Information received: 1 Jan. 45
SCHAEFER: We negotiated with that American officer VAN BERGEN, a German-American,[127] but they don’t understand the psychology of the German officer. I told him too: ‘How can you do that when you are CO of a “Division” or a GOC; when you are responsible for your troops you can’t simply say: “I’m not going to carry on any longer; I’m clearing off”.’
THOMA: They (the Allies) wouldn’t do that either.
SCHAEFER: They probably wouldn’t do it either, but they expect us to do it; they imply by their attitude: ‘it’s ridiculous to carry on fighting; the whole of GERMANY will be smashed to bits.’ I say that I would rather have peace today than tomorrow, but you can’t persuade an officer simply to say: ‘We’ll arrange with the Americans: “You attack, and we won’t fire”.’
THOMA: Only the Supreme Command can do that.
SCHAEFER: I told them that too, but who would do that? We discussed things like that for days on end.
Document 58
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 247
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 10–14 Jan. 45 [TNA, WO 208/4177]
KITTEL: If we could ever get so far as to make the Russians stop!
HEYKING: I personally am of the opinion that the Russians only want to capture and occupy what they definitely need for afterwards, and that then the occupation of GERMANY – they’ll get in there anyway. Why should they fight large-scale actions now? No! They are conserving their forces for their later – making us their jumping-off place against ENGLAND. They need their troops afterwards to be able to carry through their further plans. They haven’t the slightest intention of carrying on a great offensive in EAST PRUSSIA now. They won’t do it. They will now see to BUDAPEST and the BALKANS—
HEYKING: I keep saying: ‘We must just hang on for another few months, for the tension between RUSSIA and the Anglo-Saxon States is definitely coming!’ After all, we know what’s happening. The Americans are saying: For what are we waging this war?’ The Russians will never… them in the east – do you think that the Russians will allow the nimble Americans to establish themselves in the place of the English who used to control SHANGHAI?
KITTEL: No!
HEYKING: Of course not. It isn’t for nothing that the Russians have already established their communistic influence in CHINA and that CHIANG KAI-SHEK has resigned.[128] He’s put in his cousin as Regent and he himself is now only C-in-C. The communistic influence in CHINA has been systematically encouraged by RUSSIA. The Russians say to themselves: ‘Better to be confronted by a broken-down Jap than a hearty American.’ They want to pursue their trade in the Far East. They don’t want to occupy the countries in the West, they merely want friendly governments who will work for them. Hence their influence in FRANCE through DE GAULLE, in SPAIN and God knows where, everywhere, in ITALY etc. To them it’s all a jumping-off ground against the English. They also want the oil-fields in the PERSIAN GULF etc., after that they’ll say they’ve got all they want. That will give them the trade and domination of the whole of EUROPE and the English can then do what they like. The Americans will say to themselves: ‘There’s nothing to be made in the Far East, there’s nothing in EUROPE – what are we fighting this war in EUROPE for?’
KITTEL: For nothing!
HEYKING: For nothing! It’s bound to dawn on them in time!
KITTEL: It has dawned on them!
Document 59
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 248
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 15–17 Jan. 45 [TNA, WO 208/4177]
SCHLIEBEN: We shall lose everything that has been built up since the time of FREDERICK THE GREAT: SILESIA, EAST PRUSSIA, the RHINELAND. Everything on account of one Austrian corporal. A whole nation is being ruined on account of one man.
ELFELDT: It’s no use any more, the end is drawing near. Even the hope that the Russians and the Allies would quarrel, which one could still have in the autumn, must be given up now. The next four weeks will be frightful; everything will collapse then.
Document 60
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 249
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 18 Jan. 45 [TNA, WO 208/4177]
FELBERT: When everything is over in GERMANY those Nazi scoundrels will shout at the people: ‘You have to thank only the Generals for this.’ They’re partly right, too, as the army leaders should have said long ago: ‘thus far and no further!’
Document 61
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 253
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 26–7 Jan. 45 [TNA, WO 208/4365]
SCHLIEBEN: I can see quite clearly that all this Bolshevism is nothing but a colossal Jewish plot.
RAMCKE: One day history will say the FÜHRER was right in recognising this great Jewish danger threatening all nations and in realising the Jewish communist threat to EUROPE from the east.[129] At one time it was GENGHIS KHAN and at another ATTILA. This time it is Jewish Bolshevism spreading over EUROPE from the Asiatic steppes, a tide we had to stem. Perhaps future history will say that we of the small Western European countries were so short-sighted that we did not realise it and that FRANCE, BELGIUM and GERMANY quarelled among themselves, with ENGLAND at the back of it all because of their petty opposing interests, on account of a ridiculous little CZECHOSLOVAKIA and SUDETENLAND and a lousy DANZIG CORRIDOR and such rubbish, and that we failed to realise the threat from the east. All this will show that we failed to realise the threat from the east. All this will show that the FÜHRER’s general outline of policy was absolutely…
SCHLIEBEN: But he did it so stupidly.
RAMCKE: To think that we’ve been the fools, that after we saw we couldn’t persuade the others to join the anti-comintern front in the fight against Bolshevism, we had to be the fools who were the first to rush in. That’s the stupid part of it. The others refused to join in and suddenly we found ourselves forced to fight on two fronts.
SCHLIEBEN: We’re picking the chestnuts out of the fire for them and have probably landed ourselves with ten million wounded.[130]
RAMCKE: It’ll happen like this: I believe resistance may flicker up in the east now and again—
SCHLIEBEN: I have waged war against the Russians long enough. In my opinion all is up; the men can’t carry on any longer.
RAMCKE: No, they can’t and they don’t want to, otherwise the Russians wouldn’t have advanced so quickly. The men are exhausted. They have no reserves left, no fuel and they are not adequately equipped for the winter. They can’t man the positions in sufficient numbers. The whole show is over. The men realise and know for certain that the offensive on the Western Front, of which they’ve been told to expect so much, has been a flop. So this is the end.
BAO: The German government must realise that all is lost. They must think of the people.
FELBERT: No. They have never considered the people.
BRUHN: The dreadful thing is that the people believe in them. We remained in the front line until we were captured; we too were dazzled and thought that others were decent too – we loved our country as a child loves its mother. But there are no decent people in the government: that has become obvious now. If at least they’d grab a grenade and themselves try and stop the Russians; instead of that they send children and old people to face the tanks. It is a criminal fight to preserve their own lives. They know that not a soul in the world would accept as much as a piece of bread from them; they have nowhere to live and now they’re just prolonging their existences instead of shooting themselves. Fighting has lost all its chivalry. No one will negotiate with our government in whose hands are all the means of pressure, the wireless and the Press. The people all believe they’ll be killed and violated.
127
This officer cannot be identified. According to some accounts, on 11.12.1944 Schaefer was in Nancy with an American diplomat and an intelligence officer, possibly General Robert A. McClure, Chief of the Psychological Warfare Division at SHAEF. Schaefer was unable to suggest any method of convincing the Germans to lay down their arms. He had described the fortifications at Zweibrücken to the Americans two days before in order to spare the town. BA/MA, Msg 2/79.
128
Chiang Kai-shek (31.10.1887–5.4.1975), from 1927 Head of the Chinese National Government of the Chinese People’s Party (Kuomintang) was far stronger in 1945 than his civil war opponent Mao Tse-tung (26.12.1893–9.9.1976). He had gained a status with the Allies during World War II and participated in the Cairo Conference of 26.11.1943. In 1945 he was one of the ‘Big Four’ statesmen. The main actor in the struggle against Japan, he received substantially more military aid from the USA than Mao. On 14.8.1945 in a ‘Treaty of Friendship’, Stalin guaranteed the National Government large-scale concessions in northern China. With that the politics of expansion, which had terminated abruptly in 1905, began to roll again. Chen, ‘China in 1945’.
129
Ramcke shows himself here as favouring the anti-Jewish and anti-Bolshevist core ideas of Nazi ideology. Volkmann, ‘Russlandbild im Dritten Reich’. For Ramcke’s thoughts on Jewish Bolshevism, see Förster, ‘Russlandbild’. For an overview of the ideological alignment of the German military, see Förster, ‘Geistige Kriegführung’. For the repeated claims of strong Jewish influence behind Bolshevism, see Slezkine, ‘Jewish Century’.