How difficult Germany’s position was and how justified measures of defense were, Justice Jackson himself admitted in his opening speech, when he said, I quote:
“It is quite possible that Germany in the twenties and thirties was confronted with desperately difficult tasks, tasks which would have justified the boldest measures, but not war.”
I shall not even go as far as Mr. Justice Jackson, but I believe that these measures taken by the Navy are certainly covered by his own concept of “boldest measures.”
The British prosecutor, Mr. Elwyn Jones, attempted during the cross-examination of Severing to prove that Raeder did not observe the obligations imposed on him in the Cabinet meeting of 18 October 1928, because Severing, according to his testimony, was not informed of the construction abroad of the small submarines for Turkey and Finland. In this connection, two things must be considered:
a. During his testimony Severing did not remember the details, but only the fundamental and decisive questions; with regard to the details, he naturally relied on the competent minister, in this case, the Reich Defense Minister.
b. According to Severing’s testimony it was an exception that the Chief of the Naval High Command appeared before the entire Cabinet on 18 October 1928. Raeder as Chief of the Naval High Command was not obliged to inform all the members of the Cabinet, but was, in accordance with the Constitution, merely obliged to inform the Reich Defense Minister, and that Raeder did. What the Reich Defense Minister then for his part submitted to the other members of the Cabinet and to the Reichstag was not only beyond Raeder’s knowledge, it was also outside Raeder’s responsibility, and solely within that of the Reich Defense Minister and the Cabinet.
In conclusion may I point out the following: If, despite all this, the Prosecution wishes to look upon these violations of the Treaty of Versailles on the part of the Navy as evidence of an intention to wage a war of aggression, then the Social Democrat or Democrat governments of that time bear the responsibility. Thereby the Indictment on this point collapses, for to take the governments of that time to task for the intention of waging wars of aggression would lead the Prosecution on this point to an ad absurdum.
(5) The treaty violations during the period from 1933 until the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 show the same factual and juridical picture. During these 2 years no important expansion of naval armament took place either. The only disputable accusation made by the Prosecution in this respect is contained in Document D-855, which was submitted during cross-examination. This is the report of Flottenintendant Thiele. According to this it was decided in March 1935, that is, a few months before the naval agreement, to prepare plans for the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau with a displacement of 27,000 tons, although the maximum of 10,000 tons fixed by the Treaty of Versailles was still formally in force at that time for another 3 months, in contrast to a maximum displacement of 35,000 tons provided for in the Naval Agreement of 1935.
Here it should be taken into consideration that in March 1935 Germany could already count on the speedy conclusion of an Anglo-German agreement, whereas the period between the planning and the completion of a battleship is a much longer one, which cannot be counted in months, but only in years. As a matter of fact, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were only commissioned in 1938 and 1939, 3 and 4 years respectively after the naval pact (see Exhibit Number Raeder-2, Lohmann Affidavit).
The other matters submitted by the Prosecution are again trifles; for instance, the selection (not the construction, as the Prosecution says) of four or five merchantmen (see C-166), or the construction of 5 E-boats of 40 tons each (see C-151), which for technical reasons were built in place of 12 torpedo boats of 200 tons each. The Prosecution cannot in all seriousness turn these facts into grave accusations, especially as the afore-mentioned deviations from the Versailles Treaty were known to foreign technical specialists or—as the witness Schulte-Mönting correctly put it—were an “open secret.”