorandum.
GEN. RUDENKO: In that case, have I put my question correctly in asking whether you learned of Hitler’s schemes in the summer of 1940?
KEITEL: Yes. The middle of August, after all, is still summer.
GEN. RUDENKO: August is still summer, we will not quibble about that. Further, I should like to remind you of the evidence of the witness Paulus, which he gave here before the Tribunal, on 11 February of this year. Paulus, as you will remember, informed the Tribunal that when he entered the OKH on 3 September 1940, he found among other plans an unfinished preliminary operational draft of a plan for attacking the Soviet Union, known under the name of Barbarossa. Do you remember that part of Paulus’ testimony?
KEITEL: I remember it only insofar as he stated that it was a study or a draft for a maneuver, and that he found a document on the occasion of his transfer to the OKH, to the General Staff of the Army. This is not known to me, and it could not be known to me because the documents, files, and other reports of the General Staff of the Army were never at my disposal; and I never had an opportunity to look at them.
GEN. RUDENKO: I wish to establish one fact. Do you deny that the OKH, in September 1940, was elaborating plans in connection with Plan Barbarossa?
KEITEL: If we go by the testimony of Field Marshal Paulus, then I could not say that it is not true, since I cannot know whether it actually was true. I can neither deny nor affirm it.
GEN. RUDENKO: All right. You informed the Tribunal that you were opposed to the war with the Soviet Union.
KEITEL: Yes.