Tapping Hitler's Generals

KÖHN: Of course, but the English won’t permit that, they want to march in right after us. But not in any way against the Russians; they will say: ‘That’s all right’–that is the false game those people are playing at and that is why I’m surprised at these poor fools who believe–

HENNECKE: You mean, they won’t allow that?

KÖHN: Not the English.

HENNECKE: Well, I mean, suppose we were now to say we will cease hostilities in the West.

KÖHN: Yes, of course, if we were to suggest that; but the Western Allies don’t want to. They’d say at once: ‘We shall, of course, occupy the territory up to the RHINE but certainly not against the Russians. Or they’d occupy as far as BERLIN–‘We’ll leave the East for the Russians.’ That is the gist of what they’re saying. I can’t understand how the fellows here won’t realise it.

HENNECKE: Yes. I recently saw a map in the ‘Illustrated London News’, more or less showing the old GERMANY–there was a hint of what GERMANY’s boundaries will be like after the war.

KÖHN: Do they want GERMANY to be what she formerly was?

HENNECKE: Yes. I mean it was shown–of course, without CZECHOSLOVAKIA, and POLAND had been slightly enlarged.

KÖHN: The Russians won’t form a ‘POLAND’; they’ll make it into a ‘Ukranian State of POLAND’, which will extend up to the ODER.

HENNECKE: My God, what a future!

KÖHN: It will all become part of POLAND. The Allies are mad.

HENNECKE: It’s ghastly.

KÖHN: We are here and our families are over there. What will happen to our families?

HENNECKE: That’s just it.

KÖHN: I am convinced that the English won’t oppose their victorious ally at this point–they’re not dreaming of doing so.

HENNECKE: The question is what political agreement did they reach at TEHERAN; did they really set a limit to the Russians’ advance?[48] The question is: will they adhere to it?

KÖHN: The Russians won’t stick to it, that’s out of the question. Besides, I don’t think that they will have tied themselves down to any definite agreement at TEHERAN. […]

KÖHN: In my opinion things will collapse within the next few weeks.

HENNECKE: Yes, I think so too. […]

KÖHN: I still won’t change my opinion. Our first mistake was the war against RUSSIA.

HENNECKE: Yes.

KÖHN: I am still convinced that the Russians wouldn’t have attacked.

HENNECKE: That is what we all say.

Document 24

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 159

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) [TNA, WO 208/4363]

HENNECKE: It can’t go on like this. Just imagine it, in three days there have been three thousand bombers over MUNICH and so on, just imagine the damage that is being done there and how it is increasing the chaos that will come later.[49]

KRUG: That’s what I say too. What did the FÜHRER say? ‘And if they smash up the whole of GERMANY then we shall just live underground!’[50]

ROHRBACH: I heard that too!

HENNECKE: It’s madness!

ROHRBACH: It certainly is!

HENNECKE: We didn’t look at it in a tragic light then, and now everybody sees it in all its tragedy.

It says here in the newspaper that they have recently captured men on the ORNE front, who were no longer capable of working their guns, they had had practically no sleep for three weeks. It’s obvious, my dear fellow, that they are bombarding the whole night through, just as they did to us at OCTEVILLE.[51] The men get no rest, they try to attack during the day, and that goes on for weeks on end. We haven’t got the necessary reserves in order to withdraw the men, and they can’t stand up to it. REITER[52] (Oberst, Arfü CHERBOURG) said quite rightly: ‘In my opinion, a wise politician calls a halt when he sees that it is nothing but an affliction on the people; it won’t gain them anything!’

NEUFFER: Well, this is the end; we can’t hold the Russians now–there just isn’t anything left there.

REIMANN: Do you remember, the German Army’s black day on 8 August 1918?[53]

NEUFFER: But that was nothing by comparison. There’s no doubt about it now, in my opinion it’s just a matter of weeks.

Document 25

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 160

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 15–16 July 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]

SCHLIEBEN: As I said today, why has this man HITLER never been abroad? I mean, he’s seen absolutely nothing… HIMMLER, who’s an out-and-out criminal.

THOMA: The nation can’t deny that it must share the blame itself.