Tapping Hitler's Generals

I am convinced that a great part of the FÜHRER’s success as Party Leader is accounted for by pure mass suggestion. It’s bound up with a kind of hypnotism, and he can exercise this on a great many people. I know people who are undoubtedly superior to him mentally and who yet fall under this spell. I cannot explain why it doesn’t affect me. I mean, I know perfectly well that he carries a superhuman burden of responsibility; what he said to me about AFRICA was astonishing, but I can’t say that (I was influenced). One quite outstanding thing is his hands–he has beautiful hands–you don’t notice it in photographs. He has the hands of an artist. I always looked at his hands; they are beautiful hands, and there is nothing common about them–they are aristocratic hands. In his whole manner, there is nothing of the little man about him. What surprised me so much–I thought he would fix me with an eagle eye–I don’t mean I expected a long speech but… ‘Allow me to present you with the Oak Leaves,’ in a quiet voice, you understand. I had pictured that quite differently.[3]

KRAUSE: All his sections are prompted by his feelings. […]

Document 4

CSDIC (UK), SRX 1230 [TNA, WO 208/4161]

LUDWIG CRÜWELL–General der Panzertruppe–Captured 29 May 42 in North Africa.

KRAUSE–Oberleutnant (fighter pilot Fw190)–Captured 2 Sept. 42.

Information received: 21 Oct. 42

CRÜWELL: […] It was impossible for us, without going to war, to give effect to the idea that GERMANY was the most important country on the continent of EUROPE.

KRAUSE: Do you think, Sir, that it would have been possible for us to gain concessions from ENGLAND, AMERICA and FRANCE, if we’d still had a man like NEURATH, one of the old regime, as Foreign Minister?[4]

CRÜWELL: I don’t believe so.

KRAUSE: But why is it that GERMANY always has been hated by all the rest of the world?

CRÜWELL: That’s owing to our infernal system of small states, which people still believe in even today. If we had been a united country two hundred years ago, we would have, so to speak, knocked off each other’s rough edges and would have had our national requirements, which we are now proclaiming a hundred years too late, all cut-and-dried; that would have been that, and we’d have had nothing more to ask of the world. That seems clear to me. I have no use for the type of German–he’s now become a comparative rarity–who goes abroad dressed in a green coat (Lodenmantel) and carrying a ruck-sack. When you see the English walking about COLOGNE, that doesn’t make a good… they look like butchers, cobblers, and no matter what. Nobody can deny that we are the most humane people in the world. Even if you consider those abortions in the S.S…. they are merely the product of a suffering people. The things people have accused us of! I mean, we’ve been bled white. Don’t forget that in the first place we were swindled by those miserable Fourteen Points.

Document 5

CSDIC (UK), SRX 1537 [TNA, WO 208/4162]

THOMA–General der Panzertruppe–Captured 4 Nov. 42 in North Africa.

BURCKHARDT–Major (G.C. 1 Paratroop Battalion)–Captured 5 Nov. 42 in North Africa.

Information received: 26 Jan. 43

[…]

THOMA: I can tell you, you can’t expect anything from the General Staff. Ninety-nine per cent of them are spineless creatures. They’ve always been ‘yes’-men. They’ve never been commanders, but only ‘assistants’ of the commander. That is why most of them are spineless creatures. Their upbringing and so on makes them so. You can expect nothing from them.[5]

BURCKHARDT: If the Germans succeeded in overthrowing the National Socialist Government now and then fought on, would they manage to achieve peace?

THOMA: It’s not as easy as all that.

Document 6

CSDIC (UK), SRX 1587 [TNA, WO 208/4169]

WILHELM RITTER VON THOMA–General der Panzertruppe–Captured 4 Nov. 42 in North Africa.

HANS DIETRICH TIESENHAUSEN–Kapitänleutnant (Lieut. Cmdr in command of U-331)–Captured 17 Nov. 42.