Tapping Hitler's Generals

KITTEL: It was terrible. I once saw them being transported but I had no idea that they were people who were being driven to their execution.

SCHAEFER: Have the people any idea what is in store for them?

KITTEL: They know perfectly well; they are apathetic. I’m not sensitive myself but such things just turn my stomach; I always said. ‘One ceases to be a human being; that’s got nothing more to do with warfare.’ I once had the senior chemist for organic chemistry from IG FARBEN as my adjutant and because they had nothing better for him to do he had been called up and sent to the front. He’s back home now, though he got there quite accidentally. The man was done for weeks. He sat in the corner the whole time and wept. He said: ‘When one considers that it may be like that everywhere!’ He was an important scientist and a musician with a highly strung nervous system.

FELBERT: That shows why FINLAND deserted us, why RUMANIA deserted us, why everyone hates us everywhere–not because of that single incident but because of the great number of similar incidents.

KITTEL: If one were to destroy all the Jews of the world simultaneously there wouldn’t remain a single accuser.

FELBERT (very excited and shouting): It’s obvious; it’s such a scandal; it doesn’t need to be a Jew to accuse us–we ourselves must bring the charge; we must accuse the people who have done it.

KITTEL: Then one must admit that our State system was wrongly built.

FELBERT (shouting): It is, it’s obvious that it’s wrong, there’s no doubt about it. Such a thing is unbelievable.

BRUHN: We are the tools–

FELBERT: That will be marked up against us afterwards, as though it had been we who did it.

BRUHN: If you come along today as a German General people think: ‘He knows everything; he knows about that, too,’ and if we then say: ‘We had nothing to do with it,’ the people won’t believe us. All the hatred and all the aversion is a result purely and simply of these murders, and I must say that if one believes at all in divine justice, one deserves, if one has five children, as I have, to have one or two killed in this way, so that that may be avenged. If one sheds blood like that, one does not deserve victory; one has deserved what has now come to pass.

? FELBERT: I don’t know at whose instigation that was done–if it came from HIMMLER then he is the arch-criminal. Actually you are the first General who has told me that himself. I’ve always believed that these articles were all lies.

KITTEL: I keep silent about a great many things; they are too awful.

FELBERT: Do you think it all comes from HIMMLER?

KITTEL: Naturally. It someone at the top says: ‘Exterminate those cattle’–off they all go. I had rows about the thing with every single chief of police. The chief of police in WEIMAR[292] came to me, an unparalleled DON QUIXOTE, wearing the uniform of a ‘Generalleutnant’–I was ‘Generalmajor’ in LAMMERSDORF(?).[293] I said: ‘What do you want to discuss with me?’–‘Well, well, etc., the whole situation here displeases me, it will be fundamentally altered immediately, it’s disgraceful,’ etc.–‘I’m sorry if you do not agree with some of my measures; you can naturally tell me that quite calmly but not in this way. I will send for my “Kriegsverwaltungsrat”.’–‘Who is that?’ I said: ‘You shall meet him directly.’ It was Dr SCHMIDTHUBER(?), a MUNICH notary. Well, he came in and the General turned round and said: ‘So that’s what the fellow looks like.’ I said: ‘Excuse me, General, this is my “Kriegsverwaltungsrat”. I do not wish my subordinates to be spoken of in that tone in my house.’–‘I’ve already heard all kinds of things about him.’ SCHMIDTHUBER(?) smilingly stood in front of him and said: ‘Sir, I would point out that I am senior in SS rank to you.’ He is the only SS man whom I have met who managed things charitably and sensibly. The man was worth his weight in gold to me. I was still inexperienced in all those things. How should I know all about the administration of the town; how should I know about the administration of a province half as large as BAVARIA? He knew something about it, for in BAVARIA he was the big man for concluding contracts. He drew up government contracts and so on. He, too, always said: ‘Sirs, everything will have its revenge; let us keep clear. Let us accept no invitations from the SD; let us accept no invitations to houses where Jewish loot is to be found; let us never remove furniture from Jewish homes; instead we will live simply and modestly with whatever we happen to find.’ I could go on telling you things for days on end.

FELBERT: What happened to the young, pretty girls? Were they formed into a harem?