“1. The affair is to be kept strictly secret upon orders of the Führer.
“2. On my part, no court-martial will be ordered because the commanding officer acted in good faith and it was a mistake.
“3. The further political handling of the matter is to be attended to by the High Command of the Navy, as far as anything has to be done.”
With that the commander returned to Wilhelmshaven and Admiral Dönitz has already reported that he was punished by disciplinary procedure. To our great surprise, about one month later that article appeared in the Völkischer Beobachter in which Churchill was accused of being the author of that incident. I knew absolutely nothing about that article beforehand. I would certainly have prevented its appearance because, knowing that our submarine had torpedoed that ship, it was out of the question to lay the blame on the enemy, on the First Lord of the Admiralty of all people.
I found out later that the order to publish such an article was issued by Hitler and reached the Propaganda Ministry through the Reich Press Chief. As far as I remember I was told that the Propaganda Minister had himself drafted that article. Later I could not prevent it. I did not see the article nor did any of my officers of the High Command of the Navy see it. They would certainly have come to me at once so that I could have prevented its publication. We had no reason to expect such an article 4 weeks after the torpedoing of the Athenia. That is the case of the Athenia.
DR. SIEMERS: You just said that you had discovered that Hitler knew about the article. When did you discover this?
RAEDER: Here, from my Codefendant, Hans Fritzsche.
DR. SIEMERS: Not at that time then?
RAEDER: No, by no means.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will sit again at a quarter past two.