RAEDER: Yes, but I must be allowed to comment on that document.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Oh certainly, I’m sorry. We got on so quickly I thought we were not going to have any explanation.
RAEDER: In 1938, as has been stated here quite often, the Führer’s attitude towards Great Britain became more difficult in spite of all the efforts of General Von Blomberg and myself to tell him that it was not so on England’s side, and that it was possible to live in peace with England. In spite of that the Führer ordered us to prepare for possible opposition by England to his plans. He for his part never contemplated a war of aggression against Great Britain; and we in the Navy still much less; in fact, I have proved that I did nothing but try to dissuade him from that. In 1938 he ordered us to make a study similar to those we had already made in the case of other possibilities of war—which it was the duty of the Wehrmacht Command to do—but dealing with the course which a war against England might take and what we would require for it. This study was prepared, and I reported to the Führer that we could never increase our fighting forces to such an extent that we could undertake a war against England with any prospect of success—it would have been madness for me to say such a thing. I told him—that has repeatedly been mentioned—that by 1944 or 1945 we might build up a small naval force with which we could start an economic war against England or seize her commercial shipping routes, but that we would never really be in a position to defeat England with that force. I sent this study, which was compiled under my guidance in the Naval Operations Staff, to Generaladmiral Carls who was very clear-sighted in all such questions. He thought it his duty to explain in this introduction of his reply, which agreed with our opinion, the consequences which such a war against Great Britain would have for ourselves, namely, that it would bring about a new world war, which neither he nor we in the Navy nor anyone in the Armed Forces wanted—in my opinion, not even Hitler himself, as I proved the other day—hence this statement. He said that if we must have war with England, it was essential that we should first of all have access to the ocean and, secondly, that we should attack English trade on the sea route of the Atlantic. Not that he proposed that we, on our part, should embark on such a venture. He was only thinking of the case of such a war breaking out very much against our will. It was our duty to go thoroughly into the matter.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: He says that, “The war against it”—that is the war against England—“can only be justified and have a chance of success if it is prepared economically as well as politically and militarily.” Then you go on to say “waged with the aim of conquering for Germany an outlet to the ocean.”
Now, I just want to see how you prepared.
RAEDER: Yes, that is quite clear and quite correct.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Let’s just look how you had begun to prepare economically. Let’s take that first, as you put it first.
Would you look at Document C-29, which is Page 8.
THE PRESIDENT: Sir David, hadn’t we better break off now before going into this?