Tapping Hitler's Generals

ROTHKIRCH (re guerrilla warfare): We will set it in motion. I know that for a fact, because I was in command of a guerrilla school in RUSSIA where men were trained by us in guerrilla warfare. They have been taken over now and they are now training partisans themselves. That is how I know.

HEIM: Do you think it will really help at all?

ROTHKIRCH: Yes, they are already staying behind now. There were some in my villages. They were SS men who, after the third cognac, told my intelligence officer exactly what they were supposed to do. Of course, they weren’t suppose to do that. But they told him just the same. They were there and were supposed to spy out everything. Most important of all, they were supposed to enlist other supporters. These SS men said that it was exceedingly difficult as there were no volunteers. Besides which–like us all–though they had explosives, they had no fuses. That was why they approached my intelligence officer.[152]

HEYDTE: So it was really more for purposes of sabotage?

ROTHKIRCH: Yes, just like the guerrillas do. But it’s a scourge for the civilian population.

HEIM: So these SS men were very pessimistic, were they?

ROTHKIRCH: The civilian population will hand them over at once.

HEIM: If they don’t hang them themselves.

BASSENGE: In addition to which every stranger in the locality is shadowed as soon as there’s an L of C commandant there, etc.

ROTHKIRCH: Your view is quite correct. But that again is overshadowed by yet another factor. There are the many badly bombed towns. Naturally enormous numbers of people have fled from the towns into the villages. Then, of course, they have to decide: who is a partisan? The evacuees blur the picture badly.

HEIM: Then there is also the question whether the population will participate.

ROTHKIRCH: I don’t think they will west of the RHINE. But I believe that there may perhaps be more wild, fanatical people east of the RHINE.

Document 68

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 273

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 16–19 Mar. 45 [TNA, WO 208/4177]

ROTHKIRCH: While I was there you had to report and give the number whenever you wished to withdraw from a ‘Bunker’, for they all had numbers; every ‘Bunker’ in the west has a number. There are special maps with all the numbers. Each ‘Bunker’ had to be reported by number as a retreat of any description was forbidden. No general was authorised to order a withdrawal and on several occasions when whole ‘Divisionen’ were encircled, enquiries were made and we were informed at 4 o’clock in the morning that we were not to withdraw. Everyone had, however, gone in the meantime.

CHOLTITZ: It was exactly the same at AVRANCHES.

ROTHKIRCH: When I left we were still strictly forbidden to give any order to withdraw. The ‘Divisionskommandeur’ simply wasn’t in command any more. You could really no longer say the men were fighting. The only unit still putting up a bit of a fight was the 2nd Panzerdivision. They actually only had two tanks left. That will go down in history.[153]

BASSENGE: It’s high time now, yet the Allies are still stuck on the RHINE and if the Russians open the door, within forty-eight hours GERMANY will be Communist as far as the west. It’s no problem, for the key positions, the communications, are all controlled by the Nazis; if HITLER orders it, it will be done. Such an organised Bolshevism will progress far more quickly in GERMANY than one which grows out of chaos; the whole thing will be settled in forty-eight hours. Then the ‘SEYDLITZ Club’ will arrive, with or without recognition from HITLER or the Nazis or the new party, whichever it is. Something of the sort will certainly happen. Peace will certainly happen. Peace will certainly not come the way one imagines, i.e. the rest of the German Army being sandwiched on the ELBE and then surrendering and that then being followed by a beautiful, generous peace. My convictions are still the same as ever; I say: it no longer depends upon whether HITLER’s GERMANY survives or not, or what is going to happen to GERMANY, or all the various questions of peace; those are all unimportant questions in comparison to the main question: where will the line of Western civilisation run? If it extends only as far as the RHINE at the end of this year, in 1950 it will be back on the Spanish border or at the gates of GIBRALTAR and then the English policy of the balance of power in EUROPE–quite apart from civilisation–will be completely impossible; it won’t exist any more.

If one wants to avoid future chaos and all resulting political consequences one can only do so by a national coup d’état. I can see no other possible way but with each day it drags on that grows more difficult, of course.

Document 69