Tapping Hitler's Generals

BASSENGE: We were never so well-informed as we are here.

Document 93

CSDIC (UK) SR REPORT, SRGG 666 [TNA, WO 208/4167]

HANS REIMANN–Oberst (Commander, Panzer Grenadier Regiment 86)–KURT KÖHNCKE–Oberstleutnant (Commander, 372 Heavy Flak Battery)–Captured 8 May 43 in Tunisia.

Information received: 19 Dec. 43

REIMANN (re atrocities in RUSSIA): It’s true this time. Tell me one thing, in the 1914–18 war did you ever believe in your own mind that a German soldier was capable of doing things like that?

KÖHNCKE: Never.

REIMANN: Never–do you really believe it now?

KÖHNCKE: I have heard so much about it, that I have to believe it. I myself haven’t been there so I can’t pass an opinion.

REIMANN: A senior police official actually told me about it in the train, that they had shot thousands of Jewish men, women and children at BERDICHEV and ZHITOMIR[236]–he actually told me about it without my asking and he gave such a horrid and vivid description of it that I brought out a bottle of vodka from my bag on the rack and changed the conversation to something else and drank with the fellow. And I’ve also heard about it from other people. He told me about it with the businesslike calm of a professional murderer.

Document 94

CSDIC (UK) SR REPORT, SRGG 676 [TNA, WO 208/4167]

GEORG NEUFFER–Generalmajor (GOC, 20th Flak Division)–Captured 9 May 43 in Tunisia.

GERHARD BASSENGE–Generalmajor (GOC, Air Defences Tunis/Bizerta)–Captured 9 May 43 in Tunisia.

Information received: 19 Dec. 43

BASSENGE (re BBC midnight news in German[237]): They dished up the mass executions of Jews in POLAND. They estimate here that altogether five million Jews–Polish, Bulgarian, Dutch, Danish and Norwegian–have been massacred.

NEUFFER: Really? Not counting the German ones?

BASSENGE: Including the German Jews, during the whole time. They furnished evidence that an enormous number from camp so-and-so between such-and-such a date, fifteen thousand here, eighteen thousand there, twelve thousand there, six thousand and so on–I must say that if 10 per cent of it is correct, then one ought to–

NEUFFER: I should have thought about three million.

BASSENGE: You know, it really is a disgrace.

NEUFFER: This trial, which has been going on at CHARKOV is really very unpleasant for HITLER too.[238]

BASSENGE: Yes, The Generaloberst[239] (PW) was talking today about the SEYDLITZ people.[240] He said that we must understand that it was only human that those people, who have been through it, should now try to find the reasons and the people responsible for it. If they, in their state of mental depression, adopt that attitude, we mustn’t judge them too harshly, even though one is bound to condemn it. He was trying to gloss it over.

NEUFFER: He is frightfully uncertain.

BASSENGE: The first man here to join the SEYDLITZ… will be von BROICH (PW). That’s dead certain. He said today: ‘I would join them at once.’

Document 95

CSDIC (UK) SR REPORT, SRGG 681 [TNA, WO 208/4167]

WILHELM RITTER VON THOMA–General der Panzertruppe–Captured 4 Nov. 42 in North Africa.

GEORG NEUFFER–Generalmajor (GOC, 20th Flak Division)–Captured 9 May 43 in Tunisia.

GERHARD BASSENGE–Generalmajor (GOC, Air Defences Tunis/Bizerta)–Captured 9 May 43 in Tunisia.

Information received: 20 Dec. 43

THOMA: In ATHENS two years ago, Sepp DIETRICH told me personally–I have known him for twenty years. I said to him: ‘That’s a nice business! Civilians are simply shot, are they? It’s the same psychosis as we… in 1914 when everyone was just shot–people seeing spies everywhere and so on’; He said: ‘I don’t care; once they’ve been shot, I shall be left in peace.’[241] ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but that is a very dangerous solution, particularly for those who order it.’ He replied: ‘That doesn’t worry me, I’m keeping the last bullet for myself.’ He himself is a remarkably energetic man. I hardly think that he would let himself be taken alive. If they captured him, it would only be by accident–and he’ll take good care to prevent that. But it is a dreadful thing when one thinks that the men in (military) uniform are ordering things like that.

NEUFFER: I don’t believe it. I don’t believe that the army has anything to do with it. It is all propaganda…

THOMA: It is propaganda too, but, of course–firstly there are the notices, signed by the town major. They know here who the town major is, they know it is so-and-so and there they have it. But it is a scandalous business. There are no end of cases.

NEUFFER: Yesterday evening we reckoned that, according to all reports, five million Jews must have been killed by us up to date.