Tapping Hitler's Generals

I will admit to you that I have not of course often been able to meet these officers during the war and we never heard what was going on at home, and I have not been on leave since February last year, so I haven’t talked to anyone and at the front we don’t discuss that sort of thing. We ought not to discuss it either. I haven’t spoken a word about this to my staff–all I did was to call my Officers’ Corps together and condemn the attempt on HITLER’s life very severely. That is still my conviction. I condemn the attempt, certainly! I condemn it–because it was made much too late, at a time when they knew perfectly well that nothing could be achieved by it any longer, and moreover an attempt like that, when we are in a crisis, might cause discord at the front, and in that way the fighting spirit might be impaired. On those grounds I condemn it as an officer and a commander. Therefore I called my Officers’ Corps together and said: ‘If it is our fare to be defeated, then let us hold out to the last so that we are at least destroyed honourably, but don’t let us lay down our arms and have all sorts of promises made to us and then go under without honour, after all.’ That is still my point of view and I would never think or act otherwise. My Officers’ Corps understood me perfectly. Never for a moment was there a case where an officer spoke about it in any way, or I noticed any discontent or anything like that, because I knew my whole staff so well and there was a great feeling of confidence existing between my Officers’ Corps and myself. I had splendid colleagues, who threw themselves wholeheartedly into their work. I had so many trustworthy officers who would have stuck to me through thick and thin and who had pledged themselves to tell me if any discord should arise on the staff or anything like that. Then I would straighten out the situation, because there mustn’t be anyone on the staff who might go behind my back or grumble or anything like that. We are bound to give a lead in every way. That was how I trained my staff. I knew perfectly well that if there had been any case in my staff or in my ‘Division’, then a certain number of officers would immediately have said to me: ‘You must keep a look-out there and there, Sir, such-and-such has been said or has happened.’ Then I would have set to work immediately and restored order. On our front the attempt has not had the slightest repercussion.

Document 150

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 180

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 25–6 Aug. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]