Tapping Hitler's Generals

NEUFFER: That’s no decision. Either he is crazy himself–and one can hardly think that. He appears to have spoken quite sensibly, at any rate his articulation was clear and military-like. But either he’s under pressure or–one just doesn’t know. How is one to explain it? I mean if this madness is to be carried on to the end, the rest of the people’s eyes will naturally be opened. I believe all this present horror propaganda has a very positive effect, as opposed to the hatred propaganda of the last war, the only explanation of which lay in the perpetual danger policy of the KAISER. This time the English have seen themselves what has been done. They couldn’t have expected that. I’ve been reading English newspapers for two years and one could tell from them that they were completely without any realisation of the matter. Since you’ve been a PW you yourself have also experienced the fact that the people simply couldn’t grasp what was going on.

The troops will also try and back out if they can. The moment they can, they will go home or surrender. The tragedy is that they will still be taken by the Russians.

HEIM: This business about the oath automatically being transferred is grotesque.

NEUFFER: Yes.

GOERBIG: I believe DÖNITZ will avoid signing his name under the capitulation and is boasting, although he has nothing behind him, saying someone else will have to sign it.

BROICH: I’ve got the idea that the FÜHRER perhaps arranged all that as a legacy, and DÖNITZ had to promise him…

GOERBIG: Of course, the FÜHRER said–

BROICH: ‘You’ve got to do it now.’

GOERBIG: HITLER said: ‘Grossadmiral DÖNITZ, I have confidence that, after my death you will (continue) the fight–will you promise me that, as man to man?’ ‘Yes, my FÜHRER!’ ‘It is my dying wish.’

BROICH: And he announced that yesterday, 1 May–it’s 1 May intentionally–to be the date to mark HITLER’s death.

GOERBIG: The peace offer has fallen through.

BROICH: Probably we shall hear soon that HIMMLER has killed DÖNITZ.

GOERBIG: Of course.

WILDERMUTH: It’s a Party swindle with DÖNITZ, to push the blame for defeat on to the Armed Forces. HIMMLER is the man who negotiated about the ‘surrender’ and plenty of people in GERMANY will say: ‘Heavens, at any rate he had the sense to do that; I’ll forgive him a lot for that. NOW HIMMLER’s gone and DÖNITZ appears. Needless to say the Armed Forces can never get enough blame.’ It makes you sick!

SCHLIEBEN: So stupid.

WILDERMUTH: The man isn’t authorised at all to lead or speak.

Document 79

CSDIC (UK) GG-REPORT, SRGG 1176 [TNA, WO 208/4170]

Generalmajor Dr REITER (9th Infantry Regiment)–Captured 16 Apr. 45 in Rechlingen.

Generalmajor FRANZ (Commander 256 Volksgrenadier Division)–Captured 8 April 45 in Birnfeld.

Information received: 2 May 45

FRANZ (re HITLER’s death): There has never been such a collapse of a nation.

REITER: Frightful.

FRANZ: With so many resulting problems and concomitant symptoms.

REITER: The FÜHRER is by no means the greatest scoundrel, the greatest criminal.

FRANZ: I am sure he is not. (Emphatically) He is certainly not.

REITER: He is a tragic figure, surrounded by incompetent, criminally disposed people.

FRANZ: They made him into one themselves in the end. Naturally he had a certain leaning that way. They would not have succeeded with any other, normal person.

REITER: No.

FRANZ: If a quiet sensible man were President of GERMANY–they could not have turned old HINDENBURG into a criminal so easily. But then there should have been people who would say to him: ‘My FÜHRER–’

REITER: So we are not entirely blameless.

FRANZ: Where GOERING was concerned, for example, someone should have gone to him in the early days and said: ‘My FÜHRER, we would like to point out–’

REITER: The people he had round him! That waster RIBBENTROP, that pathological morphia addict, GOERING. That was the type of person he had. HESS has gone.

FRANZ: He was perhaps the best of the lot.

REITER: I should have said this evening… should have stood up and said: ‘Gentlemen! (Dramatically) Our former FÜHRER is dead. I request, let us break up the meeting.’

FRANZ: That would have been the best thing, so that no great discussions–I have met the FÜHRER personally a few times. His nose rather put me off. His eyes and the way he looked, and his nose and that bristly moustache which gave his face such a stern appearance–rather a fanatical expression. That made one rather suspicious about him. But I am convinced that if the man had fallen into the right, into sensible hands–for instance he should have been made ‘Reichskanzler’ under old HINDENBURG–then things would not have turned out as they did.[168] There should have been someone above him–not only God Almighty, whom in any case he did not recognise.