Tapping Hitler's Generals

1. Various of the senior officer PW are expecting to be called as witnesses at the NUREMBERG War Crimes Trials. General EBERBACH is among their number. In conversation with General v. THOMA he speculated as follows upon the reasons for his being summoned:

EBERBACH: Either they want me about the shooting of the Canadian PW–I have already once proved to them that it happened before I went there.[360] Or they want to interrogate me about the transfer of the police into the armed forces in connection with preparations for the war. I joined two years before the law was enacted. Or SPEER has named me as a witness; I can tell only good of him.

2. In the following conversation with Oberst WILDERMUTH and Obersleutnant v.d. HEYDTE, General EBERBACH defined the attitude he would adopt according to whether he believed the NUREMBERG trials were genuine or merely staged:

EBERBACH: I should not like to land in trouble one of my comrades, say, Genoberst GUDERIAN or Minister SPEER, whom I consider as a comrade too in that respect because I have worked closely together with him. I really do not know why they want me as a witness; my position was not of such importance. But these people want to know something from me and I should like to be able to advise other people who will be heard. There are only two points of view possible: either I assume: ‘The British are decent fellows; they do really intend to pronounce an impartial sentence and I, as a decent man myself, will try to help the British to pronounce an unbiased sentence by making objective statements.’ The other attitude is: ‘This whole affair in NUREMBERG is deliberately staged in order to drag the Germans who have to appear before it into the dirt and in order that a sentence which has already been passed in advance shall only contribute further to sully the German name; in such a case I can only state that I will not say anything at all as a witness, or as little as possible, for why should I lend my good name to have the German reputation dragged still further into the mud?’

WILDERMUTH: I should say as little as possible.

HEYDTE: If I may butt in, I do not believe that it will be a staged trial.

3. General EBERBACH spoke as below to Generalleutant HEIM, Oberst WILDERMUTH and Oberstleutant v.d. HEYDTE about the background to one incident in RUSSIA which might be looked upon as a war crime:

EBERBACH: I know of cases where the men in RUSSIA committed things in their desperation in that terrible winter which they would never have done under different circumstances. To mention one case: Our ‘Bataillon’ of motorcyclists had, after having attacked a village in snow 120 cm deep and having captured it with considerable loss from an enemy whose behaviour was fiendish, and having then captured the next village too, in which the Russians had laid mines, drove the Russian population over these mines. Of the thirty men who drove over them, twenty-one were blown up. The commander of the ‘Bataillon’[361] told me: ‘I lost so many fine fellows that I simply could not bear the responsibility towards German mothers and fathers of sending my men through those mines.’

HEYDTE: I can only say that, though I can’t approve of it, I can understand it.

EBERBACH: I understood it, too, at that moment, when the whole lot was fighting desperately, but I did not approve of it, though I did not start any court martial proceedings against the CO of the ‘Kompanie’.

4. The same speakers held a general discussion of the duties and obligations of a witness, v.d. HEYDTE pointing out that a witness gave evidence under oath; he gave a negative reply to EBERBACH’s question whether it would be in order for him to shake hands with any of the accused whom he knew. WILDERMUTH advised EBERBACH ‘not to remember’ if he was in doubt as to the implications of any given answer.

5. In conversation with Oberstleutnant v.d. HEYDTE, Generalleutnant ELFELDT repeated the opinion expressed in the past that all senior officers would be tried by the Allies in due course. The speakers agreed in believing that the British and Americans wanted to annihilate the German military and academic classes. They also agreed in condemning the German use of gas chambers, but stated that in their view the Germans had already been sufficiently punished. In a conversation between ELFELDT and Generalleutnant HEIM it was stated that too much fuss was made about German maltreatment of Jews: ‘after all, many more Germans died in this war than Jews died in gas chambers’.

6. […]

III. The Insurrection of Conscience. Reactions to 20 July 1944

Document 145

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 161 [TNA, WO 208/4363]

ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF HITLER AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. This report deals with the reaction of Senior Officers (PW) in Camp No. II to the news of the above events, which they had learnt of from the radio and British newspapers.