You were all set for a war if it should become necessary, and you knew that. Was that not the position?
RAEDER: That is a complete misrepresentation of the facts, Mr. Prosecutor. Of course it is necessary during peacetime to contemplate the circumstances which might arise to make it necessary to call on the Armed Forces for defense. At that time nobody thought of a war of aggression, and the individual tasks must be understood. One of the Navy’s tasks was undoubtedly to secure the Swedish and Norwegian ore exports in case of war; and it had to be developed with a view to that end.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Would you just look at the next sentence in Paragraph-2: “When I pointed out that in the critical political situation in the first quarter of 1935, it would be desirable to have six U-boats already assembled....”
You were preparing for the critical political situation.
RAEDER: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Let’s look at what you were doing in 1936. Would you give the defendant and Dr. Siemers Document Number D-806.
That is a report of yours dated the 11th of November 1936, dealing with the U-boat construction program, and after the first paragraph you say this in the second paragraph:
“The military and political situation urgently demands that the extension of our U-boat fleet should be taken in hand immediately and completed with the greatest energy and dispatch, as it is a particularly valuable part of our armament at sea and possesses special striking power.”
Are you saying that what you were urging there was purely defensive and that you had no idea of the special striking powers that would be needed in a war?
RAEDER: The entire political situation, or so I seem to remember, made me consider it necessary to put the construction of submarines in the foreground. But I never expected that we would start a war on our own account. Hitler himself had told me that again and again, but he had made his political moves which could undoubtedly lead us into war if the other powers intervened against such a political move. The charge made against me was that I did not push the construction of U-boats sufficiently far ahead.