Tapping Hitler's Generals

SPANG: Yes, yes, it will come. There is no doubt! It will certainly come. The French will… the so-called war criminals… ‘Divisionalskommandeure’ who gave those orders. Moreover I signed death warrants.[255]

Document 102

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 176

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 19–21 Aug. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]

HELLWIG: I am not of the opinion that the FÜHRER is a criminal and that his intentions were evil.

KLENK: No, let’s put it like this: the ideas are all right and the ideas are all you can wish for but the executive organs are definitely criminal.

HELLWIG: Yes, that’s true enough.

KLENK: I mean to say that their methods, for instance, are criminal.

HELLWIG: Yes, their behaviour towards the Jews and the Poles.

KLENK: We didn’t know any figures, but my God, when you hear the approximate figure! Gosh! Of course the enemy will have a right to say: ‘Men who condone such things must be evil.’ A very simple formula. A world order exists and we have sinned against it.

HELLWIG: Well, our world order is really based on faith, on religion.

KLENK: We have all repudiated that!

HELLWIG: That is stupid; I mean to say that it makes no difference which religion it is, whether it’s Roman Catholicism or the Evangelical faith; they are all based on faith, belief, goodness etc.

KLENK: In the last resort this is the foundation of any world order; whoever goes against these laws of world order will be held responsible by a world tribunal. That behaviour of ours towards English officers was dreadful too.

HELLWIG: Have you ever spoken to Americans? I never knew they could be as cordial.

KLENK: Yes, they’re ready to help any good fellow. You can’t say they’ve any hatred.

HELLWIG: No hate at all! How badly we’ve been brought up! Hatred! The manner in which we treated the Jews was wrong.

KLENK: Those methods were quite wrong.

HELLWIG: They should have been allowed to leave the country with all their money.

KLENK: Why not? Send them out of the country; get rid of them in a decent way, but not…

HELLWIG: Children have been shot!

KLENK: The numbers must have been colossal.

HELLWIG: I was at GOMEL… at RYECHITSA; there is a wood with sand dunes where hundreds of Jewish men, women and children lay buried. I wouldn’t believe it; it was behind our lines in RUSSIA. I thought it was an exaggeration until I myself saw children of four or five, girls of fourteen, fifteen and sixteen…[256]

KLENK: It’s shattering!

HELLWIG: One thing strikes me: The individual counts for nothing in National Socialism. You never hear a friendly word spoken; you never hear our losses mentioned; everything is just thrown in ruthlessly as a matter of course by the higher commander and the most ruthless commander gets the Knight’s Cross, the ‘Oak Leaves’ and the ‘Swords’. It’s dreadful! I breathed a sign of relief after being with the Americans; they’re human beings.

Document 103

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 182

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 27–8 Aug. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]

MENNY (re SCHLIEBEN’s order not to surrender): I once issued an order like that in RUSSIA and it succeeded in restoring a position. I had just taken over a ‘Division’ there, which had newly come from NORWAY, so that it was as yet fresh, and still good. The enemy broke through, simply because a few fellows had run away. Immediately I insisted on fetching the deputy judge advocate general from the Q(?) Staff(?) at the rear and brought him to the front–his knees were knocking together with fright–and we tried the men directly behind the place where the enemy had broken in and sentenced them immediately and shot them at once, on the spot. That went round like wildfire and the result was that the main defensive line was in our hands again at the end of three days. From that moment on there was quite good order in the ‘Division’. It acted as a deterrent, at any rate no one else ran away unnecessarily. Of course a thing like that is contagious, it is demoralising when everyone runs away.

ELFELDT: Where was that.

MENNY: It was on the DNIEPER at KORTIZA–afterwards the ‘Division’ was wiped out down to the last man.[257]

ELFELDT: In the KIEV district, or where?

MENNY: Near ZAPOROZHE. Opposite ZAPOROZHE[258] there is a large island 3 km long, called KORTIZA.

BROICH: On the Eastern Front at… we passed a camp[259] where there were 20,000 PW. At night they howled like wild beasts. They hadn’t got anything to eat. It wouldn’t have been possible to give them anything even if we had wanted to, because we had scarcely anything ourselves. Everything was in such a mess at that time. Then we marched down the road and a column of about 6,000 tottering figures went past, completely emaciated, helping each other along. Every 100 or 200 m two or three of them collapsed. Soldiers of ours on bicycles rode alongside with pistols; everyone who collapsed was shot and thrown into the ditch. That happened every 100 m.