THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, have you any reason to suppose, Defendant, that your officer, Lieutenant Fanger, is not telling the truth when he says that these men were captured by Admiral Von Schrader?
DÖNITZ: I have no reason to question that statement because the whole affair is completely unknown to me. I have already stated that the incident was not reported to me nor—as I can prove—to the High Command of the Navy; and I told you yesterday that I could only assume, in consequence, that these men—here it is, in Paragraph 6—were captured on an island, not by the Navy but by a detachment of the Police. Consequently Admiral Von Schrader said that they were not Navy prisoners but Police prisoners and must be handed back to the Police; and for this reason he did not make a report.
I assume that that is what happened. I myself cannot furnish the full details of this story or explain how it came about, because it was not reported to me at the time.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: That is the point I will get to in a moment. It nowhere states in this document that they were captured by the Police, and in fact that they were captured by the forces under Admiral Von Schrader, who attacked this island to which this boat was moored.
DÖNITZ: I do not know about that. The document says that the men reached the island—the reason is not clear. That the men were brought back from the island afterwards in some sort of boat is quite clear; but naturally they might remain Police prisoners if they were captured there by the Police or the coast guards. That is the only explanation I can think of, in view of Admiral Von Schrader’s personality.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I just asked you—your own officer, Lieutenant Fanger, says they were captured by Admiral Von Schrader’s troops, and you say if Lieutenant Fanger says that you have no reason to believe he is not telling the truth, is that right?
DÖNITZ: Yes. My estimate of Von Schrader’s personality caused me to assume yesterday that it happened like that. Since I am informed today of a Lieutenant Fanger’s statement, things may have happened differently for I may be wrong.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Will you look at the end of Paragraph 8, the last sentence:
“There was an interview between Blomberg of the SS and Admiral Von Schrader....”