Crüwell however had another opinion. He was proud that the Army generals of the Third Reich had served so loyally.[83] He emphasised that he had not gone through life blinkered, but considered it impossible that a German soldier could commit a foul deed.[84] It was obvious to him that the war could last very much longer yet,[85] but in the final analysis it had to be won, for otherwise it would be ‘Finis Germaniae’.[86] Crüwell was thinking of his four children and their uncertain future,[87] but also of the hundreds of thousands of Germans who would have fallen in vain should the war be lost.[88]
How did these two generals, whose military careers at first sight ran such similar courses, manage to develop such divergent points of view? A closer look at their lives may provide the clue.
Thoma ended World War I as Oberleutnant in No. 3. Bavarian Infantry Regiment. On the Eastern Front during the Brossilov offensive in 1916 he won the Military Order of Max Josef, the highest Bavarian decoration for an officer. The award brought with it a title. Between 1936 and 1939 he led the Legion Condor ground forces in the Spanish Civil War. In the Polish campaign he commanded a panzer regiment; from March 1940 to July 1941 he served as General der Schnellen Truppen (motorised units). During this latter appointment at OKH he obtained a comprehensive overview of the general war situation and associated with the most senior military commanders.[89] Thoma met Hitler on numerous occasions and got on very well with him, since they conversed in the same Bavarian dialect. Thoma’s assertion that he knew Hitler in the Great War cannot be confirmed, but seems unlikely.[90]
Thoma commanded a panzer division from July 1941 and received the Knight’s Cross for his efforts during the Soviet winter offensive. At Rommel’s request he arrived in Egypt in September 1942 as CO, Deutsches Afrika Korps. Bachelor Thoma was a military man through and through, personally brave and always to be found in the front line.[91] Wounded on numerous occasions, he was undoubtedly an inspired soldier. British military theoretician Liddell Hart described him as a tough but loveable character, an enthusiast who loved battle for its own sake, who fought without hate and respected all his enemies. In middle age he had found contentment as a knight-errant. His critical mind enabled him to see beyond his own backyard and to analyse politics and strategy.[92] As a result of his analysis of tactical experiences during the Polish campaign, in November 1939 he warned that it had not yet been proved that panzer divisions could reach their objectives against a modern well-equipped and well-led enemy in the absence of air supremacy.[93]
At a commanders’ conference on the Eastern Front on 21 March 1942 when General Friedrich Materna reported Hitler as saying recently that Britian was taking giant strides towards its Bolshevisation, Thoma countered immediately, ‘We will be ripe for bolshevisation ten times sooner than the British.’[94]
The memoirs of Generalleutnant Theodor von Sponeck, CO, 90th Light Division in North Africa and an inmate at Trent Park with Thoma, mention a meeting on 2 October 1942 on the El Alamein front:
General Thoma, a typical Bavarian, engaged me at once in a long conversation from which I inferred that he took a very black view of the future. Clever and open-minded, but in many things blinkered, he was consumed by a raging hatred for the Hitler regime which he could barely conceal. At the time this was dangerous, but not in the African desert, surrounded by colleagues who thought highly of his personal bravery.[95]
Thoma’s front-line experience was forged not only from German victories, but also by the catastrophe before Moscow in the winter of 1941 and the oppressive material superiority of the British at El Alamein. Nevertheless his critical assessment of the war situation was based not only on these major reverses. When Thoma was captured on 4 November 1942 during the hard fighting for a hill in the Egyptian desert,[96] the Wehrmacht held most of the Caucasus and the Volga, while all of Libya and half of Egypt were in German hands. Very few Wehrmacht commanding generals of the time can have had such a pessimistic and – as we now know – realistic vision as Thoma who, according to his own admission while at OKH, was denounced as a defeatist.[97] He thus had the capability to analyse the general situation shrewdly, and this explains his efforts in August 1942 to resist his transfer to Egypt, where he considered the situation unpromising.[98]
From the time preceding his capture there is unfortunately little material on Thoma. A 16-page memorandum to Army C-in-C (ObdH) von Brauchitsch composed in October 1940 and in which he ‘foresaw the whole thing’ (Document 14) can be found neither in the rudimentary files of General der Schnellen Truppen nor those of the ObdH. Similarly, the two-page letter to OKW in which Thoma allegedly protested against the mass shootings in White Russia (Document 84) also appears not to have survived.[99]
In his pocket calendar, Thoma made notes daily. For 1941–42 one finds no entries about politics or the war situation. Most notes are about the weather and describe where he is.[100] Only in captivity did he become more expansive. Here he noted in his diary that he had ‘a bad feeling’ when the preparations for the Russian campaign began in October 1940 – a sentiment in which he was not alone.
When the war had not been brought to a successful conclusion by the autumn of 1941, I used every opportunity at conferences to make known my opinion that the whole situation for Germany was becoming extremely critical since time was against us and America would certainly come in on the other side once the USA had made the necessary economic preparations. When we had successes but still no victory in the East in 1942, I knew then that the war was unwinnable.[101]
Apparently the preparations to attack the Soviet Union ignited in Thoma a process of reflection which culminated over the next two years in the certainty that the war was lost. Captivity played no part in his ‘awakening’. The notes in his diary made at Trent Park coincide precisely with the CSDIC protocols. Thoma noted on 17 January 1943:
…It is, when one considers the war potential of all those in the world against us, only a postponement, no prevention of the outcome. A long war is – measured against the war situation – impossible for little Germany, and since we have already been fighting for several years, it cannot end happily for us. I felt that when America entered the war, and the situation is very similar to when they came in during World War I.[102]
85
He stated this previously in conversation with Thoma, see SRM 98, 21.11.1942, TNA WO 208/4136.
89
Confirmed by Generaloberst von Arnim in respect of both Thoma and General Hans Cramer, from April 1942 to January 1943 Chief of Staff and Commander (General der Schnellen Truppen). See SRGG 191, 4.7.1943, TNA WO 208/4165.
90
Hitler and Thoma served with different Bavarian infantry regiments (Reserve-Reg. No. 16 and No. 3 respectively) and are unlikely to have met during WWI. After his return from American captivity on 27.10.1919, Thoma served with Reichswehr units at Munich where he would have been in close proximity to Hitler and a meeting may have occurred. SRM 78, 20.11.1942, TNA WO 208/4136.
91
For his assertion that a general must lead from the front see SRX 1572, 7.2.1943, TNA WO 208/4162. A rough description of his capture appears in SRM 108, 23.11.1942, TNA WO 208/4136.
92
Liddell Hart, ‘Deutsche Generale’, p. 79. Liddell Hart met Thoma at the end of 1945 when the expansion of the German panzer arm was discussed.
94
BA/MA RH 27/20–97 Materna had this information from Rudolf Ruoff, C-in-C 2.Pz.Armee, who had attended one of Hitler’s conferencesd on foreign affairs. To his reply, Materna allegedly responded, ‘Yes, but no politics here.’ SRX 1648, 11.3.1943. In his diary at the beginning of 1944, with regard to the foregoing, he wrote, ‘I was appalled at such ignorance’, BA/MA N2/3.
98
SRX 1572, 7.2.1943, TNA WO 208/4162 and SRM 104, 22.11.1942, TNA WO 208/4163. In October 1940 Thoma had been on a fact-finding mission to Libya and provided Hitler with a totally negative impression of the Italian leadership and forces. ‘Das Deutsche Reich unde der Zweite Weltkrieg’, Vol. 3. pp. 202, 206.
99
No documents of this kind have been found in the files of the General der Schnelltruppen, 17.Pz.Div. (which Thoma commanded from 19.7.1941) nor the OKW.
100
Thoma made only two diary entries about the Russian campaign: on 20.1.1942 he described the cold and the breakdown of order in the front line, and next day the cold and despair in the line, ‘I have never known a similar situation in my 12 years’ experience of warfare’, Thoma Diary, BA/MA N2/2.
102
His 1.1.1943 entry compared the situation for Germany as being similar to that of 1917, and references to the greater economic potential of the Allies occur everywhere. Thoma Diary, BA/MA N2/3.