Mr. President, if you will be good enough to permit me to submit this in its written form, and if you would consider it as having been presented in Court, then I am willing to leave out the pages up to 77 and submit them to you. In any case, it appears to me to be an important part of the explanation regarding the interpretation of the word “OKW,” and the fact that this is not identical with Keitel is particularly important.
May I do that?
[The President nodded his assent.]
In that case, then, I shall continue at Page 77.
In order to clarify the Defendant Keitel’s responsibility and competence it is necessary to analyze the concept of OKW. I ask that this statement be not considered a theoretical and therefore superfluous discussion. The very fact that the Prosecution makes a sweeping and fundamental assertion, and that the French Prosecution undertakes a pointedly legal examination of the question as to the office in which each defendant was active with regard to the counts he is charged with, makes it my duty to clear up a mistake made by the Prosecution. However, this mistake is all the more excusable, because not only foreign countries but large groups at home, even within the Armed Forces, did not know what OKW meant. It became a popular collective term for the supreme command of the Armed Forces without anybody taking the trouble to find out who and what was behind the three words “Oberkommando der Wehrmacht.” This corresponds to the law of inertia governing the association of human beings, to the almost pathological mania to abbreviate titles of military commands. Since, furthermore, the communiqués of the High Command of the Armed Forces were published daily, and all announcements referring to war events began with the words: “The High Command of the Armed Forces announces,” not only did these words become impressed upon the public’s mind, but also the conception that the “High Command of the Armed Forces” was the supreme military command. The conception would be correct had the words OKW not been translated with Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces) but rather as Supreme Commander (Oberkommandierender) of the Armed Forces. It was Hitler alone, as “Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces,” who was the incarnation of what everybody imagined the OKW to be, namely, the central military planning and command headquarters and thus the supreme command and executive headquarters for all military matters. In this respect the OKW was synonymous with Hitler as “Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces,” which was his official title.
If, in naming the headquarters of the supreme commander, it was desired to avoid the title “Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces” which was in accordance with the prevalent Leadership Principle, the title “Oberkommando der Wehrmacht” was bound to be used. This headquarters comprises the supreme commander himself, that is, Hitler, and his assistants, his staff.
The Führer Decree of 4 February 1938 bearing the heading: “Decree concerning the Command of the Armed Forces” resulted, through the unfortunate and vague nature of its wording, in an interpretation that the “Chief OKW” mentioned therein was the chief in the sense of director, of the High Command of the Armed Forces. It is true that it follows from the decree that “Chief OKW” is to mean “Chief of Staff OKW,” that is chief of Hitler’s bureau in his capacity as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. But since then, every time that people have spoken and speak of the OKW, everybody thinks of Keitel without examining whether the expression means: OKW-Oberkommandierender (Supreme Commander) of the Armed Forces, OKW-Headquarters of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, or OKW-Staff of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.
The Prosecution makes no distinction in this respect, just as the German agencies were unaware of the exact difference, or at any rate paid no attention to it. They, just like the Prosecution now, thought it right to claim the OKW’s jurisdiction and responsibility for anything having a connection with the Armed Forces or members of the Armed Forces. From this viewpoint to claiming Keitel’s personal jurisdiction by virtue of the title “Chief OKW” there is only a short step. For Germans and foreigners the recollection of the first World War was a contributing factor in forming this opinion, which was not based on an examination according to constitutional law. The relationship between Hitler and Keitel prompted the comparison with the relationship between the Kaiser and Von Hindenburg. This comparison had results for the Defendant Keitel which are shown at this Trial. Without thinking of the fundamental differences between Von Hindenburg as Chief of the Great General Staff which existed until 1918, and Keitel as the chief of Hitler’s military executive staff, and without knowing the field of Keitel’s jurisdiction and what possibilities Keitel had as regards Hitler’s plans and measures by virtue of the functions assigned to him, comparisons were made which gave rise to doubts about him. When furthermore—after the catastrophe had set in—Keitel once again came to play an outwardly similar part as representative of the Armed Forces when he had to execute the signature for unconditional surrender, this comparison also turned out to his disadvantage. People do not ask about jurisdiction when things go badly, but look for a guilty person and the guilty person is judged by external appearances. Quite naturally the great attention paid to Keitel’s person at this Trial can largely be traced to the fact that after Hitler’s death Keitel came into the public eye.
In order to see clearly what part Keitel really played, and what share he had in what happened, I now wish—after investigating his legal competencies—to examine what actual influence he had upon the development and carrying-out of the measures, the effects of which constitute the subject of this Trial. From everyday experience we know that it does not matter so much what a person is supposed to be in a particular position, but what he has made of that position by virtue of his personality. I believe I may say that in the course of this Trial the personality of no other defendant has been judged in such varying and contradictory ways as that of the Defendant Keitel.
Decisive for Keitel’s material responsibility is his actual position in the tug-of-war with and around Hitler, his effective influence upon that group, and thus on those circumstances as a whole which could have influenced the operations of Hitler’s headquarters in the military field.