Look at the next page, Page 47, Paragraph 1 of your order of the 1 June 1944, the last sentence:
“Therefore every effort must be made to bring in such prisoners, as far as possible, without endangering the boat.”
Now, you have told us that this order of 17 September 1942 was intended to be a nonrescue order; that is right, is it not?
GODT: Yes, certainly.
COL. PHILLIMORE: I ask you again, what was meant by the sentence: “Rescue runs counter to the most elementary demands of warfare for the destruction of enemy ships and crews”?
GODT: That is the motivation of the rest of the order, which states that ships with crews armed and equipped to fight U-boats were to be put on the same level.
COL. PHILLIMORE: Why do you speak about the destruction of crews if you do not mean the destruction of crews?
GODT: The question is whether the ships and their crews were to be destroyed; and that is something entirely different from destroying the crews after they had left the ship.
COL. PHILLIMORE: And that is something entirely different from merely not rescuing the crews; isn’t that a fact?
GODT: I do not quite understand that question.