SON: Well, that’s no reason for it.
FATHER: It was the same with RUNDSTEDT. I’m really pleased that he has reappeared because he intended to conclude an armistice with the English, in order to transfer the troops from the West to the East as quickly as possible, and allow the English and Americans to march in unopposed, because it will be far better for us, if we’re occupied by Americans and English rather than by the Russians.
SON: I’m quite certain of that. I simply don’t believe that the English and Americans… so very much about the Russians.
FATHER: Yes, that’s the other side of it, of course. In that respect STALIN has given very definite assurances that he will adhere strictly to the agreements. It has been laid down that the Russians will under no circumstances advance further than the ELBE.
SON: Well, that’s all right!
FATHER: Yes, but if the others reach BERLIN or the ODER first, then the ODER will become the river which – it would still be much better for GERMANY.
SON: Well, actually I’m convinced of the same thing, but for the time being I still believe in V-2 – V-17.
FATHER: That’s finished. V-1 would have been all right six months ago, but it’s all too late now.
SON: But why? Now we are using the new weapons which are for use against aircraft, tanks and so on.[90]
FATHER: Really?
SON: And then we’ll use the other things.
FATHER: It’s all coming too late. Everything is being smashed up whilst it’s still under construction. Three thousand bombers per day over GERMANY is too much of a good thing.
SON: Three thousand seems to be rather too many.
FATHER: You mustn’t forget that a war has never yet been really decided by a new weapon.
SON: But there’s one thing you mustn’t forget: if we had a weapon against aircraft today, then the war would be decided.
FATHER: And do you believe that such a thing will still come in time? Those are all things which may already be known of in the world of science, but have yet to be brought into being. That is to say, it’s a matter of six months, at the very least. I know how long that kind of thing takes. In practice it will be a good year before—
SON: Yes, but back in June or July it was already said that these things were in the final stages of completion.
FATHER: I’ve had too much experience of that kind of racket. I must say that this last period on the Western Front almost knocked the bottom out of my world. In those last hours over there, when it really did depend on our doing the right thing and leaving us to do it, it was appalling how HITLER ruined things for us by his personal interference. So that even people like Sepp DIETRICH, who really is a loyal disciple and who had just got the ‘Diamonds’ and ‘Oak Leaves’ almost turned revolutionary. That means something in the case of Sepp DIETRICH.[91] I mean the fact that DIETRICH might have adopted exactly the same attitude as we did – if he hadn’t known that he would be killed in any case as soon as things began going badly for the Nazis.[92]
SON: It all depends in his case. Actually he was always a fighting man.
FATHER: Yes, but under his command the ‘Leibstandarte’ killed thousands of Jews.[93]
SON: What do you think about the men like HIMMLER, GOEBBELS, SPEER and so on?
FATHER: There is no doubt that HIMMLER is one of the people who has done us the greatest harm throughout the whole world.
SON: Yes, he has certainly done that, but the question is whether he hasn’t achieved a hell of a lot.
FATHER: No, no, we are… by a certain lack of humanity and decency which one must have, because otherwise the pendulum of history swings against you. I told you that once before, in connection with that history book I always carried about with me, that that is one of the things I have learned from history. In my opinion, one can even go so far as to say that the killing of those million Jews or however many it was, was necessary in the interests of our people. But to kill the women and children wasn’t necessary. That is going too far.
SON: Well, if you are going to kill off the Jews, then kill the women and children too, or the children at least. There is no need to do it publicly, but what good does it do me to kill off the old people?
FATHER: Well, simply that it is contrary to humanity, in the end it hits back at you, simply because it instils a certain brutality into the people – and there are some incidents that I have just learned about from the officers here who witnessed them themselves – the numbers of Poles we have killed, at least a million, the numbers we have killed in YUGOSLAVIA – I never knew that either, nor did I ever take part in it. The tens of thousands of Russians we have killed, not only Poles!
SON: Yes, but even if that’s true, they were people who conducted guerrilla warfare against us, so there again it wasn’t without justification.
FATHER: I know, too, how it was done. It was said: a hundred soldiers have been killed, therefore a thousand civilians must be shot. We were forced to do that because we are waging a war which is going far beyond our powers and it was this complete overestimation of our possibilities and our strength which led us to attempt that damn silly campaign for STALINGRAD and the CAUCASUS with forces which were quite insufficient for the job.
SON: Yes, but STALINGRAD would have succeeded all right if, at any rate, according to your opinion, the Italians and Hungarians ahead of us hadn’t collapsed.
FATHER: Yes, but it was known that they would crack. Putting the Italians, Hungarians and Rumanians next to each other at the front and, what’s more, up in that part of the front where, one look at the map and everyone said: ‘That’s where they will come’ – those are the things that count.[94]
SON: Sometimes I have a burning desire to fight with the Russians against the English, because they have handed EUROPE over to communism.
FATHER: Yes, they really believe that Bolshevism is no longer the same and it may actually be that for the next five to ten years they will be right, as I can well imagine that the Russians would be quite glad of a breathing space.
SON: Yes, but what good is any of that to us if we make peace? Cessation of hostilities under the hardest and vilest conditions, unconditional surrender and all that sort of thing, except that we shall have another war in seven to ten years which will be fought out on German soil anyway, with the new weapons already in preparation and which will by then be ready, and one which will in any event drag in the German people either on both sides or one side; at any rate there will be a new war, so what’s the good of it? Those are all things which… ‘a frightful end’, followed by ‘endless frightfulness’ unless a miracle occurs, and I’ve got out of the habit of believing in miracles.
91
Oberstgruppenführer Sepp Dietrich (28.5.1892–21.4.1966); from March 1933 Chief, Stabswache, Reich Chancellery (from September 1933 Leibstandarte
92
According to Manfred Rommel, his father was convinced that Sepp Dietrich would follow him if there were an armistice in the West. Fraser, ‘Knight’s Cross’, p. 541. Dietrich is alleged to have told Rommel, ‘You are my superior officer, and therefore I will obey all your orders’. Gersdorff, ‘Soldat im Untergang’, p. 165. G. Meyer, ‘Auswirkungen des 20.Juli 1944’, p. 475f.
93
As regards Waffen-SS war crimes in the Soviet Union there is to date little reliable information. The same applies to atrocities committed to SS-Division Leibstandarte
94
For the alleged military ‘failure’ of the coalition partners at Stalingrad and the political consequences see Kehrig, ‘Stalingrad’, pp. 45–217; Förster, ‘Stalingrad’.