DR. SERVATIUS: I have no further questions.
DR. STEINBAUER: Admiral, do you remember that in your capacity as head of the State on 1 May 1945 you ordered the Reich Commissioner for the Occupied Netherlands to come to Flensburg to report to you?
DÖNITZ: Yes.
DR. STEINBAUER: Do you also remember that on this occasion my client asked you to cancel the order originally sent to the Commander-in-Chief in the Netherlands to the effect that all locks and dykes should be blown up in the event of an attack, and to give the order that the mined blasting points be rendered harmless?
DÖNITZ: Yes, he did do that. It was in accordance with my own principles, for when I became head of the State I gave the order that all destruction in occupied territories, including for instance Czechoslovakia, should cease forthwith.
DR. STEINBAUER: At the end of his report, did he ask you for permission to return to his station in the Netherlands instead of remaining in Germany?
DÖNITZ: Yes, he did so repeatedly. He tried to get back—the weather situation was difficult—to the Netherlands by a motor torpedo boat.
DR. STEINBAUER: Thank you very much.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Defendant, I want you first of all to answer some questions on your record after becoming Commander-in-Chief of the Navy on 30 January 1943. As Commander-in-Chief of the Navy you had the equivalent rank of a Minister of the Reich; is that not so?
DÖNITZ: Yes, that is correct.