RAEDER: I did not recommend it, but I passed it on. I have to make a statement if you want to know what I thought about it.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, that’s not what I’m asking you. I’m asking you—first answer my question—did you approve of an order to shoot Commandos or to hand them over to the SD to be shot, did you?
RAEDER: I did not recommend the order, but I received it as drafted by the Führer, and as it came into my hands, I passed it on as ordered with the same remark as to how far it has to be passed on and how it has to be returned. It was all ordered by Hitler in detail. It was decisive for me that in one of the first paragraphs the reason for this order was given, and the reasons why Hitler considered a deviation from international law justified. Moreover, a short time before I had been in Dieppe in France, and there I was informed that on the occasion of the Commando action of the British in France, the prisoners, I believe they were from the Labor Service, who were working along the coast, had been shackled with a noose around their neck and the other end of the noose around the bent-back lower leg, so that when the leg weakened, the noose tightened and the man choked.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, now, will you answer my question: Did you approve of the order or not? You haven’t answered it yet. Did you approve of the order?
RAEDER: I always said—yes, I did—no, I do not want to say—I said that twice already. I passed it on because it was an order from my Commander-in-Chief. Moreover, in one of the last paragraphs it said that that order should not be applied for the treatment of prisoners taken after a naval action or after large scale landing operations and I, as well as many others in the Navy, concentrated our attention on this point because that was our main activity. But I saw no reason to raise objections to the Führer on account of this order which I thought justified in this way. And I would like to state very clearly that I, as a soldier, was not in a position to go to my Supreme Commander and Chief of State to tell him, “Show me your reasons for this order,” that would have been mutiny and could not have been done under any circumstances.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, do you remember that one example which we have discussed a great deal in this Trial, which you must have listened to, was the case of naval men coming in with a two-man torpedo, trying to sink the Tirpitz. Do you remember that case? Surely you can answer that “yes” or “no,” because either you remember or you do not. We have discussed it about six times.
RAEDER: Yes, I remember. If I remember I will say “yes.” The contrary does not have to be assumed at all.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Do you know that during the time that you were Inspector General, or Admiral Inspector of the German Navy, that there was started a “Kommando der Kleinkampfverbände,” under Vice Admiral Helmut Heye, which included in its command one-man torpedoes, one-man U-boats, explosive motor boats, and had personnel, starting at about 5,000 and rising, I think, as far as 16,000? Did you know that there was that Kommando in the Navy, “Kommando der Kleinkampfverbände”? Did you know that?
RAEDER: Yes, I knew that of course and that it operated quite openly on the French coast and later on, I believe, also on the North coast.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Would you have approved if the Allies had shot any one of your thousands of personnel in that Kommando that was dealing with one-man and two-man torpedoes and explosive motor boats? Would you have approved if we had shot them out of hand?