27 Nov. 45
instructions for the Commander-in-Chief of the fleet and the
admirals commanding the Baltic and North Sea. I offer the document in
evidence as Exhibit USA-55.
The short covering letter is as follows:
"To: C-in-C Navy.
"The Minister has decided the following after the meeting:
"1. The inconspicuous air reconnaissance in the German bay,
not over the line Texel-Doggerbank, from midday on Z-Day onward, has
been approved. C-in-C Air Force will instruct the Air Command VI from
midday 7 March to hold in readiness single reconnaissance aircraft to
be at the disposal of the C-in-C fleet.
"2. The Minister will reserve the decision to set up a
U-boat reconnaissance line until the evening of 7 March. The
immediate transfer of U-boats from Kiel to Wilhelmshafen has been
approved.
"3. The proposed advance measures for the most part exceed
Degree of Emergency A and therefore are out of the question as the
first countermeasures to be taken against military preparations of
neighboring states. It is far more essential to examine the advance
measures included in Degree of Emergency A, to see whether one or
other of the especially conspicuous measures could not be
omitted."
That is signed "Keitel".
The rest of the documents are detailed naval orders --
operational orders--and I think I need not read further. For the
historical emphasis of this occasion, Hitler made a momentous speech
on 7 March 1936. I have the volume of the Völkischer
Beobachter, Berlin, Sunday, 8 March 1936, our Document 2289-PS,
which I offer in evidence as Exhibit USA-56.
This is a long speech which the world remembers and of which I
shall only read a short portion:
"Men of the German Reichstag! France
has replied to the repeated friendly offers and peaceful assurances
made by Germany by infringing the Rhine Pact through a military
alliance with the Soviet Union exclusively directed against Germany.
In this manner, however, the Locarno Rhine Pact has lost its inner
meaning and ceased in practice to exist. Consequently, Germany
regards herself, for her part, as no longer bound by this dissolved
treaty. The German Government is now constrained to face the new
situation created by this alliance, a situation which is rendered
more acute by the fact that the Franco-Soviet treaty has been
supplemented