DR. LATERNSER: In such cases then, the so-called “smallest circle” was summoned to a situation conference?
JODL: That is right. And so it was that the chief adjutant would announce, on behalf of the Führer, that a discussion among the smallest circle would now take place in which only such and such officers could take part.
DR. LATERNSER: During such situation discussions, did you often hear energetic remonstrances on the part of the commanding generals of an army group? Who made these remonstrances, and on what occasion? Please limit yourself to the most important instances.
JODL: I can only give you a very short answer to that question; otherwise, I would have to speak about it for an hour. I can say that not a single conference took place without the old traditional conceptions, if I may call them so, regarding operations coming into conflict with the revolutionary conceptions of the Führer. Therefore, apart perhaps from single operations during the first part of the war, I can state that whenever such a report was made by a commanding general of an army group, there was a clash of opinions. I could mention the names of all the commanding generals of army groups who ever held a post. I know of none to whom this would not apply.
DR. LATERNSER: Of course, you knew all the commanding generals of army groups, did you not?
JODL: During the first half of the war I knew all the commanding generals down to, and including, commanding generals of army groups. During the second half of the war, there were commanding generals of army groups in the East whom I did not know. For the most part they did not come from the General Staff, but were line officers, so that I did not know some of them.
DR. LATERNSER: Generaloberst, could, for instance, a commanding general of an army group report for a discussion with Hitler without difficulties?
JODL: The commanding general of an army group could not do that. The commanding general of an army group would, first of all, have to ask the Commander-in-Chief of the Army as long as there was one. When the Commander-in-Chief of the Army no longer existed, the commanding generals of army groups then applied to the military adjutant’s office, or they applied to the Chief of the General Staff of the Army for permission to make a report, which the commanding generals could not do themselves.
DR. LATERNSER: So that, if a commanding general of an army group intended to protest against some measure which he did not consider right, then he had to go to the commander-in-chief of his army group, who in turn would have to go to the commander-in-chief of the particular branch of the Armed Forces; so that this was practically the only channel through which objections could be made to Hitler in the normal official way?
JODL: That is perfectly correct. All military departments did that, and it had been done for a number of years.