BASSENGE: That’s ‘costume 4’, I know three already.
RAMCKE: Then the story started and I unburdened myself and said to him: ‘Herr Reichsmarschall, even during the greatest crises on the Eastern Front in the winters of 1941/42 and 1942/43, when every man was needed, the army with difficulty refrained, and rightly so, from drawing on the instructional units, on the experimental reserve for the training of future units. But we paratroopers drew on our reserves until we’d bled ourselves white’. ‘How?’ he asked. I replied: ‘“Bataillone” and “Stormtruppen” for the field “Divisionen” were formed from the “Divisionen”; a whole “Bataillon” was formed from the experimental and instructional troops, in fact they didn’t even stop at the 550 transport glider pilots, who had been at the RHÖNKUPPE since they were fifteen, being trained as pilots and stunt fliers, in order to bring the heavy, troop-filled transport aircraft to the right places. They were formed into one “Bataillon”, sent to AFRICA within four days, and after the first few days’ operations those valuable people were wiped out and annihilated in ordinary ground fighting.’ He knew nothing about all that. He had never yet seen any paratroops. Do you think he’d ever seen a parachutist jump? Never. Thereupon he said: ‘Here, LOERZER, write this down’.
CHOLTITZ: How did he speak? In a tired voice?
RAMCKE (Imitating GÖRING’s nasal and high voice): ‘I knew nothing about all that. Do you know anything about it? Well, we’ll write it down first. Now, what else?’
CHOLTITZ: Were the children playing around meanwhile?
RAMCKE: Yes, that’s coming! (Laughter). I said: ‘We haven’t even got the right foundation for the training of our paratroops; all our paratroop officer cadets were trained at GAF battle schools; they learnt about long-range reconnaissance operations and fighters and all that sort of thing that we don’t need at all, and what they needed to know as “Zugführer” and “Kompanieführer” for ground fighting, they never learnt at all. We ought to have a training of an army nature, for preference at the Army battle schools!’ Then he blew up: (imitating GOERING) ‘Well, that’s the last straw, if you give people an inch they take a ell, I admit that the paratroops should really be part of the Army, as indeed they should be, but I’m glad that I have them under my own wing in the GAF, so that they are steeped in the spirit of the GAF. The honour and glory and the training are not enough; it’s the spirit which counts! In the same way, for instance, the French revolutionary army that time in PARIS simply swept away all the old French guards who’d had years of training.’ As an unimportant ‘Divisionskommandeur’ it wasn’t my place to point out to the ‘Reichsmarschall’ that he was making a mistake in his history, and that the revolution wasn’t carried out by a young army against the royal guards, but with the royal guards except for a few units, and that NAPOLEON, the greatest general of the Revolution, had had a careful training in the old Royalist days, as had also his Generals, who carried out the revolution. But it wasn’t my place to lecture him on all that!
BROICH: That wouldn’t be in the spirit of National Socialism either!
RAMCKE: To cut a long story short, he flared up: ‘Never! How on earth did you get that idea? For the sake of the cause I had to say that wasn’t what was meant; I only meant that it ought to be like that as regards the nature of the training; as a result the best paratroop officers who have come from the Army and have a long fighting experience should have a special school for future paratroop officers, attached to a GAF battle-school – (imitating GOERING): ‘Yes, I realise that, GAF battle schools – write it down at once – the best must be taken for it so as to… – special courses for future paratroop officers, etc.’ Suddenly KARIN came running up and said: ‘Daddy, my pearl necklace is all broken; look, I have found all the pearls!’ He started: ‘Oh dear, your lovely pearl necklace’. Everything was fixed and the child was kissed very dramatically. ‘Give Daddy another kiss here’, GOERING said, turning his greasy cheek towards her. After that the little ‘Princess’ had to go. All that happened whilst a divisional commander was making his official report and during a conference about important service matters. (Laughter). […]
Document 46
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 219
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 4–6 Nov. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4364]
CHOLTITZ: We can’t make out THOMA any more. How can the man say the things he does and even tell us at table: ‘The German people and the German Army have lost their honour’?
BASSENGE: What am I supposed to do about it?
CHOLTITZ: The two of you are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. It’s really the case that you and he are to some extent a single entity. There’s nothing that can be done about that.
BASSENGE: That’s nonsense.
CHOLTITZ: You must often have realised that yourself, that you are one entity.
BASSENGE: I don’t know about that.
CHOLTITZ: To get down to a concrete case: recently someone told me that you had actually stated at table that the quick promotion of some Generals was probably due to their lack of character and their readiness to shout ‘Heil HITLER’. You’re so far removed from soldierliness that the idea no longer enters your head that a form of military ability still exists which can lead to promotion. As true as that I’m standing here, I never saw HITLER before my promotion. I did actually see him once before 1933, but I’ve never spoken to him. I don’t know a single one of the whole crowd, and yet that man THOMA – he is the one we blame for not taking any action, for he’d been to school with them all, he was on terms of intimacy with them all, and knew that we had joined up with criminals – he’s the one who gets up, and you talk about our lack of character in accepting promotion. After all, promotion usually comes only through one’s superior.
BASSENGE (to BROICH): Then CHOLTITZ said: ‘Good God, do we have to keep sucking up to the English?’ I said: ‘Look here, what do you mean by that?’ ‘These English swine are being sucked up to the whole time here’, and so on. I said: ‘Look here, I’m not standing that. I don’t suck up to the English, but I do a whole lot of jobs in the interests of us all, and there’s no question of sucking up about it. I won’t take that from you.’ ‘Incidentally,’ he said, ‘you can take it from me that reports in code about THOMA are already on their way to GERMANY.’ I said: ‘Oh? That’s very interesting,’ and he added, ‘and about you, too.’ I told him: ‘You can write what you like.’ He replied: ‘Certain Navy people have their code for use in letters and the reports are already on their way.’
Document 47
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 222
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 13–14 Nov. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4364]
REIMANN: What a sound movement National Socialism was at the beginning! We worked like slaves for the Nazis. If only they’d waited another twenty or thirty years we’d have had everything.
ELFELDT: A pity those fellows made such a mess.
REIMANN: At the start I used to think that things wouldn’t turn out badly. You can’t make omlettes without breaking eggs! In my opinion, the early mistakes were only superficial.
Document 48
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 225
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 18–19 Nov. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4364]