Afternoon Session
FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: Before the noon recess I was discussing the fact that units of the Navy were not subordinate to the Naval Operations Staff in matters affecting warfare on land.
This channel of orders for territorial questions also explains the complete ignorance of Admiral Dönitz and of his colleagues in the Naval Operations Staff about the delivery to the SD of the crew of the Norwegian motor torpedo boat MTB 345 after its capture by units under Admiral Von Schrader. As the testimony of witnesses and the records of the Oslo War Crimes Court show, the Naval Operations Staff only received an operational report about the capture of the boat and the number of prisoners. All other details, the discovery on board of material for sabotage, of civilian suits and sabotage orders, and the treatment of the crew as saboteurs according to the Commando Order were regarded as territorial matters, and as such dealt with by Admiral Von Schrader and the Armed Forces commander in Norway. The decision regarding the fate of the crew came from the Führer’s headquarters in reply to an inquiry from Gauleiter Terboven. Not only is there no proof that the Naval Operations Staff took part in those territorial questions, but this must in fact be considered refuted on the basis of the evidence submitted and the chain of command as explained.
I regard as the second attempt of the Prosecution to establish a participation in the alleged conspiracy to commit war crimes the submission of Admiral Wagner’s minutes on the question of withdrawal from the Geneva Convention in the spring of 1945. The details are contained in Wagner’s testimony, according to which the Führer pointed out in a conference on 17 February that the enemy propaganda about the good treatment of prisoners of war was clearly having an influence on the units fighting on the Western Front, and that many cases of desertion to the enemy were being reported. He ordered that the question of a withdrawal from the Geneva Convention be investigated. In this way he wanted to convince his own soldiers that they could no longer rely upon receiving good treatment as prisoners of war, and thus create a countereffect against enemy propaganda. Two days later Hitler returned to this idea, although he then put forward another reason as the main one. He termed enemy warfare in the East and the bomb attacks on the German civilian population an outright renunciation of international law by the enemy, and he, for his part, also desired to free himself from all obligations by withdrawing from the Geneva Convention. Once more he asked for the opinion of the Armed Forces in this matter and addressed himself directly to Grossadmiral Dönitz, who did not answer. The attitude of the military leaders on this matter was unanimously negative.
On the next day, just before the daily conference on the situation, a 10-minute conversation took place between Grossadmiral Dönitz, Generaloberst Jodl, and Ambassador Hewel; in the course of this conversation Dönitz expressed his negative attitude. According to the notes of Admiral Wagner he said that “it would be better to take the measures considered necessary without previous announcement and, at any rate, to save face before the world.” The Prosecution sees in this a readiness and a design to expose hundreds of thousands of Allied prisoners of war to arbitrary murder.
Admiral Dönitz himself has no recollection of this sentence. That is not surprising, as this is not a record, but a summary of a lengthy conversation in four sentences, the summary being worded on the day after the conversation by Admiral Wagner. This summary admits that the Grossadmiral disapproved of any “wild measures” which would put us in the wrong from the beginning, and considered justifiable only measures actually warranted by the conduct of the enemy in each case. Since Wagner himself, as the author of the transcript, should know best what he meant thereby, I personally cannot add anything to this statement. The interpretation of the Prosecution is equally little supported by other circumstances. There was no question at all of keeping any measures secret; they had to be made known, regardless of whether they were meant to deter our own deserters or as reprisals. But Wagner’s note does not mention any kind of concrete measures to be taken, and all witnesses present at this situation conference in Hitler’s headquarters state that not a word was spoken on that subject. The idea of killing prisoners of war could not, therefore, have been present in the minds of any of the participants in this discussion which Wagner noted down.
Now it has come to light here, through the statements of the Defendants Ribbentrop and Fritzsche, that apart from the action for which he was preparing the ground during the discussion with the generals, Hitler had evidently at the same time planned a second action, in which only Goebbels and Himmler were to participate, and which by chance also came to Ribbentrop’s knowledge. In this action the shooting of thousands of prisoners of war seems to have been contemplated as a reprisal against the air attack on Dresden. Hitler, very wisely, did not give the slightest indication of such a plan to the generals. This plan was not followed up and no reprisals were taken.
And now I return to the facts. It is a fact that Admiral Dönitz disapproved of the withdrawal from the Geneva Convention, and that Hitler, in view of the attitude of all military leaders who clearly opposed it did not follow up the idea any further. It is also a fact that no measures in violation of international law were taken by the Germans as a result of this remark which the Prosecution has criticized, and finally it is a fact that enemy sailors who were captured were sent to a prisoner-of-war camp of the Navy where they were treated in an exemplary way up to the last day of the war.
Whoever, in his own sphere, behaved as Admiral Dönitz did with regard to the prisoners of war of the Navy, cannot reasonably be charged with having thrown overboard all standards of law and ethics applying to prisoners of war. A British commander has certified that when the prisoner-of-war camp of the Navy was taken over by British troops, all prisoners without exception said that they had been treated with fairness and consideration. The Tribunal will, no doubt, appreciate such unanimous expression of views, especially after what has come to light elsewhere in these proceedings with regard to the breakdown not only by Germans in the proper treatment of prisoners of war.