ONE HUNDRED
AND SEVENTY-FOURTH DAY
Tuesday, 9 July 1946
Morning Session
MARSHAL (Lieutenant Colonel James R. Gifford): May it please the Tribunal, the Defendants Hess and Fritzsche are absent.
THE PRESIDENT (Lord Justice Sir Geoffrey Lawrence): I have an order to read. The Tribunal orders:
1. Applications for witnesses for organizations to be heard by the Tribunal in open court in accordance with Paragraph 5 of the Tribunal’s order of 13 March 1946 should be made to the General Secretary as soon as possible, and in any case not later than 20 July.
2. The Tribunal believes that so much evidence has already been taken, and so wide a field has been covered, that only a very few witnesses need be called for each organization. That is all.
DR. OTTO NELTE (Counsel for Defendant Keitel): Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Tribunal, yesterday I dealt with the problem of Keitel and the Russian campaign. Now I recall to you what Keitel said in the witness box concerning the so-called ideological orders:
“I knew their content. In spite of my personal misgivings I passed them on without letting myself be deterred by the possibility of serious consequences.”
I wanted to point that out in order to make what I have to say now comprehensible, above all, in its extent. In the course of time the opinion arose and was disseminated throughout the Army, that Field Marshal Keitel was a “yes man,” a tool of Hitler’s and that he was betraying the interests of the Armed Forces. These generals did not see, nor were they interested in the fact that this man was fighting a constant battle, day after day, in every possible field, with Hitler and the forces which were influencing him on all sides. The effects of this distorted picture shown here in detail, which definitely did not apply to Keitel, especially not in the sphere of strategic operations, planning, and execution, made themselves still felt even in this Trial; perhaps not without the fault of the Defendant Keitel himself. As to the justification of his conception of duty there can in principle be no argument. It has also been confirmed here by the witness Admiral Schulte-Mönting for the Defendant Grossadmiral Raeder. There can be no doubt that the rest of the admirals and generals were in principle of the same point of view, that it is impossible in military spheres to criticize before subordinates the decision of a superior as expressed in an order, even if one has misgivings about the order.