RAEDER: You cannot say that of them all. For instance, Points 1 to 3 deal with mines. The number of mines was to be increased and modern material was to replace the old. It goes on in the same way with the transfer of guns from the North Sea to the Baltic “A” batteries, not with the scrapping of guns.
DR. SIEMERS: To conclude the whole matter, may I ask you to say what impression the whole thing made on a naval expert like yourself. All things considered, would you say that these are minor violations, and how far are these violations of an aggressive nature?
RAEDER: As I said yesterday, most of them are very inadequate improvements in defense of an almost entirely defenseless position. The separate items, as I explained yesterday, are so insignificant that it is really impossible to spend very much time on them. I believe that the Control Commission also had the impression that very little weight need be attached to all these matters; for in 1925 when the Control Commission left its station at Kiel where it had worked with the organizations of the Naval Command, Commander Fenshow, Admiral Charlton’s chief of staff and head of the Commission, whose main interest was guns and who had worked with a Captain Raenkel, a gunner and a specialist in these matters, said:
“We must leave now, and you are glad that we are going. You did not have a pleasant task, and neither did we. I must tell you one thing. You need not think that we believed what you have said. You did not say a single word of truth, but you have given your information so skillfully that we were able to accept it, and for that I am grateful to you.”
DR. SIEMERS: I now come to Document C-29, which is Exhibit USA-46. Mr. President, it is in Raeder’s Document Book 10, Page 8 of the Prosecution’s document book.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean 10a?
DR. SIEMERS: Number 10, Page 8. This document, too, was submitted during the general Indictment made by the Prosecution at the beginning of the Trial on 27 November. It consists of a speech, a document signed by Raeder, dated 31 January 1933, “General Directives for the Support of the German Armaments Industry by the Navy.”
[Turning to the defendant.] The Prosecution pointed this out; and they have thought fit to conclude from it that on the day after Hitler’s nomination as Chancellor of the Reich, you were already acting positively in his support through this letter. Will you define your attitude, please?
RAEDER: There is no connection whatsoever between this letter and Hitler’s accession to power. You must admit that it would be impossible to compile so long and complicated a document—which was, after all, carefully prepared—between the evening of 30 and the morning of 31 January. This document results from the hope, which I mentioned before, that already under the Papen and Von Schleicher Government the stipulations of the Versailles Treaty and the Disarmament Conference might be gradually relaxed, since the British Delegation had repeatedly said that they favored the gradual restoration of equal rights. We had, therefore, to get our industries into the best possible condition, as far as the manufacture of armaments was concerned, by increasing their output and enabling them to overcome competition.
As I say in Paragraph c of this letter, almost every country was at that time making efforts in the same direction, even those which, unlike Germany, had no restrictions imposed on them. Great Britain, France, North America, Japan, and especially Italy made the most determined efforts to gain markets for their armaments industry; and I wanted to follow them in this particular sphere. In order to do this, there had to be an understanding between the various departments of the Naval Command Staff to the effect that industry must be given support in a way which avoided the secrecy of technical matters and developments to too petty a degree. That is why I explain in Paragraph c that secrecy in small matters is less important than maintaining a high standard and keeping the lead.