SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: And it says, if you look at Paragraph 1, to take no real preparatory measures in the Army or Luftwaffe, no troop movements or redeployments, to spread false but quite credible news which may lead to the conclusion of military preparations against Austria. And it is through people in Austria and your customs personnel and through agents that you sent out the news, and by a make-believe wireless exchange and through maneuvers.
Now, you put that up to Hitler, and on the 14th Captain Eberhard gives the information by phone that the Führer has given his approval on all points. You were putting up what the false news and the false preparations were to be in order to get a political effect in Austria, were you not?
KEITEL: I made the proposal on the basis and instigation of instructions which had been given to me on my return to Berlin.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well now, I only want to deal quite shortly with this, and I think I can, but I want to show the same point with regard to Czechoslovakia.
Before you became Chief of the OKW you had been under Von Blomberg at the Ministry of War. Had you seen Von Blomberg’s plan for the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the directive dated 24 June 1937?
KEITEL: Yes, I knew that.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You have?
KEITEL: Yes. It was no directive for an invasion; it was the annual preparatory work for mobilization. That is what it was and what I know.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, Paragraph 2 reads:
“The task of the German Wehrmacht is to prepare in such a way that the bulk of the whole strength can break into Czechoslovakia quickly, by surprise, with the greatest force.”