COL. POKROVSKY: I would like you to understand my question correctly.
RAEDER: Yes, I understand...
COL. POKROVSKY: I am not asking you about the prerequisites which might have been required for granting an application for resignation. I am asking you a question in principle:
Was it possible or was it not possible to resign? After all, you did resign. You resigned from your post as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.
RAEDER: Yes, but I had been in the service for 15 years, and I could tell him, “If that is the way you yourself judge me, then there is no sense in your continuing to work with me.” That was a favorable opportunity which made it permissible for me to ask him to release me. But what one could not do was to throw up the job and give the impression of being insubordinate. That had to be avoided at all costs, I would never have done that. I was too much of a soldier for that.
COL. POKROVSKY: I have already heard what I wanted to hear from you in reply to my question.
Now, I will pass on to the next question. You maintain that all the time you were striving towards normalizing relations with the Soviet Union, is that correct?
RAEDER: I am sorry; I could not understand what you said.
COL. POKROVSKY: You maintain that during your service you always strove to make the relations between Germany and the Soviet Union quite normal, is that not so?
RAEDER: I was always in favor of the Bismarck policy, that we should have a common policy with Russia.