Tapping Hitler's Generals

The mixture of crimes, guilt, denials of responsibility and explanations is especially clear in conversations about the Commissar Order. Thoma alleged that Brauchitsch and Halder had raised strong protests against it, but the files show the opposite.[224] He also swore on oath that no Commissars had been shot by his units (Document 6). In Halder’s War Diary this attitude appears confirmed initially. On 21 September 1941 he wrote: ‘General von Thoma: Report about the engagements of 17.Pz.Div. on the Desna. Interesting here […] (d) attitude of the unit towards Commissars (are not being shot)’.[225]

The files of 2.Pz.Gr. and XXXXVII Pz.Korps show however that shootings did occur in Thoma’s unit. It is certain that on 27 and 28 August 1941 respectively a Commissar was tried by Ic (No. 3 Staff Officer) at Divisional HQ and executed.[226] It is hardly likely that Thoma as divisional commander could have remained ignorant of this. Also on 21 September 1941 the files contain execution reports which cannot be doubted. On 27 September 1941 17.Pz.Div. reported having shot nine Commissars and Politruks over the previous five days.[227]

On 30 September 1941 Thoma left 17.Pz.Div. and took over 20.Pz.Div. a fortnight later. On 20 October he arrived at divisional HQ and took up his duties next day. The Ic delivered his situation report to Thoma, and it seems unlikely that the execution of a Commissar on 19 October would have been glossed over. On 23 October, the Ic’s interpreter executed the next Commissar to be captured.[228] It is therefore certain that the Commissar Order was at least occasionally carried out within Thoma’s jurisdiction, but Thoma’s statement at Trent Park that he advised Commissars to remove their insignia to prevent identification and execution is not necessarily false (Document 6). He was no more than half truthful on the whole, however.[229]

General Crüwell was equally economic with his powers of recall. He alleged that his 11.Pz.Div. had only executed a single Commissar, which he thought was not bad going (Document 88), whereas a report by his Ic dated 14.7.1941 indicates that the figure at that time was 10.[230]

Undoubtedly the majority of Trent Park inmates had knowledge of war crimes but kept the actual extent of their own involvement to themselves.[231] The nature of the war being fought was obvious to the group around von Thoma at the latest by the time they entered captivity. Georg Neuffer was already aware of the extent of the Holocaust and by the end of 1943 was estimating the number of murdered Jews at between three to five million (Documents 94, 95). Others doubted the reports of atrocities and attempted to create some kind of perspective. One reason for not wanting to admit them was one’s own war experience. A man like Crüwell, who by August 1941 had been transferred out of Russia, obviously knew far less about war crimes than many of his compatriots who remained there. That he refused absolutely to accept the reports of atrocities as true[232] and drew the corresponding conclusion was the result of his loyalty to the National Socialist State and his belief in the allegedly ‘clean’ Wehrmacht. Therefore he saw nothing indecent in the current practice of executing innocent hostages as a reprisal for the murders of German soldiers, and even argued thast the practice was allowed under international law.[233] Major Boes reacted similarly. When von Broich confronted him with the information in October 1943 that the Germans had attempted ‘to exterminate whole communities’, he squirmed like an eel to avoid having to recognise this unpalatable fact.[234] 3.3 The Insurrection of Conscience. Reactions to 20 July 1944