It is difficult to recognize how this document can serve as evidence of guilt of the Defendant Keitel. Rather will this document have to be regarded as symptomatic of the fact that the Defendant Keitel, when violations against existing agreements came to his knowledge, saw to it that they were stopped.
The Treatment of Soviet Russian Prisoners of War.
Hitler already regarded the prisoner-of-war problem as a personal domain of his legislation, and the more time passed, the less he regarded it from the points of view of international law and military needs, but rather from a political and economic angle. The problem in the treatment of Soviet Russian prisoners of war from the very beginning was also subject to ideological considerations which for him was the primary motive in the war against the Soviet Union. The fact that the Soviet Union was not a member of the Geneva Convention was exploited by Hitler, in order to obtain a free hand in the treatment of Soviet Russian prisoners of war.
He stated to the generals that the Soviet Union felt equally free from all stipulations which had been created by the Geneva Convention for the protection of prisoners of war. One must read the decrees of 8 September 1941 (Document Number EC-338, Exhibit Number USSR-356) in order to understand clearly Hitler’s attitude. In the official document of the counterintelligence office (Amt Ausland Abwehr) of 15 September 1941, rules were laid down, which were to be observed according to international law, concerning the treatment of prisoners of war where the Geneva Convention did not apply between belligerents.
The Defendant Keitel has testified on the witness stand that he had accepted the viewpoints laid down in this document and had presented them to Hitler. The latter strictly refused to rescind the decree of 8 September 1941. He told Keitel:
“Your doubts originate from the soldierly conception of a chivalrous war. Here we are concerned with the destruction of an ideology.”
Keitel noted this passage down word for word and added to his written statement of 15 September 1941: “I therefore approve and countenance these measures.”
It was a typical example of Keitel expressing his doubts and Hitler taking his final decision. Keitel stood up for these decisions and did not let his subordinate offices know that he was of a different opinion. Such was his attitude. For this also he is, within the limits of his official position, taking responsibility.
What Keitel actually thought is revealed in the excerpt submitted as Document Keitel-6, Document Book 1, from the book Employment Conditions for Eastern Workers and Soviet Russian Prisoners of War. The Codefendant Speer has testified in cross-examination that he over and over again told the Defendant Keitel that any employment of prisoners of war of any enemy country in enterprises prohibited by the Geneva Convention was out of the question. Speer further testified that Keitel several times rejected any attempt to employ prisoners of war of any western nation in actual war plants.
The defense counsel for the Defendant Speer will also deal with this question in detail.