DR. NELTE: Yesterday, in answer to a question by Dr. Stahmer, you spoke about the dispute on the occasion of the 80 RAF officers who escaped. In order to clarify this question, which weighs heavily against Field Marshal Keitel, I should like to know the following: Did you hear that Keitel objected violently because the recaptured RAF officers were turned over to Himmler, that is, to the Gestapo?
JODL: When I stood at the curtain for those 1 or 2 minutes, I heard the Führer say first of all:
“That is unheard of. That is the tenth time that dozens of officer prisoners have escaped. These officers are an enormous danger. You don’t realize”—meaning Keitel—“that in view of the 6 million foreign people who are prisoners and workers in Germany, they are the leaders who could organize an uprising. That is the result of this careless attitude of the commandants. These escaped Air Force officers are to be turned over to Himmler immediately.”
And then I heard Field Marshal Keitel answer:
“My Führer, some of them have already been put back into the camp. They are prisoners of war again. I cannot turn them over.”
And the Führer said, “Very well, then they can stay there.” That is what I heard with my own ears at that moment, until a telephone conversation called me away again.
DR. NELTE: Afterwards did you speak again with Field Marshal Keitel about this incident?
JODL: We drove back to Berchtesgaden together from the Berghof. Field Marshal Keitel was beside himself, for on the way up he had told me that he would not report the escape of these fliers to the Führer. He hoped that on the next day he would have them all back. He was furious with Himmler, who had immediately reported it to the Führer. I told him that if the Führer, in view of the total situation in Germany, saw such a great danger in the escape of foreign officers, then England should be notified so that the order might be rescinded—all officers who were prisoners had to make an attempt to escape.
I must say openly that at this moment neither of us had any thought that these recaptured fliers might be shot. For they had done nothing except escape from a camp, which German officers had also done dozens of times. I imagined that he wanted to remove them from the disciplinary action of the Army, which certainly, in his opinion, would be far too lenient, and wanted to have them work as punishment for some time in a concentration camp under Himmler. That is what I imagined.
DR. NELTE: In any case, in your presence and in your hearing, Hitler’s orders to Himmler to shoot these officers were not issued?