Tapping Hitler's Generals

ELFELDT: We knew (what happened) in POLAND to the hundreds and thousands of Jews who, as time went by, disappeared, were sent away from GERMANY and who after ’39 were said to be accommodated in ghettos and settlements in POLAND–we were told that.

SCHLIEBEN: They all disappeared.

ELFELDT: Who ever got to know that millions of these people–as the Russians now assert–perished or were burnt in AUSCHWITZ and whatever these small places are called?

BROICH: Certainly none of us.

ELFELDT: We heard about AUSCHWITZ when we were in POLAND.[355]

BROICH: I visited DACHAU personally in ’37. The commandant of the camp said to us: ‘If I had to spend a year here, I should throw myself on the electric wire. I couldn’t stand it for longer than a year–nobody could.’

HOLSTE: Some people stood it for twelve years.

BROICH: We were quite convinced that we were only shown what we were supposed to see. I went there with the hereditary Prince of WALDECK,[356] that swine; he had two camps under his control. We spent six hours there and afterwards were absolutely overcome by what we had seen, although we did not see any of the tortures we have heard about lately.

DITTMAR: I didn’t hear the name AUSCHWITZ until I went to PARIS.[357]

THOMA: That’s how they led the people up the garden path.

DITTMAR: It wasn’t a question of leading them up the garden path, it was a carefully thought-out secret security system.

Document 142

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 311

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 1–6 June 45 [TNA, WO 208/4177]

Generalleutnant FEUCHTINGER (Commander, 21st Panzer Division, captured 3 May 45 in Hamburg)–gave Generalleutnant VON MASSOW the following report about the massacre of 25,000 Jews in Pinsk:

FEUCHTINGER: When I was at Pinsk I was told that in the previous year there had been still 25,000 Jews living there and within three days these 25,000 Jews were fetched out, formed up on the edge of a wood or in a meadow–they had been made to dig their own graves beforehand–and then every single one of them from the oldest greybeard down to the new-born infant was shot by a police squad. That was the first time I myself had actually heard and seen what happened there. I had previously not believed or considered it possible that anything like that went on. The nurse at the officers’ hostel where I lived told me that: For heavens sake, don’t say anything about my having told you that.[358]

Document 143

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 314

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 7–30 June 45 [TNA, WO 208/4178]

III. THE CONCENTRATION CAMP FILM

The senior Officer PWs have been given a showing of the concentration camp film; attendance was compulsory for all inmates of the camp. Their reactions to it were as follows:

1. In conversation between Generalleutnant v. SCHLIEBEN and Generalmajore v. FELBERT and HABERMEHL:

SCHLIEBEN: That’s the only thing about the ‘thousand year REICH’ which will last for a thousand years.

FELBERT: Yes, we are disgraced for all time.

2. In conversation between Generalleutnant v. ORIOLA and SIEWERT:

ORIOLA: HITLER ordered all those killings.

SIEWERT: Still, it’s no wonder those people starved; we hadn’t anything left ourselves.

ORIOLA: Concentration camps will always remain an impossible institution, specially in countries which have a depraved government.

SIEWERT: It’s a very effective film; it’s a fine sort of recommendation for us! It really was like that, I saw it. The worst thing was that anyone could have anyone else put in such a camp without a sentence.

3. Generalleutnant DITTMAR and HOLSTE agreed that what the film showed was revolting, even though there was no means of comparing that with what happened in Russian camps. They could not understand why the SS had not destroyed all the damning evidence.

4. In conversation between General FINK and Generalleutnant DITTMAR and HEIM:

HEIM: This air raid on DRESDEN was a different matter after all.

DITTMAR: Certainly that was quite different from this direct torture of individuals.

HEIM: This slow, intentional, systematic murder.

DITTMAR: That’s why it can’t be compared.

HEIM: The other (DRESDEN) could at least be called warfare in the last analysis.

DITTMAR: You could see there that that was not the only purpose–

HEIM: But this is an absolute disgrace.

DITTMAR: This is an absolute disgrace.

FINK (enters): One needs to have seen a film like that.

HEIM: RÖHRICHT said that compared with the 200,000 at DRESDEN–[359]

FINK (excitedly): It can’t be compared with DRESDEN!

DITTMAR: That’s too weak an argument.

FINK: The Russian method of shooting in the back of the neck is a kindness–

DITTMAR: In comparison with this vileness.

Document 144

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 363

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 24 Sept.–9 Oct. 45 [TNA, WO 208/4178]

1. THE WAR CRIMES TRIALS