Document 43
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 210
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 11–12 Oct. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4364]
CHOLTITZ: I don’t put it past HITLER to introduce the plague into GERMANY. Just imagine it: he takes half-a-dozen or so SS men and makes them wander about somewhere at the back of AACHEN, spreading the plague around. If the English and Americans catch it and don’t know how or from where, I wonder whether they would stay?[106]
SCHLIEBEN: That’s the question.
CHOLTITZ: Admittedly it would hit the German people as well, of course. But he’s perfectly capable of it!
SCHLIEBEN: Yes.
CHOLTITZ: He has himself inoculated first, and the tiny quantity of lymph which is available, since he is the only one who has prepared for it, will go to the men in the party.
SCHLIEBEN: Yes, it’s really quite a good idea.
CHOLTITZ: (laughs).
SCHLIEBEN: To spring a trap on those fellows with it at the end, when everything is lost.
CHOLTITZ: A good idea?
SCHLIEBEN: Well, I mean as a last resort, before everything – or don’t you think so?
CHOLTITZ: The only thing is that our own people would be done in by it, too.
SCHLIEBEN: Yes, that’s the rotten thing about it. What one ought to have are weapons to which one is immune oneself and which hurt only the other fellow.
BASSENGE: What do you think of HIMMLER’s speech?[107]
WAHLE: It dates back to June. I didn’t know that this morning, and then I don’t understand how the man can make a speech to a ‘Division’ and give them tactical instructions.
BASSENGE: The whole idea is a bit of a puzzle to me too. In that respect I greatly regret that attempted ‘Putsch’, because the Party will once again use that to full advantage when the crash comes, the fact that the ‘Generals’ sabotaged and so on.
WAHLE: That’s why I am very glad that the attempted ‘Putsch’ failed.
BAO: Now HIMMLER says that the senior German officers are to blame for everything.
CHOLTITZ: Now we are all to blame, of course, that’s what they are getting at. The amazing thing is that the only people who are really capable of adjusting themselves to life after the war, with clear judgement, are the officers, and only the older officers at that, the younger ones are crazy too. We have got some completely stupid men here too, they often get up foaming with rage and leave the room if anyone listens to the English broadcasts. It just makes me roar with laughter. It is really incredible, but, you know, we must reckon with people like that, they do exist. We can’t simply shoot everyone in GERMANY.
MOSEL (re listening to BBC): It ought to be forbidden completely here. If they wanted to hear the English news in English then I wouldn’t say anything against it, but that they switch on this absolute provocative propaganda!
KÄHLER: That was the first thing I was told here: that everyone was free to do exactly as he liked.
RAMCKE: They told me we could do what we liked and so on and that here they had to hear something of the world, otherwise they wouldn’t be told the truth.
KÄHLER: Of course, that’s obvious: everything German is a lie, everything English is the truth. Admittedly they are inclined to say that it isn’t all true, but of course it is much truer than what GERMANY reports.
MOSEL: Then that ‘Lagerpost’ which is always coming in.[108]
RAMCKE: Yes, that’s a piece of impudence—
MOSEL: It’s a filthy rag.
RAMCKE: What business have they got to give us such a thing? It is written by the English, I don’t read it at all.
MOSEL: Neither do I.
RAMCKE: I once had a look to see what it was and then I threw it away.
KÄHLER: It’s not worth it, it’s better to put it straight into the fire, because it always leaves some idea behind, that is what has always happened here, which we have seen again and again.
RAMCKE: If it goes on like that for a couple of years, I shall go quite crazy.
KÄHLER: Yes.
Document 44
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 211
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 14–17 Oct. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4364]
CHOLTITZ: We are also to blame. We have cooperated and have almost taken the Nazis seriously. We’ve been on visiting terms with them, we’ve allowed them to greet us on railway stations and have put up with their stupidities instead of saying: ‘Oh, leave us alone.’ We’ve let those stupid cattle talk and chatter to us.
I’ve persuaded my men to believe in this nonsense and caused those people who still regarded the Officer Corps as something worth respecting, to take part, without due consideration. I feel thoroughly ashamed. Maybe we are far more to blame than those uneducated cattle who in any case never hear anything else at all.
SCHLIEBEN: No war was ever started or waged with as little forethought as this one, which is carried on with the slogan: ‘It’ll be all right.’ It started like that in 1941: ‘You might attack over there and break through and then go straight on to the SEA of AZOV; it’ll work out all right!’
CHOLTITZ: It wouldn’t be so bad if we Generals, or the generation before us, for that matter, hadn’t taken part. The trouble is that we participated without a murmur; BRAUCHITSCH and those fellows.
SCHLIEBEN: Did you know that BRAUCHITSCH received money?[109]
CHOLTITZ: Yes I know that those fellows got HITLER to sack others; REICHENAU and RUNDSTEDT got BRAUCHITSCH sacked. REICHENAU quitted[110] and now HITLER is carrying on on his own; he won’t let anyone lead anymore and now it can’t be done. We weren’t any good anymore. The moment an officer heard that BRAUCHITSCH had accepted money he should have started proceedings against the man who told him; he should have immediately demanded proof, both then and now.
Document 45
CSDIC (UK) SR REPORT, SRGG 1065 [TNA, WO 208/4169]
Generalleutnant VON BROICH (GOC 10th Panzer Division) – Captured 12 May 43 in Tunisia.
Generalmajor BASSENGE (GOC Air Defences Tunis & Bizerta) – Captured 9 May 43 in Tunisia.
Generalleutnant VON SCHLIEBEN (Commander, Cherbourg) – Captured 26 June 44 in Cherbourg.
General der Infantrie VON CHOLTITZ (Commander, Paris) – Captured 25 Aug. 44 in Paris.
General der Fallschirmtruppen RAMCKE (Commander, Brest) – Captured 19 Sept. 44 in Brest.
Generalleutnant HEIM (Commander, Boulogne) – Captured 23 Sept. 44 in Boulogne.
106
Hitler refused to have an arsenal of biological weapons for offensive use despite the reports of his leading military advisers on such weapons of mass destruction in Allied hands, for example the British anthrax bombs.f See Rolf-Dieter Müller, ‘Albert Speer und die Rüstungspolitik im Totalen Krieg’, pp. 716–27.
f
107
Bassenge is probably referring to Himmler’s speech of 26.7.1944 to 545.Volksgrenadier-Div. at Bitsch. In his long discourse he gave advice on how the officer corps should handle the men under its command. Himmler, ‘Geheimreden’, pp. 215–37, esp. p. 225.
108
‘Die Lagerpost. Nachrichten aus der Heimat und aller Welt für die deutschen Kriegsgefangenen in England’ was a weekly information sheet in simple format appearing for the first time in May 1942. It provided comparatively sober news reports together with themes for discussion and puzzles. Edition No. 74 of 7.10.1943 is at TNA WO 208/3467.
109
Von Brauchitsch received no gifts of property from Hitler, but in common with others of Generaloberst rank and above enjoyed a ‘function supplement’ of RM4,000 monthly. Rumours circulated that Hitler had made him a gift of between RM80,000 and 250,000. Janssen, ‘Brauchitsch’, p. 86.
110
Generalfeldmarschall Walther von Reichenau (8.10.1884–17.1.1942). The ambitious Reichenau was keen to succeed Fristch as C-in-C Army in February 1938, and was actually recommended by Hitler for the post, but ran into determined opposition from prominent Army generals, amongst them von Rundstedt. Reichenau remained to the forefront but died in January 1942 while C-in-C Army Group South as the result of a heart attack. Simms, ‘Reichenau’; Richter, ‘Walther von Reichenau’.