7 Dec.
45
out of the occupation:
(a) By peaceful means that is to say, German forces summoned by
Norway; (b) to agree to do so by force."
That
was the 12th of December, the meeting at which Raeder made this report
to Hitler.
If the Court will now look at Document C-66, which
is Raeder's record of these transactions for the purpose of history, the
Court will observe, in the last sentence of the second paragraph of the
section of C-66 headed "(b) Weserübung," these words:
". . . thus we got
in touch with Quisling and Hagelin, who came to Berlin at the
beginning of December, and were taken to the Führer by me with
the approval of Reichsleiter Rosenberg."
And
then the Court will observe a note at the end of the page:
"At
the crucial moment R" presumably Rosenberg "hurt
his foot, so that I visited him in his house on the morning of the
14th December."
That is, of
course, Raeder's note; and it indicates the extent of his contact in
this conspiracy. The report continues:
"On
the grounds of the Führer's discussion with Quisling and Hagelin
on the afternoon of the 14th of December 1939, the Führer gave
the order that preparations for the Norwegian operation were to be
made by the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces.
"Until
that moment the naval operations staff had taken no part in the
development of the Norwegian question and continued to be somewhat
skeptical about it. The preparations which were undertaken by Captain
Krancke in the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces were founded,
however, on a memorandum of the naval war staff."
The
Court may well think that the note of the Defendant Raeder referring to
the crucial moment was an appropriate one because the Court will see
that on that day, the 14th of December, Hitler gave the order that
preparations for the Norwegian operation were to be begun by the Supreme
Command of the Armed Forces.
If the Court will now turn to
Document 007-PS, which is further on in the document book and which the
Court will remember is Rosenberg's report on the activities of his
organization it is after the "D" documents if
the Court will turn to about 10 lines from the bottom of the first page
of Annex I dealing with Norway, the Court will see that there were
further meetings between Quisling and the Nazi chiefs in December; and I
am going to read now the section beginning: