RAEDER: Yes, but now we were already in the middle of a war and he was looking at these things retrospectively. Also, he wanted to make it clear to the generals, with whom he had a conflict at that time, that he had always been right in his political conceptions. That is the reason why he quoted all these detailed points again.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, now, would you turn over to Pages 445-448, which is Page 264 of the English document book, German document book Pages 445-448. Have you got that?
RAEDER: Perhaps you would be good enough to read, I have here a...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: It is the paragraph that begins: “We have an Achilles heel: The Ruhr.”
RAEDER: I have it.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Would you look about halfway down that paragraph. You will see: “England cannot live without its imports. We can feed ourselves. The permanent sowing of mines off the English coasts will bring England to her knees.”
Have you got that passage?
RAEDER: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Thank you. Now, if you would just listen.
“However, this”—that is bringing England to her knees—“can only occur when we have occupied Belgium and Holland. It is a difficult decision for me. Nobody has ever achieved what I have achieved. My life is of no importance in all this. I have led the German people to a great height, even if the world does hate us now. I am setting this work at stake. I have to choose between victory or destruction. I choose victory, the greatest historical choice—to be compared with the decision of Frederick the Great before the first Silesian War. Prussia owes its rise to the heroism of one man.”