CHOLTITZ: STAUFFENBERG was the ideal of the coming German generation. Sensible, very simple, he had a charming family circle; he was a good, honest, Christian and courageous man. He was the type of young German manhood who… ought to be at the head of things.
EBERBACH: That was always my opinion of him too. The first time I heard him speak about that matter – GEYR and I visited him – he opened his heart to us straight away.[452] He didn’t know my views. If I had still been a fervent Nazi at that time, I should have had to… him straight away, without more ado.
CHOLTITZ: I’ll admit he was incredibly indiscreet.
EBERBACH: Unfortunately that was probably part of his honesty.
CHOLTITZ: Why unfortunately?
EBERBACH: It was unfortunate for the cause! Do you know the reason why we officers kept out of the thing and why we didn’t let fly ages ago? It is because we are far too decent to undertake the things such a ‘Putsch’ entails.
Document 159
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 197
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 20–1 Sept. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]
[Conversation between General HEINZ EBERBACH and his son Oblt. z.S. HEINZ EUGEN EBERBACH]
[…]
SON: You’ve no idea how adversely this STAUFFENBERG business affected the Officers’ Corps. The fact that the individual soldier at the front was being killed, and that the officers at home were breaking their oath, infuriated the people. The fact that LINDEMANN, for example, through his own swinishness, let about 100,000 soldiers on the Eastern Front go to the devil – he let his whole front go to hell and went over to the other side with half his staff.[453]
FATHER: It hasn’t yet been established that LINDEMANN went over to the other side. Nothing is known about him.
SON: Then GUDERIAN wouldn’t have requested that he and his Chief of Staff and Major KUHNERT(?)[454] should be thrown out. At the time I was told by people in GERMANY, including an Oberleutnant, that THOMALE(?) told them a gap of 120 km had been made, and that the IV. ‘Armee’ was suddenly left standing there more or less leaderless, and that the ‘Divisionen’ had been told: ‘We’ve been left in the lurch, the best thing is to surrender.’ Part of the ‘Divisionen’ did so, others didn’t.
FATHER: I’ve never heard anything about that business.
SON: Well, that there really was a gap, which suddenly—
FATHER: But it was in the centre, and it was before 20 July.
SON: Yes, the LINDEMANN business happened before 20 July. He said that people did it more or less deliberately in order to get certain sections of the army under their control and to achieve something they needed a collapse.
FATHER: Propaganda within the Army was impossible, the people could only do it amongst themselves: moreover, RUNDSTEDT who is now in command again in the West, was party to it, and so was ROMMEL and—
SON: Well, what does ‘party to it’ mean?
FATHER: They knew about it and were willing and agreed to it, and RUNDSTEDT wanted to arrange an armistice with the Allies and arrange with them that his ‘Armee’ should turn back in order to hold back the Russians until such time as the Allies had occupied the territory at least as far as the ODER. I must say that from what I’ve seen I can unfortunately do nothing else but admit those people were right. Actually I know for certain – I’m not sure about MODEL, I couldn’t speak to those people privately – but KLUGE was also in favour of it.
SON: Well, all I can say is, why didn’t the fools cooperate?
FATHER: What does cooperate mean? That STAUFFENBERG business was supposed to happen first, and then the thing was so far prepared internally that no one could expect, once the FÜHRER really was dead, the thing to go smoothly and that the Army and the fronts were to hold on. The break-through near AVRANCHES hadn’t yet occurred on the 20th, and RUNDSTEDT was to make an armistice in order to turn about and hold back the Russians; that was the idea.
SON: The whole thing seems to me so criminal, at least, the way they prepared it. It would have meant civil war in GERMANY on a fantastic scale. It would have soon got around that the thing was connected with an attempt on the FÜHRER’s life and the German people wouldn’t stand for that. Not on any account! The German Navy certainly wouldn’t have joined in. SCHNIEWIND is the only naval man who was involved and he only had a very minor job. The German Navy wouldn’t have joined in.[455]
FATHER: Nearly all important people in the Army were involved, all except one, which is all the more surprising because he was very badly treated: MANSTEIN. He said, and I agree with him: ‘No, I’ll take no part in it.’ He said, and I agree, that we must see this thing through to the bitter end, because that is the only chance for our people of coming out of this more or less united.[456]
SON: Besides, the entire junior officer corps wouldn’t have cooperated from the moment they realised that it was connected with an attempt on HITLER’s life.
FATHER: But all those junior officers would have realised what things were like, because they themselves experienced the way they were being led. It must have been obvious to them that it was a matter of putting the SS into power, and the trend in the Army is opposed to letting the SS get into power.
SON: What about GUDERIAN?
FATHER: GUDERIAN said to me long ago: ‘The FÜHRER is mad!’ I shared the idea he had at the time: to get hold of the FÜHRER, let’s say imprison him, but at any rate keep him alive and to liquidate his entire entourage. I have changed my views in the meantime and realise that the FÜHRER is responsible for the whole thing.
SON: I can’t understand why GUDERIAN is on HITLER’s side in that case.
FATHER: It was like this: you could say that all the Generals were given the choice of either… or you are all involved; your wives and children will be shot and you yourselves will be hanged.
SON: Well, I don’t think that GUDERIAN would have been given the job of Chief of Staff if he hadn’t been considered very reliable.[457]
FATHER: Of course not! That man, whom they held to be so reliable told me that. I’m just waiting for the moment when GUDERIAN shoots the FÜHRER and all the others at the top.
SON: I think that is rather wishful thinking. THOMALE(?) showed courage in BERLIN![458]
FATHER: Of course I know people are saying it can’t be done like that. Apart from that, THOMALE(?) said to me long ago: ‘You know the FÜHRER is mad. Of course there are moments when you say to yourself “the man’s a genius” but there are weeks when you say he’s crazy. It can’t go on like this!’ For instance, he told me that HITLER is up every night until four or five in the morning because he can’t sleep; then he lies down for a few hours and at 10 o’clock he is about again, but he is so shaky that he can’t sign anything until 1 o’clock. He gets injections first thing in the morning. Two doctors are continually on the spot; one gives him injections against epileptic fits and the other injections against nerves and other things. I don’t know what they are exactly, but at any rate he gets injections every day. By 1 o’clock he has calmed down sufficiently to be able to sign his name and see people.[459]
452
The meeting of Geyr, Eberbach and Stauffenberg probably took place in mid-July 1941 when Stauffenberg visited the XXIV.Pz.Korps advanced command post in the area between Orsha and Smolensk. At that time Eberbach was CO, 5.Pz.Brigade/4.Pz.Div./XXIV.Pz.Korps. Leo Reichsfreiherr Geyr von Schweppenburg (2.3.1896–27.1.1974) was a friend of the Stauffenberg family. From 1922 to 1925 he had been Chief, 4.Squadron/18.Reiter-Reg. at Bad Cannstadt, and Claus’s eldest brother Alexander von Stauffenberg served under him there. Peter Hoffmann, ‘Stauffenberg’, pp. 49, 135f, 223. For Stauffenberg’s later attempts to recruit Geyr to the Resistance see note 387 above.
453
Eberbach was confusing two events here – possibly on the basis of misleading National Socialist press reporting in which the conspirators were blamed for the destruction of Army Group Centre. One event concerns General der Artillerie Fritz Lindemann (11.4.1894–22.9.1944), from 1.10.1943 General der Artillerie at Chief of Army Armaments and CO, Ersatzheer. He was involved in planning the coup, was arrested on 3.9.1944 and died 22.9.1944 as the result of a bullet wound to the stomach inflicted during his arrest. Mühlen, ‘Sie gaben ihr Leben’. The second event concerned Generalmajor Gerhard Lindemann (2.8.1896–28.4.1994), from end May 1944 CO, 361.Inf.Div., captured by Soviets 22.7.1944 on central section of Eastern Front. Together with Generalleutnant Eberhard von Kurowski (10.9.1985–11.9.1957) – from 1.6.1943 CO, 110.Inf.Div., also captured by Soviets in July 1944 – on 14.8.1944 he broadcast on the radio station ‘Freies Deutschland’ a message inciting troops of Army Group Centre to lay down their arms. ‘Tätigkeitsbericht Schmundt’, p. 201. Lindeman and Kurowski also signed the declaration of the 50 generals of 8.12.1944.
454
Major Joachim Kuhn (b. 2.8.1913), under Stieff at Organisations-Abt., Army General Staff, was active in procuring explosives for an assassination attempt in 1943. From 22.6.1944 he was 1a, 28.Jäger-Div. A few days after 20.7.1944, his divisional commander Gustav Hostermann von Ziehlberg (10.12.1898–2.2.1945) received orders to place Kuhn under arrest and bring him to Berlin. Von Ziehlberg advised him of this and offered Kuhn the oportunity to avoid arrest by shooting himself. Instead, Kuhn crossed the Soviet line on 27 July. Von Ziehlberg was then court-martialled and sentenced to nine months’ detention to be served at the front. Following a finding of guilt in a second trial in which he was charged with ‘premeditated disobedience to an order in the face of the enemy’, he was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad on 2.2.1945 at Berlin-Spandau. For Kuhn see esp. ‘Neue Quellen zur Geschichte des 20.7.1944’ and ‘Tätigskeitsbericht Schmundt’, pp. 181, 184, 287 and 297.
455
Generaladmiral Otto Schniewind (14.12.1897–26.3.1964) was not implicated in the plot, and he never held a minor role. From March 1943, C-in-C Naval Group Command North, he entered Führer-Reserve 31.7.1944. For the involvement of the Kriegsmarine see Hillmann, ‘Der 20 Juli und die Marine’.
456
Eberbach vastly overestimates the extent of the support for the coup attempt. The basic problem of the plotters was that only the odd general supported it. The refusal of von Manstein was the rule, not the exception.
457
Why Hitler appointed Guderian to act as Chief of the Army General Staff on the evening of 20.7.1944 because of suspicions about Zeitzler has never been properly addressed by research. The plotters had recruited Guderian to gauge the depth of support amongst the Army generals. Subsequently Guderian indulged in homage to Hitler and his orders then bore evidence of a ruthless fanaticism in the sense of a ‘fight to the last shell’. Wilhelm, ‘Guderian’.
458
On Thomale see note 140 above. He was not implicated in the 20 July plot. What Eberbach meant by his observation that Thomale had been courageous in Berlin is unknown.
459
For Hitler’s daily itinerary see Seidler/Zeigert, ‘Führerhauptquartiere’, pp. 110–14; Neumärker, ‘Wolfsschanze’, pp. 74–7.