Tapping Hitler's Generals

CRÜWELL (Re shooting of Russian PW by Germans): LIEBENSTEIN (PW)[220] made a fuss at the dinner-table again today because we had shot so many Russian prisoners. Our people only shot one Commissar–was that so awful?[221]

ARNIM: The SS have shot a lot of people, which was very stupid. Because except for the first two who were still convinced communists, they were just soldiers under orders, and not even members of the party.

CRÜWELL: Was it chiefly only commissars or was it also… any sort of P/W…?

ARNIM: Oh no, only the Commissars.

CRÜWELL: He behaves as if all the prisoners had simply been shot.

ARNIM: Well I wouldn’t swear to it that when PW were taken away and one of them collapsed on the road, someone didn’t give him a shot in the back instead of dragging him along.[222]

CRÜWELL: I think all this is so ridiculous and quite monstrous, that one should go around grumbling like that–and light a cigarette–and throw mud like that at one’s own people whilst in a prison camp. Don’t you think so? But if things turn out differently then we’ll talk about it again, Sir. Then the others will pretend they have not said anything. Then they’ll only be annoyed that the FÜHRER doesn’t say to all the generals ‘en bloc’: ‘You are all the most charming people.’ When you see these people you have to admit the FÜHRER is quite right to have his suspicions.[223]

Document 89

CSDIC (UK) SR REPORT, SRGG 495 [TNA, WO 208/4166]

FRIEDRICH FREIMERR VON BROICH (GOC 10th Panzer Division)–Captured 12 May 43 in Tunisia.

EGERSDORF–Oberst (Commander, TUNIS)–Captured 8 May 43 in Tunisia. ULRICH BOES–Major (Staff Officer to Generalleutnant von SPONECK (PW))–Captured 9 May 43 in Tunisia.

Information received: 21 Oct. 43

?: We can’t complain if they ever stand on German soil and simply raze… completely to the ground, or deport the people into concentration camps and make them work. We have done exactly the same sort of thing.

?: If anyone had any doubts about it, he was enlightened in no uncertain manner by our behaviour in all the occupied territories–I witnessed it in GREECE too.[224]

?: The soldiers… the best propaganda for the THIRD REICH that you could possible imagine. These people in FRANCE and in the BALKANS whom I met were enthusiastic about the discipline of the Germany army. And the very moment the Party and the SS took over the control, even the most harmless citizens became fanatics–against us. I mean, is that wise or is it part of the creed? If that were really a part of National Socialism, then National Socialism would be the greatest crime there is. But it isn’t so by any means–National Socialism is actually a wonderful creed. The people who are at present playing first fiddle aren’t National Socialists at all; they are criminals.

?: If GERMANY is destroyed in this war, so that even our private lives cease to be our own, do you think that generations to come will curse these people?

?: I have to admit that mistakes have been made.

?: That is quite beside the point. Mistakes have been made in every age by every nation. The point is that the men in authority are bad characters of a low type; that is the criminal part of it. That is vastly different from ‘making mistakes’.

?: I don’t want to accuse the government, but I think the manner in which we have behaved towards the rest of the world is so shameless that even our children will blush. In my opinion no greater outrage to civilisation than this mass murder of innocent people who have done nothing beyond the fact that perhaps they had been circumcised or had belonged to some other race… Are there any pure races left now?

?: BAYERLEIN once told me about the ghettos in WARSAW;[225] he was taken round at the time. He said it makes him shudder to think of it. Twenty-four people living in one room, and the bread ration so calculated that 1 per cent and 2 per cent were bound to die every week.

?: In the long run we owe the fact that we got out of the mess again entirely to National Socialism. Nobody else brought it off; we tried all ways–with Herr BRÜNING and Herr–

?: But after all we too witnessed it; if it hadn’t been the FÜHRER it would have been someone else, who might have done it in a different way.

?: You can’t say that. We can only say that he was the one–all the rest is theory.

?: Of course everything else is theory, but what you are saying isn’t entirely devoid of theory either; because, if he hadn’t turned up, it would probably have developed more slowly and a slow steady development is often better than a blow-up of that sort. I should feel happier at any rate and the German people too, I feel sure.

?: At any rate I don’t believe that a hundred years hence history will say: ‘We have the FÜHRER to thank for our resurrection after 1918’; but it will unfortunately have to say: ‘We have him to thank for the loss of our independence.’ That will be the final judgment.