DITTMAR: I didn’t hear the name AUSCHWITZ until I went to PARIS.[357]
THOMA: That’s how they led the people up the garden path.
DITTMAR: It wasn’t a question of leading them up the garden path, it was a carefully thought-out secret security system.
Document 142
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 311
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 1–6 June 45 [TNA, WO 208/4177]
Generalleutnant FEUCHTINGER (Commander, 21st Panzer Division, captured 3 May 45 in Hamburg) – gave Generalleutnant VON MASSOW the following report about the massacre of 25,000 Jews in Pinsk:
FEUCHTINGER: When I was at Pinsk I was told that in the previous year there had been still 25,000 Jews living there and within three days these 25,000 Jews were fetched out, formed up on the edge of a wood or in a meadow – they had been made to dig their own graves beforehand – and then every single one of them from the oldest greybeard down to the new-born infant was shot by a police squad. That was the first time I myself had actually heard and seen what happened there. I had previously not believed or considered it possible that anything like that went on. The nurse at the officers’ hostel where I lived told me that: For heavens sake, don’t say anything about my having told you that.[358]
Document 143
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 314
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 7–30 June 45 [TNA, WO 208/4178]
III. THE CONCENTRATION CAMP FILM
The senior Officer PWs have been given a showing of the concentration camp film; attendance was compulsory for all inmates of the camp. Their reactions to it were as follows:
1. In conversation between Generalleutnant v. SCHLIEBEN and Generalmajore v. FELBERT and HABERMEHL:
SCHLIEBEN: That’s the only thing about the ‘thousand year REICH’ which will last for a thousand years.
FELBERT: Yes, we are disgraced for all time.
2. In conversation between Generalleutnant v. ORIOLA and SIEWERT:
ORIOLA: HITLER ordered all those killings.
SIEWERT: Still, it’s no wonder those people starved; we hadn’t anything left ourselves.
ORIOLA: Concentration camps will always remain an impossible institution, specially in countries which have a depraved government.
SIEWERT: It’s a very effective film; it’s a fine sort of recommendation for us! It really was like that, I saw it. The worst thing was that anyone could have anyone else put in such a camp without a sentence.
3. Generalleutnant DITTMAR and HOLSTE agreed that what the film showed was revolting, even though there was no means of comparing that with what happened in Russian camps. They could not understand why the SS had not destroyed all the damning evidence.
4. In conversation between General FINK and Generalleutnant DITTMAR and HEIM:
HEIM: This air raid on DRESDEN was a different matter after all.
DITTMAR: Certainly that was quite different from this direct torture of individuals.
HEIM: This slow, intentional, systematic murder.
DITTMAR: That’s why it can’t be compared.
HEIM: The other (DRESDEN) could at least be called warfare in the last analysis.
DITTMAR: You could see there that that was not the only purpose—
HEIM: But this is an absolute disgrace.
DITTMAR: This is an absolute disgrace.
FINK (enters): One needs to have seen a film like that.
HEIM: RÖHRICHT said that compared with the 200,000 at DRESDEN—[359]
FINK (excitedly): It can’t be compared with DRESDEN!
DITTMAR: That’s too weak an argument.
FINK: The Russian method of shooting in the back of the neck is a kindness—
DITTMAR: In comparison with this vileness.
Document 144
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 363
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 24 Sept. – 9 Oct. 45 [TNA, WO 208/4178]
1. THE WAR CRIMES TRIALS
1. Various of the senior officer PW are expecting to be called as witnesses at the NUREMBERG War Crimes Trials. General EBERBACH is among their number. In conversation with General v. THOMA he speculated as follows upon the reasons for his being summoned:
EBERBACH: Either they want me about the shooting of the Canadian PW – I have already once proved to them that it happened before I went there.[360] Or they want to interrogate me about the transfer of the police into the armed forces in connection with preparations for the war. I joined two years before the law was enacted. Or SPEER has named me as a witness; I can tell only good of him.
2. In the following conversation with Oberst WILDERMUTH and Obersleutnant v.d. HEYDTE, General EBERBACH defined the attitude he would adopt according to whether he believed the NUREMBERG trials were genuine or merely staged:
EBERBACH: I should not like to land in trouble one of my comrades, say, Genoberst GUDERIAN or Minister SPEER, whom I consider as a comrade too in that respect because I have worked closely together with him. I really do not know why they want me as a witness; my position was not of such importance. But these people want to know something from me and I should like to be able to advise other people who will be heard. There are only two points of view possible: either I assume: ‘The British are decent fellows; they do really intend to pronounce an impartial sentence and I, as a decent man myself, will try to help the British to pronounce an unbiased sentence by making objective statements.’ The other attitude is: ‘This whole affair in NUREMBERG is deliberately staged in order to drag the Germans who have to appear before it into the dirt and in order that a sentence which has already been passed in advance shall only contribute further to sully the German name; in such a case I can only state that I will not say anything at all as a witness, or as little as possible, for why should I lend my good name to have the German reputation dragged still further into the mud?’
WILDERMUTH: I should say as little as possible.
HEYDTE: If I may butt in, I do not believe that it will be a staged trial.
3. General EBERBACH spoke as below to Generalleutant HEIM, Oberst WILDERMUTH and Oberstleutant v.d. HEYDTE about the background to one incident in RUSSIA which might be looked upon as a war crime:
EBERBACH: I know of cases where the men in RUSSIA committed things in their desperation in that terrible winter which they would never have done under different circumstances. To mention one case: Our ‘Bataillon’ of motorcyclists had, after having attacked a village in snow 120 cm deep and having captured it with considerable loss from an enemy whose behaviour was fiendish, and having then captured the next village too, in which the Russians had laid mines, drove the Russian population over these mines. Of the thirty men who drove over them, twenty-one were blown up. The commander of the ‘Bataillon’[361] told me: ‘I lost so many fine fellows that I simply could not bear the responsibility towards German mothers and fathers of sending my men through those mines.’
357
Kurt Dittmar, Pionierführer 1.Armee, was in France in the summer of 1940 and took over 169.Inf.Div. in February 1941, at that time in the process of formation in the Reich. There is no evidence that he might have come to Paris, or even France, later, and so one assumes that Dittmar knew of the existence of Auschwitz by the early summer of 1940.
358
Between 29.10.1942 and 1.11.1942, the 20,000 Jews inhabiting the ghetto at Pinsk were shot (‘Enzyklopädie des Holocaust’, Vol. 3, p. 1113f.). If Feuchtinger was ever there is not known. From October 1941 to August 1942 he commanded Art.Reg.227/227.Inf.Div., which fought on the northern sector of the Eastern Front, a great distance from Pinsk. Subsequently he served with OKH Führer-Reserve and after April 1943 was exclusively in France.
359
General der Infanterie Edgar Röhricht (16.6.1892–11.2.1967) arrived Trent Park 7.6.1945. The exact number of the dead at Dresden resulting from the air raid on the night of 13.2.1945 is now estimated at between 25,000 and 40,000. The most recent study is Taylor, ‘Dresden’.
360
Eberbach’s statement was used against Kurt Meyer at his trial for war crimes before a Canadian tribunal beginning 10.12.1945 at Aurich. Meyer was sentenced to death on 28.12.1945, the sentence being commuted to life imprisonment. Meyer was released in 1956. See note 280 above.
361
CO, Kradschützen (Motorcycle Rifle) Battalion 34/4.Pz.Div. was Major Erich von Stegmann (6.4.1896–?), succeeded on 9.1.1942 by Rittmeister Bradel. Neumann, ‘Die 4.Panzer Division’, p. 444.