DR. EXNER: Perhaps you can tell the Tribunal something which they have heard less frequently, namely what you disliked in the personality of Hitler.
THE PRESIDENT: I do not think that, put in that general way, it is of any interest to the Tribunal, what he disliked in Hitler. I mean, can he not get on with his own case?
DR. EXNER: Did you feel that you were close to the Führer personally?
JODL: No; in no way at all.
DR. EXNER: All your relations were essentially official?
JODL: Yes, purely official. I did not belong to his private circle, and he did not know any more about me than that my name was Jodl, and that therefore, presumably, I came from Bavaria.
DR. EXNER: Who belonged to the private circle?
JODL: Chiefly all the old guard from the time when the Party was in its developing stage: Bormann first of all, the original women secretaries, his personal physician, and the political or SS adjutants.
DR. EXNER: Your Gauleiter speech was used by the Prosecution to prove that you were an unconditional follower of the Führer and his enthusiastic adherent. Tell us, how did you come to make that speech?
JODL: Bormann proposed this speech to the Führer, and the Führer ordered it, though I undertook this speech very reluctantly, chiefly because of lack of time. But it was generally the wish in this period of crisis...