Tapping Hitler's Generals

?: We shall never win it by these means; on the contrary, by these means we have shown that if it’s possible for anyone to have the leadership in EUROPE, it must in no circumstances be us. Then the whole of EUROPE would rise as one man against us as far as they have any feelings of decency left–that is what we have achieved. For that is what they are without any doubt, EUROPE’s birth-pangs–whether the child will be still-born, we do not yet know; this uniting of great areas into a single empire–that is in process of creation and will come one way or the other. Who will predominate is not yet known. I am afraid that we have shown, unfortunately that we could never exert a predominance like that because we are simply not morally in a position to do so–no longer in a position, because everything which used to be admired in a German has been changed to the opposite in the course of the last fourteen, or rather ten years. There is no longer any justice, there is no longer any decency; there is nothing but force and brutal suppression of opinion and of the right to live and think and so on. A tyranny such as ours has hardly ever existed before, and I am convinced that, however the war had ended, the next generation, at least would, figuratively speaking, have gone about with daggers in their pockets. The young people would not have put up with it in the long run either, for no country has ever had a tyranny like this. To modify it–that can’t be done, because that is the curse of the wicked deed–they could no longer do that because by then there would be many too many who wanted to avenge themselves.

BOES: Have you experienced this tyranny yourself, Sir, or your family?

?: Well, comparatively little, because I am a soldier and they have not dared to come near us. In one small case I have experienced it, where such difficulties and scenes were made for an officer’s wife, simply because she had unwittingly bought a few glasses from a Jewish household, and was then denounced by a maid. She was said also to have criticised the regime at home, while in fact she was an ardent National Socialist–she won’t be one any longer.

?: We soldiers are by far the best off in this respect. From what I have heard from my friends who have not enjoyed the protection of being a soldier, their treatment is very different. Even now, I am still a good National Socialist, but in the… sense. Those are no National Socialists.

?: The FÜHRER’s greatest fault is that he does not think like normal people do.

?: Oh, I think he does, but he believes that people are too good.

?: If any man tells me that he prays to God that, if a war must be waged, he should be there to wage it, that in itself is a sign of megalomania.[230]

?: One is always trying to find reasons why things aren’t going well now. One has a perfect right to do so, for in the long run you can’t live on faith alone. The only people who work on ‘faith’–but far more skilfully than the National Socialists–are the Roman Catholic Church. While here they always want to prove to me that what has turned into its opposite within three or six days must still be believed in, I can’t have any part in that. For that purpose God gave me a mind. It may, perhaps show a lack of character, but I cannot overcome my reasoning. When I see everything that–not in the newspapers, but what I personally know because I have seen it personally, if I put all that into the scales and weigh it, then I am compelled to say: ‘Nothing can excuse it, nothing at all.’ If you… a pact of friendship, quite apart from the political side–the way we have broken our pact with RUSSIA is in my opinion scandalous.[231] That is something else that had never happened before. You will argue: ‘In wartime only that is right which is of advantage to the people!’ In the long run that is no advantage. The shooting of the Commissars–I have not been able to discover in any war, except in the dimmest past, that orders like that have been issued by the highest authority. I have seen (?) these orders personally.[232] That is a sign that like a God, that man has simply disregarded everybody and all pacts which exist, and exist on both sides–that is megalomania. We saw the result in the fury with which the Commissars have fought.

?: Don’t you believe, Sir, that the English would have broken a pact with just as few scruples, if it had been to the advantage of their people?

?: Certainly; but they would choose a much more skilful reason. In general they don’t go in for unnecessary cruelties–that was reserved for us. The English think further ahead. We always think only how to get material for the next speech.

Document 90

CSDIC (UK) SR REPORT, SRGG 520 [TNA, WO 208/4167]

LUDWIG CRÜWELL–General der Panzertruppe–Captured 29 May 42 in North Africa.

HANS-JÜRGEN VON ARNIM–Generaloberst (GOC Army Group Africa)–Captured 12 May 43 in Tunisia.