DR. SIEMERS: Yesterday I dealt with the events before the outbreak of war. Now I shall turn to the events which occurred during the war.
I think I have shown that the Navy had an extremely insignificant part in all events prior to the war, and that the transactions in which the Navy was authoritatively involved were carried out on a peace basis, namely, on the basis of the naval agreements with England. When the war nevertheless ultimately broke out, involving England, too, on 3 September 1939, a regrettable incident occurred on the very first day, through the sinking of the Athenia, from which the Prosecution endeavors by the use of exaggerated terms to construe a grave moral charge against Raeder, not so much indeed on the basis of its actual military aspect, that is, the sinking, which my colleague Dr. Kranzbühler has already discussed, as on account of an article published in the Völkischer Beobachter of 23 October 1939 entitled “Churchill Sinks the Athenia.” Were the facts as brought forward by the Prosecution correct, the moral accusations against Raeder and the Navy would be justified, even though, of course, an untruthful newspaper article is no crime. Consequently the accusation brought by the Prosecution is made for the sole purpose of vilifying Raeder’s personality in contrast to the lifelong esteem which Raeder has enjoyed in the whole world, in fact especially abroad.
I think the evidence has sufficiently revealed that the statement of facts presented by the Prosecution is not correct. It is quite plausible that at first sight the Prosecution should have believed that the odious article in the Völkischer Beobachter could not have appeared without the knowledge of the naval command. The Prosecution believed this because, in view of their conspiracy theory, they are inclined to assume in every case that there was constant discussion and close co-operation among the various departments. The course of the Trial has shown that this assumption is far from correct. The contrast between the various departments, and especially between the Navy and the Propaganda Ministry, or Raeder and Goebbels, was far greater than the contrast between departments in a democratic state. In addition, the testimonies of the witnesses Raeder, Schulte-Mönting, Weizsäcker, and Fritzsche, together with the documents, establish the following facts absolutely clearly:
(1) In early September 1939 Raeder himself firmly believed that the sinking was not to be imputed to a German U-boat, because it was revealed by the reports that the nearest German U-boat was at least 75 nautical miles away from the spot of the sinking.
(2) Accordingly Raeder, as stated in Document D-912, published a bona fide denial and gave statements to this effect to the American Naval Attaché and to the German State Secretary, Baron Weizsäcker.
(3) Raeder did not realize the mistake until after the return of U-30 on 27 September 1939.
(4) Hitler insisted, as evidenced by witnesses Raeder and Schulte-Mönting, that no rectification of the facts should be made to any other German or foreign department, that is to say, that the sinking should not be acknowledged as caused by a German U-boat. He apparently let himself be guided by political considerations and wished to avoid complications with the U.S.A. over an incident which could not be remedied, however regrettable it was. Hitler’s order was so strict that the few officers who were informed were put under oath to keep it secret.
(5) Fritzsche disclosed, that after the first investigation by the Navy in early September 1939, he made no further investigation and that the Völkischer Beobachter article appeared as the result of an agreement between Hitler and Goebbels, without previous notice to Raeder. On this point the testimonies of Raeder and Schulte-Mönting coincide. It is consequently clear that Raeder—contrary to the claim of the Prosecution—was not the author of the article and, moreover, knew nothing about the article before its appearance. I regret the fact that in spite of this clarification the Prosecution are apparently intent upon persisting in their claim by the submission, on 3 July 1946, of a new document, D-912. This newly-submitted document only contains radio broadcasts by the propaganda Ministry, which are of the same nature as the Völkischer Beobachter article. These radio broadcasts were a propaganda instrument of Goebbels and cannot, any more than the article, be brought up as a charge against Raeder, who in fact was at the time informed only of the article, not of the radio broadcasts. Even the fact that Raeder, after being informed of the article, did not attempt to obtain a rectification, cannot be made a moral charge against him, since he was bound by Hitler’s order and had no idea at the time that Hitler himself had had a hand in the article, which Weizsäcker aptly described as perverse fantasy.
In this connection I would remind the Tribunal that it is a well-known fact that precisely at the beginning of the war inaccurate reports also appeared in the English press about alleged German atrocities, which, even after their clarification, were not rectified, as for instance, the false report about the murder of 10,000 Czechs in Prague by German elements in September 1939, although the matter had been cleared up by a commission of neutral journalists.
The Prosecution professes to possess overwhelming material against all the defendants. If this presumption were correct with reference to Raeder, the Prosecution would scarcely have felt the need of bringing forward this Athenia case, of all things, in such ponderous and injurious terms for the sole purpose of discrediting the former Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.