Tapping Hitler's Generals

CHOLTITZ: Except for one moment, when he said (imitating Adolf HITLER): ‘In principle, it ought to be like this, the “Feldmarschälle” should protect my person with their sabres. In front of the “Feldmarschälle” should be the Generals, in front of them the “Divisionäre” and in front of them the “Regiments-Kommandeure” with their “Regimenter”, forming an impenetrable wall.’ MANSTEIN said: ‘It’ll probably come to that, my FÜHRER.’ Whereupon Adolf HITLER, filled with hate, looked at us and said ‘Feldmarschall von MANSTEIN, I accept your declaration with satisfaction. But unfortunately I must tell you that it isn’t so. You need only look at RUSSIA. It’s tragic, but there it is.’ Actually, what with SEYDLITZ and so on, he’d…[75]

Document 33

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 185

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 3 Sept. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4363]

MÜLLER-RÖMER: I spent the entire war in RUSSIA, until last November. I can only say: it needn’t be as bad as all that. The Russians may change quite suddenly; they are blossoming forth as Western Europeans.

HENNECKE: But you started to say that your family in SILESIA, if the Russians come there–

MÜLLER-RÖMER: If I had the choice between Russians on the one hand and English and Americans on the other, of course I should choose the people here because I know what it is like here and I am doubtful what it is like over there. Of course, it may be ghastly, but I should think that the Russians do things in an orderly manner like the Americans and English do. I don’t think they’ll send over Kirgizes either, because they’ll want to prove to the Western European powers that they are a civilised state. They may use quite different tactics.

HENNECKE: I can only say that all repressions, everything lying dormant in people will break out the moment the war tension ends and people will be able to do as they like and no one will say anything. That’s the danger. DE GAULLE is impatiently waiting to occupy the RHINELAND.[76] Whether he’ll be allowed to is a different question. But revenge–that’s what it will be. I am convinced that our Gestapo did dreadful things there.

MÜLLER-RÖMER: It passes all imagination what those fellows–it’s not surprising if we… our Gestapo competed with the Russians in their bestial actions. I know the ghastly atrocities committed in POLAND since 1939, when those fellows started there!

HENNECKE: Didn’t anyone oppose them?

MÜLLER-RÖMER: Yes. BLASKOWITZ did at the time but it didn’t do him any good![77] The ‘Wehrmacht’ had no say in those matters. ‘That comes under civil administration and is no business of yours.’

HENNECKE: That’s the trouble; if only all senior Army leaders had unanimously said: ‘We won’t participate in that dirty work! It is dragging the name of GERMANY in the mud.’

MÜLLER-RÖMER: It didn’t do the few who did say that any good.

HENNECKE: If they had all done it, in good time! The fact that such things were possible will puzzle world historians!

MÜLLER-RÖMER: History will hold the German Generals responsible for not having unanimously stopped all that dirty work which started at the outbreak of war, by simply protesting and laying down their arms–or something of the sort.

HENNECKE: All the Generals are protesting. I used to say to them: ‘If you knew all that, I can’t understand why any of you, or the entire body of Generals, didn’t protest.’ They all said: ‘I don’t want to play with fire.’

MÜLLER-RÖMER: The Generals we now have in… are all quite young fellows who couldn’t have been more than ‘Regimentskommandeure’ at the time.

HENNECKE: Well, the ones before weren’t young lads.

MÜLLER-RÖMER: The greatest blame falls on BOCK, MANSTEIN, LEEB[78] and RUNDSTEDT, because only the most senior officers can protest against the supreme commander.

HENNECKE: It should have been done in 1933 or in 1934 when things started.

MÜLLER-RÖMER: No, the running of the state was still all right at that time.

HENNECKE: It started with SCHLEICHER.[79]

MÜLLER-RÖMER: The German people shouldn’t have stood for all the craziness of 1933.

HENNECKE: It was legally done by voting; everything was in order.

MÜLLER-RÖMER: At the outbreak of war, when POLAND had been conquered and the Gestapo had entered the country and the dirty work had started, BLASKOWITZ was the first to protest and as a result he was dismissed. All senior German Generals, from the Chief of the General Staff to the ‘Heeresgruppenführer’ and all that crowd, including RAEDER, should have pointed a pistol at the FÜHRER and said: ‘We won’t wage that kind of war!’ If those dozen senior Army, Navy and GAF officers had really been prepared to risk the consequences, HITLER would have been left high and dry to get on with the war by himself.

HENNECKE: But that was the most unfavourable moment, because a stab in the back in war-time is the worst possible action, as it doesn’t only affect the Party, but–

MÜLLER-RÖMER: But all that dirty work, those bestial murders, only started during the war.