Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-13/tgmwc-13-124.01
Last-Modified: 2000/02/24

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HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FOURTH DAY

WEDNESDAY, 8th MAY, 1946

THE MARSHAL: May it please the Tribunal, the report is made
that defendant Schirach is absent.

DR. KRANZBUHLER: Mr. President, with the permission of the
Tribunal, I shall now state my opinion on the documents to
which the prosecution has objected.

Before I refer to the individual documents, I should like to
say two things concerning the groups.

(1) I ask the Tribunal to recall that in general questions
on naval warfare I also defend Admiral Raeder. I already
mentioned, when I first applied for documents, that all the
charges in relation to naval warfare, against Donitz or
Raeder cannot be separated; therefore Dr. Siemers and I
agreed that I should deal with these charges together.

I ask the Tribunal in evaluating the question to take into
consideration whether the charges are relevant.

(2) A large number of the objections which the prosecution
has made are directed against the fact that the war methods
of the Allies are mentioned in the documents. I believe that
I have been completely misunderstood in this matter. I am
not entrusted, and it is not my intention to disparage any
war methods, and I shall demonstrate later in detail that
the documents do not lend themselves to that purpose. But I
should like to state from the beginning that I want to show
with these documents what naval warfare was really like. I
could not demonstrate this by showing only the German
methods, but I also have to submit to this Tribunal the
methods of the Allies in order to prove that the German
methods, which were similar to the Allies' methods, were
legal. The Tribunal has even recognized this to be correct
by approving the use of British Admiralty orders and an
interrogatory of Admiral Nimitz.

I am very grateful that these documents were approved; and
my own documents in this field follow the same lines.

I shall now refer to the individual documents against which
objections have been raised; first to the Document Donitz-5,
which is in Document Book 1, Page 7.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kranzbuhler, the Tribunal has examined
all these documents; so I think you can deal with them as
far as possible in groups.

DR. KRANZBUHLER: Very well.

THE PRESIDENT: If possible, follow the order of Sir David
Maxwell Fyfe.

DR. KRANZBUHLER: Mr. President, it will not be possible for
me to follow Sir David's order because then I should have to
keep on referring to things which I had already mentioned. I
believe it will facilitate and speed up the proceedings if I
form groups according to the order in which I intended to
present them; and I should like to remind the Tribunal that
that was expressly approved for me yesterday.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kranzbuhler, it would be very much more
convenient to the Tribunal, if you followed Sir David's
order. But if you find that impossible, the Tribunal would
not make it a matter of an order.

                                                  [Page 200]

DR. KRANZBUHLER: I should be very grateful, Mr. President,
if I could keep the order which I had prepared. It is very
much the same as the order of Sir David.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well.

DR. KRANZBUHLER: Concerning the question of the aggressive
war, I have another document to submit, Document Donitz-5.
It is an excerpt from the document of German policies, and
concerns the question of bases in Norway. I consider this
document relevant because it shows that on the part of the
British Admiralty an interrogatory was prepared on the
question of the necessity of such a base, which corresponds
exactly to the one with which the prosecution has charged
Admiral Donitz in Exhibit GB 83 as proof for aggressive war.

Thereby I wish to say that the answers on such
interrogatories have nothing to do with any considerations
concerning an aggressive war, which a subordinate office
could not even make. The document is in Group 2 of Sir
David's classification.

THE PRESIDENT: Are you saying that the footnote stands on
the same footing as the other part of the documents?

DR. KRANZBUHLER: The footnote is the essential part for me
Mr. President. I had the other part copied only to keep the
connection with the footnote.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, who wrote the footnote? Doesn't the
footnote represent information which was not before the
German Admiralty at the time?

DR. KRANZBUHLER: No, no.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, does the footnote state that it was
before the German Admiralty at the time?

DR. KRANZBUHLER: No, Mr. President. The footnote was not
known to the German Admiralty at the time.

THF PRESIDENT: That is what I said; the footnote was not
known to the German Admiralty. Who wrote it?

DR. KRANZBUHLER: The footnote is part of this document which
can be found in the collection of documents of German
policies -

THE PRESIDENT: Is the defendant Ribbentrop the author of it?

DR. KRANZBUHLER: No, Mr. President. The documents of German
policies are in an official collection, and the footnotes
have been written by the editor of that collection on the
basis of official material.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I see.

DR. KRANZBUHLER: Now I come to the documents concerning
naval warfare in general. A large part of those are in Sir
David's Group 3. The first document is Donitz-60, on Page
152. It concerns an American note of the 6th October, 1939,
and is in connection with the Document Donitz-61, to which
the prosecution has not objected. It is in Volume 3 of the
document book, Mr. President.

Volume 3, Page 152. This document is an American reply to
the document which you will find two pages before this, on
Page 150. Both documents deal with the warning of neutral
nations against suspicious actions of their merchant
vessels. The question is relevant in respect to Exhibit GB-
193 of the prosecution.

In this document a charge is made against an order that
ships which act suspiciously - that, proceed without lights
- should be sunk.

The next document is from Sir David's Group 1, Donitz-69, on
Page 170, in Book 3. It is an excerpt from several copies of
the Volkischer Beobachter of November and December, 1939. In
these copies are published lists of armed British and French
passenger ships. This document is connected with the one
preceding and the one following. All these documents deal
with the question of treatment of passenger ships by the
Naval Warfare Command.

                                                  [Page 201]

THE PRESIDENT: I think you had better give the numbers of
the documents. You said the next document and the one before
it. I think you had better give the numbers of the
documents.

DR. KRANZBUHLER: Yes. That is Document Donitz-69, Mr.
President, Donitz-69, and it is on Page 170, in Book 3.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I know it is, but you said something
about documents that were akin, or some words to that
effect, to the documents next to it.

DR. KRANZBUHLER: It is in relation to Donitz-68, on Page 169
of the document book.

THE PRESIDENT: Was that objected to?

DR. KRANZBUHLER: No.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well, then, you needn't bother with it.

DR. KRANZBUHLER: I only wanted to show, Mr. President, that
this document is only part of the proof about the treatment
of passenger ships, and should prove that the German Press
had published warnings against the using of armed passenger
ships. The next document objected to by the prosecution
concerns Group 3, "The Contraband and Control System." This
is Document Donitz-60, from Page 173 to Page 197 of the
document book, and I should like to divide it into three
groups.

The first group, from Page 173 to Page 181, concerns the
question of contraband. I consider this question relevant
because Exhibit GB 191 has stated that the German U-boats
sunk a large number of allied ships while these ships were
on a legal merchant trip. The development of rules against
contraband will show the Tribunal that from 12th December,
1939 on, a legal import to England no longer existed, but
actually only contraband. These documents concerning
contraband are important, furthermore, for the German point
of view, which became known under the slogan of "Hunger
Blockade," and which played an important part in all German
deliberations about the conduct and the intensification of
naval warfare. The documents contain in detail the German
contraband regulations, the British regulations, and two
German statements concerning these regulations.

The next group in Donitz-60, is from Page 183 to Page 191.
That concerns the regulations about putting into control
ports; that is to say, the British Admiralty removed the
control over neutral merchant shipping from the high seas
into certain British ports. This group is also relevant in
connection with Exhibit GB 191, because here the German
Naval War Staff is accused of carrying out war measures
against England without consideration of the danger to
neutrals. This group shows that it was not any more possible
for the British Admiralty to take war measures without
endangering the neutrals, because, by the establishment of
control ports, the neutrals were forced into German zones of
operations and thereby, of course, endangered. This danger
was confirmed by the neutrals themselves, and the documents,
on Page 186 to 189, will prove this.

An excerpt from the Exhibit GB 194, Page 198, belongs to
that same group. It contains a further American protest
against the control ports.

The third group goes from Page 192 to Page 197, and is
concerned with the question of an export embargo.

This export blockade was declared against Germany in an
Order in Council of 27th November, 1939. This measure is
important in the question of legal trade because thereby
legal export was no longer possible either. The export
blockade therefore is a basis for the total blockade which
was later declared by Germany against England. Since Exhibit
GB 191 disputes the legality of a total blockade I must
prove it and also the legality of the export blockade.

The next document objected to is Donitz 72 on Page 185. It
deals with a note by Great Britain to Belgium of 22nd
September. In this note the British Government states that
it will not tolerate any increase of trade between Belgium
and

                                                  [Page 202]

Germany. I use it as evidence for the fact that the economic
pressure which can be seen from this note was a natural and
accepted means of warfare. This question is relevant
concerning Exhibit GB 224. There on Page 6 (under letter C)
it is stated that Germany would necessarily have to exert
economic pressure on the neutrals, and these statements were
submitted by the prosecution as measures contrary to
International Law.

The next group contains the following documents: Donitz-60,
Pages 204, 207, 208, and 209; and Donitz-75, Page 218.

All of these documents concern the development of German
zones of operation, and the zones of operation which were
declared by the opponents. These documents are relevant for
the question of the treatment of neutrals. In Exhibit GB 191
the charge was made against the Naval War Staff that without
any consideration it had given the order to torpedo neutral
ships. My evidence will prove that that happened only in
those areas which the neutrals had been warned against
using, and that this is a permissible measure of warfare, as
shown also by the practices of the enemy.

I should like to refer individually to two documents which
concern the practices of the opposing side. Donitz-60, Page
208, concerns the statement by Mr. Churchill of 8th May,
1940, regarding the torpedoing of ships in the Skagerrak.
This document and the next one, Donitz-60, Page 209, I
wanted to put to a witness. The latter concerns a French
statement about a danger zone near Italy. I am using both
documents as evidence for the practical state of Naval
warfare and should like to discuss them with a witness.

It goes without saying that the methods of the enemy also
had some influence on German practices.

The next group contains Documents Donitz-60, Pages 219, 222
and 224. They deal with the British system of Navicerts. The
navicerts, as can be seen from these documents, were
certificates which all neutral ships had to get from the
British Consulate before they could put to sea. Ships which
refused to use navicerts were confiscated. The navicert
system is relevant in two respects.

First, it is mentioned in the German statement concerning
the total blockade against England on 17th August, 1940, as
one reason for that blockade. Secondly, from the German
point of view it was a non-neutral act on the part of the
neutrals if they submitted to that system. This question
plays a considerable part in determining to what extent
Germany herself from that time on took consideration of
neutrals in the zones of operation.

Finally, the navicert system shows the development of an
entirely new naval warfare law, and that is a very important
subject for me.

The next document is Donitz-60, Page 256. It is a French
decree of 11th November, 1939, concerning the creation of
distinguishing marks for the crews of merchant ships who
could be mobilised. This document is relevant for the
question of whether the crews of merchant ships at that
stage of the war should be considered combatants or non-
combatants. The details of the decree seem to me to show
that they would have to be considered combatants.

By means of the two following documents, I should like to
object to the probative value of the prosecution's Exhibit
GB 191. I refer to Donitz-81, Page 233, and Donitz-82, Page
234. I had said that these two documents would dispute the
probative value of the GB 191. That is the report of the
British Foreign Office about German naval warfare. On Page 1
this report attacked Article 72 Of the German Prize
Regulations, which states that ships can be sunk if they
cannot be brought into port. Exhibit GB 191 says that this
is contrary to the traditional British conception.

My document, Donitz-81, shows the sinking of the German
freighter Olinda by the British cruiser Ajax on the first
day of the war.

It is only one example showing that the statement made in
the report of the British Foreign Office according to which
the British fleet had not sunk ships

                                                  [Page 203]

if they could not or would not bring them to port, is
incorrect. In the same report of the British Foreign Office,
German U-boats are accused of never differentiating between
armed and unarmed merchant ships. Later I shall submit to
the Tribunal the orders in this connection.

In my next document, Donitz-82, I shall try to show that
every mistake made by the U-boats was interpreted as a
deliberate intention, despite the fact that the British
Foreign Office, confirmed that it was extremely difficult,
if not impossible, in some cases to distinguish between
armed and unarmed merchant ships.

The next document, Donitz-85, Page 242, contains a statement
by the American Secretary of the Navy, Knox, concerning the
question of keeping secret the sinking of German U-boats by
American naval forces. In this connection the document of
the prosecution Exhibit GB 194, is of great importance, for
in this document the measures which the Naval War Staff took
to keep secret the sinkings by U-boats, that is using as a
pretence the fiction of sinking through mines, are presented
as fraudulent. I should like to give this as an example that
during a war military measures can naturally be kept secret,
but that such secrecy is no proof for or against their
legality.

The next document is Donitz-89, on Page 246. It is a list
drawn up by the Naval War Staff of violations of neutrality
committed by the United States from September, 1939 to 29th
September, 1941. The document is essential, because of the
document of the prosecution, Exhibit GB 195, which contains
an order from Adolf Hitler of July, 1941 in which it is
stated that now, also the merchant ships of the United
States must be treated within the German zone of blockade in
the same manner as all other neutral ships, that is to say,
they should be sunk. The prosecution has interpreted this
order as proof of a cynical and opportunistic conduct of U-
boat warfare by Grand Admiral Donitz. I wish to show, by
submitting these documents, that, from the German point of
view, it was completely understandable and justifiable, that
in the summer of 1941 one did not grant the United States a
better position than any other neutral.

Now I come to the subject of the treatment of shipwrecked
survivors.

These documents are in Volume one of the document book. The
first document, Donitz-9, on Page 11, describes the over-
scrupulous measures taken by German U-boats to save
survivors, from September-October, 1939. This is essential
for Admiral Donitz -

THE PRESIDENT: There must surely be a group of these, is
there not? Haven't you got a number of documents which deal
with shipwrecks?

DR. KRANZBUHLER: I did not understand the question.

THE FRESIDENT: Are there not a number of these documents
which fall into a group concerned with the subject of the
treatment of shipwrecks?

DR. KRANZBUHLER: Yes, there are a number of documents.

THE PRESIDENT: Can you not deal with them all together?

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