The Structure of the Groups
The semi-tolerable life changed abruptly when Army Group Africa prisoners began to arrive at Trent Park from mid-May 1943. By 1 July 1943, 20 senior officers and three adjutants had been added. Initially their thoughts were focused on the defeat in Tunisia and the question of whether they had been responsible for it. After a few days they concluded that the disaster was not their fault.[123] Some blamed the Italians, who had kept their fleet at anchor, others doubted the strategic sense of having defended Tunisia for so long. Arnim even believed that his reports on the catastrophic situation had never been placed before Hitler. After about a week these conversations dissipated and the new arrivals began to group into the respective camps around Crüwell and Thoma so that their personal smouldering conflict now developed its own ‘group-dynamic explosive potential’.
Arraigned on Thoma’s side were von Broich, von Sponeck, von Liebenstein, Cramer, Luftwaffe generals Neuffer and Bassenge, and colonels Reimann, Schmidt, Drange and Heym. Köhncke and Ernst Wolters could also be counted as members of the ‘Thoma group’. Thoma himself was astonished that so many Luftwaffe officers – besides Neuffer and Bassenge, also Schmidt, Drange and Köhncke – spoke out critically against the regime and the course the war was taking.
Crüwell sought allies, for Thoma’s ‘eternal griping’ was ‘getting on his nerves’ and he was determined to stick by ‘the Prussian point of view’, defending Fatherland and Führer against all comers (Document 10). He found supporters in von Hülsen, Frantz,[124] Buhse and in Konteradmiral Meixner,[125] who was deeply disappointed at the lack of military bearing of the Trent Park officers. ‘Our generals are for the most part broken men. It is appalling what small people they are’ he noted in his diary on 7 August 1943 (there are similar entries on 6 July and 17 November 1943). The adjutants also divided: von Glasow inclined towards Thoma, while Boes and Hubbuch were apparently convinced National Socialists. Both were still of the opinion in 1993 that Thoma was a military disgrace and believed that he had gone over to the British in North Africa in 1942.[126] Most of the NCO valets took no sides and remained loyal to their general. When offered paid work in the Trent Park vegetable gardens they refused tenaciously because nothing would make them support the British war effort, no matter how small.[127] Finally Bassenge’s intervention put an end to this farce.
It can be summarised that while the ‘Thoma group’ considered the war lost, condemned the atrocities in the East and spoke detrimentally about Hitler and Nazism, the ‘Crüwell people’, though critical of the war situation, considered it by no means hopeless,[128] attempted to justify war crimes either by minimising their scale or doubting whether they had ever happened at all, and additionally defended Nazism. The groups were not organisations but rather a loose association of independent characters whose views on many matters coincided. Only a few shared Thoma’s radical outlook. Few spoke as openly as Thoma did. Some changed their opinions in time and others drifted between the groups, or eventually preferred to spend the time in other activities such as painting.[129] Graf Sponeck made such a good copy of Rembrandt’s ‘Man in a Golden Helmet’ that it was hung in the dining room.[130] Whereas the differences in opinion did not have the same significance as they did for Thoma and Crüwell, from the beginning they impregnated decisively the climate at Trent Park.
Crüwell urged Generaloberst von Arnim as Senior German Officer into action against the ‘evil spirit’ of von Thoma in order to stop ‘defeatism’.[131] On 9 July 1943 Arnim urged the prisoners to discontinue all ‘conversations which are in any way harmful to colleagues’. Looking on the dark side would not help bear captivity. Additionally it was one’s duty to the homeland to exude confidence and so help the people at home (Document 12). Arnim was therefore working to preserve fortitude in the camp and bolster the ‘rather shaky’ morale.[132] His talk did not have the desired effect and deepened the divisions.[133]
After Arnim’s intervention, literature critical of National Socialism such as Otto Braun’s Von Weimar zu Hitler was no longer read only secretly.[134] Many inmates enjoyed the free access to books, periodicals and radio broadcasts. Only Crüwell, Hülsen and Lt Hubbuch continued to read the Völkischer Beobachter,[135] and were anxious to prevent other prisoners listening to the BBC German Service news bulletins. Crüwell, Franz and also Arnim were infuriated that Thoma, Broich and others tuned in to this propaganda, but Arnim did not have the personal authority to forbid it.[136]
In another call to reason to the Thoma group, Arnim addressed the inmates again on 15 and 16 August 1943, demanding that they refrain from ‘defeatist talk’: in the propaganda war, the British should not be given ‘the means and the weapons’. He was unaware of course that recordings of conversations had given the British a richer fund of propaganda material than ever he could have dreamed. Besides, Arnim said, he wanted to ‘safeguard’ officers in the event of the German victory, he would not want to see officers being court-martialled for their behaviour in captivity.[137] Probably aware that Arnim’s words were directed primarily at him, Thoma responded, ‘To think it right that we should accept your laborious assessment of the situation as gospel – No! […] It has been our misfortune at home that full-grown generals, enchanted by Hitler, let themselves be told off like snotty-nosed schoolboys. It doesn’t change me, absolutely not.’[138]
Undoubtedly too much was asked of von Arnim in his role as Senior German Officer (SGO). Even as he arrived at Trent Park, most generals did not think of him too highly. Some held him responsible for the disaster in Tunisia and considered him no better than a good divisional commander. He lacked the charisma to arbitrate on differences and strengthen the cohesion. Even the group around Crüwell was estranged from Arnim, for whom as SGO he never succeeded in banning the BBC German Service. Finally, at a loss, he would take charge of the wireless and re-tune it to a German station, thus making himself look completely ridiculous. From then on he was an outcast, so unloved that nobody would accompany him when he wanted to take a ramble, and finally Crüwell saw himself obliged to order somebody to walk with him.[139] Arnim spent most of his time alone in his room staring at nothing for hours, making appearances ever more rarely in the officers’ mess.[140]
123
In his memoirs, von Arnim pointed to the overwhelming supply of materials to the Allied side, and the ‘drying up’ of supplies to the Axis forces, the latter being left finally without air cover. ‘It was like being a fireman fighting a dangerous blaze and having someone shut off the water behind your back.’ BA/MA N61/4, p. 8.
124
For Frantz’s position in the dispute between Thoma and Crüwell see SRGG 161, 27.6.1943, TNA WO 208/4165.
125
On 27 June 1943 Admiral Meixner assured Crüwell of his support, SRGG 163, TNA WO 208/4165, but came down heavily against corruption in the Party, and a few weeks later considered the war lost. Crüwell thought of Meixner as ‘an especially nice person in whose company he liked to be’, Crüwell Diary, Vol. 3, 1.1.1944, p. 55.
126
For the formation of cliques and the first discussions see GRGG 57, 15.7.1943, TNA WO 208/4363, also letter dated 3.7.1993 from Dr Klaus Hubbuch to General Beckmann. Hubbuch correspondence files.
128
Compare with the optimistic assessment of Boes in SRGG 428, 21.9.1943, TNA WO 208/4166.
129
In particular Kraus and Schnarrenberger (Thoma clique) and Egersdorf (Crüwell) distanced themselves from this dispute. GRGG 57, TNA WO 208/4363.
134
GRGG 58, TNA WO 208/4363. In summer 1943, the prisoners were supplied with the following political books: Spengler, ‘Untergang des Abendlandes’; Spengerl, ‘Preussentum und Sozialismus’; Heiden, ‘Europas Schicksal’; Langhoff, ‘Moorsoldaten’; Lochner, What about Germany?’. See GRGG 61, TNA WO 208/4363.
136
See GRGG 67, 70, 74, 78, 85, 19–25.9.1943, TNA WO 208/4363. The normal radio programme at Trent Park was as follows: 1000 BBC German news repeated at 1205, 1705 and 2200; 1400 news from Germany; 2140, 2240 and 2330, Calais-Sender (British propaganda broadcast from Bletchley Park); 2300 music from Calais-Sender; 0030 BBC German news in full. GRGG 169, 2–4.8.1944, TNA WO 208/4363.
139
GRGG 106, 5.12.1943, TNA WO 208/4363. The same behaviour continued at Clinton camp in the USA. After one of his ‘stupid’ speeches on 31.1.1945, when he said that it was only thanks to the Party (i.e. Hitler) that Germany had not yet lost the war, von Arnim was gradually cold-shouldered by most generals. Sponeck, ‘Meine Erinnerungen’, p. 146.