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social and economic fields and, of course, also the liberation from the obligations of Versailles, which concerned him as a soldier especially. Therefore, he served entirely without political activism but in loyalty to the National Socialist State when he received his promotion to commander-in-chief,

Therewith, two new elements arose in his relations to National Socialism. There was first his personal contact with Adolf Hitler. Like almost everyone else who had personal connection with this man, he, too, was most deeply impressed. To the respect for the Head of the State, and faith to the Supreme Commander, which the professional officer is trained in, was added the admiration for the statesman and strategist. It is difficult to understand completely such an attitude from the information as conveyed by this trial. I neither feel qualified nor capable to judge a personality like Adolf Hitler. But one thing seems certain, namely, that with the art of an expert he skillfully concealed the camouflage from the human standpoint, objectionable traits of character from those of his coworkers to whom he did not dare to reveal this part of his nature. The Hitler with whom the new Commander-in-Chief of the Navy became acquainted at that time and whom he venerated was therefore entirely different from the one which the world-rightly or wrongly-sees today.

The second new element in the relations between the grand admiral and National Socialism consisted in the fact that in the performance of his military duties he necessarily came in contact with the political authorities of the Reich. Whether he needed more men, more ships, or more arms it was in the end always political authorities with whom he had to discuss matters. In order to be successful in his demands, it was necessary that all political mistrust be eliminated at the very start. He did this intentionally and demanded the same of his subordinates. To him the Party was not an ideological factor, but rather the actual representative of the political power. He was linked with it in the common aim to win the war. For the achievement of this aim, he considered it as his ally. But, for the advantages which one expects of an ally, one must be willing to make certain sacrifices and to overlook certain faults and to ignore controversies. The connection with the Fuehrer, however, and the contact with the Party which were concomitants of his position and of his duties as a Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, never led him to participate in anything for which he could not assume the responsibility before his conscience. Exactly some points of the prosecution prove this. The Fuehrer demanded action against the shipwrecked; Admiral Doenitz rejected it. The Fuehrer was

for withdrawal from the Geneva Convention; Admiral Doenitz was against it. He stubbornly and successfully resisted the Party's influence upon the Armed Forces. Thanks to his resistance, the National-Socialist educational officers (Fuehrungsoffiziere) did not become political commissars, but were as genuine officers merely advisers to their commander, who retained the sole responsibility of leadership of his unit. The transfer of proceedings against soldiers on political grounds from the military courts to the people's courts (Volksgerichtshof), which had been advocated by the Party, was prevented by Admiral Doenitz until the winter of 1944-45 and afterwards, in spite of a Fuehrer order, never carried out in the Navy. Thus, he never identified himself with the Party and, therefore, certainly cannot be held responsible for its ideological endeavors or its excesses no more than in foreign politics a government would be ready to assume the responsibility for such things committed by an ally.

I do not by any means want to give the impression that Admiral Doenitz was not a National Socialist.

To the contrary, I want to exactly use him as an example to prove the incorrectness of the thesis that every National Socialist as such must be a criminal. This Tribunal is the sole instance where authoritative personalities of the allied chief powers are occupying themselves intensively with the last 12 years of the German past. It is, therefore, the only hope of very many Germans for the removal of a fatal error which caused the weaker characters of our nation to become hypocrites and thus prove a decisive obstacle on the road to political recovery. When, after these explanations, I am entering into particulars of the charge that Admiral Doenitz had, out of political fanaticism, protracted the inevitable surrender, then I am doing so because of a particular reason. This charge, which does not seem to have anything to do with the indictment before an international tribunal, weighs particularly heavy in the eyes of the German people. This nation truly knows what destructions and what losses it has yet endured in the months from February until May 1945. I submitted declarations of Darlan, Chamberlain, and Churchill from the year 1940, in which these statesmen in a critical hour of their country called for desperate resistance, for the defense of every village and of every house. Nobody will conclude therefrom that these men were fanatical National Socialists. The question of unconditional surrender is, indeed, of such colossal import for a nation that, in fact, it is possible only after the events to judge whether a statesman who had to face this question did or did not do the right thing. Admiral Doenitz, however,

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was not a statesman in February 1945, but the supreme commander of the navy. Should he have requested his subordinates to lay down arms at a time when the political authority of the state still considered military resistance as opportune and necessary? Nobody will demand this in earnest.

To me, the question appears to be far more difficult, whether he, whom Hitler esteemed so much should not have had the duty to point out to Hitler with all due clearness the hopelessness of a prolonged resistance.

Personally, I would be inclined to affirm such a duty towards his people, if he had himself considered at that time a surrender as justified. He has not done so, and has stated the reasons herefor. Surrender implies stopping the armies and stopping the population. The German army on the Eastern front-still more than 2 millions strong in February 1945-and the entire civilian population of the German eastern provinces would therefore have fallen into the hands of the Soviet armies and this, in a bitter cold winter month. Admiral Doenitz, therefore, was of opinion-shared by Colonel General Jodl-that the human losses occurring in such a manner would have been far greater than those which a protracting of the capitulation until the warmer season should of needs have caused. Only in future years, when more exact evidence concerning casualties of the army and of the civilian population, both before and after the surrender in the East and in the West, will be available, there will be a possibility to judge the objective truth of such an interpretation. But it may yet be said today that such arguments were exclusively founded upon a stern consciousness of responsibility for the life of German people.

The very same consciousness of responsibility caused him, after his assumption of the office of head of the state on May 1st 1945, to cease hostilities against the West, but to protract, on the contrary, the surrender to the East for a few days, days in which hundreds of thousands were able to escape in a Western direction. Since the moment when he got to his own complete surprisea political task, he has avoided with an intelligent hand a threatening chaos, has prevented desperate acts of masses without leaders, and has assumed responsibility for the German people, for the gravest action which a statesman can make at all. To come back to the beginning of the indictment, he has not done anything to start this war, but taken the decisive steps to end it.

Since that moment the German nation has learned much what it did not expect, and more than once the unconditional surrender, which the last head of the state has carried out, has been pointed

out. It is for the Tribunal to decide whether, in the future, this nation will be referred to the binding value of the signature of a man who is being outlawed as a criminal, in front of the whole world, by his very partners in the treaty.

In the beginning of my statement I have referred to the doubts which any trial against war criminals is bound to induce in the heart of any lawyer. They weigh upon everyone who bears a co-responsibility for such a trial. I could not better mark the task of all the responsible persons than by quoting the words coined by a British attorney about the trials before the German Reich court in the year 1921:

"The War Criminals' trials were demanded by an angry public rather than by statesmen or the fighting services. Had the public opinion of 1919 had its way, the trials might have presented a grim spectacle, of which future generations would be ashamed. But, thanks to the statesmen and the lawyers, a public yearning for revenge was converted into a real demonstration of the Majesty of Right and the Power of Law." (Claud Mullins, The Leipzig Trials, London, 1921.)

May the verdict of this Tribunal be valid in a similar way before the judgment of History.

2. FINAL PLEA by Karl Doenitz

I should like to say three things:

Firstly, you must judge the legality of the German submarine warfare, if your conscience dictates you to do so. I consider this conduct of the war to be justified, and I have acted according to my conscience. I would have to do exactly the same all over again. My subordinates, on the other hand, who have carried out my orders, have acted in the fullest confidence in me and without there being a shadow of doubt regarding the necessity and legality of these orders. In my opinion, no later judgment can deprive them of the trust in the honesty of a fight for which they voluntarily have made sacrifice after sacrifice until the last hour.

Secondly, much has been said here about a conspiracy which is alleged to have existed among the defendants. In my opinion, that assertion is a political dogma. As such it cannot be proved, but can only be believed or rejected. Considerable portions of the German people will never believe, however, that such a conspiracy could have been the cause of their disaster. Let politicians and jurists argue about it; they will only make it harder for the German people to secure for themselves the recognition from this

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