RAEDER: I can no longer tell you that; but I believe that it is a perfectly ordinary expression to say that one uses one’s armed forces as an instrument which could also be thrown into the scales at political negotiations, so that we need no longer be kicked around by the different nations, as had so far been the case. In my opinion, no suspicion attaches to the expression.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: To put it bluntly, Hitler was telling you, “by 1938 I want armed forces that I can use in war, if war should become necessary.” That is what it means, isn’t it? That is what you understood it to mean, isn’t that right?
RAEDER: No. There was no word about a war, only about the fact that we had to keep our position among the other nations so that we could no longer be tossed aside, as had hitherto been the case.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: If anyone tried to push you over, you could fight; that is it, wasn’t it?
RAEDER: That is obvious. That would be the case, of course, if we were attacked. We wanted to be in a position to defend ourselves if we were attacked. Up till that point we were unable to do this.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, just let us take the first example, when you contemplated fighting. If you look at Document Book 10a, Document Number C-140, Page 104 of the English translation and Page 157 of the German version, you remember that is the directive of Field Marshal Von Blomberg on Germany leaving the disarmament conference and League of Nations. And there, there is a pretty full general directive as to what military measures you would take if the members of the League of Nations applied sanctions against you; in other words you were quite prepared...
RAEDER: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: ...for a war happening on that peace policy; that is so, isn’t it, and that is what it says, it gives all preparations ready for fighting?
RAEDER: These preparations were made, if I remember correctly, 11 days after we had left the League of Nations, and it was quite natural that, if the Führer believed that in consequence of our leaving the League of Nations, which was quite a peaceful action in itself, warlike measures or sanctions would be applied against us, we would have to defend ourselves; and if such an attack was probable we had to take these preparatory steps.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: So you realized, Defendant, that as early as October 1933 the course of Hitler’s foreign policy might have brought about an immediate war, did you not?