JODL: I can only say in reply that this was the sole method which achieved success with the Führer, and by its use success was, in fact, achieved. If I had come to him with moral or purely legal arguments, he would have said, “Leave me alone with this foolish talk,” and he would have proceeded with the renunciation of the Convention; but these things compelled him to reconsider the step and, in consequence, he did not carry it through.
You must after all grant me that at the end of 5½ years I knew best how to achieve good results with him and avoid bad ones. My aim was to achieve success, and I achieved it.
MR. ROBERTS: But, you see, you were deploring it there, the fact that you told the world the truth in 1914. In 1914 you said that you regarded treaties only as a scrap of paper. You are saying now, “What a pity we told the world the truth in 1914. We ought to have told them something untrue, and then we should have, possibly, had a better world reputation.”
JODL: That was an argument which the Führer used frequently. If one repeated his arguments in that form again and again he was more inclined to read and accept one’s suggestions. One had to prevent his flinging our proposals to the ground in a fit of rage and immediately decreeing renunciation. That was the approach one had to follow. If one cannot do good openly, it is better to do it in a roundabout way than not at all.
MR. ROBERTS: I am now coming to quite another point: Were you an admirer of the principles of the Nazi Party?
JODL: No.
MR. ROBERTS: Were you of the opinion that there was a successful fusion between the Nazi Party and the Wehrmacht, which brought about the rejuvenation, the resurrection of Germany after 1933?
JODL: It would have happened, and I hoped for a long time that it would happen; indeed, on the whole the relationship improved somewhat in the course of the years and especially during the war. At first, it was poor, very poor.
MR. ROBERTS: You wrote—please, I am reading now from your speech, L-172. It is Page 290 of Document Book 7, and it is Page 6 of your lecture notes, Page 290 of Document Book 7 and 203 of the German:
“The fact that the National Socialist movement in its struggle for internal power was the preparatory stage to the outer liberation from the shackles of the dictate of Versailles I need not enlarge upon in this circle. I should like, however, to mention how clearly all thoughtful regular soldiers realize what an important part has been played by the National Socialist movement in reawakening the will to fight, in nurturing fighting strength, and in rearming the German people. Despite all its inherent virtues this small Reichswehr could never have been able to cope with this task, if only because of its restricted radius of action. Indeed, what the Führer aimed at and has luckily been successful in bringing about was a fusion of these two forces.”