Tapping Hitler's Generals

GOERDELER heard about that remark. He hoped that that utterance meant the time was ripe for him to get in touch with ZEITZLER, the Chief of the General Staff.[442] A meeting between GOERDELER and ZEITZLER didn’t however, come off. ZEITZLER refused, saying: ‘I have no desire for it.’ He wasn’t in a position, in any case. I said to GOERDELER: ‘What do you expect to achieve?’ He answered ‘I want to explain things to ZEITZLER and if, after that, the wretch still has the courage to denounce me, well, I can’t help it!’ I think ZEITZLER was quite capable of denouncing him.

HITLER was very suspicious of ZEITZLER and there seems to be some connection between him and 20 July. JODL said to me: ‘That man ZEITZLER laid the foundations of that dirty business of the 20th by his miserable grumbling.’ No interview between GOERDELER and him took place. I am glad, as it wouldn’t have made any difference. I know for certain that ZEITZLER wouldn’t have done it. Even if a ‘Leutnant’, a ‘Kompaniechef’ or a ‘Bataillonskommandeur’ were to say: ‘We’ve arrived at the stage when we must have peace; we must rid ourselves of HITLER’ a ‘Kompanie’ of the ‘Grossdeutschland’ would appear on the one hand, a ‘Kompanie’ of the SS ‘Adolf Hitler’ on the other; they’d attack the ‘Bataillon’ and kill them all. The time isn’t ripe yet.

They didn’t trust FROMM and he was the only one who didn’t participate. FROMM really didn’t take part in the ‘Putsch’.[443]

BADINSKY: He’ll have said: ‘What do you think I am?’ He had OLBRICHT shot, didn’t he?

CHOLTITZ: Yes, he was killed. FROMM himself gave BECK the ‘coup de grace’ with his own pistol. You know, the peculiar thing is that BECK shot his own eyes out but didn’t manage to kill himself even by his second shot; then FROMM gave him the ‘coup de grace’.[444] HIMMLER appeared at BERLIN an hour later[445] and was bitterly sorry that they were already dead; the reason why he arrested FROMM was because he suspected FROMM had killed all his accomplices.

Document 155

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 187 [TNA, WO 208/4363]

Provisional report on information obtained from (amongst others) CS/223–General der Panzertruppe EBERBACH (GOC VII Army)–Captured 31 Aug. 44 in Amiens–before arrival in camp No. II.

This report contains information obtained from the above PW […] in conversation with a low-rating British Army Officer.

EBERBACH: I remember my last conversation with ROMMEL, where he stated his attitude perfectly clearly: that there was nothing else to be done but to make an armistice, at once if possible, and if necessary to take steps against the present government, in case they weren’t sensible enough to give the order.

BAO: Did he really speak out as openly as all that?

EBERBACH: Yes, to me. Similarly, I knew that Feldmarschall von RUNDSTEDT would have been willing to make an armistice with you here in the West–if necessary also against the German government. For MANSTEIN any practical step was out of the question, because he no longer held his command on the Eastern Front; but I think I can assure you that MANSTEIN was and still is also one of those soldiers who thinks for himself and who is not carried along by the National Socialist Party.[446]

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Document 156

CSDIC (UK), SR Report SRGG 1018 (C) from 2 Sept. 44

[TNA, WO 208/4368]

Generalmajor Alfred GUTKNECHT (Higher Commander of Kraftfahrtruppen West)–Captured 29 Aug. 44 in Soissons-Rheims.

General der Panzertruppen Heinrich EBERBACH (GOC 7th Army)–Captured 31 Aug. 44 in Amiens.

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