MR. ROBERTS: Let me begin at the beginning of those notes. Just see if you can remember what you said. Did you begin by saying: “The 20th of July was the blackest day which German history has seen as yet, and will probably remain so for all times”?
JODL: Yes, that is quite possible.
MR. ROBERTS: Why was it such a black day for Germany? Because somebody tried to assassinate a man whom you now admit was a murderer?
JODL: Should I—at a moment when I am to be blown up in a cowardly, insidious manner by one of my own comrades, together with many opponents of the regime—should I perhaps approve of it all? That was to me the worst thing that happened. If the man with a pistol in his hand had shot the Führer and had then given himself up, it would have been entirely different. But these tactics I considered most repulsive to any officer. I spoke under the impression of those events, which are actually among the worst I know, and I maintain today what I said then.
MR. ROBERTS: I do not want to argue with you, but do you think it is any more dastardly than shooting those 50 American soldiers who landed in the north of Italy to destroy a military target, shooting them like dogs?
JODL: That also was murder, undoubtedly. But it is not the task of a soldier to be the judge of his commander-in-chief. May history or the Almighty do that.
MR. ROBERTS: Very good. I have only about three more questions to ask you.
My Lord, I am going to read from Page 2 of that document, about 10 lines from the top. It begins, “The Führer...”
[Turning to the defendant.] If I read this slowly, perhaps see if you can recognize it.
“The Führer ignored this and other things, and now the would-be assassins wished to do away with him, as a ‘despot’.”