RAEDER: No, I must still say that there was not any unrestricted U-boat warfare but merely an intensification of measures, step by step, as I have repeatedly said, and these were always taken only after the British took some measure. The British...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I suggest that that is an entire untruth, and that I will show you out of this document. Look at your own document, this memorandum. In the first paragraph:
“The Führer’s proposal for the restoration...”
RAEDER: I am not telling untruths, I would not think of doing it. I do not do that sort of thing.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, that is what I am suggesting to you, and I will show it out of this document.
“The Führer’s proposal for the restoration of a just, honorable peace and the new adjustment of the political order in Central Europe had been turned down. The enemy powers want the war, with the aim of destroying Germany. In this fight, in which Germany is now forced to defend her existence and her rights, she must use her weapons with the utmost ruthlessness, at the same time fully respecting the laws of military ethics.”
Now, let’s see what you were suggesting.
“Germany’s principal enemy in this war is Britain. Her most vulnerable spot is her maritime trade. The war at sea against Britain must therefore be conducted as an economic war, with the aim of destroying Britain’s fighting spirit within the shortest possible time and forcing her to accept peace.”
Now, miss one paragraph and look at the next.
“The principal target of our naval strategy is the merchant ship”—now, let’s look—“not only the enemy’s, but in general every merchant ship sails the seas in order to supply the enemy’s war industry, both by way of imports and exports. Side by side with this the enemy warship also remains an objective.”