SON: Well, all that may be the case, but these are all more or less signs of overstrain.
FATHER: All right, let’s admit they are signs of overstrain. But in that case the man should take the consequences and say: ‘I can’t lead the Army and the Armed Forces, an expert must do that.’
SON: We have no experts.
FATHER: What do you mean by that? Without a doubt GUDERIAN could have led the Armed Forces better than the FÜHRER did, and so could MANSTEIN.
SON: I’ll admit he might have lead the Army, but the Armed Forces?
FATHER: I’m convinced that MANSTEIN has enough common sense to have had an expert put forward by the Navy, at his side, and he would have managed to lead the Combined Armed Forces. If it comes to that, JODL isn’t bad, but he hasn’t the moral courage to stand up to the FÜHRER in his fits of rage and say: ‘No, what you say can’t be done.’
SON: Of course I am not quite in a position to judge. Why is a man like DÖNITZ out and out on his side? He’s a man worthy of consideration!
FATHER: Yes, I don’t know about that either. That’s not my province. But the people I know – I mean, apart from those, all the ones who were connected with the affair and the ones who have been arrested and shot as a result of it, or rather hanged, the ones named are only a fraction of the number that have actually disappeared. The best people, for example, that ‘Oberquartiermeister’, General WAGNER[460] and General FINK,[461] who was in charge of the ‘Quartiermeister’ organisation in the West, had been especially brought over from the Eastern Front because he was the best man for the job. WAGNER’s Chief of Staff, BUHLE’s Chief of Staff,[462] in the OKW operations staff there was MEIXNER,[463] a first-rate fellow, and ZEITZLER, in fact I might almost say, everybody who was any good at all.
SON: Yes, and what does a man like Sepp DIETRICH say about it?
FATHER: Sepp DIETRICH railed against the FÜHRER and his entourage to such an extent that it became most unpleasant. Then he was sent for and he said: ‘All right, that’s fine, but I shall speak my mind. I shall tell ADI’ – he always calls HITLER ‘ADI’ – ‘that he is leading us all to destruction.’ He went there and was awarded the Diamonds and promoted ‘Generaloberst’ (chuckling) so, of course, he kept his mouth shut. We all swore at him. Then he said: ‘I shall go straight back there – you are right!’ But then I got him as my ‘Armee’ commander. That’s the state of affairs it was. Sepp DIETRICH is all right as a soldier, but not as a ‘Korps’ commander nor was an ‘Armee’ commander, and I had to hand over my ‘Armee’ to him. But you know me well enough to know that that wouldn’t in any way make me change my opinions.
Document 160
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 201 [TNA, WO 208/4364]
Provisional report on information obtained from CS/443 Generalleutnant HEIM (Commander, Boulogne) – Captured 23 Sept. 44 in Boulogne.
HEIM: I received the following information from an extremely reliable source, from a General Staff Officer in the General Army Branch in fact. He said the last attack had come about as follows: the FÜHRER had ordered that the ‘Divisionen’ which were recently being formed at home and of which the date for completion of formation had been laid down as the beginning of September, were immediately to be sent into action in the East, regardless of their condition, and were to occupy the switch(?) lines on the German frontier. Then OLBRICHT and FROMM and all these people said that it was a decision born of sheer despair and would rob us of the very last troops we could throw into the balance at all, because it had long been shown by experience that all formations of that kind are lost if they are put into a switch-line. So those Generals opposed that strongly, but without success(?). So they decided that it was high time to act. It was a case of the man having no power of judgement, and a thing like that could not be done. Actually the FÜHRER withdrew this order after the attempt on his life, but it was then immediately issued again, because the issue in the West had collapsed in the meantime. The position is that we lack any proper professional military leadership, either administrative or strategical. That’s the tragedy of the whole affair.[464]
Document 161
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 213
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 18–19 Oct. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4364]
CHOLTITZ: Would you kill HITLER, too?
SCHLIEBEN: It’s very difficult to say whether he should be killed or not; it might turn him into a martyr. I should hand him over to the Russians, to work in some Siberian mine or other; that would settle the matter.
CHOLTITZ: As long as the man lives, German Youth will believe in his return and think only of resistance. He mustn’t be surrounded by a Napoleonic halo of glory either – that is to any, exiled.
SCHLIEBEN: Would you kill him, then?
CHOLTITZ: Certainly. Death is no martyrdom. He should be killed and the whole world should be told about it; he should be photographed pleading for his life, and should be shown in a really bad light, just as they did with Feldmarschall von WITZLEBEN. He should be made to wear just a pullover, and to stand there as a criminal, with his hair cropped and so on.
Document 162
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 220
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 7–10 Nov. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4364]
BASSENGE: What would you say to the following question supposing a man like RUNDSTEDT, for example – knowing perfectly well that there’s only one way to avoid chaos this winter or next spring – were to pack up the Army, do away with the Nazi system and finally open the gates to the enemy, what percentage of the armed forces would help him, and what percentage would not? Providing it was made known in a suitable manner and the lines of communication worked. Just the psychological question of what percentage of the Army and the population would cooperate under present conditions, and how many would fight against it, that is, apart from SS ‘Divisionen’—
DASER: One hundred.
BASSENGE: One hundred per cent would cooperate? You’re convinced? Not the young officers and young people—
THOMA: They, too, have lost much of their enthusiasm I believe.[465]
Document 163
CSDIC (UK), GRGG 238
Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 23–6 Dec. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4364]
EBERBACH: I should have had great difficulties with my ‘Divisionen’, if that 20 July business had spread any further. That 1st SS Division would certainly have fired. The indignation and anger among the chaps in those ‘Divisionen’ about the ‘Putsch’ was so profound that even I was amazed – not only among the SS ‘Divisionen’ but also among some of the infantry ‘Divisionen’.
BASSENGE: Yes, I can well believe that, with the propaganda there was. When things go wrong they always blame whoever started them.
460
General der Artillerie Eduard Wagner (1.4.1894–23.7.1944), from 1.8.1940 Army QM-General, joined the Opposition circle around Halder in 1939 but then immersed himself in his duties until 1942 and was thus implicated in the brutal policies in the war in the east. A long-term waverer, by the summer of 1944 he had become a leading advocate of the need to assassinate Hitler. He eluded his pursuers by suicide. Peter, ‘Eduard Wagner’.
461
Oberst Eberhard Finckh (7.11.1899–30.8.1944), friendly with Stauffenberg from 1936, implicated in plot in Paris as Senior QM to Military Cdr, France. Arrested 26.7.1944, condemned to death by People’s Court 30.8.1944 and executed same day at Berlin-Plötzensee.
462
General der Infanterie Walter Buhle (26.10.1894–27.12.1959), 1.9.1939 Chief, Organisations-Abt. at OKH; from 15.2.1942 Chief of OKW Army Staff; 1.2.1945 Chief of Army Ordnance. He suffered minor injuries in the 20 July blast.
463
Eberbach means Oberst Joachim Meichssner (4.4.1906–29.9.1944). At OKH from 1937, Olbricht recruited him to the conspiracy. Temporarily active with Buhle at OKW Army Staff, he was then appointed Chief of the Organisations-Abt., Wehrmacht Command Staff, where he had access to the Führer’s situation conferences but did not want to be the assassin. Arrested end of July 1944, sentenced to death by the People’s Court 29.9.1944 and executed same day at Berlin-Plötzensee.
464
On 10.7.1944 Hitler ordered the C-in-C Ersatzheer and Chief of Army Ordnance to set up 15 new ‘Sperr-Divisionen’ (barrier divisions) (29.Welle) as soon as possible. The intention was originally that they should protect the Reich borders in the East with effect from 1.9.1944. On 13.7.1944 the units were redesignated ‘Grenadier Divisions’, and by the beginning of October 1944 the 17 divisions of 29.Welle were now renamed ‘Volksgrenadier Divisions’. Equipped only with anti-tank guns, artillery and transport, they were used mainly in the east from August 1944. It is not known if Hitler’s idea for the barrier divisions influenced the conspirators to act at a particular time. Kroener, ‘Fromm’, esp. p. 667.
465
The former Battle Commandant of Aachen, Oberst Wilck, expressed the opinion on 28.10.1944 that the Army was 40 per cent Nazi and 60 per cent ‘against’. If the Führer held on to the reins of power and that was the split, then the war would go on until Berlin fell and Germany was destroyed, Wilck prophesied. SRGG 1067, 28.10.1944, TNA, WO 208/4169.