KEITEL: Yes, I know what “special treatment” meant. I do know that.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, there is just one other point in the document which my friend General Rudenko put to you—on Saturday, I think it was, or Friday evening—Document EC-338. You remember General Rudenko put this. This document is the report of Admiral Canaris about treatment of prisoners of war, dealing with the position of the Soviet Union as not being signatory to the Convention. You remember the point that Admiral Canaris put to you, that although they were not signatories, since the 18th century there had been established a practice that war captivity was neither revenge nor punishment, but solely protective custody. Do you remember the document? It was a report from Canaris to you as of the 15th of September 1941, putting out the position of prisoners of war of a country that had not signed the Convention. You remember, you said you agreed with it but that you had to put on this statement that it was nonsense from the point of view of the present situation because it arose from a military concept of chivalrous warfare, that this was the destruction of an ideology. You said that you had to put that on, on Hitler’s instructions. Do you remember?
KEITEL: I had submitted to him the procedure and I asked that he read this, and upon that, I wrote out this note.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes. Now, there is a Paragraph 3-aa which I want you to have in mind at the moment on the point I am dealing with now:
“The screening of the civilians and politically undesirable prisoners of war, as well as the decision over their fate, is effected by the action detachments of the Security Police...”
Sicherheitspolizei—that is underlined in purple, that is, it is your underlining, and opposite it is your pencilled note, “very efficient.” That is, “action detachments of the Security Police, very efficient.” Then it goes on, “...and the SD.” Then Admiral Canaris says, “...along principles which are unknown to the Wehrmacht authorities.” And you have put opposite “unknown to the Wehrmacht authorities”: “not at all.” Do you remember doing that?
KEITEL: I cannot recall it at the present moment. I must have made this remark in reference to the fact that this was unknown to the Wehrmacht. I think that is right.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You see, it is perfectly clear. Admiral Canaris says it is unknown to the Wehrmacht authorities, and you put opposite to that, in your penciled notation, “not at all.” You could not have gotten that from Hitler; that must have been your own point, was it not, if you put in, in pencil, “not at all”? You must have thought that they were known to the Wehrmacht.
KEITEL: Not at all.
[The defendant read the document.]