Tapping Hitler's Generals

THOMA: I mean, it’s a psychological disease which has spread throughout the Party, not the Army, that everything Jewish must be exterminated–they have orders to do it. I remember in the spring of 1942, when their airmen were always dropping that ‘Freedom Pamphlet’ with a facsimile in it of the order signed by HITLER about shooting of Commissars, etc. I wasn’t there–I asked the GSO I, Ops: ‘Have we still got the order?’ He replied: ‘No, we had to destroy it.’[242]

Document 96

CSDIC (UK) SR REPORT, SRGG 739 [TNA, WO 208/4167]

FRITZ KRAUSE–Chief Artillery Officer (German Army Group Africa)–Captured 9 May 43 in Tunisia.

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

FREIHERR KURT VON LIEBENSTEIN–Generalmajor (GOC, 164th Division)–Captured 13 May 43 in Tunisia.

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

Information received: 1 Jan. 44

?BROICH: In this war I once had to have men shot. They were two men who were arrested as spies and active ones at that, according to statements of the inhabitants, and so we said: ‘All right, they must be shot.’… these men (the firing squad) were fine honest people, some of them were fairly experienced Gefreite and they were pale as death, the job was so hateful to them. Then the adjutant came up and said he was all in for that day, he was running about in circles and was almost crazy because it had got on his nerves so much.[243]

?KRAUSE:… often attacked the DRs on these long roads between SALONIKA and SOFIA and when that happened the neighbouring(?) villages were immediately razed to the ground and everybody, men, women and children were herded together and slaughtered. The ‘Regiment’ commander, BRÜCKELMANN told me about it too. He told me once how horrible it was. They were driven into a pen and then the order was given: ‘Fire on them.’ Of course there was a terrible screaming as they fell–the children too–and of course they weren’t killed outright. Then an officer had to go along and put a bullet through their heads. Another time they dragged them all into the church and took them out singly. They always shot them in threes. The ones inside could hear this and they barricaded themselves in and put up resistance; then they had to burn the church down because they couldn’t get in. He said this massacring was horrible, although…[244]

?: There were others there too…

?: No, no, … Greek(?) villages.

?: But did the order come from the Army…

?: Yes.

Document 97

CSDIC (UK) SR REPORT, SRGG 815 [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: 2 Feb. 44

NEUFFER: The Russians haven’t reached the spot yet where those large-scale mass murders took place.

BASSENGE: Were they on such a large scale?

NEUFFER: Yes, Russian and Polish Jews. That was what I was telling you about, how they did away with thousands of them, with all sorts of accompanying horrors. KATYN was child’s play in comparison.

BASSENGE: Oh, were the numbers so much higher?

NEUFFER: Yes, of course. That is not even counting the German Jews. That hasn’t all been brought to light yet. I mean to say, they sometimes talk about it in their propaganda, but–. For instance, for fun they would drive train-loads of Jews out–in the winter–and in a wooded country–I know it from V. BROICH (PW), you can ask him yourself–OPPENHEIM,[245] that famous FRANKFURT Jew, who had those racing stables, they stopped the train, made him and the others get out and chased them into the woods in the bitter cold. I mean to say, when all that is found out. The trouble is that unfortunately it is nearly all true. On the contrary, they (Allies) have no idea of what really happened.

BASSENGE: That OPPENHEIM was the man who, during the Great War, established one of the largest military reserve-hospitals we had in GERMANY, at FRANKFURT; I happen to know that.

NEUFFER: That makes no difference.

BASSENGE: His wife is an ‘Aryan’ and she is a school-friend of my mother’s. She and my mother went to school together at FRANKFURT.

NEUFFER: I don’t suppose she is alive now, is she?

BASSENGE: Well, I never heard of her again.