RAEDER: Yes, I knew nothing about it.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: What was your staff doing, if they were not telling you about this? Had you an efficient staff? Do you say you had an efficient staff?
RAEDER: That is a question which is not relevant here. Of course I had only efficient officers around me. But here we are dealing with things which were not done at all by the Navy. It says here in all places that it was the police and so on. I even was in Libau once and I was told—and this is the only thing in connection with this matter—that the peculiar thing was that the Jews in Libau, contrary to their custom, were craftsmen and therefore they were doing useful work there. That was the only thing I heard about it. As regards any extermination...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: When were you in Libau?
RAEDER: I cannot say that now. It was after it was occupied, probably immediately afterwards.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Were you there in 1941 or 1942?
RAEDER: I said just now that I do not know exactly when; I have to look it up somewhere. It does not say here that anything was reported, only that it was apparently discussed in the Navy Headquarters and with the Navy Quartermaster (Marine-Intendantur), who does not report to me. Of course I would have intervened if I had heard about such happenings.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You think you would? Well, I’ll leave that. Now, tell me about the Commando Order of the 18th of October 1942. You received Hitler’s Commando Order and passed it on to your various divisions of the Navy, did you not?
RAEDER: Yes, I passed it on through the Naval Operations Staff.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Did you approve of it?