“These are essentially the contents of the National Socialist Party Program, and I cannot find that anything criminal lies therein.”
I quote this statement especially because it shows how this program and its recognizable objectives affected a person who may be characterized as intelligent, realistic, free from emotional impulses in politics, and possessing economic penetration and judgment. If that person did not recognize that the Party aims were to be realized by use of force, how was the soldier Keitel to come to such a realization?
Keitel was a professional officer. As such he could not be a member of the Party. Officers were prohibited from any political and Party political activity. The Armed Forces command was intent on keeping the influence of Party politics away from the Armed Forces. This was true both for the time before 1933 and afterward. Hitler himself confirmed this principle because he clearly recognized that the time was not yet ripe for giving the corps of officers, let alone the senior officers, a political character. According to the tradition and conception of their profession, those senior officers had a “national attitude,” as one used to say, and they welcomed the national points of the program which were placed in the foreground by Hitler; they were glad about the co-operation of the Armed Forces and without hesitation placed themselves behind the Government led by Hitler when it proclaimed the fight against the Treaty of Versailles, especially against its military political clauses. An agreement going beyond these aims, or possibly a union with a political object in view, did not exist. The generals, among them also Keitel, thought no differently from millions of Germans who were not Party members or who were opponents, but who regarded the national aims as being a matter of course.
Now, one cannot fail to see that it is somewhat different if millions of Germans, who had no influence, supported that part of the program relating to the national aims, or if the senior officers, who led the Armed Forces, support it. Furthermore, it cannot be overlooked that the realization of these national aims carried with it the danger of a war. But the state of things seems to me to be such that the generals saw the danger of war not so much in the fact that Hitler wanted to realize these national aims by an aggressive war, but rather in the fact that the realization of these aims would entail sanctions by the former enemy powers. The idea of a realization by aggressive, warlike means was far from the generals’ minds for the absolutely compelling reason of military impotency. I shall later deal more in detail with this problem, which is closely connected with the rearmament. Here it is only important that the circles to which Keitel belonged—and I should like to add, between 1933 and 1938—
(1) had no contact with the Party program;
(2) had no relationship with Party circles;
(3) sympathized with a part of the Party program because it corresponded to their national attitude;
(4) did not think of realizing these national points by an aggressive war, because it would have been hopeless from the military point of view.
Now one could argue that although the generals themselves did not think of waging an aggressive war, they certainly recognized, or should have recognized, that Hitler had the intention, if not now, then in the near future, of waging an aggressive war.
The Prosecution believes it can be presumed that the Defendant Keitel had this knowledge from 1933 on. The argument of the Prosecution that this knowledge is equivalent to knowledge of the National Socialist program has been refuted; the same holds true of the knowledge of the book Mein Kampf—assuming he possessed the book. Therefore, the question is only whether Keitel had knowledge of Hitler’s intentions regarding an aggression for other reasons. For the period up to 1938 Keitel could not have obtained knowledge from Hitler himself because Keitel spoke with him late in January 1938 for the first time. The speeches which Hitler made before that time, just as those of the other Party leaders, were unambiguously aimed at preserving peace. Looking back, one might call it propagandistic camouflage of opposite intentions. If that were the case, then this camouflage successfully deceived not only many millions of Germans, but also the foreign countries which were partly critical and partly hostile toward National Socialism.