JODL: Not reprisals, but the justifiable fear that whatever could happen to us in Kiev could also happen to us in Leningrad; and the third reason was the announcement by the Soviet Russian radio that this would actually take place.
COL. POKROVSKY: Good. The only important thing for me is to establish the fact that you connected the issuing of this directive with the report from the Leningrad front and with the affair in Kiev; is that correct?
JODL: I did not connect them; but events, as they actually happened, necessarily influenced the decision of the Führer in this direction. These were the reasons which he gave himself.
COL. POKROVSKY: Very well. Perhaps you will remember when the High Command received this information from Leeb—in what month?
JODL: It was in the first days—as far as I remember in the first days of September.
COL. POKROVSKY: Very well. Perhaps you can also remember the date on which the Germans captured Kiev. Was it not towards the end of September 1941?
JODL: As far as I remember, Kiev was occupied at the end of August. I believe it was on 25 August or about that date. But I cannot...
COL. POKROVSKY: Was that not on 22 September?
JODL: That is entirely out of the question. We have a document here, a report about the incidents in Kiev; I do not know the date of it from memory, but it is Document 053-PS. We must be able to see the date from that document.
COL. POKROVSKY: It is precisely in that document that 23 and 24 September are mentioned. Well, let us, however, suppose that it really did happen in August. Would you not remember the date when Hitler first declared that Leningrad should be razed to the ground?