DR. EXNER: Yes, about the conversation which preceded it, but you did not testify about the actual conversation at Reichenhall.
JODL: No, I have not yet spoken of the actual conversation at Reichenhall.
DR. EXNER: Please be brief.
JODL: In regard to this conversation at Reichenhall—that is, the orientation of the three officers of my staff—Warlimont’s description is somewhat different from mine. He is confusing here the earlier events with the later ones, which is not surprising, because from 20 July until the time he was arrested, he was ill at home with severe concussion of the brain and complete loss of memory. Up to the time he was captured he was no longer fit for service. That my description is the right one may be readily seen from the notes in the War Diary of the Naval Operations Staff. It is stated there that these divisions would be transferred to the East only to prevent Russia from taking the Romanian oil fields.
DR. EXNER: I should like to correct one point which, it seems to me, was presented erroneously by the Russian prosecutor. He said that Göring and Keitel did not consider the war against Russia to be a preventive war. On Page 5956 of the record (Volume IX, Page 344) it states that Göring, too, considered the war to be a preventive one and that he only differed in opinion from the Führer insofar as he would have chosen a different period of time for this preventive war. Keitel was, in general, of the same opinion.
Furthermore, the Russian prosecutor submitted a document, Number 683-PS. I do not know what exhibit number he gave. I cannot quite see how this document is to be connected with Jodl; and I have the idea that may be a matter of signature, for the document is signed “Joel,” who is not at all identical with the Defendant Jodl. I just wanted to draw attention to this point. Perhaps there is simply a mistake in the names.
Further, the Prosecution said that the defendant made a remark about partisans being hanged upside down, and so on.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner, you have simply made a statement, which you are not entitled to do, about this document. If you want to prove it by evidence you should ask the witness about it. You have told us that this document has nothing to do with Jodl, and that the signature on it is somebody else’s. Why didn’t you ask the witness?
I am told just now that it has already been proved that it isn’t Jodl’s document.
DR. EXNER: The translations this morning were bad; I do not remember having heard that. I do not know whether it is permissible for me now in this connection to read something from a questionnaire? It is only one question and an answer in connection with this remark about the hanging of prisoners, and so on. Is that permissible?