SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Page 156. I will read it very slowly again:
“Considering the size of the U-boats which had already been ordered, about 55 U-boats could have been provided for up to 1938. In reality 118 were completed and under construction.”
Are you saying that Admiral Assmann is wrong when he states that?
RAEDER: I am awfully sorry; I still have not got the passage from which you are reading, that is quite—which line...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Have you got the sentence, Defendant?
RAEDER: Yes, I have found it now.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well now, you see what Admiral Assmann says, that:
“Considering the size of the U-boats which had already been ordered, about 55 U-boats could have been provided for up to 1938.” That is before there was any mention of going from 45 to 100. “In reality 118 were completed and under construction.”
Are you saying that Admiral Assmann is wrong in giving these figures?
RAEDER: Certainly. In 1939 we entered the war with 40 submarines—I do not know the exact number. This is either a misprint or quite an incredible figure. As you know, we started the war with—I think—26 U-boats capable of sailing the Atlantic, and in addition a number of smaller boats. I cannot tell you for certain now what was under construction at the beginning of the war but there was no intention of this kind. That was precisely the accusation made against me—that I did not have sufficient U-boats built in good time. I dispute the whole of that sentence.