REITER: To sum up, today I would say: the man has certainly done the Germans some good services. I would say: he is a tragic figure, a centre of contention and a tragic personality, surrounded by an incompetent circle of criminals.
FRANZ: Yes. One gets one shock after another. They are all things which it was impossible to reckon on.
REITER: It’s all dreadful, absolutely dreadful.
FRANZ: HIMMLER and DÖNITZ will now wage war on each other!
REITER: They say that the FÜHRER designated DÖNITZ to be his successor. How did he visualise it all? It has to be acceptable to the people. How can he pick on that man? It’s out of the question.
FRANZ: Actually the German people shouldn’t put up with it.
REITER: DÖNITZ wants to carry on the war just as the FÜHRER would have done.
FRANZ: I simply don’t know what to say.
REITER: The moment the FÜHRER’s eyes close, a new government should be set up; it must be approved by the people.
FRANZ: It should be elected. Yes, they are doing all the things they shouldn’t do all over again. The German people could flatly announce: ‘It’s out of the question! I must be consulted as to whether I agree or not.’ It’s just another dictatorship now. From one dictatorship to another. The FÜHRER was the only man with character. He impressed us. Actually, he once had very good ideas.
REITER: He was a historical figure; only history will be able to give him his proper due; one must first hear all that happened; we have heard nothing. Those incompetent fools who never told the FÜHRER that he was being lied to in reports etc.! We, too, shall be blamed for that, you can be sure of that.
FRANZ: At the moment we are under no military oath.
REITER: No – well yes. If the FÜHRER handed over – I really don’t know.
FRANZ: I don’t care a damn, I swore allegiance to him. I never swore allegiance to DÖNITZ.
REITER: We shall have to take a new oath now.
FRANZ: I wouldn’t dream of swearing allegiance to just anyone now.
REITER: Anyway, it’s out of the question for PW.
FRANZ: At any rate, I owe allegiance to no one now, at least, that’s what I’m telling myself. I don’t know if I’m right or not.
Document 80
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 300
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 16–17 May 45 [TNA, WO 208/4177]
MASSOW: We Generals must be put into circulation again, we must assist in the reconstruction, we must cooperate again, and it would therefore be absolutely incomprehensible if we were kept here indefinitely for a long period.
[…]
Document 81
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 301
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 18–19 May 45 [TNA, WO 208/4178]
DITTMAR: If they adopt the HANOVER-HERSFELD line as the Russian – Anglo-American demarcation line GERMANY will go red.
THOMA: Yes.
DITTMAR: We must be extremely careful to see that we are not backing the wrong horse, if we enter into dealings with the Anglo-Americans.
FRANZ: These English and Americans are a sanctimonious crowd. The things they are carrying out now, with high-sounding words. First they kill the German population with their bombs etc., and then they just leave them to die. With all their fine speeches and so on, they are doing exactly what they want to do: eradicate twenty million Germans. To support their actions they bring up the concentration camp business and leading Party men, etc. They bring that up and say: ‘That is our permit for doing what we do.’
Document 82
CSDIC (UK) SR REPORT, SRGG 1271 [TNA, WO 208/4170]
The following is a lecture on conditions on the Russian front given by:
CS/443 – Generalleutnant HEIM (Commander, Boulogne) – Captured 23 Sept. 44 in Boulogne – to his fellow officers (PW) on 23 May 1945.
HEIM: Could the war have been won at all, even if no military mistakes had been made? My opinion is: no. From 1941 onwards at the latest it was just as much lost as the Great War because the political aims bore no relation whatsoever to GERMANY’s military and economic possibilities.[169] The only thing HITLER’s particular method of waging war cost the German people, was millions too many people killed. That’s the only thing – the war could not be won. The remarkable thing is this, a thing about which I am always thinking: how is it that a country like GERMANY, which is situated in the middle of the continent, has not developed politics to an art, in order to maintain peace, a sensible peace, in this much more difficult situation, than, for instance, the English situation; that on both occasions we were so fatuously stupid as to think that we could challenge the world – which is of course what it eventually amounts to when the war has been lost – without seeing that that is absolutely impossible in the situation in which we find ourselves in GERMANY. What are the reasons for it? Is it lack of political understanding, is it lack of political experience – I am no politician, I am no historian, I don’t know, I only see the question. We never could have won the war. Only in my opinion this method of conducting the war cost us millions too many lives, and secondly the complete plundering and looting of GERMANY in all directions. Had the war been conducted differently, it might have lasted another six months or a year but the outcome would have been exactly the same.
The Russians are excellent soldiers. Even FREDERICK THE GREAT admired their toughness.[170] I have seen various Russian Generals being interrogated; they included the most varied types. Young men between 30 and 40, for instance, who were originally labourers at MOSCOW and who then attended these military academies and were trained there, men with plenty of brains and sense, extremely clever. Others, the older ones, whose roots go back to the Czarist time, who were young men at that time and were then taken over. They were more or less people who were good soldiers, but who were not Communists at all at heart, whereas these young people were out-and-out Bolshevists, they made no bones about it, on the contrary, and one must admit that the Russians are extraordinarily quick to learn. They have learnt a tremendous amount from all the fighting, from all the campaigns in FRANCE etc., and knew how to pass on to the officer corps quickly the lessons they had learned from the fighting, and then gradually, under the very strict and energetic leadership of STALIN, got things so much in hand in time, that, together with their material superiority – for you must never forget that RUSSIA only had a war on one front, and that she was able to turn her whole military might towards the West – so at the same time as our warfare was becoming more and more stupid, they finally gained superiority, and then got on not only through this superiority, but then undoubtedly also very ably commanded in the course of the years 1942, 1943 and 1944.[171] I am convinced that if their command had been as good in the winter of 1941/42 as it was later, there would probably have been a collapse on the Eastern Front then. The fact that we did succeeding holding them up on the Eastern Front was on the one hand due to HITLER and the brute-force which he brought to bear behind the front with this victory slogan: ‘Hold out at all cost’ – and on the other hand it was perfectly clear that the Russian command from top to bottom didn’t quite recognise their big chance or see the big gaps there which could have been taken advantage of by quick action.
169
Heim had a surprisingly perceptive view that coincides with modern research ideas. Many generals such as Manstein could not, or would not, see that the defeat of the German Reich was inevitable. Overy was right in saying, however, that the Allied first had to win the war. Overy, ‘Why the Allies Won’.
170
There is no prominent statement by Frederick the Great from which one might infer that he admired Russian soldiers. On the contrary, the Prussian monarch spoke frequently of them in adverse vein. Kunisch, ‘Friedrich der Grosse’.
171
For the operational efficiency of the Red Army see Mawdsley, ‘Thunder in the East’ together with Russian literature.