JODL: Yes, I have the document before me.
COL. POKROVSKY: Very well. In reply to the questions of your counsel, you stated that Lammers had, quite by accident, designated you as a collaborator of Rosenberg. There in your hands is a very brief document, which I shall now read aloud—a document signed by Keitel. It is a top-secret letter of 25 April 1941, addressed to Rosenberg personally. This letter states:
“The Chief of the Reich Chancellery has sent me a copy of the Führer’s directive appointing you his plenipotentiary for dealing with questions relating to eastern European territories. I, on the part of the High Command of the Armed Forces, entrust the handling of these questions to the Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff, General of Artillery Jodl, with Major General Warlimont as his deputy. I request that your department contact these two persons only.
“Heil Hitler! Yours truly”—signed—“Keitel.”
With this document in mind what do you say now in reply to the question as to whether or not you remember, that you, with Warlimont as your deputy, were charged by the High Command of the Armed Forces, as far back as April 1941, to deal with the practical problems of the Hitlerite expansion to the east in accordance with the directives of the Staff Rosenberg.
Do you understand my question?
JODL: I already told the Court yesterday everything that can be said in connection with this formality. Minister Lammers sent the very same letter to all Reich Ministries. He asked every Ministry to designate a plenipotentiary and a deputy; and accordingly, Field Marshal Keitel naturally designated the two officers who were at headquarters. I never worked with Rosenberg, and it was not necessary to do so—except for one single talk with him, which I mentioned yesterday. Only my propaganda section conferred with the Ministry for the Eastern Occupied Territories about leaflets—quite simple matters which every soldier can understand.
COL. POKROVSKY: By the way, concerning the question of soldiers. You stubbornly affirm that you were only concerned with military questions of an operational nature and had nothing to do at all with political questions. Have I understood you correctly?
JODL: I gave that explanation yesterday as well, insofar as politics were not an integral part of the strategy. To a certain extent politics did come into it, for without politics there could be no strategy. It is an essential part of strategy. But since I was not a strategist, but only dealt with this matter as a General Staff officer, I was not concerned with this subject directly.
COL. POKROVSKY: You were not concerned with these matters? You will now look at Document C-26, Exhibit USSR-477, and I must ask you if you have found your own signature on the last page.