Tapping Hitler's Generals

FATHER: No, no, we are… by a certain lack of humanity and decency which one must have, because otherwise the pendulum of history swings against you. I told you that once before, in connection with that history book I always carried about with me, that that is one of the things I have learned from history. In my opinion, one can even go so far as to say that the killing of those million Jews or however many it was, was necessary in the interests of our people. But to kill the women and children wasn’t necessary. That is going too far.

SON: Well, if you are going to kill off the Jews, then kill the women and children too, or the children at least. There is no need to do it publicly, but what good does it do me to kill off the old people?

FATHER: Well, simply that it is contrary to humanity, in the end it hits back at you, simply because it instils a certain brutality into the people–and there are some incidents that I have just learned about from the officers here who witnessed them themselves–the numbers of Poles we have killed, at least a million, the numbers we have killed in YUGOSLAVIA–I never knew that either, nor did I ever take part in it. The tens of thousands of Russians we have killed, not only Poles!

SON: Yes, but even if that’s true, they were people who conducted guerrilla warfare against us, so there again it wasn’t without justification.

FATHER: I know, too, how it was done. It was said: a hundred soldiers have been killed, therefore a thousand civilians must be shot. We were forced to do that because we are waging a war which is going far beyond our powers and it was this complete overestimation of our possibilities and our strength which led us to attempt that damn silly campaign for STALINGRAD and the CAUCASUS with forces which were quite insufficient for the job.

SON: Yes, but STALINGRAD would have succeeded all right if, at any rate, according to your opinion, the Italians and Hungarians ahead of us hadn’t collapsed.

FATHER: Yes, but it was known that they would crack. Putting the Italians, Hungarians and Rumanians next to each other at the front and, what’s more, up in that part of the front where, one look at the map and everyone said: ‘That’s where they will come’–those are the things that count.[94]

SON: Sometimes I have a burning desire to fight with the Russians against the English, because they have handed EUROPE over to communism.

FATHER: Yes, they really believe that Bolshevism is no longer the same and it may actually be that for the next five to ten years they will be right, as I can well imagine that the Russians would be quite glad of a breathing space.

SON: Yes, but what good is any of that to us if we make peace? Cessation of hostilities under the hardest and vilest conditions, unconditional surrender and all that sort of thing, except that we shall have another war in seven to ten years which will be fought out on German soil anyway, with the new weapons already in preparation and which will by then be ready, and one which will in any event drag in the German people either on both sides or one side; at any rate there will be a new war, so what’s the good of it? Those are all things which… ‘a frightful end’, followed by ‘endless frightfulness’ unless a miracle occurs, and I’ve got out of the habit of believing in miracles.

SON (re a future leader): In my opinion it is a very good thing. That is what would impress me so favourably about ROMMEL in such circumstances and seems to me such a good thing, that the fellow, in the opinion of the working classes, counts as an exponent of the old regime. We must bring in people like that, otherwise you won’t get the working classes round to it. The only chance the English have of winning over the working classes is not to say: ‘The entire previous system was rotten to the core’, but to include these men like ROMMEL and so on. A completely unknown man, a General EBERBACH wouldn’t appeal to the working man in the least. He would say: ‘He is one of the swine who took part in the 20 July affair, who wants to see which way the wind is blowing.’ Only men with a name, such as ROMMEL, or even PAPEN,[95] are the ones who, to the worker, even if they don’t like them personally, are capable men, recognised by the old regime.

FATHER: It will be useless to put forward proposals. The Allies will never agree to them. Where are you going to set up a ‘Freikorps’?

SON: In the west, I should say.

FATHER: Under the eyes of the English and Americans, what weapons are you going to use?

SON: We’ll already have them when we are demobilised.

FATHER: Where will you get your money and supplies? It’s not as simple as all that. In those days after 1918, such a thing was possible in a GERMANY that was mainly unoccupied. It will be quite impossible in a completely occupied GERMANY.