RAEDER: First, I cannot give any information about what I would have done in a particular case with which I had nothing to do any more. Secondly, here it is...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: All right, if you don’t want to answer, it is good enough for me. I will point it out in due course to the Tribunal with...
RAEDER: But you interrupted me again. I should like to make a second point after what I said first. Secondly, these units fought quite openly, just below the coast, and had no civilians on board and also no murderous instruments or instruments for sabotage with them, so they were fighters just like the fighters in a submarine. I know...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: That is exactly the point that I have put with our Commandos, so I will not argue.
I want to pass to one other point. Was it under your orders that the log on the Athenia was falsified? Was it by your direct order?
RAEDER: No, not at all. I have explained the other day here that my order was, “First: absolute secrecy upon the order of the Führer. Secondly: politically it will be dealt with by the High Command of the Navy. Thirdly”—there was a third point—I will find it in a second—“I do not intend to punish the commander because he acted in good faith and committed an error.” That is what I ordered. I did not order anything further concerning that.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, do you know under whose orders the log was falsified? I am very anxious to know. The log was falsified. I have asked the Defendant Dönitz. He cannot tell me. He has put in an affidavit that the matter was to be left to you, and now I am asking you whether you can tell me. I think the commander is dead, as far as I remember, so he cannot tell me. Do you say that you cannot tell me under whose orders the log of the Submarine U-30, that sank the Athenia, was falsified?
RAEDER: I have already said that I had nothing to do with it, because in fact I did not have anything to do with such details. I did not order such details. The other day—I do not know whether Admiral Wagner said it—it was discussed who did it. I assumed that it was within the flotilla.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Tell me just this about the Athenia. You told us the other day that you gave these orders, and then washed your hands of the matter. Nearly a month later...
RAEDER: I have already said I had nothing further to do with it, for you know...