DR. NELTE: General, yesterday in answer to my last question about General Thomas you said that he regularly made reports on the war potential of enemy powers to you and Field Marshal Keitel. Were these important reports always submitted to Hitler?
JODL: These reports, with detailed graphic descriptions, sketches, and drawings, were regularly submitted to the Führer and often occasioned violent disputes, because the Führer considered this representation of the enemy potential as greatly exaggerated.
DR. NELTE: Did you and Field Marshal Keitel hold the point of view that the representations of General Thomas were well-founded?
JODL: Field Marshal Keitel and I were both of the opinion that, after a very careful study of enemy achievements in armament production, these statements of Thomas were doubtless on the whole completely accurate.
DR. NELTE: You heard the witness Gisevius say that Thomas was supposed to have been an opponent of Hitler’s war leadership. In the course of years and in the reports made, did you ever realize this fact?
JODL: I did not observe this. The only thing that I observed was that he objected to this exaggerated optimism in which the Führer habitually indulged, and that perhaps in his basic attitude he was of a pessimistic rather than an optimistic nature.
DR. NELTE: Was General Thomas dismissed from his position as head of the Economic Armament Office of the OKW through Keitel’s efforts?
JODL: No, at the time he retired from active service General Thomas was under Minister Speer, but Minister Speer no longer cared to work with him and requested the Führer that he be dismissed from the armament office which Minister Speer had taken over. And that was done by the Field Marshal on the order of the Führer.
DR. NELTE: I can therefore establish...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Nelte, how is the evidence about General Thomas relevant to the case of Keitel—how is the question of whether General Thomas was acting against the supposed interests of Germany or not relevant to the cases of either Keitel or Jodl? The evidence of Gisevius was relevant to the case of the Defendant Schacht. It seems to me—and I think, to the Tribunal—to be entirely irrelevant to the case of either the defendant whom you represent or the case of the Defendant Jodl. What does it matter to us whether General Thomas was acting in order to try and overthrow Hitler or not?