The Nuremberg Interviews (30 page)

I asked Kaltenbrunner on what facts or deeds he based this rather far-fetched conclusion. He answered in more or less a non sequitur. “The prosecution conducts this trial for political reasons and has blinders on their eyes. That is necessary for them because of political reasons. But every sound American or Englishman must realize that the Russians don’t care about Germany but want to get a hold of Trieste, the Dardanelles, and Spain, as had been proven. The western part of Russia was accessible to the warm European seas. Thus, they are endangering the British Suez Canal and the route from England to India.”

I repeated my previous question, but Kaltenbrunner again ignored it and spoke of recent events such as Churchill’s Fulton, Missouri, speech, which proved that both England and America were aware of the “Communist imperialist danger.”
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I said that I would like to go back to another statement that Kaltenbrunner had made this evening and wondered whether he could clarify it. He had said that German troops were tied up in the West at the time of the attack on Russia by Germany in June 1941. Wasn’t it true that France was defeated and that no western front had as yet been opened by the Allies and that, therefore, Germany was at the height of its power militarily at the very time he claimed that Germany had all its troops tied up in the West? Didn’t this seem rather incongruous and didn’t it place another light, perhaps, on the meaning of Russia’s deploying divisions on the Hungarian-Romanian borders? “You just have to read what Churchill said. He said that those were the darkest hours for England. So that the war in the West could not be considered finished until we had defeated England. The Reich couldn’t stop fighting a war against England because England had declared war on Germany, and not Germany on England as the prosecution is trying to say in this trial. Therefore, in June 1941, although it may seem as if Germany was at the height of its power because of a defeated continental Europe, we could never consider ourselves successful in the West until we had conquered England. Moreover, England had destroyed the French fleet, their own brothers in arms. England permitted the French government in exile to
prepare war against Germany in Africa, which later brought about the American landing in Africa.

“Therefore, the Reich couldn’t consider the war against England finished, inasmuch as aerial warfare against England had just started. One has to agree with Hitler in his feeling uneasy about the fact that on their eastern frontiers, which were not guarded, 150 Russian divisions marched up and were prepared to attack. As a matter of fact, I have information which proves that there were not only 150 Russian divisions in that area but more nearly 300.

“As soon as the demarcation line became stronger in Poland, our intelligence found that the Russians had built 120 airfields in Poland, each of which could accommodate squadrons of thirty planes. Originally the Polish had only twenty airfields in that part of Poland, and so it was obvious that the Russians intended to wage war because they built so many more airfields than already existed. It shows the mockery of the German-Russian Nonaggression Pact because a friend doesn’t do that to another friend.

“Then you insist — I don’t mean you personally, but the prosecution — that Germany declared war against America. That I consider true only technically because Americans shot first against us at sea without any declaration of war. If you recall, there was an order of Roosevelt’s for American boats to carry arms and to shoot against German submarines. Because of all these things, the indictment of conspiracy for aggressive war against all these countries is repeatedly proven false. I myself, in this cell, must concentrate on these things without the aid of documents or history books but merely with my own mind. The prosecution must feel weak if it has to pass judgments like today, that the defense counsel would not be allowed to put any more questions to Jodl. In view of the fact that because of physical reasons, a human being can only be in one spot at a time, the whole thing is but a trick. It is similar to the actions of the tribunal which deny the defense other points every day. Every day another judgment is passed that damages and limits our defense.

“To the outside world the whole trial seems to be conducted according to English law and democratic principles. Your Dr. Gilbert goes around and praises American principles, saying that the court is justified in doing it the way they are, and on the other hand he personally acts in just the opposite fashion by torturing us. The defendants are not allowed
to read an ordinary newspaper. They are prevented from being able to use for their defenses the common news items of the day. But Gilbert violates the rule of our not being able to see newspapers by showing us a copy of
Stars and Stripes
occasionally, but only if there is a picture in it of a man being hanged for war crimes at Landsberg, and similar things which he knows will make us boil. This is not the first time that Gilbert has done things like that, which make no sense and just show a cheap intention to create anxiety in those of us who are being tried here. I hope he doesn’t do it intentionally because that would be without taste. I merely pointed this out because we see nothing of the newspapers except the sort of thing I have just mentioned.

“Now the Russians sit in the same court indicting us for a declaration of aggressive war when they really planned it.” I asked Kaltenbrunner whether General Winter had any other proof that the Russians intended aggressive war beyond his knowledge of Russian divisions having been assembled on the Hungarian-Romanian borders. Kaltenbrunner replied smugly and with a tight smile, “Yes, of course. He had five different proofs of this intention, such as maps, et cetera.” Could Kaltenbrunner be a little more specific about the proof of the Russian intention to wage war against Germany, the proofs he claimed General Winter had in his possession? Again, Kaltenbrunner ignored the details of an answer by saying, “I can’t recall the exact proof, but I know that there were five pieces of evidence.

“I attribute the misinformation we had at the time to the inaccurate intelligence service, which at that time was still under Wilhelm Canaris. Canaris reported 135 divisions, among them 113 or 114 infantry divisions, and the rest armored divisions. He did not even report the occupation of Bessarabia by the Russians and was wrong about a few infantry divisions, which were really cavalry outfits. He was also inexact about the aerial strength of Russia. Therefore, the accusation of Hitler against Canaris later on was correct. Hitler accused Canaris of giving him an incorrect picture — in favor of Russia, not Germany.
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“But aggressive war against Germany by Russia was proven without any doubt. Another fact is that there were numerous violations of the treaty by the Russians against the Germans, that is, the Russian-German Nonaggression Pact. These violations consisted of illegal frontier crossings by the Russians, concealing the delivery of food and coal and so forth. There were also cases of deportation of German nationals by the
Russians. All of these things would point to Russia’s planning an intensive aggressive war against us.

“It is highly interesting to listen and to watch, although unfortunately one does not quite understand the respective expressions or technical terms used — but it is interesting to see what points the various delegations try to bring out during this trial. For us the whole trial became very dull as a whole. It becomes more and more apparent as the trial goes on that the judges will find something against each defendant and routinely sentence him, whether it be to death or long-term imprisonment. But what really interests the various delegations can be seen from the individual questions put by the French, British, Americans, and Russians. For instance, the Russian prosecutor yesterday was very much interested in the happenings in Ankara. He would have been interested, although he didn’t ask directly, about Turkish affairs. He wanted to know, I suppose, about Anglo-Turk relations, whether Germany knew of the English-Turkish relations and whether England knew of the negotiations between Russia and Turkey concerning future developments.

“Turkey was the guardian of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus. The neutrality of Turkey was guaranteed by several countries so that it could perform that job. Any historian will recognize that this is the same as the capture of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. In other words, the English-Russian route through the Mediterranean is not being endangered by Russian boats. Therefore, the neutrality of Turkey, as seen by England, is only an armed neutrality which favors the British Empire.

“On the other hand, German foreign policy in Turkey was, of course, conditioned by these things. Turkey only in the first line had to be afraid of Russia. For its neutrality Turkey was paid by England, with money and armaments; and at the same time Turkey was paid by Germany through commercial treaties and armaments. At the very moment when Germany was weakest, Turkey turned to England. As long as Germany was strong, Turkish neutrality was tremendously friendly to Germany. Those are the basic principles of Turkish policy.

“One has to add that the Russian interests were exactly the opposite because Russia wanted free access to the Mediterranean either by having possession of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles or by having them opened by international agreement. Secondly, Turkey is the thinnest-populated country in Europe and western Asia, with only twelve inhabitants to the square kilometer. Therefore, it is an open invitation for
southern Russia to spread and place its population. This can be seen by two demands of Russia for Turkish lands: one, Russia demanded southern Turkey, the Black Sea, which would mean the destruction of the whole Turkish commerce, and, two, Russia demanded Armenian territories, very cleverly using long-standing, bitter fights between Armenians and Turks.

“Armenia was always a minority nation. The Armenians were annihilated repeatedly by the Russians and then by the Turks. In reality the Soviet Union wants to prepare an attack through the Persian Gulf to the warm European sea and then reach England and recently American oil interests. You can imagine a German information service that wants to accumulate data about the potential resources of the enemy, not sending agents to Sweden but rather to Turkey. There are great political differences between the interests of Russia and England, and between the interests of Russia and America. Germany had nothing to look for in Turkey. Two generations ago, through Bismarck, Germany declared that the Dardanelles were not worth the blood of a single German grenadier. From the time of Bismarck, Germany always kept away from Turkey and gave many assurances to England that it should not be afraid, that it was English territory and would remain as such. The same neutrality was always promised by Hitler and respected by him constantly.”

Kaltenbrunner became rather excited and absorbed in his own words by this time. His face was flushed and reddened, and his sentences and phrases were sharper and more clipped than ever. He continued, “As I said, you wouldn’t send an agent to Sweden. I had been able to secure Turkish-English treaties from the English legation but one must also secure notes on Turkey drawn up by England for the USSR. I took photostats of all these treaties and notes and showed them to Hitler. For me that was the best barometer of the world political situation. Because of this and other similar happenings, I became the successor to Canaris and not, as the prosecution assumes, a proponent of the expansion of the SS against the army. I was appointed by Hitler to succeed Canaris because it was well known and proven that my abilities were greater than those of Canaris. Proof of Canaris’s duplicity can be seen by the fact that he participated in the
Attentat
of July 20, 1944.

Wilhelm Keitel
1882–1946

Wilhelm Keitel was general, field marshal, and chief of staff of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces (OKW) from 1938 to 1945. Found guilty at Nuremberg of conspiracy to commit crimes, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, he was hanged on October 16, 1946.

Keitel has complained frequently to me of pains in both lower limbs and varicosities. He receives occasional massages for this condition and feels it benefits him. However, he would prefer another type of massage and baths, treatments which he obtained at various spas in times gone by.

He was in a mood for talking, and he seemed quite keyed up, for him, regarding his coming defense, which would start in a few days as soon as Ribbentrop was finished.

He began with his military career. In 1901 he was officer’s candidate. In 1914, at the outbreak of hostilities, he was a regimental adjutant. In September 1914 he was slightly wounded in action. In spring 1915 he served in general staff positions, and spent a short time in Flanders with the navy. After the war he voluntarily entered the army. In 1929 he was chief of a division in the Ministry of War. By October 1, 1935, he became chief of the armed forces department of the War Ministry. At the time he was a major general. On February 4, 1938, he was appointed chief of staff of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces. On October 1, 1939, he became general of infantry, and after the defeat of France, field marshal.