SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: What was your answer to that cruel measure?
KEITEL: I cannot say. I do not recollect the incident at all, but perhaps the answer is there.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, look at the Document D-770, which is, I think, your answer; it is Exhibit GB-305. You will notice on the distribution list that that goes to the Commander of the Armed Forces in the Netherlands, and further to the signal which we have just been looking at. Now, you say:
“According to the Führer’s order of 30 July 1944, non-German civilians in the occupied territories who attack us in the rear in the crisis of our battle for existence deserve no consideration. This must be our guiding principle in the interpretation and application of the Führer’s decree itself and the Chief of the OKW’s executive decree of 18 August 1944.
“If the military situation and the state of communications make it impossible to hand them over to the SD, other effective measures are to be taken ruthlessly and independently. There is, naturally”—and I ask you to note the word “naturally”—“no objection to passing and executing death sentences by summary court-martial under such circumstances.”
I can not remember, Defendant, whether you have ever had an independent command yourself or not. Have you? Have you had an independent command, apart from your division? I think that was the last independent command you had. You have not had an independent command yourself, have you? Don’t I make myself clear?
KEITEL: I did not understand. What do you mean by “independent”?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I mean that you have not been a commander or chief of an army or army group yourself, if I remember rightly, or of an area, have you?
KEITEL: No, I have not.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I ask you to put yourself in General Christiansen’s position. That answer of yours was a direct encouragement, practically amounting to an order, to shoot these railway men out of hand, was it not? “To take other effective measures ruthlessly and independently.”