SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You know, Admiral Assmann, whom you have described as a sound historian, kept a headline diary, and on the next day he gives an account of a meeting between you and Hitler, and he says this. This is the same day. You may have read it, because he turns down your proposal to use U-boats off Halifax. It is the same day, the 23d of February. Then, at that date, you are quoted as saying that to insure the supply of ore from Narvik, it would be best to preserve the neutrality of Norway.
Then, on the 26th of March, Admiral Assmann in his report of the meeting between you and Hitler records your answers as follows. It is quite short: “British landing in Norway not considered imminent—Raeder suggests action by us at the next new moon—to which Hitler agrees.”
That is Admiral Assmann’s report of the meeting between you and Hitler on the 26th of March: “British landing in Norway not considered imminent—Raeder suggests action by us at the next new moon, the 7th of April—to which Hitler agrees.”
Do you remember that?
RAEDER: No. I mean, it is quite improbable that at that moment I should not have been fully convinced of the imminent landing about which the whole of Documents 004-PS and 007-PS gave me reliable information. I did not see the documents, but the information contained in them was fully available.
Admiral Assmann compiled his notes from all sorts of war diaries and records. I most certainly never said that because at that time I reported to Hitler again and again that our preparations which had already been started a time ago would be complete at the end of January, and that that would be the time when the landings had to be carried out for the reasons I always put forward. It is completely wrong to assume that at that time I had the slightest doubt. Later everything was proved right...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, now really we must...
RAEDER: And later on, it all turned out to be correct.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: We must get down to this matter. You have told us that Admiral Assmann was a trustworthy officer and good at naval history.
RAEDER: He is not a deceiver, but he compiled the document from all sorts of papers and I cannot imagine how he could have arrived at that statement, I certainly never made it.