SCHUJLTE-MÖNTING: I can be very brief.
Giese had no inside information about the facts, and even if he had, without permission, looked into the minutes of the adjutant, which were not a shorthand record but merely notes to aid the memory of the adjutant, he could never have received the right impression without having taken part in the conference. And it was not up to him in the reception room to decide who should be admitted to the Commander-in-Chief, but rather up to the adjutant or to me. He did not even know who was to be admitted. And it is a bold statement or assumption when he says that a man like Hagelin saw Raeder each time instead of seeing me first. By the way, Hagelin came to me perhaps four or five times.
DR. SIEMERS: Do you believe Giese was present when Raeder talked to Hitler?
SCHULTE-MÖNTING: Giese? No, never. Giese sat in the reception room and took care of Raeder’s telephone calls.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Siemers, nobody here suggests that he was. Mr. Elwyn Jones was not putting it that this man Giese was present at talks between Raeder and the Führer or Raeder and Hagelin.
DR. SIEMERS: Mr. President, this is his affidavit, and in the affidavit, it says, as I should like to point out now, on Page 5, “According to all I heard, I can say that the idea of this undertaking emanated from Raeder and met with Hitler’s joyous agreement.”
How could he know that?
SCHULTE-MÖNTING: I might stress that even I as chief of staff was not present at these private conferences, and Herr Giese had to stay with the telephone and had no other way of gaining an insight than by giving his imagination free rein.
DR. SIEMERS: That is enough, thank you. I come now to Document D-872. That is the war diary of the naval attaché in Japan, in connection with which you were told that you must have known that Japan would attack America on 7 December. The telegram which is mentioned here is of 6 December. When could that telegram have arrived in your office?
SCHULTE-MÖNTING: You mean, when could I have received it personally?