Tapping Hitler's Generals

HEYDTE: There ought to be some statement issued concerning the formation of a government now.

FISCHER: DÖNITZ will form one out of Nazis and create a military dictatorship.

BROICH: In order to get special (peace) offers again. With those fellows anything and everything is possible.

WAHLE: The condition would have to be that we were no longer National Socialists. Then they could say that a new government has been set up, but it hasn’t now.

FISCHER: He’s following the same course. It’s a one-day government. It needn’t be in the least true that the FÜHRER is dead.

BASSENGE: No, it needn’t.

HEYDTE: Anyone who says: ‘I will conquer the Russians,’ must, logically, be thinking of the other side of the question too.

ELFELDT: He still believes that he will screw better conditions out of them, that the Allies will be split, that the English will suddenly announce: ‘That is our man; we will negotiate with him.’ […]

HEIM: I tell you, I know DÖNITZ: where’s the logic of it? How does he think he’ll do it? By saying: ‘Those who don’t fight to the end are cowards and traitors!’?

NEUFFER: Nothing’s impossible. We still don’t know yet–the same thing applies to GUDERIAN for instance–whether the man isn’t speaking under compulsion. You mentioned GOEBBELS and HIMMLER?

HEIM: Strangely enough GOEBBELS didn’t speak. GOEBBELS has, therefore vanished, too, and HIMMLER has also vanished from the public eye.

NEUFFER: If DÖNITZ were simply speaking under pressure it would explain things. Otherwise there would be much in GUDERIAN’s attitude which couldn’t be explained. In these extraordinary times, there are situations where a man for some motive or other–we’ll say in order to save his wife or children–

HEIM: The English will naturally say: ‘One realises now that you are all crazy. Not only HITLER, but all of you.’ It’s such madness!

NEUFFER: There’s nothing solid left.

HEIM: DÖNITZ surely won’t be blind to the fact that the moment HITLER’s gone, even though he does maintain the oath is automatically transferred to him, everyone will naturally say: ‘It’s finished now.’ That’s obvious.

NEUFFER: Southern GERMANY is completely finished, from the military point of view as well. ITALY too. Practically speaking there’s only DENMARK and NORWAY left.

HEIM: How can a reasonable being, in possession of his five senses, say such a…!

NEUFFER: We don’t know what led up to it. We can’t form any picture of what means have been used. I think anything is possible today. I even think it’s possible that GOEBBELS too has been speaking under pressure for a considerable time.

HEIM: But after all, since HITLER is officially dead and has therefore vanished from the public eye, what point is there in his successor still following the same crazy policy?

NEUFFER: One can’t judge that from here. I can imagine that with GOEBBELS too, it was a case of ‘must’, just as it was with DITTMAR.

HEIM: He said: ‘We shall go on fighting until the people in the East are freed from slavery and destruction.’ The German people can only laugh bitterly and say: ‘That man in mad, too.’

NEUFFER: Well, in the east, in SILESIA, EAST PRUSSIA, that is, east of the ODER, there will only be those Germans left who were overrun, because a great number got out. It’s a puzzling piece of folly.

HEIM: How a man can say a thing like that! Because if you hold it up to the light, what he said was absolute nonsense. ‘And if the English and Americans hinder me in doing so, then I am compelled to continue the fight against them too!’

NEUFFER: In the present situation it’s ridiculous, because he has no basis left.

HEIM: A man like DÖNITZ, who knows perfectly well what HITLER did, for instance, with the Generals and the officers, the COs, has painted him today as an absolute angel. Fancy DÖNITZ saying that of HITLER.

NEUFFER: One must remember one thing, of course, that the Navy never had anything in common with the GAF and Army.

HEIM: But DÖNITZ, in his position, knew what was happening. He must know enough to realise that it’s an appalling business. If one reaches such a decision as DÖNITZ’s, one must see some sort of possibility.