“Göring blamed Keitel for having let those men escape. These constant escapes were a bad show. Then Himmler interfered—I can only say what the Feldmarschall told us—and he complained that he would have to provide another 60,000 or 70,000 men as ‘Landwachen,’ et cetera.”
Is that right? Did the Field Marshal say that?
WESTHOFF: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, the second paragraph:
“Feldmarschall Keitel said to us, ‘Gentlemen, these escapes must stop. We must set an example. We shall take very severe measures. I can only tell you that the men who have escaped will be shot; probably the majority of them are dead already.’ Keitel said that to us at the conference.”
Is that correct?
WESTHOFF: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Then you say:
“We were amazed as that was a conception we had never come across before. The affair must have happened in March. We were sent to the ‘Feldmarschall’ in Berlin a few days after the escape, not on that account but for some other business. We knew they had escaped, and we were taken by surprise by that declaration at the conference.”
Then you go on again with your account of the conference: