DR. JAHRREISS: Do you know, Witness, whether Hitler, at some later date, altered his decision not to allow that in the future?
WINTER: No, he certainly did not alter his decision. Because, as I know, there were two occasions, I believe, on which orders to that effect were issued, forbidding resignations on the part of a commander, or an officer in a leading position, on grounds of unwillingness to assume responsibility.
DR. JAHRREISS: I now come to another point. If I am properly informed, you were in the Armed Forces Operations Staff during the later stages of the war, were you not?
WINTER: On 15 November 1944 I was called there to succeed General Warlimont who had fallen ill; and I took over his functions on 15 November 1944. My appointment was dated from 1 December 1944.
DR. JAHRREISS: Witness, did you regularly attend the situation discussions with the Führer?
WINTER: Yes, I was there on an average of 5 days out of 7 during the week.
DR. JAHRREISS: There has been a great deal of discussion about these situation conferences in this courtroom, and a great many events took place at them which are of importance for this Trial; but up to now, no real picture has yet been presented to us of what those situation discussions really were. Can you explain the procedure of such a situation discussion with reference to its length and the number of people present?
WINTER: The situation discussion was a permanent part of the afternoon’s program, and was attended by a fairly large number of people, while there was a second situation discussion at 2 o’clock in the morning, of no importance to us here. In it, reports were made only by the junior General Staff officers of the OKH for the Eastern Front and of the Operations Staff of the OKW for the Western Front.
MR. ROBERTS: Mr. President, I have a submission again in the interest of time. The Defendant Jodl gave evidence as to these conferences, and no one put one word of cross-examination to suggest that his evidence was not accepted. Therefore, I would like to submit that this is pure repetition on a point which is not disputed.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal do not wish to hear anything of a general or detailed nature about these conferences unless there is something in particular that you want to prove about them.