Tapping Hitler's Generals

FATHER: Of course not! That man, whom they held to be so reliable told me that. I’m just waiting for the moment when GUDERIAN shoots the FÜHRER and all the others at the top.

SON: I think that is rather wishful thinking. THOMALE(?) showed courage in BERLIN![458]

FATHER: Of course I know people are saying it can’t be done like that. Apart from that, THOMALE(?) said to me long ago: ‘You know the FÜHRER is mad. Of course there are moments when you say to yourself “the man’s a genius” but there are weeks when you say he’s crazy. It can’t go on like this!’ For instance, he told me that HITLER is up every night until four or five in the morning because he can’t sleep; then he lies down for a few hours and at 10 o’clock he is about again, but he is so shaky that he can’t sign anything until 1 o’clock. He gets injections first thing in the morning. Two doctors are continually on the spot; one gives him injections against epileptic fits and the other injections against nerves and other things. I don’t know what they are exactly, but at any rate he gets injections every day. By 1 o’clock he has calmed down sufficiently to be able to sign his name and see people.[459]

SON: Well, all that may be the case, but these are all more or less signs of overstrain.

FATHER: All right, let’s admit they are signs of overstrain. But in that case the man should take the consequences and say: ‘I can’t lead the Army and the Armed Forces, an expert must do that.’

SON: We have no experts.

FATHER: What do you mean by that? Without a doubt GUDERIAN could have led the Armed Forces better than the FÜHRER did, and so could MANSTEIN.

SON: I’ll admit he might have lead the Army, but the Armed Forces?

FATHER: I’m convinced that MANSTEIN has enough common sense to have had an expert put forward by the Navy, at his side, and he would have managed to lead the Combined Armed Forces. If it comes to that, JODL isn’t bad, but he hasn’t the moral courage to stand up to the FÜHRER in his fits of rage and say: ‘No, what you say can’t be done.’

SON: Of course I am not quite in a position to judge. Why is a man like DÖNITZ out and out on his side? He’s a man worthy of consideration!

FATHER: Yes, I don’t know about that either. That’s not my province. But the people I know–I mean, apart from those, all the ones who were connected with the affair and the ones who have been arrested and shot as a result of it, or rather hanged, the ones named are only a fraction of the number that have actually disappeared. The best people, for example, that ‘Oberquartiermeister’, General WAGNER[460] and General FINK,[461] who was in charge of the ‘Quartiermeister’ organisation in the West, had been especially brought over from the Eastern Front because he was the best man for the job. WAGNER’s Chief of Staff, BUHLE’s Chief of Staff,[462] in the OKW operations staff there was MEIXNER,[463] a first-rate fellow, and ZEITZLER, in fact I might almost say, everybody who was any good at all.

SON: Yes, and what does a man like Sepp DIETRICH say about it?

FATHER: Sepp DIETRICH railed against the FÜHRER and his entourage to such an extent that it became most unpleasant. Then he was sent for and he said: ‘All right, that’s fine, but I shall speak my mind. I shall tell ADI’–he always calls HITLER ‘ADI’–‘that he is leading us all to destruction.’ He went there and was awarded the Diamonds and promoted ‘Generaloberst’ (chuckling) so, of course, he kept his mouth shut. We all swore at him. Then he said: ‘I shall go straight back there–you are right!’ But then I got him as my ‘Armee’ commander. That’s the state of affairs it was. Sepp DIETRICH is all right as a soldier, but not as a ‘Korps’ commander nor was an ‘Armee’ commander, and I had to hand over my ‘Armee’ to him. But you know me well enough to know that that wouldn’t in any way make me change my opinions.

Document 160

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 201 [TNA, WO 208/4364]

Provisional report on information obtained from CS/443 Generalleutnant HEIM (Commander, Boulogne)–Captured 23 Sept. 44 in Boulogne.