RAEDER: First of all, I want to say that Minister Severing, whom I had asked for as one of my witnesses, brought this speech along of his own free will, as he still remembers the year 1928.
DR. SIEMERS: Mr. President, this is to be found on Page 16 of the document book. It is Raeder’s letter to Minister Severing, dated 8 October 1928. Severing gave me this speech when he came to Nuremberg to appear as a witness.
RAEDER: I shall quote from Page 17, the fifth line from the bottom, to shorten the sentence somewhat for the interpreters:
“The Armed Forces—I am speaking of course primarily for the Navy, but I know that today it is the same with the Army, because since 1919 its inner solidarity and training has been perfected with the greatest devotion and loyalty to duty—in their present structure, whether officer or soldier, in their present form of development and their inner attitude, are a firm and reliable support, I might even say, because of their inherent military might and in view of conditions within the Reich, the firmest and most reliable support of our German fatherland, the German Reich, the German Republic, and its Constitution; and the Armed Forces are proud to be that.”
I then turn to Page 3, and it is the sixth line:
“If, however, the State is to endure, this power must be available only to the constitutional authorities. No one else may have it; that is, not even the political parties. The Wehrmacht must be completely nonpolitical and be composed only of servicemen who, in full realization of this necessity, refuse to take part in any activity of domestic politics. To have realized this from the outset and organized the Wehrmacht accordingly is the great and enduring achievement of Noske, the former Reichswehrminister, whom the meritorious Minister Dr. Gessler followed on this road with the deepest conviction.”
Then I talk about the composition of the Navy, and on the fourth page I continue, Line 7. Perhaps this is the most important sentence:
“In my opinion, one thing is of course a prerequisite for the inner attitude of the serviceman, namely, that he is willing to put his profession into practice when the fatherland calls upon him. People who never again want war cannot possibly wish to become soldiers. One cannot take it amiss if the Wehrmacht infuses into its servicemen a manly and warlike spirit; not the desire for war or even a war of revenge or a war of aggression, for to strive after that would certainly in the general opinion of all Germans be a crime, but the will to take up arms in the defense of the fatherland in its hour of need.”
Then I pass on to the last paragraph on Page 4.
“One must understand—for it is in accordance with the essence of the Wehrmacht—if it strives to be as far as possible in a position to fulfil its tasks, even under the conditions today, dictated by the limitation of the Versailles Treaty.”