In his examination he mentions the various possibilities whereby such an order could have reached the office which issued it. Then he refers to another document, 1544-PS, which contains all the orders and directives concerning prisoners of war, but not this order referring to the escaped officers and noncommissioned officers.
The witness Westhoff has confirmed that the concept “Stufe III” and its meaning were unknown to him and to the office of the OKW Prisoners of War Organization. He also stated that on assuming office on 1 April 1944 he found no order of this nature, not even a file note.
The meaning of that Bullet Decree was completely obscure. I believe this obscurity has been cleared up by the evidence given by the Codefendant Kaltenbrunner, who on his part had never before spoken to the Defendant Keitel on the matter.
I pass on to Page 187, where Kaltenbrunner said:
“I had never heard of the Bullet Decree before I assumed the office. It was an entirely new concept for me. Therefore I asked what it meant. He answered that it was a Führer order; that was all he knew. I was not satisfied with this information, and on the same day I sent a teletype message to Himmler asking for permission to look up a Führer order known as the Bullet Decree.... A few days later, Müller came to see me on Himmler’s orders and submitted to me a decree which, however, did not originate with Hitler but with Himmler, and in which Himmler stated that he was transmitting to me a verbal Führer order.”
From this it is safe to assume that, without consulting Keitel and without the latter’s knowledge, Hitler must have given a verbal order to Himmler, as stated in Document 1650-PS which was submitted here.
Now I come to Page 190 of my final plea:
This confirms the assumption which Keitel expressed in his interrogation, although Kaltenbrunner had not previously informed him that he knew of verbal orders given by the Führer.
3) In another case also, the one dealing with the branding of Soviet prisoners, Keitel’s statement in the witness box has proved to be the simple truth.
The witness Roemer has confirmed in her supplementary affidavit that the order to mark Soviet prisoners of war by branding was cancelled immediately after being issued. A further statement of the Defendant Keitel is therefore also credible, according to which this order had been issued without his knowledge, although naturally Keitel’s responsibility for the acts of the party concerned is not thereby contested.