The Nuremberg Interviews (7 page)

Russia was the greatest threat to world peace, said Doenitz, and he quoted articles read in the
Reader’s Digest
written by Joseph Kennedy, the former American ambassador to England, and other articles.

Did Doenitz believe another war was probable? He replied, shrugging his shoulders, “No. Quite impossible. With the new weapons like the atom bomb, Russia would have it, too, and use it first. It is a very difficult world. But that trouble is imminent is obvious. The
Herald Tribune had
a cartoon which I saw recently showing the world divided by a great ditch, the U.S.A. and Great Britain on one side, and the USSR on the other.” Well, how would these difficulties be solved, in Doenitz’s opinion? “I can’t say now while I am a prisoner. Just let me be freed and I will have plenty to write about, and speak my mind freely. Russia is the greatest criminal nation in the world and Communism the greatest evil. I have to laugh when they accuse me of participating in a conspiracy. The Russians are always conspiring.

“The Russians asked us for a piece of Denmark and parts of Poland before we went to war with them. Now they accuse me of political conspiracy. I was sitting with my fleet in the Bay of Biscay, hardly ever went to Berlin before 1943, when Raeder retired and I was made chief of the navy. I accept responsibility for U-boat warfare from 1933 onward, and of the entire navy from 1943 on, but to make me responsible for what happened to Jews in Germany, or Russian soldiers on the east front — it is so ridiculous all I can do is laugh.”

What about the navy itself? Did the navy have any anti-Semitic policies? “None at all. I had four Jewish high officers that I can think of at the moment. One was Rogge, a vice admiral who was in charge of the education of naval cadets all along until the end of the war.
¹²
Another was a captain. I had an affidavit from Rogge for my defense. If any of those four Jewish officers had known about what was happening to the Jews inside Germany or elsewhere by Himmler and Hitler, they would surely have told me. There was a letter I received from Hitler once in 1943 saying that the party complained because a Jew was in charge of the education of naval cadets. He meant Admiral Rogge. I replied that he should mind his own business.

“Our navy was like on an island. We had complete autonomy. A few times Hitler suggested that jurisdiction over political and criminal offenses among navy personnel be handled by the SS or other agencies of the party. I always declined. I always said that the navy must try its own offenders.”

Did not Doenitz know of Jewish persecutions at all? “No. I knew nothing but naval matters. I was busy from morning till night with such affairs. We had no Jewish problem in the navy.” What was his attitude toward Jews in general? “I had no prejudices. Once in 1934, I stopped at a Spanish port and was visited by a German Jew who owned some lead mines in the north of Spain. I had a luncheon aboard my vessel and arranged it through the German consul. I mentioned that I wanted to invite, among others, this certain Jew and his daughter. The German consul said it was quite impossible because the man was a Jew. My adjutant grinned at me because he knew my attitudes. I replied that my ship was my domain and I would have aboard it anyone I chose. The man and his daughter came to lunch.

“He was a very decent chap. When I left, he thanked me and was very sympathetic toward Nazism. I was at the time collecting porcelain. In that part of Spain there was a two-hundred-year-old porcelain factory which made a certain type of blue-and-white patterned plate which I wanted for my collection. I couldn’t find one to buy. When we were at sea, my adjutant presented me with a beautiful plate of this porcelain, which was a gift from the German Jew. He was very tactful, and didn’t want to present it to me personally, but waited until I was at sea to make a gift of it to me. I corresponded with him until 1939. I don’t know what happened to him afterward. He once wrote me that his daughter married a Spanish prince.”

What did Doenitz think of the trials thus far? “Ach! It’s a joke, it seems to me. What they will do to us is of small concern, but that any of us is guilty of conspiracy is ridiculous. My own case is quite clear. So I sit here in my cell with my clear, clean conscience, and await the decision of the judges. There will probably be a difference of opinion between the British and American and French and Russians as to who is guilty and of what and so forth. If these trials confined themselves to who ordered killing of the Jews and other killings of human beings, it would be all right. I wouldn’t be kept in this dock three hours. But I sit here from November on, and hear the same stuff over and over again. Half the time I no longer listen. I just draw pictures or jot down my musings.”

Did he think any of the twenty-one defendants guilty? He evaded the question. “I am not a judge. I don’t want to express my opinion. Before I came to Mondorf
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I wouldn’t shake hands with Goering, I didn’t like him. I never saw Streicher before Mondorf, and in the beginning I wouldn’t talk with him. Now I do. We all have the same destiny, at least for the present, and I see no reason for not being on friendly terms with each other.”

Yes, but did he, within himself, find differences in guilt or lack of guilt among the twenty-one defendants? I persisted. “Certainly inside my heart I know degrees of difference. But I can’t blame any of these men who share a common fate with me. The big folly of this trial is that it lacks the two men who are to blame for anything which was criminal, namely Hitler and Himmler.”

Did not Hitler and Himmler require assistance to achieve their aims? Wasn’t it reasonable to assume that a former corporal in the German army required some expert assistance in his deeds? “Well, in the first place Hitler was no ordinary German corporal. He had a tremendous mind. I can remember nine digits backward in the intelligence test Dr. Gilbert gave me.
¹⁴
Hitler could remember things in a phenomenal sort of way. He had the ability to recall everything he had ever read.”

Did Doenitz, then, believe that none of the defendants were guilty of anything? Did he mean that they could all transfer the blame to Hitler and Himmler? “Let us put it this way. I assume responsibility for the German submarines from 1933, and of the German navy from 1943. But to make me responsible for a conspiracy is false. Each man must be responsible for his share.”

Would it be correct to say, then, that Wilhelm Keitel, for example, was responsible for the misconduct of the German army, insofar as the orders for the misconduct bore his name? “I don’t want to say. Keitel was completely under Hitler’s influence. My own case is clearer. Your own admiral who sent me his greetings and high esteem bears that out.”

And what about Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Himmler’s chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA)? “Again I think it was Himmler who was responsible and not Kaltenbrunner. I know that if I had been given orders to do as was done in the SS I would have refused.”

Doenitz’s “solid front” attitude with the defendants was particularly strong as far as Goering was concerned. “I can’t see a thing wrong with Goering’s behavior as far as this trial is concerned. They have proven none of the charges. I have mentioned to Goering that the trouble with
National Socialism is that it is a house divided, that we Germans tried to live in a community without considering our neighbors, and Goering agreed with me. So even Goering isn’t as bad a fellow as the prosecution would have the world believe.”

He smiled cynically and remarked, “Wait and see.” I inquired what he was driving at. What would happen? “Just you wait and see. Your President Harry Truman and Secretary James Byrnes will have trouble with Russia. The East is threatening the West. Two varying cultures and kinds of humans are vying for power. They will thank me someday for sending the navy to the West and withdrawing our armies to avoid a surrender to the Russians. I think that’s what your American admiral in court here the other day had in mind. It was a very smart move of your president to send General Bedell Smith to Moscow, and General George Marshall to China. Those two places need a military man to smell out and feel the pulse of the countries, to find out, more than any civilian could, what steps are being taken in preparation for war.

“I receive letters from my former naval officers asking me questions. I get pleasure and satisfaction from them. Do you know that several of my submarine designers and engineers have been asked by Russia to work for the Russian government to tell them about plans for the new secret German submarine which could travel underwater all the way from Germany to Japan? Yes. The Russians are after those secrets. Then they will build hundreds of such submarines, which we had just about ready when the war came to an end.”

I said that there were a few points in his biography I should like clarification upon. He was smoothly uninformative about many of the matters in which I was interested, particularly about his early childhood.

His mother had died, presumably of tuberculosis of the lungs, at an early age, when he was four years old. His father died at the age of fifty-five of uremia, when Doenitz was twenty-one. His father never remarried. He had but one brother, two years his senior, who was killed during a bombing raid of Berlin in 1943. His childhood was a “happy” one, in Schleswig-Holstein. “Various relatives of my father” served as mother to him at various times.

His own marriage is a happy one. His wife is alive and well in Schleswig-Holstein at present and merely waiting for his release. His oldest child, a daughter, is married and has three small children. The daughter lives in the same town as the mother. Doenitz’s two sons were
killed in action in the navy, in 1943 and 1944, at ages twenty-one and twenty-three, unmarried.

“My only true friend here in the prison among the defendants is Albert Speer. He is a great architect and has a great genius for organization. When I came to Berlin in 1943 to take charge of the navy, there was a housing shortage. The navy assigned me a poor-looking house in Dahlem. I phoned my friend Speer and told him I needed a house. He said he would do his best. Next day he phoned and said my wife should come over to inspect the house he had for me. It was a beautiful manor house, on a hill, with two wide windows on either side and great gardens all around it. It was two stories high, with a fine broad staircase connecting the two floors. Often in the evenings Speer and his wife would visit me and my wife, and we would return the visits. Speer would bring along his pianists and violinists, who were perfect. We would spend many a musical evening together.”

Doenitz played the flute since childhood and can still play “fairly well.” He said that his father wanted him to study violin but his brother was learning at that time, and it sounded like a cat with its tail caught in a door, so he refused and chose flute lessons. “Now I’m sorry I didn’t learn the violin because I prefer it to any other instrument. It shows I should have listened to my father’s advice.”

What did he think of the Führer principle? “It’s all right, as long as the Führer is a good man. Hitler was good, or so I thought until the end of the war and all these atrocities were brought forth. There isn’t anything wrong with the strongman principle in politics. In fact, it’s too bad your President Roosevelt isn’t alive today. Things would have been different at the Potsdam Conference. There was Churchill, Truman, and Stalin. Churchill had just been defeated and Clement Attlee came.
¹⁵
Truman was a new hand and did not know how to handle Stalin. Roosevelt would never have agreed to the boundaries as they now exist due to the Potsdam Conference.”

Hans Frank
1900–1946

Hans Frank, Hitler’s personal lawyer, was governor general of Poland during World War II. He was found guilty at Nuremberg of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and was hanged on October 16, 1946.

Hans Frank was interviewed again this evening. He was in his cell, having come down from court about an hour before. He had just finished his evening meal. It was about 6:30 p.m. He was apparently happy to see me and Mr. Triest (the translator), whom he addressed as “Mr. Translator.” Frank cleared his cot and chair of clothing, which was strewn about haphazardly, and invited us to be seated. He spoke some English, but I preferred speaking to him in German through the interpreter. I told him my reasons for this preference, and said that he could answer in German or English as he wished. He seemed pleased by this arrangement, and the conversation proceeded largely in German. I explained that I was concerned with the psychological welfare of the defendants in my capacity as prison psychiatrist, but that I was naturally interested in learning about their individual characters.

He seemed agreeable and said he understood, as Dr. Kelley, my predecessor, had talked with him. “Since you are also a psychiatrist, you will probably find my case interesting.” He smiled with his customary leering grimace and cackled. I asked if he had any particular physical or other complaints. “None except this sty on my right eye.” This began in December, recurred in January, and was present for the past few days
again. He also had “very bad” sties three years ago. He believed that the drafts and strong lighting in court may have caused it. Two years ago it was caused by overwork. It was very painful, he said. Examination today revealed a slight sty on the right lower lid near the external canthus without much inflammation.