Document 55
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 242
Report on the reaction of Senior Officers (PW) in Camp no. 11 to Hitler and Goebbels’s New Year speeches, 31 Dec. 44/1 Jan. 45. [TNA, WO 208/4364]
THOMA: He was remarkably quiet today; he didn’t shout once.[126]
BASSENGE: One may be biased – I hardly like to put it into words, but was really HITLER?
WAHLE: Oh, yes, definitely.
BASSENGE: Everything can be faked, even his voice.
WILCK: It keeps cropping up, in fact it’s become a settled there with him: ‘We survive as many things: such a People and such a Leader, who has patently been preserved by Providence, can never perish.’
WILDERMUTH: Yes, that’s the straw to which he clings.
WILCK: Of course, and so do the others.
WILDERMUTH: All the same one can say that our present position looks exactly like our downfall.
WILCK: That’s true enough. And when he speaks of ‘thousands of “Volkssturmbataillone”’—
WILDERMUTH: Of raising new ‘Divisionen’ out of nothing – he’d have done better to bring the old ones up to strength instead.
WILCK: Yes. Incompletely armed, equipped and trained. It means spilling the last life drops of the German people. And as for ‘sweeping away the old society and system, and (preserving) the ultimate Truth, the People’—
WILDERMUTH: The people, which he holds in rein with concentration camp, torture and prison!
THOMA: He didn’t speak once of the soldiers in his army: it was the people all the time.
WAHLE: The German People’s State, with the middle class eliminated, destroyed and exterminated—
THOMA: That’s the bait to catch the people. But not a word about the fighting men.
WAHLE: Or at most one about the armchair generals.
THOMA: Yes, but otherwise he really hadn’t a word of thanks for the Wehrmacht.
WAHLE: He didn’t even mention them.
THOMA: It’s really rather remarkable, for there’s no doubt he produced some well-turned phrases.
BASSENGE: The speech was well thought out.
WAHLE: Well, after all, he’s had plenty of time for that.
WAHLE: Don’t you agree that these attempts of GOEBBELS to strike the ingratiating note arise from some degree of sentimentality? A sentimental mood. There was the hope of striking a responsive note from the enemy through this offensive started for political reasons. But a victorious enemy, only five minutes off success, will, of course, never treat with him. He knows that himself now, so there’s nothing left to say but ‘at any rate we shall never capitulate’. The National Socialists never will capitulate, either. And Heaven help anyone else who does! I conclude that the whole thing is a sign of our great weakness after all. Strong terms are used to lead the people on: ‘hundreds of “Volkssturmbataillone” or “Volkswehrbataillone” are being formed.’
THOMA: ‘Thousands of “Bataillone”.’
WAHLE: It all bears the stamp of exaggeration. Besides that, the old belief is still there that the Allies will fall out among themselves; it’s the same old belief in a miracle.
CHOLTITZ: All lies and deceit!
RAMCKE: But the speech will have a terrific effect all the same. The effect of GOEBBELS’s speech will also be very great.
BRUHN: Now they say the Almighty is to give them victory.
FELBERT: What impudence!
BRUHN: As the BBC commentator very rightly said at 10.00 hrs (1 Jan.): ‘On the statement that “if there is such a thing as justice we are bound to win the war” any comment would be superfluous.’
FELBERT: They have God’s name on their lips every five minutes.
BRUHN: Beforehand they wouldn’t have anything to do with Him.
FELBERT: GOEBBELS actually speaks of ‘God’. Formerly they used to speak of ‘Providence’; then it gradually became ‘The Almighty’; now he speaks of ‘God’. God is to do it all.
BRUHN: But God doesn’t help those who slit the others’ throats.
FELBERT: No, and he helps only the big battalions.
BRUHN: Our people are no sort of homogeneous body; they are a morally disrupted, though outwardly solid, badly trained force of men, unused to war and terribly weakened by losses.
FELBERT: (sighs)
VATERRODT: HITLER’s speech was certainly impressive and completely convincing.
BRUHN: The first fact of note is that he spoke at all. Secondly, he spoke with great power, and one cannot entirely escape the influence of his powerful words, his faith and his vigour. At heart one is a German and would so dearly love everything to go well for us. That makes such a speech very moving, because it always puts into words the things which to us are holy. But in spite of all that, there is much in it to which circumstances give the lie, so that one finds oneself continually torn in different directions. GOEBBELS’s speech a few days ago was simply disgusting.
VATERRODT: His speech yesterday (31 Dec.) was horrible, too. It was full of repetition.
BRUHN: It was frightful.
VATERRODT: Frightful!
Document 56
CSDIC (UK) SR REPORT
Extract from SR Draft No. 85 [TNA, WO 208/4210]
Generalmajor VATERRODT (Wehrmacht Kommandantur, Strasbourg) – Captured 25 Nov. 44 in Strasbourg.
Generalmajor BRUHN (Commander 553 Volksgren. Division) – Captured 22 Nov. 44 in Saverne.
Information received: 1 Jan. 45
BRUHN: The question of all German Generals being asked to surrender has also been discussed. A Swiss proposed the matter to SCHAEFER (PW) and VON FELBERT (PW). But I told them that that couldn’t be reconciled with their honour, it couldn’t possibly be done: it’s absolutely out of the question. If I, as CO of a ‘Division’ say to my men ‘tomorrow we surrender’, they’ll say the old boy has gone crazy over night; he’s overworked; he’s ill. The officer corps loves its country, and believes implicitly in its own respectability and ideas of honour and lives accordingly; and like a trusting child considers it quite impossible that it is being wrongly led, and that the command is other than it says it is, and that they have stained their hands with blood etc. in the most revolting way.
Document 57
CSDIC (UK) SR REPORT
Extract from SR Draft No. 87 [TNA, WO 208/4210]
General der Panzertruppe VON THOMA (GOC German Afrikakorps) – Captured 4 Nov. 42 in North Africa.
Generalleutnant SCHAEFER (Commander 244 Infantry Division) – Captured 28 Aug. 44 in Marseilles.
126
The text of Goebbels’s speech of 31.12.1944 has not survived. In his diary he mentions it only briefly, ‘I recorded my end-of-year speech at midday. It is of a basically different character to my Christmas speech. In it I mention political problems and can therefore step out of myself more. It is not a good thing if I always deliver my speeches like a sermon. They must have some polemic again.’ Goebbels, ‘Diaries’, Vol. 14, p. 500f. Hitler’s speech of 1.1.1945 is reproduced in Domarus, ‘Hitler’, Vol. 2, pp. 2179–85.