“The propagandistic, political and military announcements given out at the beginning of the war by the Foreign Office and the High Command of the Armed Forces, which were to justify the breaking of the Pact because of breaches by the Soviet Union, found very little credence among the people as well as among the Armed Forces. They showed too clearly that they were propaganda for a certain purpose and had a repulsive effect.” (USSR-460.)
I know that at that time Hitler himself drafted these documents, together with Goebbels.
COL. POKROVSKY: In connection with this question I have another question for you. Am I to understand you in this way; that your divergence of opinion with Hitler over foreign policy, and in particular in regard to aggressive wars, was less strongly defined than your difference of opinion about the question of the marriage of a naval officer with a certain girl? Did you understand me?
RAEDER: No, they were two quite different things. Those were military questions where the political decisions remained with the Führer. I was very insistent about the moral issues also, where they concerned the Pact, but I did not send him any written ultimatum because in this matter it would have been unsoldierly. I did not have the final decision, he had it; whereas in the case of Albrecht, it was up to me to decide—to say yes or no—and not to sign that which I was supposed to sign.
COL. POKROVSKY: You are saying now that this is a question of morals. Does it not seem to you that an unprovoked attack on a country with which Germany had a nonaggression treaty—do you not think that such a question is always connected with the question of morals?
RAEDER: Of course; that is what I said myself, that in this case too I laid special stress on the moral issue. But in spite of that, as the highest man of the Navy, I was not in a position to hold out the threat of resignation at that moment. I was too much of a soldier to be able to do that, to be able to leave the Navy at a moment like that.
COL. POKROVSKY: In answer to questions put to you by your counsel here in this courtroom you testified that your speech, which was delivered by you on 12 March 1939—that is Page 169 of the Russian text in the Raeder document book, My Lord—the speech where you praised Hitler and Hitler’s policies—you mentioned that this speech was not in accord with your true opinion. Is it so or is it not?
RAEDER: No, that is not correct. I said that we had had the experience that the Communists and Jews, from 1917 to 1920, had strongly undermined our power of resistance, and that for this reason it could be understood, if a National Socialist government took certain measures against both of them in order to stem their influence, which was excessive. That was the sense of my statements and I made absolutely no mention of any further steps which might come into question.
COL. POKROVSKY: In short, you are saying now that when you delivered that speech on 12 March 1939, that this speech was fully in accord with your ideas and your views. Is that correct?
RAEDER: Yes, it was, or I would not have made it. It was in accord insofar as I had to recognize that the National Socialist Government had in some way to stem that influence which was generally recognized to be excessive, and as I said yesterday, the National Socialist Government had issued the Nuremberg Laws, which I did not entirely approve of where they went to extremes. But if the Government was so disposed, it was not possible for me in an official public speech, which I gave on the orders of that Government, to express my personal views which were different. That had to be considered within this address to the nation.