In his address of 23 November 1939 to the Commanders-in-Chief—Document 789-PS, or Exhibit USA-23—he describes once more, on Page 59, Volume I of the document book, precisely how that danger would be for the Ruhr district if one day British and French forces were to appear by surprise in that region. He referred to it there as the “Achilles’ heel,” and that is just what it was for German war strategy.
DR. EXNER: And he said there, on Page 59 of our document book:
“We have an Achilles’ heel: the Ruhr district. The strategy of the war depends on the possession of the Ruhr district. If England and France thrust through Belgium and Holland into the Ruhr, we shall be in the very greatest danger.”
JODL: I cannot, of course, or could not at the time, swear to the absolute accuracy of the numerous reports from Canaris, but the material we captured afterwards—and in this connection I would draw your attention to the conference of the Supreme War Council in London of 17 November 1939—confirmed on the whole the accuracy of the intelligence reports.
DR. EXNER: Presumably you had no reason at that time to doubt Canaris’ honesty, had you?
JODL: No. At that time there was not the slightest reason for doubt.
DR. EXNER: Yes. But now some doubt has arisen as to his honesty.
Now, the German attack was originally planned for November 1939. Why did the Führer postpone it over and over again? We have before us no less than 17 orders postponing the attack time and again.
JODL: It is not quite correct to say that the Führer had ordered the attack for mid-November, but rather he wanted to order the attack for a time when the meteorologists could predict about 6 or 7 days of clear, frosty weather. But the meteorologists failed completely in this. At times they thought they could predict such a state of the weather, and then all preparations would be made for the attack. Then they would cancel their weather forecasts again, and the final preparations for attack would be discontinued once more. That is why we so often prepared for the attack and then refrained from carrying it out.
On such an occasion I received a report from Canaris to the effect that one unit of the French Army had already crossed one part of the Belgian frontier. I do not know if that is true.