JODL: Actually there is no such thing as a conference in these military matters. You have conferences in civil and parliamentary life, but we do not have conferences. I talked to my General Staff officers as often as I pleased. Therefore, it is...
COL. POKROVSKY: Excuse me, I am going to interrupt you here. Later on you may add all you wish to say, but I merely want a direct answer to the question: Is Keitel’s testimony correct, that you never reported this conference to him? Is that true or not?
JODL: I certainly did not report to him on this very discussion; but that is not in the least important. I am certain that I reported to him what the Führer told me, because that was an important matter; and later, because of this, he wrote a memorandum. Therefore, he must have heard about it—but that is only a supposition, a very likely supposition, which I am voicing here.
COL. POKROVSKY: Very well, I am perfectly satisfied with your reply. And to conclude my first group of questions, I want to ask just one more on this particular matter: Do you not agree with me that only the Deputy Chief of the OKW, and not just any other responsible official, could quite independently—without Keitel’s knowledge, without any instructions, and without even a post factum report to him—decide questions, such as the preparation of a plan for attacking another country? Have you understood my question?
JODL: I understood your words, but not their meaning. First of all, you put a wrong assertion in your question. You asserted that I did not report the preparation for an attack on a neutral country to Field Marshal Keitel. That is an assertion on your part which I refuted yesterday under oath. We were not concerned with an attack on the Soviet Union at this meeting. We were concerned with the defense against a Soviet attack on the Romanian oil fields. That is established in Document C-170, the War Diary of the Navy.
COL. POKROVSKY: Is that all you wanted to say on that question?
JODL: I believe that suffices.
COL. POKROVSKY: I do not intend to argue with you. I merely wish to say that we have two proofs of this conference. First, your testimony, in which you deny the fact of the preparation of a plan for attacking the Soviet Union; and second, the testimony of another participant at this conference, Warlimont, who says straight out that the meeting was specifically concerned with elaborating the plan of attack on the Soviet Union and that this directive greatly astonished all of them. I do not intend to deal with this question any further, but I should like to ask...
JODL: If you are interested, I could explain that divergence to you.
COL. POKROVSKY: No, at the present moment it does not interest me.