Tapping Hitler's Generals

SCHLIEBEN: They still need them. They can’t exterminate them at present. I hope this ‘REICH that was to last a thousand years’ will soon come to an end and that they will then disband these ‘Ordensjunker’ too. I wonder whether the stiff resistance which is being offered now in FRANCE is really the right thing?

BROICH: What is the good of it if we hold one in FRANCE and the Russians are on the ODER?

SCHLIEBEN: That’s just it.

Document 148

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 171

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 5–8 Aug. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4383]

[…]

BROICH: That speech of the FÜHRER’s was disgusting and TERBOVEN’s still more.

SATTLER: Did the FÜHRER make a speech?

BROICH: We, the Army, had continuously sabotaged his plans ever since 1931.

BASSENGE: Let the idiot babble![400]

BORCHERDT: Funny that those traitors, who always carried on the sabotage, had all been decorated with the Knight’s Cross and the Oak Leaves, etc.!

[…]

KRUG: One thing is unique in history–German ‘General feldmarschälle’ are being kicked out of the Army, the people, who were received with such acclamation… In the whole history of the world there’s never been anything like it. I mean, there is no one in GERMANY who can–who is there in GERMANY to say: ‘This is the end, peace now.’ Who? He would be shot immediately!

KÖHN: They are merely fighting for their lives now, and nothing else.

KRUG: Naturally, and look, another General, STEGMANN[401] has already been killed. There’s nothing else to do but die, for if you go back you are shot and die anyway… There can be no way out other than death. For if they are not killed up at the front then they will be exterminated at home.

KRUG: KEITEL won’t know another moment’s peace. He is a disgrace to every decent-thinking member of the Officer Corps.

REIMANN: You, as a decent fellow, wouldn’t find rest, but they, Hermann GOERING and KEITEL, remain quite unperturbed.

KRUG: But KEITEL will go down in the history of the German Officer Corps dishonoured and disgraced.

REIMANN: Dishonoured and disgraced, yes. They are a bunch of swine, those rascals! KEITEL always says: ‘Yes, my FÜHRER’ to everything.

KRUG: He ought to put on an SS uniform. That’s where he belongs.

THOMA: RUNDSTEDT was forced into it.[402] That is the devilish part of HITLER. The whole world knows that RUNDSTEDT’s heart is on the other side. There is no secret about it. HITLER more or less forced him into it and said: ‘Well, if he refuses I’ll get him too.’ Because so far RUNDSTEDT had always been so clever and had always acted in such a way that he could never be caught out. He kept his tongue well under control, but everybody knew his feelings. But he wasn’t to be caught. Then HITLER, who is devilishly revolting in cases like that–he is an out-and-out swine.

ROHRBACH: I believe that they only included RUNDSTEDT so as to pin him down, to goad him, on the one hand, and so as once again publicly to save their face, in order to proclaim to the world: ‘You see how objective we are, we even include on this Court of Honour a man who we well know is against us.’

HERMANN: Yes.

ROHRBACH: That’s how I see it.

[…]

SPONECK: This is a unique occurrence in the history of the world.

THOMA: In the whole of history I don’t know of a Field Marshal’s being shot.

BROICH: Even in the French Revolution they didn’t hang Field Marshals.

SPONECK: They had the guillotine then. I think that beheading is still a more honourable death.[403]

SATTLER: As common criminals, apparently.

SPONECK: Even though they didn’t handle the weapon themselves.

BROICH: It would be different if it were the man who actually carried out the attempt.

THOMA: Those were actually treated better; they were at least shot.

SPONECK: Yes, but he (HITLER) is a ‘God’. It is a crime against ‘God’.

SCHLIEBEN: Have you heard that they have hanged eight Generals, including HOEPNER? They were hanged two hours after the People’s Court passed its sentence.[404] A nice crowd! It’s crazy. Fancy hanging a ‘Generalfeldmarschall’! It’s unprecedented in history! When a man like STREICHER[405] is guilty of fraud time and time again, the matter is hushed up. No, you wouldn’t believe it possible! The whole show is beginning to collapse; there is no alternative, but public opinion all over the world will say: ‘Why couldn’t GERMANY out of her own strength… these people?’

Document 149

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 969 [TNA, WO 208/4168]

The following conversation took place between: CS/145–Generalleutnant SPANG–Divisional Commander 266 ID–Captured 8 Aug. 44 near Brest–a British Army Officer and an American Army Officer.

BAO: Did you hear of von WITZLEBEN in FRANCE?[406]

SPANG: He’s a very good friend of mine.

BAO: You know what’s happened to him?

SPANG: No.

BAO: He and eight others have been hanged by HITLER.[407]

SPANG: Is that really true?

BAO: It was announced on the German radio.