MR. ROBERTS: An invasion without any warning or any declaration of war?
JODL: That is a political question.
MR. ROBERTS: You have told the Court yesterday what a stickler you were about international law, how keen you were to see that international law was observed. You knew that was against international law, didn’t you?
JODL: These matters were not in our regulations, but only the provisions which applied to the Wehrmacht. The concept of an aggressive war was not found in any regulation. We went only by the Geneva Convention and the Hague Land Warfare Regulations.
MR. ROBERTS: I mean if an honorable German gives his word he keeps it, does he not? He does not break his word without saying that he is going to depart from it, does he, an honorable German?
JODL: That seems to be a practice which is generally observed all over the world when human beings work together, but not in the sphere of politics.
MR. ROBERTS: If that is your code of honor, why is it not grossly dishonorable for Germany to break her word over and over and ever again? Or would you rather not answer that question?
JODL: No, you would do better to put that question to the people who were responsible for German politics.
MR. ROBERTS: Very well, I will leave that. Now I want to come to the invasion of Holland, Belgium, and the Netherlands. I beg your pardon, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
You have no doubt at all, have you, on the documents that in the event of war in the West, it was always Hitler’s intention to violate the neutrality of those three small countries?