SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Then it didn’t matter whether the sinking was in the zone or out of the zone. According to what you say, you undertook exactly the same duty towards survivors whether it was in the zone or outside the zone. Is that right?
DÖNITZ: No, that is not correct, because outside the zone neutrals were treated according to the Prize Ordinance, only inside the zone they were not.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: What I can’t understand is this—and really, I hope I am not being very stupid—what was the difference? What difference did you consider existed in your responsibility towards survivors if the sinking was inside the zone or outside the zone? That is what I want to get clear.
DÖNITZ: The difference was that neutrals outside the zone were treated according to the Prize Ordinance. According to the London Agreement, we were obliged, before sinking the ship, to see that the crew were safe and within reach of land. There was no obligation to do so inside the zone. In that case we acted according to the Hague Agreement for the application of the Geneva Convention, which provides that the survivors should be taken care of after the fight if the military situation permits.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Will you agree that an order in express terms to annihilate, to kill, the survivors of a ship that is sunk would be an appalling order to give?
DÖNITZ: I have already stated that the attacks on survivors were contrary to a soldier’s idea of fair fighting and that I have never put my name to any order which could in the slightest degree lead to anything of the kind—not even when it was proposed to me as a reprisal measure.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Will you agree that even with the discipline in your own branch of the service, there was a possibility that some U-boat commanders would have refused to comply with an order to annihilate survivors?
DÖNITZ: No such order was ever given.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I think it is quite a fair question. What if it were given in express terms, “Annihilate survivors after you sink a ship”? You know your officers. Would there, at any rate, have been some danger that some of them would have refused to carry out that order?
DÖNITZ: Yes. As I know my U-boat forces, there would have been a storm of indignation against such an order. The clean and honest idealism of these would never have allowed them to do it; and I would never have given such an order or permitted it to be given.