DÖNITZ: He never did that and, of course, he could have done so only during the first report. No, he never did that.
DR. NELTE: With reference to Canaris I should like to know whether you can tell me anything about his character and consequently about his credibility as a source of information; whether you consider him reliable?
DÖNITZ: Admiral Canaris, while he was in the Navy, was an officer in whom not much confidence was shown. He was a man quite different from us—we used to say he had seven souls in his breast.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Nelte, we don’t want to know about Admiral Canaris when he was in the Navy. I don’t think there is any use telling us that Admiral Canaris was in the Navy. The only possible relevance would be his character afterwards when he was head of the intelligence.
DR. NELTE: Mr. President, do you not think that, if someone is unreliable and not credible as a commodore, he might also be so as an Admiral in the OKW? Do you think that that could have changed during these years?
[Turning to the defendant.] But, nevertheless, I thank you for the answer to this question and I now ask you to answer the following question. Is it true that Hitler forbade all branches of the Armed Forces to make reports on any political matters and that he demanded that they confine themselves to their own sphere of work?
DÖNITZ: Yes, that is true.
DR. NELTE: Witness Gisevius has stated that Field Marshal Keitel threatened the officers under his command that he would hand them over to the Gestapo if they concerned themselves with political matters, and I ask you: Is it true that, according to the regulations applying to the Armed Forces, the Police—including the Gestapo, the SD, and the Criminal Police—had no jurisdiction at all over members of the Armed Forces, no matter what their rank was?
DÖNITZ: That is correct.
DR. NELTE: And is it also correct that the branches of the Armed Forces and also the OKW were at great pains to preserve this prerogative as far as the Police were concerned?