Document 150
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 180
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 25–6 Aug. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]
LIEBENSTEIN: Did you hear any more about the attempt on HITLER’s life, whether it was an actual fact or just a bogus job?
MENNY: The English and Americans here maintain that it probably was just a put-up job. In my opinion that is quite out of the question. We received a WT message saying no orders from WITZLEBEN,… FROMM, HALDER, STAUFFENBERG or OLBRICHT were to be executed, those were the six names mentioned. That happened immediately after the attempt; that WT message came through roughly 10 hrs after it happened. I mean the fact that FROMM and HALDER were mentioned[417] goes to prove that it wasn’t just a put-up job.
[…]
ELFELDT: What do you say to the hanging of German marshalls?
RADINSKY: I was… that by all the Americans…
ELFELDT: It’s true.
RADINSKY: My answer was always: ‘What do you think of German officers raising their hand against their supreme commander for the first time in German history?’ The whole thing is abnormal.
MENNY: People here are indignant too. It isn’t nice to be hanged. However, you shouldn’t play with murder. They could have imprisoned HITLER; assassination isn’t the right way. Taking everything into consideration, you must admit that the National Socialists brought about their revolution without reverting to violence. They didn’t murder anyone at the time – the RÖHM affair? He was among their own ranks.
ELFELDT: The thing I can’t understand about the STAUFFENBERG ‘Putsch’ is why they didn’t secure a prominent Party leader. For that HELLDORF is a nincompoop, he hasn’t any influence on the people.[418]
MENNY: Did he also take part?
ELFELDT: He has also been shot.
MENNY: Really!
ELFELDT: I’ve seen it in black and white.
Document 151
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 180 [TNA, WO 208/4363]
Provisional report on information obtained from CS/211 – General der Infantrie Dietrich VON CHOLTITZ – Army Commander of Greater Paris – Captured 25 Aug. 44.
[…]
AAO: May I as a personal question? From the way you talk I could almost think that you were mixed up in it. For what reason did you not take part?
CHOLTITZ: We were in the war all the time, so how could we take part? They are all friends of mine. STAUFFENBERG once told me that I ought to take over a post.[419] I said: ‘I am being hounded into action the whole time.’ Whenever there was any trouble, I had to go there.
The situation with regard to the attack on HITLER’s life was this: the general atmosphere among the leaders tended towards bringing about a change and there wasn’t a single General who did not want it, because all of them realised that things could not go on as they were. Consequently there was no great excitement even on the day when it happened, because we were expecting it all. I said to an ‘SS-Führer’: ‘It’s a fine state of affairs at home, isn’t it!’ All the ‘SS-Führer’ said was: ‘He’s not quite all there.’[420] Well, I must say that’s a harmless way of looking at it. We were not so frightfully moved by it.
AAO: You are not expecting a repetition of this attempt, are you?
CHOLTITZ: I could almost swear to it. I would put my hand in the fire – I look at such things, I might almost say, from the point of view of fate. Fate must will this man to go on to the end, to the bitter end, and I am dreadfully sorry that the German people will be involved in it, with endless losses, but nothing else is possible – down to the smallest boy in the Hitler Youth.
Document 152
CSDIC (UK), SR REPORT SRM 837 from 26 Aug. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4139]
Major i.G. BECK (IA, LVIII Panzer Korps) – Captured 16 Aug. 44 in Sairies. Major i.G. VIEBIG (LXXXIV Panzer Korps) – Captured 21 Aug. 44 in St Lambert.
VIEBIG: Throughout the whole war I have conducted myself as a National Socialist, and at home too, not as a politician but mainly as a soldier. I have always held the view that as a soldier one is bound to obey one’s supreme commander under all circumstances; I held, and still hold, the same view with regard to that revolt on the 20th, i.e. under no circumstances should a thing of that sort be done.
BECK: That’s my opinion, too.
VIEBIG: For me to revolt against my supreme commander would be something that I could not reconcile with my honour. That has nothing whatever to do with my political views.
BECK: When I was in ITALY the people there were disgusted when we arrived because we were people who could really tell them something. But when I went to see General BREITH, CO of artillery schools,[421] in BERLIN, he said: ‘I will give you a piece of good advice. Don’t talk too much or you’ll be the cause of your own undoing. I know of two officers who got away from STALINGRAD and who talked so much that they are now under lock and key.’
Did you know LÖFFELHOLZ-KOLBERG(?)[422]? He was completely done for. He had had tropical fever. He was totally incapable of giving a straight answer any more. They had originally intended him as GSO I (Ops) for that ‘Division’ in SICILY, because I was too young.
LATTMANN[423] was, for us, the epitome of decent, arch-Prussian commanders, and he, too, was infected by National Socialism in so far as his actions were similarly guided by ‘blind faith’. At that time he held speeches of one or two hours’ duration each week to the ‘Fahnenjunker’ and, in my opinion, everything that he said was absolutely his own conviction. He often used to visit me at home and each time one found confirmation of the fact that, in that respect, he was really talking from conviction. I can’t imagine that the man has swung right round merely on account of his STALINGRAD experience. That’s why I believe that the whole peculiar business with the liberation committee in MOSCOW isn’t too clear either.
VIEBIG: SEYDLITZ was our ‘Gruppenkommandeur’ in the fighting to open the pocket round DEMIANSK,[424] that’s how I know him well.
BECK: He’s an extraordinarily decent fellow and a clever man. But even then, although he was advancing at great speed on STALINGRAD – from CHUGUEV[425] near KHARKOV[426] it went in one thrust as far as KALATCH – he was already very pessimistic about the outcome of the war, so that it’s quite possible that SEYDLITZ really is speaking his own mind.
VIEBIG: I know LATTMANN, I have my doubts about him.
BECK: I spoke to LATTMANN’s brother[427] who quite recently – at the beginning of July – went to the ‘Heeresgruppe Bertha’. I was astonished when he told me: ‘I am convinced that that’s my brother and that he really does talk and think like that. For I’ve heard him myself on the radio and, after all, one must admit, he only says what we all think.’ (Laughs) To which I said: ‘Sir, it is, perhaps, not quite as you say, that we all think along those lines, as I am convinced that a large section of the Officer Corps don’t think that way at all but believe, now as before, in a successful outcome, but, more than anything, I am astonished that you, Sir, should think the General LATTMANN speaks from innermost conviction because I know him as quite a different person.’ But I must admit, even a man like Sepp DIETRICH,[428] with whom I spoke at great length, was standing first on one foot, then on the other, saying: ‘How will it end?’ But the most shattering thing of all was my visit to General SPEIDEL.[429] The whole three-hour conversation was utterly pessimistic. He said: ‘Things are turning out exactly as your uncle prophesied; he always said that there would be fantastic successes during the first three years of the war, but that then there would be no more, and the thing would finally end in a catastrophe.’ It’s a remarkable thing, but when the happenings of the 20th were made known for the first time, I was very worried when I heard it in case my uncle might be involved in the affair, because I knew that he was always completely antagonistic. I discussed it with the Chief of Staff,[430] and with the GOC, saying that I was extremely worried, as I could imagine he would be involved in the affair in some way, even if he didn’t take an active part. Whereupon General KRÜGER[431] said to me: ‘BECK, I don’t believe it, and for this reason: your uncle was always an extremely careful man, who never ran any risks, I can’t imagine that he would suddenly adopt a different attitude, when such an enormous risk must have been attached to the affair.’
417
At 1600hrs on 20.7.1944, Keitel passed the following order to all Wehrkreis commanders by telephone or signal, ‘All orders from the Bendler-Strasse bearing the signatures of Generaloberst Hoepner, Feldmarschall von Witzleben, Gen.d.Inf. Olbricht or Gen.Oberst Fromm are invalid. These generals are to be considered mutineers. Oberst Graf von Stauffenberg carried out the attempt on the Führer’s life. Henceforth only the orders of the Reichsführer-SS and the Chief of the OKW are to be obeyed. All measures “Walküre” are to be cancelled. Closest liaison is to be maintained with the Gauleiters, senior SS and police chiefs.’ Since this order was also passed by telephone, there may be minor differences between the various texts. A mention of Halder in this connection is unproven and probably the result of an error of memory. The order is reproduced in,
418
SA-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei Wolf Heinrich Graf von Helldorf (14.10.1896–15.8.1944); 1926 joined NSDAP; 1932 SA-Führer, Berlin-Brandenburg; 1932 Member Prussian Parliament; 1933 Member Reichstag; July 1935 Police President of Berlin. Despite his Nazi past and involvement in wrongdoings of the regime, from 1938 he was involved in the resistance, consorting with Goerdeler’s circle, and was involved in the coup plot of 20 July 1944.
420
It is not known with which SS-Oberführer Choltitz spoke
421
Generalleutnant Friedrich Brieth (25.5.1892–9.7.1982) commanded from 5.4.1943 to 24.5.1944 Artillery School I in Berlin. It trained artillery and regimental commanders.
422
Probably meant here is Burkhart Freiherr Loeffelholz von Colberg (6.5.1913–30.10.2000), who served in North Africa, latterly as Ia, 334.Inf.Div. He was flown out of Tunisia, then occupied various Staff positions, ended the war as Oberstleutnant and served with the Bundeswehr until 30.9.1971, retiring in the rank of Oberst.
423
Generalmajor Martin Lattmann (10.2.1896–11.8.1976) was captured at Stalingrad as CO, 14.Pz.Div. From 25.8.1940 to 15.4.1942 he was CO, Training Staff, Artillery School Jüterbog (from 26.1.1942 Artillery School II) and as such was responsible for the weapons training courses for young officers and applicants for the officer-reserve. Lattmann was decried as a ‘wild Nazi general’ but went through an ideological
424
Between 8.2.1942 and 28.4.1942 at Demyansk, around 100,000 German soldiers remained encircled until 16.Armee opened a corridor for them; the then Generalleutnant Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach commanded the relief units from X.Armeekorps. ‘Das deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg’, Vol. 4, pp. 639–41.
427
Meant here is Oberst Hans Lattmann (b. 24.12.1894), summer 1944, Artillery Staff Officer, Army Group B. Lattmann was once assessed by Rommel as a ‘convinced National Socialist’ and so the statement he made to Beck is all the more interesting.
429
Generalleutnant Hans Speidel (28.10.1897–28.11.1984), from 14.4.1944–5.9.1944 Chief of Staff, Army Group B in France. He had prior knowledge of the 20 July plot and was arrested on 5.9.1944, but skilfully avoided incriminating himself and remained in detention until the war ended.
430
Oberst Hans-Jürgen Dingler (b. 30.3.1904), from 12.2.1944 to 4.1945 Chief of Staff, LVIII.Res.Pz.Korps. Postwar with West German Intelligence Gehlen/BND.
431
General der Panzertruppe Walter Krüger (23.3.1892–11.7.1973), Cmmdg Gen. LVIII.Res.Pz.Korps, was a highly decorated panzer leader who probably from his time as regimental commander in 1937 onwards had gained general ideas from Beck. It is not proven that they were any closer than this.