DR. EXNER: Can you tell us what your position was with respect to the semimilitary units of the Party?
JODL: These semimilitary organizations sprang up like mushrooms after the seizure of power; but only the SA under Röhm tried to seize complete power. The witness Gisevius said here that there was no Röhm Putsch. That is correct, but it was just about to happen. At that time in the Reich War Ministry we were armed to the teeth, and Röhm was a real revolutionary, not a frock coat insurgent. When the Führer intervened in June 1934, from that moment there were no more conflicts between the Wehrmacht and the SA. The Wehrmacht became all the more suspicious of the units of the SS, which from that moment multiplied in an extraordinary fashion. The Army, one can very well say, was never reconciled to this dualism of two armed organizations within the country.
DR. EXNER: Now I should like to quote various excerpts from your diary—Document Number 1780-PS, Page 2 of the first volume of the document book—in order to show that Jodl again and again concerned himself with this infiltration of the SS into the Army. On 19 April—that is the second paragraph—or before that, on 22 March, there is an entry to this effect. Then on the 19th of April: “H. visits chief of the Armed Forces Department; tells him his misgivings concerning development of the SS.”
In the French translation this “H” is replaced by “Heydrich.” That, of course, has no sense, for Heydrich certainly had no misgivings concerning the development of the SS; but the “H” quite obviously stands for “Halder,” who was Quartermaster General. I do not know whether this correction was made in the French document book. I am sorry to say that I noted quite a few mistakes in translation in the English and French document books and have applied to the General Secretary in this connection to have corrections made. I must certainly say that this large number of errors in translation makes a doubtful impression, especially if for an “H” the word “Heydrich” is substituted, and the chief of the Armed Forces is connected with one of the most unpleasant figures in the SS. I must say that I am filled with misgivings—I must emphasize this—because in the course of the last few months hundreds of documents have been submitted to the Tribunal, the translation of which we could not check. When we did make a check on one occasion we found quite a few defects, as did Dr. Siemers recently.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner, you are supposed to be asking the questions. You are making some long statements now.
DR. EXNER: I should like to refer to the next to the last point of 3 February, on the same page...
THE PRESIDENT: Professor Exner, we cannot have counsel making long statements which are not in evidence. You cannot make statements of that sort. If there is any mistranslation you can draw our attention to it; but that is not the way to do it, making general statements about the translation of the documents.
DR. EXNER: Mr. President, I do not wish to give any more explanations now, but I should like to quote passages from my document book referring to 3 February...
THE PRESIDENT: You have corrected one apparent mistranslation or misinterpretation of the letter “H.” Well, you can do so again, if necessary, in other places. You cannot make general statements about it.
DR. EXNER: I will only read what is permissible. I will read extracts from the document book without making any criticism. I have nothing further to say about that.