DR. SIEMERS: And his name was Gröner, wasn’t it?
RAEDER: Yes.
DR. SIEMERS: May I draw the Tribunal’s attention to the extract from the Constitution which I have recently submitted as Exhibit Number Raeder-3, according to which Article 50 lays down that the Reich President gives all orders and decrees even where the Armed Forces are concerned. For their validity decrees require to be countersigned by the Chancellor or the Minister concerned. By the act of countersigning responsibility is accepted. In this, our case, the Reichswehrminister was the competent Reich Minister; and anything that was done afterwards with reference to the law-making bodies was a matter for the government to decide.
[Turning to the defendant.] Sir David has submitted to you Document C-17. It is the index of a book written by Colonel Scherff, called The History of the German Navy from 1919 to 1939. Was this book ever written?
RAEDER: As far as I know, only the index was compiled. I assume that if anything had been written, then it would have been submitted to me a long time ago, but I never heard of that at all.
DR. SIEMERS: May I remind the Tribunal that the American Prosecution, at the time when they submitted the document, pointed out that as far as they knew the book was not written.
[Turning to the defendant.] I believe that it is very difficult to base accusations on an index, but I want you to tell me, Defendant, when did you learn of this index?
RAEDER: It became known to me during my first interrogation by an American prosecutor.
DR. SIEMERS: Furthermore, Document D-854, which is GB-460, was put to you yesterday. May I come back to one question put by Sir David. On Page 1 Sir David had been reading as follows:
“But if—as was stated—in nearly all spheres of armament where the Navy was concerned, the Treaty of Versailles was violated in the letter and all the more in the spirit—or at least its violation was prepared—a long time before the 16th of March 1935....”