Tapping Hitler's Generals

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 4–6 Nov. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4364]

CHOLTITZ: We can’t make out THOMA any more. How can the man say the things he does and even tell us at table: ‘The German people and the German Army have lost their honour’?

BASSENGE: What am I supposed to do about it?

CHOLTITZ: The two of you are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. It’s really the case that you and he are to some extent a single entity. There’s nothing that can be done about that.

BASSENGE: That’s nonsense.

CHOLTITZ: You must often have realised that yourself, that you are one entity.

BASSENGE: I don’t know about that.

CHOLTITZ: To get down to a concrete case: recently someone told me that you had actually stated at table that the quick promotion of some Generals was probably due to their lack of character and their readiness to shout ‘Heil HITLER’. You’re so far removed from soldierliness that the idea no longer enters your head that a form of military ability still exists which can lead to promotion. As true as that I’m standing here, I never saw HITLER before my promotion. I did actually see him once before 1933, but I’ve never spoken to him. I don’t know a single one of the whole crowd, and yet that man THOMA–he is the one we blame for not taking any action, for he’d been to school with them all, he was on terms of intimacy with them all, and knew that we had joined up with criminals–he’s the one who gets up, and you talk about our lack of character in accepting promotion. After all, promotion usually comes only through one’s superior.

BASSENGE (to BROICH): Then CHOLTITZ said: ‘Good God, do we have to keep sucking up to the English?’ I said: ‘Look here, what do you mean by that?’ ‘These English swine are being sucked up to the whole time here’, and so on. I said: ‘Look here, I’m not standing that. I don’t suck up to the English, but I do a whole lot of jobs in the interests of us all, and there’s no question of sucking up about it. I won’t take that from you.’ ‘Incidentally,’ he said, ‘you can take it from me that reports in code about THOMA are already on their way to GERMANY.’ I said: ‘Oh? That’s very interesting,’ and he added, ‘and about you, too.’ I told him: ‘You can write what you like.’ He replied: ‘Certain Navy people have their code for use in letters and the reports are already on their way.’

Document 47

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 222

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 13–14 Nov. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4364]

REIMANN: What a sound movement National Socialism was at the beginning! We worked like slaves for the Nazis. If only they’d waited another twenty or thirty years we’d have had everything.

ELFELDT: A pity those fellows made such a mess.

REIMANN: At the start I used to think that things wouldn’t turn out badly. You can’t make omlettes without breaking eggs! In my opinion, the early mistakes were only superficial.

Document 48

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 225

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 18–19 Nov. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4364]

[…]

EBERDING: The FÜHRER has no eye for the right powers: we made an error of judgement over both RUSSIA and ITALY. Today of course one can say–as quite a number here are doing–that we should never have started the war but, in my opinion, how else were we to get rid of the VERSAILLES Treaty?[117]

Document 49

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 226

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 20–1 Nov. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4364]

MEYER: Of one thing I’m certain, that a lot has altered as a result of my being taken prisoner… has altered as regards the actual facts.

BASSENGE: If I’d been as wise five years ago as I am today.

MEYER: I must say that my eyes were only opened after the FALAISE encirclement.

If this partition plan really is put into effect then I’m afraid that the Russians will take the whole of the area east of the ELBE and the Western Powers will take the western area. I think, therefore, one can write off the area east of the ELBE.

BASSENGE: Well, they won’t exterminate the people, because they won’t be able to populate the area.

MEYER: It’s not a question of the space, but of the people. We know that the Russians can be just as ruthless with people as they would be with the clearing of a forest.