SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You had also the right to participate in meetings of the Reich Cabinet; had any such meetings taken place?
DÖNITZ: I was authorized to participate if such a meeting, or my participation in such a meeting, was ordered by the Führer. That is the wording of the order. But I must say that no meeting of the Reich Cabinet took place at the time I was Commander-in-Chief from 1943 on.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: From the time that you became Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, the government of the Reich was in a sense carried on from Hitler’s headquarters; isn’t that so?
DÖNITZ: That is correct.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: It was a military dictatorship in which the dictator saw those people he wanted at his military headquarters; that is right, is it not?
DÖNITZ: One cannot say “military dictatorship.” It was not a dictatorship at all. There was a military sector and a civilian sector, and both components were united in the hands of the Führer.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I see. I will take the last part of your answer, and we will not argue about the first.
Now, you saw him on 119 days in just over 2 years; do you agree to that?
DÖNITZ: Yes. But in that connection it must be stated that from 30 January 1943, when I became Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, until the end of January 1945—that is, approximately 2 years—the number was, I think, 57 times. The larger figure arises from the fact that in the last months of the war I took part in the noontime conferences on the situation which took place daily in the Voss Strasse in Berlin.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I want to ask you about certain of these. At a number of these meetings the Defendant Speer was present, was he not?