I submit also Exhibit Number Raeder-118, Document Book 6, Page 510. I ask the High Tribunal to take notice of this document. I do not wish to quote it, since it repeats the facts we have already heard. I believe that Figure 4 of Document 117 which I have just read clarifies the matter completely and refutes every accusation against the Navy.
[Turning to the defendant.] Admiral, do you have anything to add to these extracts from the War Diary?
RAEDER: No, I have nothing to add. It is entirely clear.
DR. SIEMERS: Admiral, may I ask you now to describe to the High Tribunal—and with this I am coming to the conclusion, of my examination—how it came about that you resigned in January 1943?
Your Honors, shall we have a recess first?
THE PRESIDENT: It depends on whether you hope to finish in a few minutes. If you hope to finish in a few minutes we will sit on so that you may finish your examination.
DR. SIEMERS: I believe it will take perhaps 10 minutes.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, go on.
DR. SIEMERS: [Turning to the defendant.] Please describe how it came about that you resigned in January of 1943; but first I should like to ask you one more question: Did you, even before this, have the idea of resigning?
RAEDER: I should like to say briefly that on several occasions before the war I asked the Führer to relieve me of my post, or I presented him with an ultimatum. I should like briefly to cite two cases as examples. In November 1938 in the presence of General Keitel I made a report to the Führer about the type of ships and our plans as to how the ships should be developed further. On this occasion the Führer, in a manner defying explanation, began to attack everything that we had built and were building, including the plans for the Bismarck, and to declare them wrong. Later I found out that things like that happened whenever some persons of his entourage, who knew very little about such things, gave him their opinion, that he always followed it up, probably wanting—as I told myself later—to check whether the things he had been told were actually correct.