Tapping Hitler's Generals

SCHLIEBEN: I spoke to a Russian General, who said to me: ‘You know, those who were taken prisoner at STALINGRAD will have had just the same fate as the prisoners you took that winter.’ In practice it was quite impossible suddenly to feed such a haul of prisoners at STALINGRAD.

? BROICH: I once spoke to Oberst von GRAEVENITZ,[260] he will be ‘General’ now, who was PW Inspector from the Ministry. He told me that he had travelled round those camps in POMERANIA, where the PW came straight from RUSSIA and had never seen such a thing. The men had no buttocks left at all, but only an orifice. They were complete wrecks, just skin and bone. Besides that they had dysentery all that sort of thing.

HENNECKE: I know that when they were sent to factories, they had to be nursed back gradually before they were fit for any work at all.

BROICH: Besides that they had no clothes to wear and nothing–

SCHLIEBEN: STALIN will have plenty to say about that.

BROICH: I should think that if we have got 3½ million PW, 1 million will certainly have died.[261]

SCHLIEBEN: Yes, that’s quite certain. […]

Document 104

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 183

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 29 Aug. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]

CHOLTITZ: I have witnessed some dreadful things! They put us in such a disgraceful light. The highest SS official arrived and said: ‘Sir, I am handing over this camp.’ I asked: ‘What sort of camp is it?’ He answered: ‘All of my camps were emptied, but I still have a prisoners camp.’ ‘Who are imprisoned here?’ ‘Thirty women who have to be taken away, they are all pregnant.’ ‘What am I to do with them?’ ‘Oh, let… I don’t care a hoot….’ The next morning I remember the fellow had said something to me. They had all made off. Not a single SS or policeman was there. I went there (and discovered) that they were thirty ladies, the wives of the very industrialists who had run our war industry in PARIS for the last two years. They had been arrested as hostages. They were ladies, just like ‘Frau’ THYSSEN and ‘Frau’–.[262]

BASSENGE: VÖGELER[263] and that kind.

THOMA: What were they doing there; why were they imprisoned there?

CHOLTITZ: They had been imprisoned there as hostages for several years, I set them free at once, offering profuse apologies. We then found the corpses of four naked women, whom they had violated shortly before they left.

THOMA: Yes, that is known here. The only consolation for the Army is that the papers here always lay stress on: SS and Gestapo. Why did they leave those dead women lying about down there?

CHOLTITZ: Well, they were violated–they just felt like it.

THOMA: Of course the Americans and English turned up there.

CHOLTITZ: The French found it and they reported it to me. No, it was the Swiss ambassador who was still there. Those swine made off at night without telling me, they left their quarters open, full of arms and a cellar filled with explosives and a picture of HITLER as its only guardian! They left it for my opponents the French communists to seize. They simply drove off!

THOMA: Who were those?

CHOLTITZ: The Gestapo.

THOMA: Are the names–

CHOLTITZ: Yes, of course. He visited me and negotiated with me.

Document 105

GRGG 187 [TNA, WO 208/4363]

Provisional report on CS/223–General der Panzertruppe EBERBACH (GOC 7th Army)–Captured 31 Aug. 44 in Amiens–before his arrival in Camp No. 11. This report contains information from a conversation between the above officer and a junior British Army Officer [BAO]

EBERBACH: That evening I spoke to HIMMLER. He had given a lecture and in the evening he sat down at our table. I told him that I couldn’t understand the general inhuman treatment of the Jews. It was rather risky, but actually one can say a thing like that to HIMMLER and discuss it with him. He replied that I ought to realise what the situation was: If there were still Jews in all the large towns today, with the bombing raids, then it was perfectly obvious that by them spreading rumours and inciting against the government, the present good behaviour of the population would pretty certainly come to an end.[264] One had to agree with that up to a point. It wasn’t advisable to tell him that if the Jews had been treated differently, they could have been made to have quite a different attitude towards the government.

BAO: And how often did you have the honour of hearing a speech by the FÜHRER himself?

EBERBACH: Never. He was supposed to speak there but it was cancelled on the last day. We were supposed to go over from SONTHOFEN to the BERCHTESGADEN district to see him, but that was cancelled, because some foreign diplomats had arrived, with whom he had to confer. At the whole session at which I was present, there were many less so-called noted speakers taking part than there were at the former one. ROSENBERG, too, for instance, who was said to have spoken always was not present and neither was GOEBBELS.

Document 106

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 189