Document 26
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 162
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 23–4 July 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]
SCHLIEBEN: I should just like to know what the outcome will be. It will result in—
SATTLER: A collapse. There’s no way of stopping it.
SCHLIEBEN: I consider it to be absolutely impossible for it to be averted. Poor GERMANY! They’re a pack of swine.
SATTLER: I should like to know under what conditions the Allies will make peace with us.
SCHLIEBEN: Unconditional surrender.
SATTLER: Yes, and they will get it, too. Poor GERMANY. We used to be Colonels and Generals, after the war we shall be boot-blacks and porters. We shan’t get any pension.[63]
Document 27
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 164
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 23–4 July 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]
[…]
HENNECKE: That is just what those fellows saw so clearly; they were furious about it and found themselves more and more in opposition to the attitude of the Party, but they never opened their mouths when it was necessary. The only one who possibly did it was FRITSCH and as a result he was got rid of.[64] The other said nothing. That was the great mistake.
KRUG: BRAUCHITSCH ought to have said: ‘I beg to resign.’
HENNECKE: They were all with HITLER previously and they all cooperated. Each one of those in command at that time is equally to blame.
KRUG: I was an insignificant ‘Major’.
KÖHN: Yes, we could do nothing. Moreover, I must tell you frankly that I had no idea of what was going on. I regarded National Socialism idealistically and in my opinion it offered the only possibility for the German people at that time; I also saw its successes. In my opinion nobody will deny the successes it achieved. It got rid of the unemployed for us. That was the greatest problem and were it to be condemned by world history, history would have to grant it this one achievement, that it solved the problem of unemployment.
KRUG: That is a historic fact, and we can’t get away from it, that in the autumn of 1938 we ought to have lain low for twenty years and for twenty years—
KÖHN: And ruin POLAND and RUSSIA economically so that the people came to us of their own accord; that would have been the right thing. They were already economically ruined.
KRUG: The clique surrounding him is to blame for that. They ought to have said to him: ‘My FÜHRER, now—’
KÖHN: Perhaps he wouldn’t tolerate other opinions.
KRUG: Then they ought to have cleared out.
KÖHN: Well, a man like RUNDSTEDT could surely say to him: ‘Don’t take offence; you are younger, you are more adaptable, you may bring it off, but I can’t take part in it. I am inwardly convinced that this is the situation and I consider it my duty to warn you, which I have done, and if you don’t wish to pay attention to my warning, them I am compelled to act accordingly.’ Surely he can quite easily say that. If one after the other had said that, well, I should like to see whether he wouldn’t after all have begun to wonder. […]
Document 28
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 172
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 8–12 July 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]
[…]
KESSLER (after expressing to Oberst REIMANN his reluctance to speak his mind on his attitude to National Socialism when talking to a BAO): I don’t like to be told by those officers: ‘Well, if that was your attitude, why didn’t you speak out before?’ Among ourselves, one could easily say: ‘Of course, we let ourselves be taken in, too, there’s no doubt about that.’ Because it is only now that one sees all the mistakes which have been made. During the time that I was lying alone in hospital, a lot of things became clear to me.
REIMANN: The whole thing, the whole movement has degenerated. At the beginning it was all right, but it was rotten at the core, they had evil intentions.
KESSLER: Oh, I don’t know whether one can say that – perhaps it was all planned from an ideal point of view, but in the end it was over-organised.
MUNDORFF: I won’t join in all this fraternising with the English and kowtowing to them!
KÖHN: Of course it infuriates one as an old soldier and as an officer on active service, when one sees the front line left in the lurch; I mean to say, we’ve been left without a GAF, without artillery and without any—
MUNDORFF: But you needn’t throw everything overboard immediately on account of that. My point of view is this: twice we have tried to attain power in EUROPE by waging a war and we have failed. Twice we have squared up to ENGLAND; maybe it wasn’t a nice thing to do, but I maintain that we must always oppose ENGLAND. ENGLAND wants us merely as a dominion, nothing else; as a worker, a watchman in EUROPE. I can’t see why, in the present circumstances, we can’t have a European, Bolshevist state – that is, if Bolshevism alters a bit. It can’t be prevented and it is bound to happen. Of course, we’ll probably be the dupes; we’ll perhaps be liquidated by having a bullet put through our heads. But, taking a wide view, it is GERMANY’s only chance of rising again. We’d never rise again under ENGLAND’s rule. That’s out of the question! They’d see to that! Just look at the demands already – just think what that fellow DE GAULLE is demanding! The occupation of the RHINELAND for ninety-nine years, and of course POLAND will get POMERANIA and Heaven knows what else, SILESIA, up to the ODER.[65]
? HENNECKE: The victors in a war waged as ruthlessly as this one will obviously make demands accordingly.
[…]
Document 29
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 173
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 13–14 July 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]
SPANG: I was very sorry, too, when I heard about WITZLEBEN. That is typical of National Socialism. I must tell you quite frankly that formerly I was a great friend of the National Socialists.
KRUG: So was I. They pulled us out of the mud.
SPANG: And now I hate the whole lot of them, because I am gradually seeing through this corruption and inferiority and the Draconic measures of these people and above all their selfish attitude. After what I’ve seen I am completely without hope. I know the state of our armament, I know that we have nothing at all.
KRUG: No ammunition?
SPANG: Nothing. No ammunition, no tanks, we have nothing left. There is nothing.
KRUG: …it is a crime to continue the war.
SPANG: They are only carrying on the war for their own sakes – for egotistical reasons, in order to prolong their own lives.
Document 30
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 176
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 19–21 Aug. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]
KLENK: I’ll tell you something, the troops in the East won’t hold out. Troops who are perpetually withdrawing can’t hold out.
HELLWIG: They’re never relieved either. They never get any rest. The people say their only hope is to be either killed or wounded. The ruthlessness was inhuman; they did two hours’ sentry duty, slept for two hours and then two hours’ sentry duty again – month after month in that mud and not a soul bothered about them. There’s ruthlessness for you. Never have soldiers been created as we were.
63
Schaefer took a similarly gloomy view in SRGG 273, 16–19.3.1945, TNA WO 208/4177. On 10.4.1951 the generals were eventually granted a pension corresponding to their rank. Meyer, ‘Führungsschicht’, p. 648f.
65
Charles de Gaulle (22.11.1890–9.11.1970), addressing the Comité de Défense Nationale in Algiers on 12.8.1944, demanded the French occupation of the Rhineland without limit of time, the international control of the Ruhr and the prevention of a German central government. Young, ‘France’, p. 9.