One Hundred and Thirty-Sixth Day:
Wednesday, 22nd May, 1946
[Page 303]
Q. If you will look at that document, witness, you will
see in the second sentence
"Can bases be gained by military force against
Norway's will, if it is impossible to achieve this
without fighting?"
"What are the possibilities of defence after the
occupation?"
"Will the harbours have to be developed completely
as bases, or might they have decisive advantages
simply as supply centres? (The Commander of U-boats
considers such harbours extremely useful as
equipment and supply bases for Atlantic U-boats
during temporary stops.)"
A. No, I don't see any aggressive intentions in these
purely operational plans, which merely represent
consideration as to what bases might come into
operation for the conduct of the war. This morning I
said that, to the best of my knowledge, General Admiral
Karls as early as September, sent a letter to this
effect to Raeder in which he expressed his concern, and
stated his strategical ideas and plans in case of an
Allied occupation of Norway.
Q. The source of the information which the defendant
Raeder was receiving was discussed by you this morning,
but one source that you did not give was the
[Page 304]
A. There was no contact at all between Raeder and
Quisling until December, 1939; then Raeder met Quisling
for the first time in his life and never saw him again.
Q. But after December, Quisling's agent, Hagelin, was a
very frequent visitor to the defendant Raeder, was he
not?
A. I do not believe that Hagelin ever went to Raeder
before Quisling's visit, unless I am very mistaken. I
think he visited Raeder for the first time when he
accompanied Quisling.
Q. Yes, but thereafter Raeder was in very close touch
with the Quisling movement, the Quisling treachery, was
he not?
A. No. Raeder had nothing at all to do with the
Quisling movement.
Q. Do you know a man, Erich Giese, Walter Georg Erich
Giese, who was an administrative employee of the
adjutancy of the C.-in-C. of the Navy in Berlin -
A. I did not quite catch the name.
Q. Giese, G-i-e-s-e. He was a - Part of his duties were
to receive the visitors of the C.-in-C. He was
assistant adjutant, and he was dismissed from his post
in April 1942. No doubt you recollect the man.
A. Will you please tell me the name again? Although it
was spelled to me; I did not catch it. Is this a
Norwegian?
Q. This is a German subject, an employee of the High
Command of the Navy. Part of his duties were to receive
all the C.-in-C.'s visitors, to accept applications for
interviews, and draw up the list of callers. Now you
are looking at an affidavit from this man, Document
D-722, to be Exhibit GB 479.
THE PRESIDENT: Has the witness answered the question
yet?
MAJOR ELWYN JONES: Not yet, my Lord.
THE WITNESS: Now I have the name. The man of whom you
are talking was in the reception-room of the Adjutant's
office. It was not for him to say who was to be
admitted to the Grand Admiral, that was my job. I asked
the callers for what reason they had come. Mr. Hagelin
did not visit Raeder before Quisling's visit, that is,
not before December 1939.
BY MAJOR ELWYN JONES:
Q. I am not suggesting that, but what I am suggesting
is that after December 1939, there was a very close
link between Raeder and the Quisling movement. I will
just read out to you this extract from the affidavit of
this man. From Page 3, my Lord, of the English text:
[Page 305]
Q. Are you saying that defendant Raeder never met
Hagelin?
A. He did not meet him before Quisling's visit in
December. Later he did not receive him any more.
Q. But he in fact received Hagelin and took him to
Hitler on 14th December, 1939, did he not?
A. He was accompanied by Quisling, that is correct. But
he did not have any special discussion with Raeder
alone.
Q. You said - You spoke this morning as to a conference
between Quisling and Raeder on 12th December, 1939, and
suggested that politics were not discussed at that
conference.
A. By the word "politics" I mean politics in the
National Socialistic sense, that is, National
Socialistic politics on the Norwegian side, and on our
side. The matters discussed were only Naval political
questions.
Q. But I will not go into a discussion of the question
of politics with you. I will consider the familiar
German definition that war is a continuation of
politics, by other means. But if you look at the
Document C-64, you will see that political problems
were discussed on 12th December. You see that it is a
report of Raeder to Hitler. It is found on Page 31 of
the Document Book 10 A, in which Raeder writes in
paragraph 2:
A. In reply to your first question, I should like to
say that in the minutes it says:
Q. At any rate, the defendant, Raeder, preferred the
reports of the traitor Quisling to the reports of the
German Ambassador in Oslo, which were entirely
different. That is so, is it not?
[Page 306]
Q. Now the Tribunal has the documents with regard to
that matter. I will not pursue it. I want to ask you
next about the relations with the United States of
America. When did the German Admiralty first know of
Japan's intention to attack the United States?
A. I can speak only for Raeder and myself. As far as I
know, it was not until the moment of the attack on
Pearl Harbour.
Q. But you had received a communication from your
German Naval Attache at Tokyo before the attack on
Pearl Harbour, indicating that an attack against the
United States was pending, had you not?
A. Pearl Harbour? No.
Q. But against the United States Forces. Just look at
the Document D-872, which will be Exhibit GB 480. You
see that those are extracts from the War Diary of the
German Naval Attache in Tokyo. The first entry is dated
3rd December, 1941:
"2. The Armed Forces foresaw this development and
consented to Kurusu being sent only to impress the
people with the fact that no stone had been left
unturned."
"3. The Armed Forces have already decided three
weeks ago that war is inevitable, even if the United
States, at the last minute, should make substantial
concessions. Appropriate measures are under way."
A. I don't quite follow the sense. I have already said
that we in Berlin had no contact with the Japanese
experts or attaches. I asserted that we first learned
of the Pearl Harbour incident by radio, and I cannot
quite see what difference it makes whether on 6th
December the Attache in Tokyo told us his predictions,
or whether he was drawing conclusions about a future
conflict from information sources which we could not
control. That has nothing to do with our having advised
the Japanese in Berlin to attack America.
Q. Are you saying that you had no conversations in
Berlin with the Japanese Attaches.
A. To my knowledge, there were no official conferences
between the two Admiralty staffs, that is, official
operational conferences between the Naval Operational
Staff and the Japanese Admiralty Staff.
THE PRESIDENT: Major Elwyn Jones, before you leave that
document, I think you ought to read paragraph 5.
MAJOR ELWYN JONES: Paragraph 5, my Lord, reads:
[Page 307]
"The Ambassador has no knowledge of the transmission
of the telegram, but is acquainted with its
contents."
THE PRESIDENT: With reference to what the witness has
just said, I do not know whether I understood him
rightly before, but what I took down was that he said
the German Admiralty first knew of Japan's intention to
attack after Pearl Harbour, not that it first knew of
Pearl Harbour by radio. It was the first indication
they had of an intention to attack.
MAJOR ELWYN JONES: That is so, my Lord.
Q. I am suggesting to you, witness, that you knew
perfectly well of the Japanese intention to attack the
United States before the incident of Pearl Harbour.
A. I do not know whether you are stressing Pearl
Harbour, or the fact that two days before the attack on
it, we received a telegram from Tokyo to the effect
that a conflict was to be expected. I was asked whether
we knew of the fact of the attack on Pearl Harbour, and
to that I said: "No." I said that we in Berlin had had
no conferences between the Naval Operational Staff and
the Japanese Naval Staff. What you are presenting to me -
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(Part 8 of 11)
[MAJOR ELWYN JONES continues his cross examination of Erich Schulte-Monting] "It must be ascertained whether it is possible to
gain bases in Norway with the combined pressure of
Russia and Germany, with the aim of improving
fundamentally our strategic and operational
position. The following questions are to be
examined-"
And then there follow these questions
"What places in Norway can be considered as bases?"
And then finally
"What decisive advantages would there be for the
conduct of the war at sea in gaining a base in North
Denmark, e.g., Skagen?"
Now, I suggest to you that those documents are the clue
to the German invasion of Norway. Do you not agree with
that?
"I can state the following about the preparations
which led up to the action against Denmark and
Norway: An appointment with the Commanderin-Chief
was frequently made for a Mr. Hagelin and another
gentleman, whose name I cannot recall at present,
through a Party official of Rosenberg's Foreign
Political Office; as a rule they were received
immediately. I also had received instructions that
if a Mr. Hagelin should announce himself personally,
I should always take him to the Commander-in-Chief
at once. I then soon learned from the minute book
and from conversations in my room that he was a
Norwegian confidential agent. The gentleman from the
Foreign Political Office who frequently accompanied
him also conversed with me, and confided in me, so
that I learned about the Raeder-Rosenberg
discussions and about the preparations for the
Norway campaign. According to all I heard, I can say
that the idea of this undertaking emanated from
Raeder, and met with Hitler's most joyous approval.
The whole enterprise was disguised by the pretence
of an enterprise against Holland and England. One
day Quisling too was announced at the
Commander-in-Chief's through Hagelin, and was
received immediately. Lieutenant Commander Schreiber
of the Naval Reserve, who was later Naval Attache in
Oslo, and knew the conditions in
Norway very well, also played a role in all these
negotiations. He worked with the Quisling Party and
its agents in Oslo."
A. It is not true that Mr. Hagelin was received by
Grand Admiral Raeder. Herr Giese cannot possibly have
any information about that, because he was stationed
two rooms away. If he had, perhaps, noted down that he
was received by me, that would in a certain sense be
correct. The fact is, that at the time, after the
Quisling-Hagelin visit, I had said that if he were to
pass through Berlin again, and he had any naval
political information in this connection, I should like
him to make this information available to me.
"As a result of the Russo-Finnish conflict,
anti-German feeling in Norway is even stronger than
hitherto. England's influence is very great,
especially because of Hambro, the President of the
Storthing (a Jew and a friend of Hore-Belisha) who
is all-powerful in Norway just now. Quisling is
convinced that there is an agreement between England
and Norway for the possible occupation of Norway; in
which case, Sweden would also stand against Germany.
Danger of Norway's occupation by England is very
great - possibly very imminent. From 11th January,
1940, on, the Storthing, and thereby the Norwegian
Government is unconstitutional, since the Storthing,
in defiance of the constitution, has prolonged its
term for a year."
Politics were very much under discussion at that
conference, were they not? You have said that the
defendant Raeder was anxious for peace with Norway. Was
it for peace with a Norway ruled by the traitor
Quisling?
"The Commander-in-Chief of the Navy points out that,
in connection with such offers, we can never know to
what extent the persons involved want to further
their own Party aims, and to what extent they are
concerned about German interests. Hence caution is
required."
This entry in the document which you have just
presented to me, corroborates what I was trying to say,
that is, that no party matters or matters depending on
agreement along ideological lines were to be settled
between Grand Admiral Raeder and Quisling. For this
reason, I said that Raeder did not discuss politics
with him, but merely factual matters. That Quisling, at
the time of his introduction, should mention certain
things as a sort of preamble is self-evident. But he
points out the factor of caution, and asks: "What does
this man want? Does he want to work with the Party or
does he really want to remain aloof from these things?"
"1800 hours. The Naval Attache extended an
invitation to several officers of the Japanese Naval
Ministry. It transpires from the conversation that
the negotiations in Washington must be regarded as
having broken down completely, and that, quite
obviously, the beginning of actions to the South by
the Japanese armed forces is to be expected in the
near future."
And then on 6th December, 1941: "Conversation with
Commander Shiba." The outcome of the conversation is
reported to Berlin in the following telegram:
"1. Last week, America proposed a non-aggression
pact between the United States, Britain, Russia and
Japan. In view of the Tripartite Pact, and the high
counter-demands, Japan rejected this offer.
Negotiations have therefore completely broken down."
And then - I will not read the whole document, and at
the end it says:
"A state of war with Britain and America would
certainly exist by Christmas."
Assuming that signal reached you before 8th December,
you became familiar with the plans of the perfidious
Japanese attack upon the United States, did you not?
"No exact details are available as to the zero hour
for the commencement of the Southern Offensive. All
the evidence, however, indicates that it may be
expected to start within three weeks, with
simultaneous attacks on Siam, the Philippines and
Borneo.
Now I want to -