AAO: That happened way back on 20 July. There’s not doubt about his being dead.
SPANG: May I add something about Generaloberst BECK, so that you have a little character sketch of him, too. Generaloberst BECK was my ‘Regimentskommandeur’ when I had an ‘Artillereabteilung’ in 1927–28.[410] Generaloberst BECK is superior in intelligence to Generalfeldmarschall von WITZLEBEN. He’s an outstandingly distinguished character. He’s an insatiable worker, who is only satisfied with the best. He was my ideal of a ‘Regimentskommandeur’. As I had formerly been on the General Staff for thirteen years, I was always brought in to help with these regimental exercises, to work out the picture and help with all the preparations, even as a ‘Batteriechef’. Generaloberst BECK is a very, very fine, decent man. Once we had a trial of LUDIN and SCHERINGER, it was a National Socialist affair before the war, in which both officers were thrown out of the army, because they had carried on national-socialist activities. Oberst BECK, as ‘Regimentskommandeur’ actually spoke against them both.[411] Generaloberst BECK is a really irreproachable fellow, he possesses very great ability and knowledge and is a very sincere character. I couldn’t say that to you if I didn’t know them both (WITZLEBEN and BECK) so well personally.
Thank God this business has not affected the front. I called my officers’ corps together and addressed them and told them my opinion. I said: ‘These matters don’t affect us.’
I simply can’t believe that WITZLEBEN has been hanged. A ‘Generalfeldmarschall’ hanged! WITZLEBEN – if I may say so – was not so very active. He was a ‘grand seigneur’, a distinguished, decent man, who was very clever himself but who didn’t really – one might say – go at things with a will. He didn’t do that, he was more of a ‘grand seigneur’. That’s why I simply can’t believe that he – one thing is quite impossible, that the officers wanted to line their own pockets and do it for their own gain. It is quite impossible, too, that the officers could have done a thing like that merely as a bid for power. That’s quite out of the question.
AAO: No, you know, I have travelled a lot in GERMANY. I have always stressed the difference between the armed forces and this other thing.
SPANG: It is very difficult for me to tell you… I can’t do that. I could tell you a great deal as an army officer, but you will understand that I can’t speak about it.
AAO: No, of course, you can’t, we realise that perfectly well.
BAO: But for you, Sir, at this moment the war is over; and it is practically over for all Germans. That is not the fault of the armed forces, it is the fault of this man…
SPANG: I have a very clear opinion on it, too, but the FÜHRER is my Commander-in-Chief. I ought not to speak about it.
Generalfeldmarschall von RUNDSTEDT[412] had become President of the Court of Honour and Generalfeldmarschall von WITZLEBEN was his subordinate, the is to say, Generalfeldmarschall von RUNDSTEDT was successor to Generalfeldmarschall von WITZLEBEN. They were on excellent terms and were great friends. It was an incredible… for Generalfeldmarschall von RUNDSTEDT
AAO: I believe that that was why they put von RUNDSTEDT on that tribunal. Just because he was so friendly with him.
SPANG: No, because he was the most senior of all the Generals. He is sixty-eight years old, is impeccable and is also a very distinguished and honourable man. He was also recognised by the French people as a very decent fellow and always spared the French people wherever he could.[413] I can’t imagine that General von RUNDSTEDT either wanted it or was in agreement with the appointment.
AAO: (Translates newspaper report of trial against rebel officers.)
SPANG: HOEPNER and I were young General Staff Officers together.[414] HOEPNER is a very capable man but he is one of those with a very strong will of his own, with very clear-cut ideas. He was previously degraded to Private. He was degraded from ‘Generalobers’ to Private.[415] Paul von HASE was my very best friend, he was Commandant of BERLIN. We attended the Army College at METZ together, in 1905. ‘Paulchen’ von HASE, who never harmed a soul, a Guards Officer – 3rd ‘Garderegiment’, the former ‘Alexander’ (Grenadier), a very handsome man, tall and slender. We were great friends and later on became General Staff Officers. He was under me in the last war. He has a Baltic-German wife and nine children, I think.[416] You know, it’s very hard for me because I know all these colleagues well, and their attitude too.
AAO: Do you think that those officers actually took part in that attempt?
SPANG: In the attempted assassination, in the preparations and execution of—? I can hardly think that the FÜHRER and the present government could condemn them unless they…
AAO: Without grounds – I can’t think that either.
SPANG: But if they did do anything like that then, in my opinion, they did it from the purest motives. They did it in the interests of our great German Fatherland. Not from self-interest or lust for power.
AAO: Their aim must certainly have been to end the war as quickly as possible and thus still save something for the German people.
SPANG: Naturally, I’m not too clear on these things, but at any rate, if they took part in it then they acted for the Fatherland from the deepest inner convictions.
I will admit to you that I have not of course often been able to meet these officers during the war and we never heard what was going on at home, and I have not been on leave since February last year, so I haven’t talked to anyone and at the front we don’t discuss that sort of thing. We ought not to discuss it either. I haven’t spoken a word about this to my staff – all I did was to call my Officers’ Corps together and condemn the attempt on HITLER’s life very severely. That is still my conviction. I condemn the attempt, certainly! I condemn it – because it was made much too late, at a time when they knew perfectly well that nothing could be achieved by it any longer, and moreover an attempt like that, when we are in a crisis, might cause discord at the front, and in that way the fighting spirit might be impaired. On those grounds I condemn it as an officer and a commander. Therefore I called my Officers’ Corps together and said: ‘If it is our fare to be defeated, then let us hold out to the last so that we are at least destroyed honourably, but don’t let us lay down our arms and have all sorts of promises made to us and then go under without honour, after all.’ That is still my point of view and I would never think or act otherwise. My Officers’ Corps understood me perfectly. Never for a moment was there a case where an officer spoke about it in any way, or I noticed any discontent or anything like that, because I knew my whole staff so well and there was a great feeling of confidence existing between my Officers’ Corps and myself. I had splendid colleagues, who threw themselves wholeheartedly into their work. I had so many trustworthy officers who would have stuck to me through thick and thin and who had pledged themselves to tell me if any discord should arise on the staff or anything like that. Then I would straighten out the situation, because there mustn’t be anyone on the staff who might go behind my back or grumble or anything like that. We are bound to give a lead in every way. That was how I trained my staff. I knew perfectly well that if there had been any case in my staff or in my ‘Division’, then a certain number of officers would immediately have said to me: ‘You must keep a look-out there and there, Sir, such-and-such has been said or has happened.’ Then I would have set to work immediately and restored order. On our front the attempt has not had the slightest repercussion.
410
Between 1925 and 1934 Spang served with Artillery Reg.5, of which Ludwig Beck was CO from 1.2.1929 to 1.10.1931.
411
Lieutenants Hanns Ludin and Richard Scheringer, and Oberleutnant Hans Friedrich Werdt established contacts with the NSDAP in 1929 for the purpose of forming National Socialist cells within the Reichswehr, and published a broadsheet calling for a ‘national revolution’. The three officers were arrested on 10/11.3.1930 and charged with preparing an act of high treason. The Reich Court at Leipzig sentenced them to 18 months’ military prison on 4.10.1930. As Regimental CO, Beck expressed to the court his understanding for the motives of the accused, which arose from a sense of national idealism, and condemned them only on disciplinary grounds. Bucher, ‘Reichswehrprozess’; Klaus-Jürgen Müller, ‘Beck’, pp. 61f, 331–4.
412
Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt, 1.3.1942–2.7.1944 and 5.9.1944–10.3.1945 C-in-C West. He replaced Feldmarschall Erwin von Witzleben in this position.
413
Gerd von Rundstedt spoke excellent French and had a friendly correspondence with Marshal Pétain. The statement that he attempted to spare the French people appears more than dubious on the basis of contemporary research. ‘Das deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol. 5/2, pp. 174–81. See also Ziemke, ‘Gerd von Rundstedt’. The affair is clarified in Peter Lieb’s published dissertation ‘Das deutsche Westheer in die Eskalation der Gewalt’.
414
Generaloberst Erich Hoepner (14.9.1886–8.8.1944) probably met Spang in World War I as a Staff Officer.
415
Hoepner proved himself a very able panzer leader in the Polish, French and Russian campaigns. After ordering 4.Pz.Armee to retreat from Moscow on 8.1.1942 he was relieved of command and discharged the Wehrmacht for cowardice and disobeying orders. He was also deprived of the right to wear uniform and decorations. Hitler was so enraged by other unauthorised retreats that he decided to make an example of Hoepner. In Berlin, Hoepner contacted Olbricht and took an active part in planning the coup d’état of 20 July. He was sentenced to death by the People’s Court on 8.8.1944 and executed by hanging at Berlin-Plötzensee prison the same day.
416
Paul von Hase (24.7.1885–8.8.1944), from 15.11.1940 to 20.3.1944 City Commandant, Berlin and a leading figure in the attempted coup. October 1905 joined Kaiser-Alexander-Garde-Grenadier-Reg.1; 1921 married a Latvian from Mitan, Margarethe Freiin von Funck. Hase had four children (Alexander, Ina, Maria and Friedrich-Wilhelm). Kopp, ‘Paul von Hase’.