Is Rudolphi correct in explaining this question and is it true that you were against this attempt to introduce special political courts into the Navy and Armed Forces? Is that correct?
DÖNITZ: According to my recollection, my resistance began in the summer 1943. It may be that already in the spring the jurisdiction of the Wehrmacht was threatened. That may be, but I did not learn of it.
COL. POKROVSKY: Do you acknowledge, Dönitz, or not, that these so-called “People’s Courts” were to deal, as Rudolphi puts it, with anything that smacked, even remotely, of politics? That is his sentence which you can find on the first page of Document D-91.
DÖNITZ: As I have already stated, my point of view was the following: I wanted to keep my soldiers under my own jurisdiction. I could not judge proceedings outside the Navy, because I did not know the legal procedure. My point was that my soldiers should remain with me and be sentenced by me.
COL. POKROVSKY: For all kinds of crimes, including political crimes, is that not so? Did I understand you correctly?
DÖNITZ: Yes, I meant that; I have stated that I was of the opinion that they should remain under Navy jurisdiction.
COL. POKROVSKY: Will you deny, Dönitz, that you were always preaching and always encouraging in every way the murder of defenseless people from among the members of the German Armed Forces for purely political reasons and that you always looked upon such murders as acts of military valor and heroism?
DÖNITZ: I do not understand you. I do not know what you mean.
COL. POKROVSKY: You did not understand my question?
DÖNITZ: No, I have not understood the meaning of your question at all.