[…]
Document 111
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 210
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 11–12 Oct. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4364]
CHOLTITZ: The orders arrived to shoot the Commissars.[271] We all objected strongly to doing this and said it was a really dirty job and a mistake, because if we considered them as proper soldiers and told them that we were taking them prisoner and sending them to GERMANY to show them the social conditions, then their resistance would be less. I was in front of SEBASTOPOL and SCHMUNDT, who was HITLER’S adjutant, came to me. I didn’t know him, but he knew me, and he remained in my dugout for a few days and watched me at work. I said to him: ‘My dear SCHMUNDT, don’t make that mistake, leave it now, give up that order so that we may stop having that strong opposition.’ What do you English do? You say: ‘All Nazis will be killed, they will all be hanged!
[…]
BAO: The French said that to me too.
CHOLTITZ: That’s all very well, but it shouldn’t be said openly. You incite – the Nazi says to himself: ‘It doesn’t matter what happens, even if GERMANY is smashed, I may perhaps save my life that way, whereas otherwise I certainly shan’t save my life!’ A thing like that is madness.
BAO: We come back to the point again, Sir, that there are two factors of which we are afraid: first a Nazi underground movement after the war and secondly an underground movement of the Armed Forces, like the ‘Black Reichswehr’ and so on after the last war.
CHOLTITZ: Our best men have gone, because HITLER began the war. Those were the ones who were hanged. It is certainly untrue that the officers’ corps agitated for war – we were all talking about it the other day and I asked them all what they knew from their people. We knew exactly how weak we were, there were fifteen annual classes which we hadn’t trained, we as experts, wouldn’t agitate for war, because we knew perfectly well that fifteen annual classes were not ready and they could never be trained afterwards. Our best men left. The generals fought tooth and nail against the French campaign,[272] incidentally, as we were able to see later, they were wrong, because HITLER happened to be right that time. Because he was right, that man usurped the leadership on the Eastern Front and wouldn’t let anyone get near it any more. We are getting a terrible state of affairs in EUROPE; the Russians are taking HUNGARY and the whole of the BALKANS, it can’t go on like that.
Document 112
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 215
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 23–4 Oct. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4364]
CHOLTITZ: Did you destroy BREST?
RAMCKE: Yes.
CHOLTITZ: The town and everything else?
RAMCKE: Yes.
CHOLTITZ: Why on earth did you destroy the town?
RAMCKE: Well, for one thing Allied bombing destroyed the harbour installations and naturally hit the town as well. I had evacuated the population. The Americans bombarded the town ruthlessly too, and I said to myself: It’s as much their blame as ours; those swine must not be allowed to establish themselves here on any account; they mustn’t be allowed to use the town as a harbour and must be prevented from quickly establishing quarters for reconstruction personnel. Well, I set fire to it and burned it down. I was furious because 75 per cent of my hospital cases who were lying in field hospitals… on the 8th, before the siege started, had been caused by terrorists; I was livid with rage.
CHOLTITZ: How did you manage it? I should be interested, because of PARIS. How do you set a town on fire?
RAMCKE: For one thing I didn’t allow any fires caused by bombs or artillery fire to be extinguished, on the contrary, we fed the fires.
CHOLTITZ: How is that done?
RAMCKE: You enter a neighbouring house and throw in some kindling material. Then you open doors and windows, creating a draught.
CHOLTITZ: Yes, you can do that with one house, but you can’t set the whole town on fire that way, can you?
RAMCKE: We were stationed all around BREST; we had a defence zone in depth and our main defence installations were in BREST; we had to blow up houses to give us a field of fire; we had to clear a space for the ‘Bunker’ and above all we had to prevent the narrow streets being blocked by bombing or artillery-fire. We therefore blew up any houses standing at dangerous corners, so as to keep the streets clear.
CHOLTITZ: Who did all that for you?
RAMCKE: There was a ‘Pionierzug’ at the Garrison HQ and then there were naval personnel, a demolition squad from the fortress garrison; I fetched them all from their ‘Bunker’ and formed them into ‘Kompanien’; then there was a railway ‘Kompanie’, which demolished the entire railway; then there were all the military police, consisting of 163 men, who had arrived there from the field HQ; I ordered them to do it and thus had a really large detachment operating.
CHOLTITZ: Did you destroy the town completely?
RAMCKE: It was entirely wiped out!
CHOLTITZ: But that’s a war crime!
RAMCKE: No. I demolished the electric railway…
CHOLTITZ: No one worries about that, that’s obvious. But why did you destroy civilian houses?
RAMCKE: I told you the reason; I blew them up whenever they were an obstruction and whenever military necessity called for it.[273]
CHOLTITZ: But RAMCKE, that, of course, is a war-crime!
RAMCKE: Of course! But I was only following the example of the English round about 1793, when NELSON burned down the whole of TOULON.[274]
CHOLTITZ: Why did he do that?
RAMCKE: Because he didn’t want the French to have the use of the harbour.
Document 113
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 221
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 10–12 Nov. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4364]
ELFELDT: When we were in the KIEV district, my CO of signals(?) came back quite horrified… spoken… it was an engineer ‘Bataillonskommandeur’ – and this engineer ‘Bataillon’ had the task of blowing up that… in which were these 32,000 Jews including women and children.
HEIM: Even if the figures are not correct, I mean, there are things which can absolutely be characterised as criminal, or even as completely crazy and mad.
ELFELDT: In just the same way as I have obligations towards my family and my nation, so have we of course, as a nation, certain rules which we must observe towards the rest of humanity, there’s no doubt at all about that. I can’t behave like a wild beast.[275]
Document 114
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 225
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 18–19 Nov. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4364]
BASSENGE: I’ve got the impression that MEYER will not be in the least in the way here.
WILDERMUTH: No, he won’t. But one never knows what a man like that has done in the past.
BASSENGE: No, he must be treated with reserve.
WILDERMUTH: One is never sure with a man like that whether he may not have done things which are not in keeping with the code of behaviour of an officer.
BASSENGE: I shall not make a point of seeking his company but he mustn’t get the feeling that he is being boycotted here.
WILDERMUTH: No, we can’t boycott him if he behaves correctly.
271
From the surviving files at BA/MA it is not apparent if Inf.Reg.16, commanded by Choltitz, enforced the Commissar Order or not.
272
Army C-in-C Brauchitsch, Chief of the Army General Staff Halder, C-inC Army Group A von Rundstedt, Army Group B von Bock and Army Group C von Leeb all spoke out strongly against the early attack on France demanded by Hitler. Frieser, ‘Blitzkrieg-Legende’, pp. 110–15. For an introduction to the associated coup plans see Peter Hoffmann, ‘Staatsstriech’, pp. 165–86.
273
Even Eberbach remarked that Ramcke had systematically destroyed Brest. GRGG 214, 20–23.10.1944, TNA WO 208/4363. Oberleutnant Jenne (see note 267 above) wrote in his report from Brest, ‘To clear the bomb damage, parties were assembled from Organisation Todt and railwaymen from the beginning. Their primary job was to keep the main supply routes open and carry out repairs. The Fortification Commandant decided later to burn down the area along the arterial road and blow up the walls to collapse inwards upon themselves. This was to avoid undesirable masses of rubble falling on the supply route in later air raids.’ ‘Kampf um Brest, Bericht Oberlt.(MA) Jenne, AII Seekommandant Bretagne’, BA/MA RM 35II/68.
274
In the French Revolution, the city of Toulon placed itself voluntarily under the protection of Admiral Hood, who then seized a major part of the French war fleet. The British, their allies and French royalists were unable to beat off the attack of the Revolutionary Army and fled the city. It is not true to say that Hood destroyed it. Blanning, ‘French Revolutionary Wars’, p. 200.
275
In the gorge at Babi Yar, SD-Sonderkommando.4a and two parties from Polizei-Reg. Süd executed 33,771 Jews between 29 and 30.9.1941. A platoon of engineers from 6.Armee blew in the sides of the gorge to conceal the traces of the massacre. The name of the pioneer battalion commander involved is not known. Why Oberst Otto Elfeldt was at Kiev in September 1941 as Chief of Staff to the General of Artillery is likewise unknown. See Arnold, ‘Eroberung und Behandlung der Stadt Kiew’; Rüss, ‘Wer war verantwortlich für das Massaker von Babij Jar?’; and Wiehn, ‘Die Schoah von Babij Jar’.