HENNECKE: Well, the ones before weren’t young lads.
MÜLLER-RÖMER: The greatest blame falls on BOCK, MANSTEIN, LEEB[78] and RUNDSTEDT, because only the most senior officers can protest against the supreme commander.
HENNECKE: It should have been done in 1933 or in 1934 when things started.
MÜLLER-RÖMER: No, the running of the state was still all right at that time.
HENNECKE: It started with SCHLEICHER.[79]
MÜLLER-RÖMER: The German people shouldn’t have stood for all the craziness of 1933.
HENNECKE: It was legally done by voting; everything was in order.
MÜLLER-RÖMER: At the outbreak of war, when POLAND had been conquered and the Gestapo had entered the country and the dirty work had started, BLASKOWITZ was the first to protest and as a result he was dismissed. All senior German Generals, from the Chief of the General Staff to the ‘Heeresgruppenführer’ and all that crowd, including RAEDER, should have pointed a pistol at the FÜHRER and said: ‘We won’t wage that kind of war!’ If those dozen senior Army, Navy and GAF officers had really been prepared to risk the consequences, HITLER would have been left high and dry to get on with the war by himself.
HENNECKE: But that was the most unfavourable moment, because a stab in the back in war-time is the worst possible action, as it doesn’t only affect the Party, but—
MÜLLER-RÖMER: But all that dirty work, those bestial murders, only started during the war.
HENNECKE: No, they didn’t; that’s the trouble.
MÜLLER-RÖMER: It wasn’t so bad before the war.
HENNECKE: The civilised world was horrified at the things that went on in our concentration camps! The persecution of the Jews and all those things.
MÜLLER-RÖMER: Yes. My God – the German people should have protested!
HENNECKE: I never heard much about those things before I came here. At first I wouldn’t believe them. There is such a lot of silly talk! Whenever you asked: ‘Did you see it yourself?’ or ‘Do you really know someone?’, you got the answer: ‘No, an uncle of Mrs so-and-so told me.’
MÜLLER-RÖMER: The peace-time inmates of concentration camps were people who more or less were criminals and I also believe conditions there weren’t so dreadful up to the outbreak of war.[80]
HENNECKE: What do you mean by ‘criminals’? They were people who had been locked up arbitrarily: take FRITSCH for example. It’s a scandal. There was no justice left. When FRITSCH, that very capable man, was dismissed, the entire Armed Forces should have risen as one man and said; ‘Stop, no farther!’
MÜLLER-RÖMER: He is supposed to have planned a revolt but, of course, there’s no proof.
Document 34
CSDIC (UK) SR REPORT, SRGG 1026(c) [TNA, WO 208/4168]
ALFRED GUTKNECHT – Generalmajor (Higher Commander of the Kraftfahrtruppen West) – Captured 29 Aug. 44 in Soissons-Rheims.
HEINRICH EBERBACH – General der Panzertruppe (GOC VII Army) – Captured 31 Aug. 44 in Amiens.
GUTKNECHT: Do you think that HITLER will carry on the fighting on German soil?
EBERBACH: Yes, if he has the say.
GUTKNECHT: I don’t think it right, unless he can see any chance of victory.
EBERBACH: That’s it.
GUTKNECHT: But if he can’t see any chance, then, in my opinion, it is not right. Then everything will be smashed to bits.
EBERBACH: He always sees a chance, because he always gives way to ideas, which are not true. He has a terrific imagination and he always sees what is still to come as an accomplished fact. He sees all the new U-boats and all the aircraft and whatever else is in process of being produced[81] as being already completed and that gives him faith and a positive attitude, which infects all those around him. You simply can’t get away from the optimism, which surrounds him, when you are in his presence.
GUTKNECHT: Healthy optimism is in itself a very good thing, but there must be some limit to it.
EBERBACH: It is sheer fantasy
GUTKNECHT: I see a limit to it as soon as they penetrate from right to left, that is from the west and the east, into GERMANY proper. Then there is no longer any point in it, to my way of thinking.
EBERBACH: No.
GUTKNECHT: Because our industry too has been more or less hard hit.
EBERBACH: Yes, of course.
Document 35
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 186
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 4–5 Sept. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]
BASSENGE: I’m quite sure that General CHOLTITZ ought to be accepted with the greatest caution, because it isn’t owing to any outstanding military ability that he was always with SCHMUNDT and HQ and got promoted so fast and everything.
THOMA: …not promoted out of turn.
BASSENGE: And how, Sir! He’s younger than I am. I was ‘Oberst’ while he was still ‘Oberstleutnant; he’s been promoted out of turn time and time again.[82]
THOMA: One ought to ask him quite casually what… he had. It’s also interesting that he’s now come to me about the SEYDLITZ business. It’s just the same as AULOCK (PW) did, a man who had sent HITLER telegrams of loyalty the day before his surrender.[83]
BASSENGE: And CHOLTITZ’s defence of GERSTENBERG[84] yesterday was extremely significant.
THOMA: But he piped down.
BASSENGE: Yes, I shut him up all right, but this initial attempt is absolutely typical of the man. It would be pitiful if windbags like CHOLTITZ began gathering supporters here.
THOMA: I should tell him immediately: ‘We want peace and quiet here; if you want anything, put it in writing and we will then pass it on to the Commandant.’ I should take a very firm stand. It’s quite out of the question that one man should appear to speak as representing the camp or otherwise.
Document 36
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 195
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 16–17 Sept. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]
CHOLTITZ: One of the Americans asked me whether all the money that is being sent abroad at present is in preparation for a Nazi underground movement, which is to be set up again later.
SPONECK: There’s one point that needs careful consideration. Once the war is lost, has National Socialism which, after all, was responsible for the whole thing, got even the remotest chance? Communism has, but National Socialism, in its present form has utterly ruined everything.
CHOLTITZ: After a time we shall hear a great deal of talk on the German wireless about the treachery of the officers and the civilian communities, and that’s the last thing they’ll… to the young people.
SPONECK: Yes, it may be holding now, but once the great collapse comes, I don’t for a moment believe that National Socialism will survive in the memories of the people – will be able to arouse the slightest enthusiasm. Communism, perhaps.
[…]
Document 37
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 197
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 20–1 Sept. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]
[Conversation between General HEINZ EBERBACH and his son Oblt. z.S. HEINZ EUGEN EBERBACH]
FATHER: I can only tell you that the whole thing is hopeless. Individual places such as BREMERHAVEN[85] and DARMSTADT,[86] have been bombed to ruins, and so it goes on the whole time. You must realise that so far only a quarter of their air force has been attacking us, the remaining three-quarters having been used to attack the occupied countries. It will all be concentrated on us now. According to the German news a population of two million is now to be evacuated from the RHINELAND.[87] How are you going to set about it? They are already approaching from the other side, from EAST PRUSSIA, and they will all meet in the centre. I was very well informed about the whole of the STAUFFENBERG business.[88] Even when we were out at the front ROMMEL[89] said to me: ‘GERMANY’s only possible hope of getting off reasonably well lies in our doing away with the FÜHRER and his closest associates as quickly as possible; that will give us our first chance of reaching a bearable peace.’ ROMMEL said that!
78
Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb (5.9.1886–29.4.1956), from September 1939 to 16.1.1942 C-in-C, Army Group C, North.
79
Generalleutnant Kurt von Schleicher, influential Secretary of State at the Reichswehr Ministry involved in the fall of Reich Chancellor Hermann Müller and the installation of the presidential Cabinet. In December 1932 Reich Chancellor, failed in his attempt to find a broad social basis for his labour-creation methods. His attempt to break up the NSDAP by hiving off the Strasser wing also failed, forcing him into isolation in January 1933, when he stepped down. He was murdered with his wife on 30.6.1934, as part of the Röhm putsch. Plehwe, ‘Schleicher’.
80
The pre-war concentration camps differed from the wartime variety. The first wave of arrivals in 1933 consisted of political opponents. From the autumn other groups such as beggars, recidivists and vagrants were incarcerated. The average stay at a camp pre-war was 12 months. In August 1939 the six camps at Buchenwald, Dachau, Flossenbürg, Mauthausen, Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen had a total of 21,400 inmates, of whom 13,000 were convicted criminals at the end of 1938. Wachsmann, ‘From Indefinite Confinement to Extermination’, p. 177. The total number of deaths between 1936 and 1939 in all camps was 4,171. Müller-Römer’s estimate of the situation is therefore incorrect. Drobisch/Wieland, ‘System der Konzentrationslager’, pp. 288, 303, 339.
81
Eberbach was thinking here of the new Type XXI and XXIII Elektro-boote (E-boat) whose mass production had begun and which could have changed the fortunes of the U-boat Arm if put into service earlier. The same goes for the Me262 jet, due for supply to operational squadrons shortly after this conversation took place. See Neitzel, ‘Bedeutungswandel der Kriegsmarine’, p. 264ff; Blair, ‘U-boot Krieg’, Vol. 2, p. 824f.; Schabel, ‘Wenn Wunder den Sieg bringen sollen’.
82
Choltitz was promoted faster than Bassenge, three years his junior. He rose in two years from Oberst to Generalleutnant, while Bassenge took three and a half years to rise from Oberst to Generalmajor. Choltitz’s later ascent was presumably due to his having been the commander of units that had proven their worth well in Holland and Russia.
83
Oberst Andreas von Aulock (23.3.1893–23.6.1968) put up a stubborn defence of St Malo between 5 and 17.8.1944. At 1400hrs on the last day he sent a final signal, ‘Mein Führer! The battle for St Malo will end today or tomorrow. Under the heaviest bombardment one defensive position after another has been reduced to rubble. If we go under, it will only have been after a fight to the bitter end. God protect you with his hand. Long live the Führer!’ Ose, ‘Entscheidung im Westen’, p. 251f. See also Neitzel, ‘Kampf um die deutschen Atlantik- und Kanalfestungen’, p. 396f. Aulock was at Trent Park from 22 to 28.8.1944. On the day of his arrival he described the battle for St Malo at great length. He regretted having had to take 1,500 civilians into consideration, ‘I would rather have let them die and held the town’. (GRGG 177, 22.8.1944, TNA WO 208/4363). The defence of St Malo so impressed Hitler that at Army Group B on 7 September 1944 he asked ‘which people had been appointed as new commanders to fortifications and defence zones along the Channel coast, and if they had the commitment to defend it as at St Malo’ (OKW/WFSt/Op. West Nr 7733260/44 gKdos, Chiefs, 7.9.1944, BA/MA, RH 19-IX/5, p. 88).
84
Generalleutnant Alfred Gerstenberg (6.4.1893–1.1.1959) Luftwaffe Cdr in Rumania is probably meant here. After the arrest of the Rumanian Head of State Ion Antonescu on 23.8.1944 by the Rumanian opposition, he had tried unsuccessfully to prevent the new Rumanian Government from changing sides. Gerstenberg failed to bring Bucharest and its troops under control. On 28.8.1944 he was captured by the Soviets.
85
On the night of 18.9.1944, 206 RAF Lancaster bombers and six Mosquitos attacked Bremerhaven, inflicting heavy damage on the city centre and docks; 618 people were killed, 1193 injured. Middlebrook/ Everitt, ‘Bomber Command War Diaries’, p. 586.
86
On the night of 11.9.1944, 226 RAF Lancaster bombers and nine Mosquitos attacked Darmstadt. A fire-storm ensued in which 11,000–12,000 persons were killed and 52.4 per cent of the city destroyed. See Engels, ‘Deutschlands Zerstörung aus der Luft’.
87
In March 1945 around three million people lived in Germany west of the Rhine, about half the number there in 1939. The exodus was the result of a planned evacuation and privately organised flights. Henke, ‘Besetzung Deutschlands’, p. 351f.
89
Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel (15.11.1891–14.10.1944), 15.1.1944 C-in-C Army Group B, France; seriously wounded 17.7.1944 when his car was attacked by low-flying aircraft.