Raeder testified that he had frequently violated the Versailles treaty, but denied any intention of aggressive war.

The first was Carl Severing, who testified that every government in the Weimar Republic had violated the disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, and the politicians of Weimar were well aware that officers like Raeder were violating Versailles.

The second was Ernst von Weizsäcker, who testified that Raeder had not been involved in the propaganda effort to blame the sinking of the Athenia on the British.

Raeder testified that he was an apolitical professional who was just doing his duty, and to the extent he thought about politics, he disliked the Nazi regime.

Raeder testified that he was deeply horrified by the nature of the Nazi regime when he saw how badly Gessler had been tortured in March 1945, stated he had stopped wearing his Golden Party Badge to protest the Nazi regime after he had seen what had been done to Gessler, and he had frequently made " serious protests " against the Nazi regime during private meetings with Hitler, so it was unfair to blame him for the crimes of the Third Reich.

Raeder testified in his defence that he believed that the Commando Order was a " justified " order, and that the execution of the Royal Marines was no war crime in his own opinion.

The Social Democratic politician Carlo Schmid read out in the Bundestag the anti-Semitic lines from Raeder's Heroes ' Day Speech of 1939 ; noted that Raeder had not only refused to apologise for that speech, but testified at Nuremberg that he believed that Germany was threatened by " International Jewry "; and argued that Germans to have a better future meant Raeder could not be a role model or seen as a hero as Zenker and Heye wanted.

Raeder testified in his defense that he believed that the Commando Order was a " justified " order, and that the execution of the two Royal Marines was no war crime in his own opinion.

In response to protests from other senior officers that something was amiss as proven by the loss of the entire supply ship network in early 1941, in the middle of 1941 and again in the middle of 1942, Raeder ordered investigations into the security of German codes, but in both cases, it was concluded that the British were not reading German codes because the Enigma machine was considered to be unbreakable.

In response to Raeder's defence of pre-emptive war against Norway, the British prosecutor David Maxwell Fyfe read out the minutes of a meeting between Raeder and Hitler on 26 March 1940, which read: " British landing in Norway is not considered imminent-Raeder suggests action by us at the next new moon-to which Hitler agrees.

" When confronted with the minutes of the 26 March 1940 meeting by Maxwell Fyfe, Raeder had no response.

Raeder charged that British Commandos had committed atrocities against German forces during the Dieppe raid, and the Commando Order was only a reasonable German response to what he called the British " deviation " from the laws of war.

The conference of November 5, 1937 had been called in response to complaints from Admiral Raeder that the Navy ( Kriegsmarine ) was not receiving sufficient allocations of steel and other raw materials, and as a result, the entire Kriegsmarine building program was in danger of collapse.

When Maxwell Fyfe charged that Raeder was guilty of violating both the Treaty of Versailles and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and commented: " For 20 years, from 1918 to 1938, you and the German Navy had been involved in a course of complete, cold and deliberate deception of your treaty obligations ... Do you deny this was so ?".

The American historian Norman Goda wrote that Maxwell Fyfe and the American prosecutor Telford Taylor tore Raeder to pieces on the stand for his statements.

Maxwell Fyfe charged that Raeder had been part of the effort to cover up that it was an U-boat that sank the Athenia and to falsely accuse the British of sinking the Athenia.

Raeder claimed that he had been " very indignant " about his government's claim that Britain had sunk the Athenia, which led Maxwell Fyfe to remark that he had done nothing to express that " indignation ", just as he claimed to have been angry about the false charges of homosexuality against Werner von Fritsch, where he had also done nothing after Fritsch had been cleared.

When questioned by Maxwell Fyfe about the Libau massacres, Raeder claimed that he no idea about what had happened, and maintained that he would have stopped the massacres had he known.

Raeder never addressed the question of where the oil that was supposed to power the Z Plan fleet was going to come from, or where the oil would be stored once it had been imported.

Raeder also complained about the poor standard of aerial torpedoes, although their design was the Kriegsmarine's responsibility.

* German leadership rejected Hartenstein's cease fire proposal, partly because Admiral Raeder did not think it wise to enter into a " deal " with the Allies, nothing was to interfere with Eisbär's surprise attack on Cape Town to strike at the supplies destined for the British and Soviets, and Hitler had directed that no word of Laconias sinking or the proposed Axis rescue be transmitted to the Allies, though subordinates ignored Hitler's orders and communicated messages to the Allies about the proposed rescue attempt.

Owning to his cold and distant personality, Raeder was a man whom even his friends often admitted to knowing very little about.

Together with the war-time plans of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz to start building capital ships with diesel engines in order to expand the range of German warships, Trotha influenced Raeder into thinking about deep operations into the Atlantic as a way of forcing the British to break up their fleet.

On 18 March 1920 when Raeder's close friend, Admiral Magnus von Levetzow who had seized Kiel proposed a march on Berlin with the aim of deposing the government after the failure of the putsch in Berlin, Raeder declared his intention of joining Levetzow, only to change his mind a few hours later, and hastily called the Defence Minister Gustav Noske to tell him he had been " misunderstood " about joining Levetzow on his proposed march.

After the failure of the Kapp putsch he was marginalized in the Navy, being transferred to the Naval Archives, where for two years he played a leading role in the writing of the Official History of the Navy in World War I. Raeder also was the author of a number of studies about naval warfare, something that resulted in his being awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree honoris causa by the University of Kiel.

For Raeder, the first step towards persuading decision-makers to adopting navalist policies again was to end the damaging debates about what went wrong in the World War, and instead project a positive image of the Navy's history that was meant to sway decision-makers into navalism.

Other officers complained about the way in which Raeder sought to re-write history in the Official History in way that gloried Tirpitz with no regard to what actually happened with Admiral Assemann of the Historical Branch complaining to Raeder: " I am convinced that it makes no difference to you Herr Admiral, what we write ... We must only write in such a way that you have peace with the old admirals ".

The American historian Keith Bird wrote about Raeder's thinking about the role of the military, state and society: " For Raeder, the military and the navy in particular could not have a firm foundation unless they were grounded in the people: " A military must stand in close relationship with the people whom they serve and cannot lead its own existence ".

Through Raeder had doubts about Hitler's commitment to navalism, the banning of the SPD and KPD together with the militarist and ultra-nationalist tone of the new regime were appealing to him.

Raeder believed that if he could " educate " Hitler about the importance of sea power, then he would assure the creation of the greatest fleet ever in German history.

At the same time, Raeder worked to promote National Socialist ideology as opposed to the NSDAP in the Navy, ordering in September 1936 that all officers read a tract by Kriegsmarine Commander Siegfried Sorge called Der Marineoffizier about what it took to be a good officer., Sorge had claimed that one could not be a good naval officer without believing in National Socialist values.

The second part of the " Wegener thesis " about breaking the British distant blockade, namely seizing the Shetland Islands, Wegener's other " Gate to the Altantic ", Raeder rejected as early as the 1920s as utterly impractical.

Raeder later claimed during his testimony at Nuremberg and in his memoirs to have been opposed to the denunciation of the A. G. N. A., which he claimed to have been kept in the dark about, but contemporary evidence from 1939, not the least Raeder's own role as the author of the Z Plan suggests otherwise.

The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote about Raeder's role in invading Norway that :" Inside the German government during the war, Raeder always called attention to his own role in pushing the invasion of Norway ; after the war, he invariably blamed it on the British.

The American historians ' Williamson Murray and Alan Millet wrote about Raeder's thinking about Norway: "... since fall 1939, Admiral Raeder had advocated an aggressive policy toward Scandinavia to protect ore shipments and to establish naval bases in the area.

In his report to Hitler about Weserübung, Raeder claimed that the success of the operation was " undoubtedly largely " the work of the capital ships, and argued that the campaign in Norway had " amply confirmed the soundness " ( emphasis in the original ) of the construction policies of the 1930s that favoured capital ships over U-boats and carriers.

Admiral Conrad Patzig commented about Raeder in early 1940: " Raeder is strongly influenced by his surroundings and exceptional circumstances and under stress is impulsive and unpredictable if his pride and vanity are involved ".

Hitler said he needed more time to think about what Raeder had suggested.

The only problem with bringing about this scenario Raeder mentioned was that the Japanese had informed him that they would attack Singapore only " if Germany proceeds to land in England ".

Neither Raeder or Hitler could quite make up their minds about what was the primary purpose of the German fleet in Norway, which led to much command confusion, and in turn led ultimately to the defeat in the Battle of the Barents Sea.

In a speech given on Heroes ' Day on 12 March 1939, Raeder praised Hitler: "... for the clear and unmerciful declaration of war against Bolshevism and International Jewry is referring to the Kristallnacht pogrom here, whose drive for destruction of peoples we have felt quite enough in our racial body ".