The only one who was still optimistic was BAYERLEIN, because he still had his men together.[432]
Document 153
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 183
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 29 Aug. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]
BASSENGE: Is FROMM dead, too?
CHOLTITZ: No, he didn’t take part in it at all. I spoke about it beforehand[433] to OLBRICHT[434] and to GOERDELER.[435] Of course, they didn’t know the actual day, or they didn’t say anything to me about it, obviously in order not to incriminate me when I was going to the front. They didn’t tell me that they were going to kill him, but only they wanted to render him hors de combat, they wanted to lock him up, but unfortunately STAUFFENBERG was five years too young – that was the only fault of a man who was otherwise almost a genius. He went to the conference with his brief-case in his hand and put it between Adolf HITLER’s legs under the table and then he went out. JODL said: ‘Stay here, STAUFFENBERG!’ He said: ‘No, I haven’t had breakfast yet and I must make a telephone call, too. I shall be back again soon!’ Then STAUFFENBERG waited 300 m away, near HITLER’S ‘Bunker’. Then he maintains that there was such a terrific explosion that he thought no one could get out alive. Then he did the most incredible thing. On the strength of the explosion he went to the guard and remained there for three-quarters of an hour, because he was not allowed to go out, and then finally he rang up and they did let him out. He got into his aircraft and flew to BERLIN and said that the attempt had been successful, without checking up whether it was true! Because of that, all those people…
ELFELDT: What happened to the people who were not officially—
CHOLTITZ: They were all hanged.
SPONECK: The others, too?
CHOLTITZ: Yes.
THOMA: FELLGIEBEL,[436] too?
CHOLTITZ: Yes. All of them.
ELFELDT: What is ZEITZLER doing?
CHOLTITZ: ZEITZLER is under house-arrest.[437] When STAUFFENBERG arrived at the airfield, he told his brother that it had been successful, whereupon they started moving. GOERDELER said to me – as true as I am sitting here—: ‘Herr von CHOLTITZ, if we shut off OBERSALZBERG with one ‘Division’ and put him out of action, then the whole people will forsake him.’ Whereupon I said: ‘Herr GOERDELER, I beg of you, don’t think such a thing. It is a fundamental mistake! It isn’t so!’ But those people were so obsessed with the idea that they were going to save the Fatherland and they were so reckless, it was almost unbelievable. They actually did not collect even a hundred men. They took it so lightly!
HITLER said to me: ‘You needn’t be alarmed, it is not as though only the Army had taken part in this attempt by a few Generals to usurp power. The whole people, with its opposition, slight though it is, whether it comes from middle-class, social-democrat or communist circles, took part in it.’
?: What did he say? They did take part?
CHOLTITZ: ‘The whole people, in its opposition, slight though it was. Those usurpers wanted to surrender German soil. I will not yield a single yard of German soil.’
SCHLIEBEN: That foreigner!
BASSENGE: What does his entourage say; what is the talk there?
CHOLTITZ: All I can say is that I felt as though I were in a madhouse.[438]
BASSENGE: Isn’t there one sensible man there to say: ‘For God’s sake, where is this leading us?’
CHOLTITZ: I presented myself and said: ‘My FÜHRER, the LXXXIV ‘Korps’ has been practically wiped out in defensive battle.’ Suddenly, as though he had a mental black-out, he looked round and went on talking about something else.
SPONECK: Has there been any sort of rebellion against the FÜHRER on the part of the Party or SS, either during the ‘Putsch’, before it or after it; any sort of a split? There was a rumour here that HELLDORFF—
CHOLTITZ: HELLDORF has been hanged. Our Foreign Office was involved in it, too.
NEUFFER: Who among them…?
CHOLTITZ: I believe Secretary of Legation von HEFDEN(?).[439]
SPONECK: Aren’t the numbers known?
CHOLTITZ: Well, you know, it keeps changing; you can’t tell how many people are hanged each day.
SPONECK: Ten times the number of people who appear before the court are simply bumped off.
CHOLTITZ: I’d estimate about three or four hundred people, in connection with that assassination attempt. The best people we have, of course.[440]
SPONECK: Have radical changes taken place among the personnel of HQs at home, of ‘Wehrkreis’ and ‘Luftkreis’ personnel?
CHOLTITZ: I believe there have been a lot of changes.
[…]
Document 154
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 186
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 4–9 Sept. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]
CHOLTITZ: The following happened: Generaloberst JAENECKE returning from the CRIMEA had a short, but very heated interview with HITLER. HITLER did this (demonstrating) and threw all the Generals out of the room, field marshals KEITEL and JODL among them, and he became so angry with him that Generaloberst JAENECKE who is a decent sort of fellow—
BADINSKY: I know him.
CHOLTITZ: JAENECKE left the room and slammed the door.[441] He met the adjutant outside and said: ‘Tell the FÜHRER I have left.’ HITLER waited for him for some time, hoping he’d calm down. After that heated argument ZEITZLER on leaving, said: ‘That scoundrel HITLER.’
432
For Bayerlein see note 225 above. Fritz Bayerlein was awarded the Swords to his Knight’s Cross on 20.7.1944. With his Pz.Lehr.Div. he had fought off numerous American attacks west of St Lo from 11 July. This may explain why he was in such good spirits at that point. A few days later the American Great Offensive crushed his unit. On 27.7.1944 he reported that his division had been wiped out. Ritgen, ‘Panzer Lehr Division’, pp. 155–70.
433
The date of these talks is unknown. Ritter mentions in his biography of Goerdeler that Choltitz spoke with him in March 1944. At the time Choltitz was a corps commander in Italy, therefore it is more likely that the meeting occurred between 16.4.1944 and 13.6.1944, when Choltitz was in the OKH Führer-Reserve. The detailed knowledge that Choltitz possessed of the course of the event is astonishing. Probably he had obtained the information from his Staff in Paris, who were in on the secret. Another source alleges that before the attempt in July 1944, Choltitz already knew everything about it. Oberleutnant Curt Vogel reported on a conversation between Choltitz and Generalmajor Eugen König, CO, 91.Luftlande-Div. (BA/MA MSg 1/647 and 2579).
434
General der Infanterie Friedrich Olbricht (4.10.1888–20.7.1944), from 15.2.1940 Chief of Army General Bureau.
435
Carl Goerdeler (31.7.1884–2.2.1945), 1930–37 Oberbürgermeister, Leipzig. Envisaged as Reich Chancellor in the event of a successful coup.
436
General der Nachrichtentruppe Erich Fellgiebel (4.10.1886–4.9.1944), from August 1938 Chief of Army Signals and Chief of Wehrmacht Signals Links at OKW, an early recruit to the Resistance. His task on 20.7.1944 was to cut off the signals systems at FHQ. He was arrested the next evening.
437
After 20.7.1944 Zeitzler was not sought out despite many lingering suspicions. Stahl, ‘Zeitzler’, p. 289.
439
Meant here is lawyer Hans-Bernd von Haeften (15.12.1905–15.8.1944), from 1934 diplomatic service; 1940 Deputy Leader, Cultural Political Dept, Foreign Ministry. He was a member of the Kreisau circle and was earmarked for State Secretary at the Foreign Ministry should the coup have been successful. Arrested 20.7.1944, executed at Berlin-Plötzensee prison.
440
Estimates of the numbers executed in the wake of 20 July vary. Hoffmann writes of between 600 and 700 persons arrested, about 200 tried and executed. There were in addition to these an unknown number of semiofficial and unofficial executions. Hoffmann, ‘Staatsstreich’, p. 652.
441
Generaloberst Erwin Jaenecke (22.4.1890–3.7.1960), from 1.6.1943 C-in-C 17.Armee (Caucasus and latterly Crimea), advised Hitler on 29.4.1944 in two verbal reports to abandon Sebastopol and allow his reduced Army the opportunity to retreat. He had the full agreement of Zeitzler, Chief of Army General Staff, and Heusinger, Chief of Operations Division, for his plan. Jaenecke described the catastrophic situation in an emotional manner and hammered the map table repeatedly. The second conference in the evening was even more tense. While returning to the Crimea he received the report that Hitler had relieved him of command and replaced him with his former Chief of Staff, Allmendinger. Jaenecke was expressly forbidden to return to the Crimea. A pre-court-martial investigation came to nothing. On 31.1.1945 he was discharged the Wehrmacht. KTB note on journey, C-in-C to FHQ, BA/MA RH20/17-270. Meanwhile Goerdeler had attempted to recruit Jaenecke for a conspiracy involving front commanders and the General Staff. Jaenecke supported the plan but contributed nothing. During their investigations of 20 July plot, the Gestapo came across his name on numerous occasions, and he was interrogated for eight hours in September 1944, RSHA concluding that he was not involved. Ritter, ‘Goerdeler’, p. 383; Jaenecke to Xylander, 4.11.1944, BA/MA N761/4. The few letters in his literary bequest leave no impression of an especially realistic appraisal of the strategic situation, nor of an even peripheral supportive stance for the opposition. On 24.2.1944 he wrote to his former commanding officer, Generaloberst Blaskowitz, ‘I still cannot imagine that the British and Americans are so stupid that they will do the Russians’ work for them and give the Bolshevists in Europe a leg-up into the saddle. On the other hand the Jews’ hatred is probably so great that all reasonable considerations take a back seat’, BA/MA N761/4. Pfuhlstein reported at Trent Park that at Olbricht’s instigation he had spoken to Heusinger and Zeitzler’s adjutant in order to gauge the extent of Zeitzler’s disillusion with Hitler. He had been told that Zeitzler was not yet ‘ripe’ to be indulged regarding the plans for a coup. GRGG 285, TNA, WO 208/4177.