DR. NELTE: No, they did not raise any objections. Therefore, if it had been returned I would have submitted it as an exhibit, without reading it.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
DR. NELTE: Thank you.
DR. DIX: Witness, you have stated that the SD and the Gestapo, in fact, the whole Police had no jurisdiction over members of the Armed Forces—for instance, they could not arrest members of the Armed Forces. Did I understand you correctly?
DÖNITZ: Yes.
DR. DIX: Do you know, Witness, that all the officers, or in any case most of them, who were suspected of being involved in the affair of 20 July, were arrested by members of the SD and sent for questioning by the SD and the SD office, where they were arrested, to prisons under the SD and there held under SD guard and not under any military guard?
DÖNITZ: No, I don’t know that, because after 20 July, as far as I can remember, an order was issued specifically stating that the SD were to give to branches of the Armed Forces the names of those soldiers who had participated in the Putsch and that these soldiers were then to be dismissed from the branches of the Armed Forces, particularly to keep the principle of noninterference in the branches of the Armed Forces from being violated, and that then the SD would have the right to take action.
DR. DIX: That order did come out, but perhaps we can come to an explanation of this order if you answer further questions which I want to put to you.
Do you know, Witness, that the examination, the interrogation of those officers arrested in connection with 20 July, was carried out exclusively by officials of the SD or the Gestapo and not by officers, that is, members of military courts?
DÖNITZ: I can only judge as to the two cases which I had in the Navy. I received information that these two officers had participated. I had questions put to them, and they confirmed it. Thereupon these officers were dismissed from the Navy. After that the interrogation was, of course, not carried out by the Navy; but I know that my Navy court judges still concerned themselves about the officers and the interrogation.