Tapping Hitler's Generals

In my opinion the people released from KÜSTRIN were those who were still comparatively young and fresh. On 30th January they felt the Russians would be in BERLIN in two days. The defence of BERLIN was organised on the spur of the moment, and for that they suddenly needed hundreds of officers again. So they quickly picked out all the people who were still hale and hearty. They took SPEIDEL, KLUGE(?), the brother FELBERT, the son… HOEPNER and a few others.[469] In my opinion they left there all the older people over 50, of whom they couldn’t expect much physically.

SCHLIEBEN: Didn’t STÜLPNAGEL tell you where he was before in November?

PFUHLSTEIN: I believe he was in FÜRSTENBERG, together with Joachim(?) von STÜLPNAGEL.[470] I believe they released him again too.

SCHLIEBEN: Did they also lock up any members of princely houses?

PFUHLSTEIN: Yes I met Prince Ernst August of HANOVER in the lavatory in the cellars of the Prinz Albrecht Strasse.[471]

SCHLIEBEN: Was STÜLPNAGEL still in KÜSTRIN on 30th January?

PFUHLSTEIN: Yes and was transferred with all the rest of them, in an omnibus; it was a ‘journey into the blue’ without any definite destination in view. It was simply flight from the Russians, with the intention of reaching the neighbourhood of BAD KÖSEN[472](?). We had planned that when the Russians came we would all break out, either with that damned commandant or without him, it didn’t matter to us, or we would do him in first.

SCHLIEBEN: Who was he?

PFUHLSTEIN: I don’t remember his name. A horrible fellow. I had a ‘Kriegsgerichtsrat’, who was with the ‘Oberste Generalrichter’ in BERLIN, who was responsible for these things. I managed to send a girl to him. I smuggled a letter to her round about 15th January, and I wrote to this ‘Kriegsgerichtsrat’ saying: “Please go immediately to the ‘Generalrichter’! What is the general intention regarding the transfer of the KÜSTRIN people further into the REICH? The Russians are coming! Please read the army communiqués. Time presses. It’s a question of days. Please go to the ‘Generalrichter’ today. We know nothing. Time presses!” Something after that style. The girl went to BERLIN immediately and saw this man. A few days later I received a letter from him in answer: “Many thanks for your letter, which I received. A transfer of the KÜSTRIN fortress is not under consideration.” Those damned fellows in BERLIN simply hadn’t tumbled to it.

PFUHLSTEIN: I had been connected with the preparations–together with STAUFFENBERG–since about 1943, i.e. over eighteen months.

THOMA: Was FELLGIEBEL really hanged?

PFUHLSTEIN: Yes. I was relieved of my command at the time of the attempted assassination itself. I had first commanded a ‘Division’, I was then wounded and was at ALLENSTEIN, where I was arrested. I spent three months in chains in the SS gaol, the ‘Reichssicherheitshauptamt’, BERLIN, Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse and then two months in a concentration camp.

THOMA: How did the SS behave there?

PFUHLSTEIN: Like swine! Like utter swine! People were hanged right and left of me. HALDER and SCHACHT were there.[473] HALDER is still stuck in Albrecht-Strasse.[474]

THOMA: What was he accused of?

PFUHLSTEIN: I don’t know.

THOMA: Were you there with them?

PFUHLSTEIN: Yes.

THOMA: Together?

PFUHLSTEIN: No. Each one was hand-cuffed in his own cell, not a word was exchanged, I only saw him. HALDER wasn’t hand-cuffed.

THOMA: Who else was there? It said in the newspaper today that SCHACHT’s brother had said that he was dead.

PFUHLSTEIN: I don’t know. CANARIS was hanged because as former head of the ‘Abwehr’ he was also implicated. Afterwards I spent two months in a newly organised officers’ concentration camp at KÜSTRIN, it was to have been a fortress but it was a concentration camp. There were about twenty senior and junior officers there.

THOMA: What were they there for?

PFUHLSTEIN: Some because they had participated and some because they had relatives who had, i.e. a PAULUS, a HOEPNER, a HASSELT, and FELLGIEBEL’s brother, and other brothers and close relatives of those deeply involved in the 20 July affair.

THOMA: What a race of scoundrels ours has become!