NEUFFER: Well, this is the end; we can’t hold the Russians now – there just isn’t anything left there.
REIMANN: Do you remember, the German Army’s black day on 8 August 1918?[53]
NEUFFER: But that was nothing by comparison. There’s no doubt about it now, in my opinion it’s just a matter of weeks.
Document 25
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 160
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 15–16 July 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]
SCHLIEBEN: As I said today, why has this man HITLER never been abroad? I mean, he’s seen absolutely nothing… HIMMLER, who’s an out-and-out criminal.
THOMA: The nation can’t deny that it must share the blame itself.
SCHLIEBEN: Merciful Heavens!
THOMA: If someone goes on defending the whole thing now, then I say he is either stupid, cowardly or lacking in character.
SCHLIEBEN: Our poor German people! One more thing: why have we got this impossible military leadership? Merely because that apprentice has his finger in everything! I’ve never met him in person.[54]
KÖHN: I should have some hope left if things weren’t in such a state on the Eastern Front.
HENNECKE: I haven’t the faintest hope left; on the contrary, I think it’d be wrong to be hopeful. It would only be self-deception. There is only the faint chance that at least less people will be killed… Just imagine it: everyone wants to get away and they will already be paying fantastic prices for any kind of small boats. They want to leave EAST PRUSSIA, LITHUANIA and all the places to which we sent our bombed-out evacuees; the same business is going on all the way down, in POLAND, LATVIA, POSEN and right down to CZECHOSLOVAKIA. Conditions will be similar to what they were in FRANCE.[55]
It would be far better for everyone to stay put, to end the struggle and to try and settle things peacefully. I don’t think the Russians would carry off the women and everything there; I don’t believe they would. Our stories are sure to have been exaggerated.
KÖHN: Do you think so?
HENNECKE: Of course. Everyone says that the Russians were perfectly—
KÖHN: But no one has been there.
HENNECKE: No, but… they are well disciplined.
KÖHN: Nobody has ever seen that – If you think of the way they dragged children away in SPAIN;[56] that is surely an actual fact and they apparently do the same thing in ITALY.
HENNECKE: I don’t know whether that isn’t one of our exaggerated stories. We have exaggerated a great deal.
KÖHN: Well, it’s possible, of course.
HENNECKE: And those Spaniards we aided are well-off now. My God, something is certainly wrong somewhere. It’s obvious that TURKEY will go over in the near future too.[57]
(re newspaper article on the war situation) It’s obviously pretty bad, if the FÜHRER is no longer convinced of the efficacy of his ideas, or rather of his ideas on defence. That an order to evacuate the BALTIC STATES wasn’t issued long ago is obviously due to political reasons, because they argue that in that case FINLAND would break away at once.[58] Those are all symptoms of a pending collapse. It’s no use kidding ourselves.
Admiral VOSS[58a] once appeared and went for one of us, saying: ‘What do you mean by it? Things are going brilliantly in RUSSIA.’ That was one of those gentlemen from the FÜHRER’s HQ! We were all left speechless. How can the prospects be brilliant when we’ve just given up the UKRAINE? After all the talk about the UKRAINE in numberless newspaper articles; that this third year of her occupation was to bring the first real harvest, which would ensure our supplies for all time; the prospects can’t very well be brilliant when we’ve just given up the UKRAINE. It’s all nonsense; it’s just as if they were wearing blinkers! It is a crime against the German people – I am really becoming convinced of it. And on top of that, when, as I heard yesterday, that man actually said on the occasion of a small celebration to distribute decorations to Party members; ‘German National Socialism and the National Socialist REICH are invincible,’ well, it just makes you laugh. That just isn’t sane any more. The trouble is that people believe it, just as we ourselves used to believe similar stories; I believed ROMMEL. This deceiving of the troops, too, is frightful; one doesn’t know where to hide one’s face. MONTGELAS,[59] a very sincere fellow, once said to me: ‘I can’t associate myself with that;’ I never repeated it. Above all he was very frank in his attitude to the Party and said: ‘I have experience of life and of the world and I can see that the whole thing has feet of clay. I cannot have things told to my men in that way; I should consider myself false and dishonourable.’ I should like to know what RAEDER[60] and people like him are thinking nowadays; they all share the blame. They were the people who should have taken a firm stand; they should have got together and told the FÜHRER quite plainly: ‘Things can’t go on like this.’ As Service people they should have been able to realise it. They shouldn’t have been afraid of his attacks of rage, even if it had meant death for them—
KÖHN: As much was required of us. Who bothered whether we would be killed when we went to the front, or even went to visit our own troops, for it was often worse for a ‘Kommandeur’ going to join his troops than for the men in the front line. After all, I was at GLACERIE[61] the last day, when the enemy was already in the wood right in front of the ‘Bataillon’s’ battle HQ. It was irresponsible, what they… there.
HENNECKE: Yes, and on the other hand, those people should have had sufficient courage as citizens to tell the FÜHRER: ‘Things can’t go on.’
KÖHN: He wouldn’t see it. However, people like BRAUCHITSCH and BOCK[62] etc. will have told him so. Whereupon he just dismissed them.
HENNECKE: The others should have done the same, until he’d dismissed them all. Then things would have been put right.
KÖHN: But then there were ambitious fellows among them who still—
HENNECKE: Yes, like KEITEL, who’s a yes man.
KÖHN: KEITEL, JODL, ZEITZLER etc. – all that crowd are apparently extremely ambitious.
HENNECKE: They are the guilty men!
KÖHN: This is how ROHRBACH (PW) imagines the course of the war: first there is to be a ‘General’ in GERMANY who will take over the government. Secondly, he will immediately enter into negotiations with ENGLAND with the following result: the war in the West will cease immediately, the German troops will be transferred to the East at once and will take up the battle against the Bolshevists.
HENNECKE: These ideas are all prompted by THOMA (PW).
KÖHN: Yes. Thirdly, the French and English troops etc. will follow on the heels of the German troops and occupy GERMANY, so that they will remain secure in the rear at least. I said to him: ‘First, there is no “General” who can suddenly take over the government. Secondly, do you really believe that the German people, with all this fighting behind them and having made some sort of peace on one front, would then start fighting again in the East? It’s completely impossible.’
53
On 8.8.1918 the British 4th Army (including the Canadian and Australian Corps), flanked by French 1st Army, attacked the trenches of German 2.Armee south-east of Amiens using over 500 tanks. Within a few hours the attackers had forced a great breach in the front, taken 29,000 prisoners and captured 400 guns. Ludwig stigmatised this as ‘the black day of the German Army’ because of the great losses in material and the only brief resistance offered by whole units before surrendering. Between 8 and 11 August around Amiens the Germans lost 74,000 men, the Allies 22,000. But neither Neuffer nor Reimann was there. Bose, ‘Katastrophe des 8. August 1918’. For a general view from the British perspective see Harris, ‘Amiens to the Armistice’.
54
Hitler’s frequent amateurish meddling no doubt proved of benefit to the Allied cause. The generals used it to deflect attention from their own errors and heaped blame on Hitler alone for the disasters in the second half of the war. Wegner, ‘Erschriebene Siege’. For Hitler’s role as supreme leader see Klaus Schmider’s study ‘Warlord Hitler’, Sutton, 2007.
55
Hennecke was very pessimistic about the military situation following the collapse of Army Group Centre after the surrender at Minsk on 11.7.1944. Contrary to his fears, however, the front was repaired and the Russian drive into Germany repealed. Evacuations were only achieved from Memel, which the Russians had encircled in mid-October 1944.
56
During the Spanish Civil War there were numerous cases of the children of Republicans being taken to the Soviet Union. Kowalsky, ‘La Unión Soviética y la Guerra Civil española’, pp. 96–121.
57
Until 1.3.1945 Turkey resisted pressure from the Western Allies to enter the war. Diplomatic relations with Berlin were broken off on 2.8.1944.
58
As Chief of the Army General Staff, Kurt Zeitzler had been agitating since June 1944 for Hitler to pull out of the Baltic states in order to strengthen the central sector of the Eastern Front. Hitler declined this and the request of C-in-C, Army Group North, Generaloberst Friessner, for permission to pull back a few weeks later. Hitler’s main preoccupation was the possibility that he would lose Finland from the Axis. Only after Helsinki had departed the coalition on 2.9.1944, and a major Soviet offensive began 14 days later, did Hitler approve the withdrawal of units around Riga. Meier-Welcker, ‘Abwehrkämpfe am Nordflügel der Ostfront’. For coalition politics see Salewski, ‘Staatsräson und Waffenbrüderschaft’.
58a
Vizeadmiral Hans-Erich Voss (30.10.1897–18.11.1969), from 1.3.1943 permanent representative of C-in-C, Kriegsmarine at FHQ.
59
Meant here is Generalleutnant Graf Max von Montgelas (1860–1938), great-grandson of the Bavarian president and son of Bavarian diplomat Ludwig von Montgelas. 1879 entered Bavarian Army; 1900 Battalion Cdr, East Asiatic Expeditionary Corps; 1901–3 Military Attaché, Peking. 1910–12 Senior QM, Kaiser’s General Staff; 1912–15 CO, 4.Bavarian Inf.Div. After the war he worked for Foreign Ministry on publication of ‘Deutsche Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch’ (German documents relating to the outbreak of war). He was a convinced opponent of the Versailles Treaty and the ‘German War Guilt’ clause.
60
Recent research on Großadmiral Erich Raeder (24.4.1876–6.11.1960), C-in-C, Kriegsmarine, prove his strong affinity to National Socialism. Jörg Hillmann, ‘Erich Raeder’, University of the Bundeswehr, Hamburg, in preparation.
62
Generalfeldmarschall Walther von Brauchitsch and Generalfeldmarschall Fedor von Bock (3.12.1880–4.5.1945) never contradicted Hitler in personal conversation, but as C-in-C Army Group South in 1942, Bock was very critical of the operational leadership during the summer offensive and was relieved of command on 15.7.1942. Janssen, ‘Walther von Brauchitsch’. For Bock, see Mühleisen, ‘Fedor von Bock’.