Tapping Hitler's Generals

The Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC UK) transcripts declassified in 1996 have been virtually ignored by researchers. Occasionally the monitored conversations of U-boat crews are mentioned in naval studies[10] but the files relating to Staff officers are practically untouched.[11] The author first drew attention to these in the Vierteljahrsheften für Zeitgeschichte where, for reasons of space, a selection of only 21 documents was reproduced.[12] The 167 reports reproduced in this book are the transcripts of conversations between German generals in British captivity from the late summer of 1942 to the autumn of 1945. With four exceptions they were all recorded at Trent Park, the special centre set aside for German Staff officers. Documents 76, 77 and 135 recall conversations of generals Walter Bruns and Maximilian Siry overheard in April and May 1945 at Latimer House, Buckinghamshire, a time when for accommodation reasons not all captured Staff officers could be settled at Trent Park. Document 152, also from Latimer House, is the record of a conversation between two General Staff majors captured in August 1944 in France who speak out on the general war situation while still influenced by the attempt on Hitler’s life. This report is very valuable in that there exist few extracts of conversations concerning general political questions[13] at the time of the fighting in Normandy and so provides an interesting contrast to the opinions of the generals already in custody.

The contents of the book have been separated into three categories, each set individually in date order. The first treats the reflections of the generals on the National Socialist State, the progress of the war and the internal differences resulting from these discussions (Documents 1–82). The second category documents conversations on war crimes (Documents 83–144), the third those conversations which refer to the 20 July Plot (Documents 145–67). In selecting documents, the author has been at pains to provide a representative cross-section of material split into the ratio in which they occur overall in the source. The transcripts are reproduced from the original archive. Since the conversations are verbatim, some may appear stilted or disconnected. Where portions have been omitted this is indicated by elipses, where a name or location is uncertain it is followed by an interrogation mark. Some abbreviations are indicated by square parentheses. In the original protocols, speakers were identified by initials.

Each SRX, SRM and SRGG document is headed: ‘This report is most secret. If further circulation is necessary, it must be paraphrased so that neither the source of the information nor the means by which it has been obtained is apparent.’ Most GRGG transcripts have at the head an extensive list of all prisoners overheard during the period of the report, identified by name, rank and date of capture. For reasons of space herein such lists have not been reproduced.

SRX, SM and SRGG documents each cover only a single conversation. The more comprehensive GRGG papers contain several conversations. The start of a new conversation is indicated by an extra line space in the text. As a rule only extracts of GRGG documents have been published here, but where they are the extract is in full.

The WO 208 protocols exist in the original German text accompanied always by an English translation. Documents 142–4 in this book are only available in the archives in English translation.

The book concludes with short biographies of all 85 personalities who lend their voice to the protocols. These biographies give brief career notes together with an assessment of character and political stance which the CSDIC prepared on most of the German officers at Trent Park. German Army assessments of the time were not particularly useful: in June 1943, Generalleutnant Rudolf Schmundt, Head of the OKH Personnel Office, complained that the frequent employment in personnel files of expressions such as ‘he stands on National Socialist ground’ were so vague as to be virtually useless for making judgements of an officer.[14] The CSDIC (UK) character studies[15] were probably elaborated by Lord Aberfeldy, but this is not absolutely certain. It should also be noted that from the British point of view a ‘Nazi’ might be a general whose position in the political spectrum was not known but whose conduct or appearance was overtly Prussian. Aside from this reservation, the CSDIC (UK) assessment is important for being of a neutral character based on week- or month-long observations of a personality at Trent Park who for most of the time was off his guard.

2. Secret Monitoring of Prisoners of War in Great Britain and Trent Park PoW Centre