KLENK: It’s shattering!
HELLWIG: One thing strikes me: The individual counts for nothing in National Socialism. You never hear a friendly word spoken; you never hear our losses mentioned; everything is just thrown in ruthlessly as a matter of course by the higher commander and the most ruthless commander gets the Knight’s Cross, the ‘Oak Leaves’ and the ‘Swords’. It’s dreadful! I breathed a sign of relief after being with the Americans; they’re human beings.
Document 103
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 182
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 27–8 Aug. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]
MENNY (re SCHLIEBEN’s order not to surrender): I once issued an order like that in RUSSIA and it succeeded in restoring a position. I had just taken over a ‘Division’ there, which had newly come from NORWAY, so that it was as yet fresh, and still good. The enemy broke through, simply because a few fellows had run away. Immediately I insisted on fetching the deputy judge advocate general from the Q(?) Staff(?) at the rear and brought him to the front – his knees were knocking together with fright – and we tried the men directly behind the place where the enemy had broken in and sentenced them immediately and shot them at once, on the spot. That went round like wildfire and the result was that the main defensive line was in our hands again at the end of three days. From that moment on there was quite good order in the ‘Division’. It acted as a deterrent, at any rate no one else ran away unnecessarily. Of course a thing like that is contagious, it is demoralising when everyone runs away.
ELFELDT: Where was that?
MENNY: It was on the DNIEPER at KORTIZA – afterwards the ‘Division’ was wiped out down to the last man.[257]
ELFELDT: In the KIEV district, or where?
MENNY: Near ZAPOROZHE. Opposite ZAPOROZHE[258] there is a large island 3 km long, called KORTIZA.
BROICH: On the Eastern Front at… we passed a camp[259] where there were 20,000 PW. At night they howled like wild beasts. They hadn’t got anything to eat. It wouldn’t have been possible to give them anything even if we had wanted to, because we had scarcely anything ourselves. Everything was in such a mess at that time. Then we marched down the road and a column of about 6,000 tottering figures went past, completely emaciated, helping each other along. Every 100 or 200 m two or three of them collapsed. Soldiers of ours on bicycles rode alongside with pistols; everyone who collapsed was shot and thrown into the ditch. That happened every 100 m.
SCHLIEBEN: I spoke to a Russian General, who said to me: ‘You know, those who were taken prisoner at STALINGRAD will have had just the same fate as the prisoners you took that winter.’ In practice it was quite impossible suddenly to feed such a haul of prisoners at STALINGRAD.
? BROICH: I once spoke to Oberst von GRAEVENITZ,[260] he will be ‘General’ now, who was PW Inspector from the Ministry. He told me that he had travelled round those camps in POMERANIA, where the PW came straight from RUSSIA and had never seen such a thing. The men had no buttocks left at all, but only an orifice. They were complete wrecks, just skin and bone. Besides that they had dysentery all that sort of thing.
HENNECKE: I know that when they were sent to factories, they had to be nursed back gradually before they were fit for any work at all.
BROICH: Besides that they had no clothes to wear and nothing—
SCHLIEBEN: STALIN will have plenty to say about that.
BROICH: I should think that if we have got 3½ million PW, 1 million will certainly have died.[261]
SCHLIEBEN: Yes, that’s quite certain. […]
Document 104
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 183
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 29 Aug. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]
CHOLTITZ: I have witnessed some dreadful things! They put us in such a disgraceful light. The highest SS official arrived and said: ‘Sir, I am handing over this camp.’ I asked: ‘What sort of camp is it?’ He answered: ‘All of my camps were emptied, but I still have a prisoners camp.’ ‘Who are imprisoned here?’ ‘Thirty women who have to be taken away, they are all pregnant.’ ‘What am I to do with them?’ ‘Oh, let… I don’t care a hoot….’ The next morning I remember the fellow had said something to me. They had all made off. Not a single SS or policeman was there. I went there (and discovered) that they were thirty ladies, the wives of the very industrialists who had run our war industry in PARIS for the last two years. They had been arrested as hostages. They were ladies, just like ‘Frau’ THYSSEN and ‘Frau’—.[262]
BASSENGE: VÖGELER[263] and that kind.
THOMA: What were they doing there; why were they imprisoned there?
CHOLTITZ: They had been imprisoned there as hostages for several years, I set them free at once, offering profuse apologies. We then found the corpses of four naked women, whom they had violated shortly before they left.
THOMA: Yes, that is known here. The only consolation for the Army is that the papers here always lay stress on: SS and Gestapo. Why did they leave those dead women lying about down there?
CHOLTITZ: Well, they were violated – they just felt like it.
THOMA: Of course the Americans and English turned up there.
CHOLTITZ: The French found it and they reported it to me. No, it was the Swiss ambassador who was still there. Those swine made off at night without telling me, they left their quarters open, full of arms and a cellar filled with explosives and a picture of HITLER as its only guardian! They left it for my opponents the French communists to seize. They simply drove off!
THOMA: Who were those?
CHOLTITZ: The Gestapo.
THOMA: Are the names—
CHOLTITZ: Yes, of course. He visited me and negotiated with me.
Document 105
GRGG 187 [TNA, WO 208/4363]
Provisional report on CS/223 – General der Panzertruppe EBERBACH (GOC 7th Army) – Captured 31 Aug. 44 in Amiens – before his arrival in Camp No. 11. This report contains information from a conversation between the above officer and a junior British Army Officer [BAO]
EBERBACH: That evening I spoke to HIMMLER. He had given a lecture and in the evening he sat down at our table. I told him that I couldn’t understand the general inhuman treatment of the Jews. It was rather risky, but actually one can say a thing like that to HIMMLER and discuss it with him. He replied that I ought to realise what the situation was: If there were still Jews in all the large towns today, with the bombing raids, then it was perfectly obvious that by them spreading rumours and inciting against the government, the present good behaviour of the population would pretty certainly come to an end.[264] One had to agree with that up to a point. It wasn’t advisable to tell him that if the Jews had been treated differently, they could have been made to have quite a different attitude towards the government.
BAO: And how often did you have the honour of hearing a speech by the FÜHRER himself?
257
From 16 to 31.10.1943 (personnel file says 30.11.1943), Menny led 123.Inf.Div. defending the Dnieper island of Chortiza, where he sustained heavy losses. Menny remained on the island constantly and led his units successfully in the defence and counter-attack. It is certain that this division was not transferred to the Eastern Front from Norway. Possibly the event involved 333.Inf.Div., which Menny commanded from 7.6.1943 to 15.10.1943, and which came to Russia from
260
Meant here is the later Generalleutnant Hans von Graevenitz (14.7.1894–9.12.1963), 1.8.1938–31.3.1943 Chief of OKW Assistance and Supply. The meeting between Broich and Graevenitz must have taken place before the latter’s promotion to Generalmajor on 1.2.1942.
261
During World War II around 5.7 million Russian prisoners passed through German hands. The exact number of those failing to survive captivity is estimated by Streit (‘Keine Kamaraden’, pp. 244–9) at 3.3 million, by Streim (‘Behandlung’, p. 246) at 2.53 million. The numbers for August 1944, when this conversation was recorded, were not much lower.
262
Nothing has been found in the archives regarding this incident. For the general context see Lappenküper, ‘Der Schlächter von Paris’.
263
Meant here is the steel magnate Albert Vögler (8.2.1877–14.4.1945), Chairman of the Board, Vereinigte Stahlwerke (United Steelworks), Düsseldorf. During the war he served the Armaments Ministry as General Plenipotentiary for the Ruhr.
264
Eberbach is probably referring here to Himmler’s speech to Wehrmacht generals at Sonthofen on 5.5.1944 on ‘The Final Solution to the Jewish Question’, in which he said, ‘Had we not excluded the Jews from Germany, it would not have been possible to have endured the bomber offensive.’ On 24.5.1944 Himmler addressed the generals at Sonthofen on the same theme. He could have spoken to Eberbach on this occasion. Himmler, ‘Geheimreden’, p. 202. For the Sonthofen speeches, see Förster, ‘Geistige Kriegführung’, p. 606f.