Document 68
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 273
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 16–19 Mar. 45 [TNA, WO 208/4177]
ROTHKIRCH: While I was there you had to report and give the number whenever you wished to withdraw from a ‘Bunker’, for they all had numbers; every ‘Bunker’ in the west has a number. There are special maps with all the numbers. Each ‘Bunker’ had to be reported by number as a retreat of any description was forbidden. No general was authorised to order a withdrawal and on several occasions when whole ‘Divisionen’ were encircled, enquiries were made and we were informed at 4 o’clock in the morning that we were not to withdraw. Everyone had, however, gone in the meantime.
CHOLTITZ: It was exactly the same at AVRANCHES.
ROTHKIRCH: When I left we were still strictly forbidden to give any order to withdraw. The ‘Divisionskommandeur’ simply wasn’t in command any more. You could really no longer say the men were fighting. The only unit still putting up a bit of a fight was the 2nd Panzerdivision. They actually only had two tanks left. That will go down in history.[153]
BASSENGE: It’s high time now, yet the Allies are still stuck on the RHINE and if the Russians open the door, within forty-eight hours GERMANY will be Communist as far as the west. It’s no problem, for the key positions, the communications, are all controlled by the Nazis; if HITLER orders it, it will be done. Such an organised Bolshevism will progress far more quickly in GERMANY than one which grows out of chaos; the whole thing will be settled in forty-eight hours. Then the ‘SEYDLITZ Club’ will arrive, with or without recognition from HITLER or the Nazis or the new party, whichever it is. Something of the sort will certainly happen. Peace will certainly happen. Peace will certainly not come the way one imagines, i.e. the rest of the German Army being sandwiched on the ELBE and then surrendering and that then being followed by a beautiful, generous peace. My convictions are still the same as ever; I say: it no longer depends upon whether HITLER’s GERMANY survives or not, or what is going to happen to GERMANY, or all the various questions of peace; those are all unimportant questions in comparison to the main question: where will the line of Western civilisation run? If it extends only as far as the RHINE at the end of this year, in 1950 it will be back on the Spanish border or at the gates of GIBRALTAR and then the English policy of the balance of power in EUROPE – quite apart from civilisation – will be completely impossible; it won’t exist any more.
If one wants to avoid future chaos and all resulting political consequences one can only do so by a national coup d’état. I can see no other possible way but with each day it drags on that grows more difficult, of course.
Document 69
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 276
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 25–7 Mar. 45 [TNA, WO 208/4177]
HEIM: I always used to consider it wrong to surrender, our people might have cracked badly and that might perhaps have proved disastrous in the future. But now we must give in; it’s simply madness.
SCHLIEBEN: It’s sheer suicide.
HEIM: The absolute suicide of a race of millions, such as has never before occured in history, because it is in the hand of a madman, a criminal.
Document 70
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 278
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 30 Mar.–2 Apr. 45 [TNA, WO 208/4177]
HEIM: The German people deserve no better – this business of ‘Werewolves’ is absolute madness.[154]
WILDERMUTH: In the first place it’s simply a repetition of the ‘Patriotic Formations’ after the last war, secondly the people are standing with their backs to the wall. It’s not the people who are doing it but the Party members and the fanatical youth. I had certainly reckoned with it, but I’m amazed that they’ve started so soon; from experiences in the BALKANS I had counted on it starting six months after the occupation. But they are starting at once. It’s just their madness again. But I am convinced that there are people who really believe in it.
HEIM: It’s impossible to say. But it serves the German people right. It’s unbelievable.
WILDERMUTH: It will, of course, reduce everything to ruins and rubble and will lead, after a short space of time, to barbaric counter-measures on the part of the others.
HEIM: The Allies will have to set up a counter-movement.
WILDERMUTH: That’s been one of my ideas for a long time, but that is not to say, of course, that a vague possibility will become a reality. One can only suppress guerrilla warfare with strong units formed from the population of the country. After a year or two they will be forced to arm us themselves. It’s dreadful, of course, another civil war.
Document 71
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 280
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 7 Apr. 45 [TNA, WO 208/4177]
HEYKING: I can’t imagine it lasting much longer.
JÖSTING: Out of the question – a fortnight or three weeks maybe. It’s amazing! The whole front line must be bent all over the place.
HEYKING: Oh well, strong armoured spear-heads have broken through everywhere and fighting continues in the rear. Wherever resistance is shown they destroy everything, as they did at EISENACH yesterday.[155] They’ll do the same to all the towns.
JÖSTING: Yes, they said the same to me too, when I was captured, i.e.: ‘If we hadn’t got MAINZ today, six hundred aircraft would have attacked it, and then the requisite number of tanks.’ We hadn’t got anything. Our ‘Panzerfäuste’! The need a man who has handled them ten or twelve times before.
HEYKING: Yes, otherwise he’s afraid.
JÖSTING: I had a hundred ‘Panzerfäuste’. I was never allowed to fire more than twenty-four of them.
HEYKING: Oh well, we haven’t enough to practise with!
JÖSTING: Yes, and you need young and efficient men to handle them, not the old creatures I had. They were willing but incapable! They were 45–47-year-olds from the ‘Flak’ and the searchlights. They scraped everyone together and threw them into the fight.
Document 72
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 282
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 10–13 Apr. 45 [TNA, WO 208/4177]
ROSS: Before I was captured everyone realised that it would be madness to continue the war but none of the higher authorities had the courage to take a firm stand.
BRUHN: But they didn’t know how many people have been shot and what has gone on in concentration camps. We have sinned, not you and I personally, but all of us as representatives of this system which has broken every moral code in the world. If you admit life is ruled by a great moral code you must condemn yourself.
ROSS: I hold the view, which is perhaps very strict, that people in leading positions who did know about it must be blamed for failing to oppose the Party. Even if you merely consider the last phase of this struggle at WESEL,[156] all from the highest to the lowest, always said ‘yes’ and ‘amen’ to everything, because their convictions were outweighed by the thought: ‘My own neck is at stake.’ No one said: ‘I’d rather go to the dogs if it helps the people at large.’ All they did was to say ‘yes’ to everything.
153
On 26.2.1945, 2.Pz.Div. had one battleworthy Panther and two half tracks. The heavily battered 79 and 352.Volksgrenadier-Divisions also formed part of LIII.Korps. War Diary, 53.Armeekorps, Ia, BA/MA RH 24-53 /130.
155
Units of the US 89th Infantry Division took Eisenach on 6.4.1945 without a fight. The heavy damage to the town was the result of five air raids between February 1944 and February 1945. Brunner, ‘Bewegte Zeiten’, p. 65f.
156
For the fighting for Wesel, during which Josef Ross was taken prisoner, see Berkel, ‘Krieg vor der Haustür’.