Tapping Hitler's Generals

WILCK: No, no!

WILDERMUTH: Yes, that something was going to happen. Then there was incredible amount of talk about it.

WILCK: Well, I don’t believe it, but–

WILDERMUTH: All the ‘Armeeführer’ were asked beforehand.[121]

Document 51

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 233

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 12–16 Dec. 44 [TNA, WO 208/4364]

MEYER: What would happen suppose we were to say now in the east and west: ‘This is the end; we surrender’?

WILDERMUTH: In any case the end of the war means the occupation of GERMANY, the loss of frontier districts–

MEYER: The eradication of the German race!

WILDERMUTH: The immediate need, Herr MEYER, is to put a stop at last to the eradication of the German race which is being brought about by the wrong policy of the National Socialists.

HEYKING: Whether National Socialism would be done away with even if HITLER did abdicate now, to which we are agreeable, then the question will also arise–

WILDERMUTH: Would these people who are now in power in GERMANY–would there be any place at all left in their hearts for the Fatherland? Would this idea have any other meaning for them at all than as a phrase to be used in their propaganda?

HEYKING: Even if the Nazis did retire, do you think we would lay down our arms, we would give in? You can bet your life that they (Allies) would eradicate us just the same, and would lay down exactly the same terms. We must hold out; there’s only one way now.

WILDERMUTH: What do you mean by ‘holding out’ now?

HEYKING: We don’t know that a revolution won’t break out among the enemy, because they have no desire to fight any longer. What are the Americans fighting for? They’re bound to ask themselves that some time.

WILDERMUTH: All right then we’ll wait for the enemy to make a peace offer, the return of the colonies, FRANCE, CHERBOURG–

HEYKING: No, not that, but to enter into negotiations–

WILDERMUTH: But no one will negotiate with that government, nobody could negotiate with them.

HEYKING: It’s no use talking to you. I’ve just told you that even if our government did resign now, there would be no peace in spite of that. We shall still hold out, and the German people will go through thick and thin and won’t give in at all, and then when the enemy can’t get any further they’ll come to us to arrange terms.

MEYER: We can see that in GREECE now;[122] don’t you think that the ordinary English people and the French and the Dutch and the Swiss etc. will gradually open their eyes–damn it all, what will happen if we have communist activity all over EUROPE?

WILDERMUTH: Don’t you think that the English or Swiss man-in-thestreet sees that we have been the most active pacemaker of communism in EUROPE?

MEYER: EISENHOWER now has broadcast daily: ‘The German churches will be opened.’ Where is the German church closed?

WILDERMUTH: They didn’t close any churches, but that the church has been persecuted with every means–it’s a question of the elimination of a country in the heart of EUROPE, which has carried Russian methods right into that heart.

HEYKING: Herr WILDERMUTH, you’ve still got one man here who thinks as a German!

WILDERMUTH: But so do I.

HEYKING: After what you’ve said I can no longer credit you with that.

WILDERMUTH: I was speaking from the other people’s point of view, and those things are the trump card which we ourselves have given them.

HEYKING: We were discussing what would happen if our government resigned. Do you think the German soldiers would lay down their arms and accept the conditions?

WILDERMUTH: No, we were speaking at cross-purposes.

HEYKING: No, we’ve experienced the ‘fourteen points’ once, we either die or–

WILDERMUTH: We shan’t be able to agree on that point.

HEYKING: Either we shall die, or they will collapse in the process too.

WILDERMUTH: The thing that I’m concerned about is that we shall no longer have a chance to rise.

MEYER: Whether we capitulate or not–

HEYKING: We shall never rise again, you can depend on that. They’ve drawn up quite different peace terms from those after the last World War, I’m convinced of that.

WILDERMUTH: You may be right there. But we finally destroy all chance of rising again if we continue the actual fighting too long.

HEYKING: No, no, I’m for sticking it out because I say the fellows wont stay for ever on a given frontier–the Americans no longer know what they’re fighting for, and if they suffer heavy casualties they’ll say: ‘Well, what am I really doing here?’

WILDERMUTH: It will be over in the spring, they will get through in the spring at the latest. Then it’s all over.

HEYKING: Really, Herr WILDERMUTH, opinions like that!

MEYER: For shame!

HEYKING: I mean, after all, we’re still German officers.

WILDERMUTH: Well, probably I’m the person here who has suffered most for GERMANY, and for that reason I have a right to expect people to listen to my point of view.

HEYKING: I don’t dispute it, but all the same, one shouldn’t take that as the only possibility.

Document 52

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 234