Do you still say you never got any report from Von Schrader?
DÖNITZ: Yes, I still say that I did not receive any report, and I am equally convinced that the High Command of the Navy did not receive it either. I have a witness to prove that. I do not know where the report went. Admiral Von Schrader was not directly responsible to the High Command of the Navy; and the report may have been sent to the OKW, if this report was made at all. At any rate the High Command of the Navy did not receive a report on this particular matter, hence my assumption that these men were captured on the island in the first place by the Police. Otherwise, I think Admiral Von Schrader would have reported it.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Before you make any further statement, I would like you to have in mind something further that Kapitän Wildemann said, which you know probably quite well, “After the capitulation Admiral Von Schrader many times said that the English would hold him responsible for handing over the prisoners to the SD,” and Admiral Von Schrader was under orders to proceed to England as a prisoner when he shot himself. Did you know Admiral Von Schrader shot himself?
DÖNITZ: I heard it here.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Did you know he was worried about being held responsible for this order?
DÖNITZ: No, I had not the slightest idea of that. I only heard of his suicide here.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Are you still telling the Tribunal that Admiral Von Schrader made no report to you? Do you remember a few days after the capture of this M.T.B. Admiral Von Schrader received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross?
DÖNITZ: Yes, but that has no connection with this matter. He did not make a report on this matter and he did not go to Berlin for his Knight’s Cross either, as far as I remember.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Two other officers, Oberleutnant Nelle and Seeoberfähnrich Böhm were decorated; and in the recommendations and citations the capture of this M.T.B. was given as the reason for this decoration. You say you knew nothing about it?
DÖNITZ: I know nothing about it and I cannot know anything about it, because the competent superior officers would have dealt with these decorations and not myself. The High Command of the Navy did not receive a report on this matter; otherwise it would have been passed on to me. I have that much confidence in my High Command, and my witness will testify that he did not receive it either and that he must have done so if it had gone to the Navy.