Tapping Hitler's Generals

ROTHKIRCH: The IO said: ‘You were in the military “Kommandantur” in RUSSIA. You were at LVOV; what did you do there?’ ‘I was in command of the local “Kommandanturen” there.’ ‘A large number of crimes must have been committed in your area too?’ Yes, of course they occurred but military administration hasn’t the slightest connection with civil administration. On the contrary, there was usually a fair amount of animosity between us; we had the prerogative and woe to anyone who dared carry out executions in my area. Whereupon he said: ‘We act on the principle that anyone who witnesses a crime and does nothing to prevent it, is an accessory.’ Then he asked me about MINSK. I said: ‘I was GOC there but my instructions were quite clear: I had to fight the partisans as GOC of security troops of the “Heeresgruppe Mitte”.’[313] Well, then he interrogated me fairly thoroughly. What can he do? Of course I said I had nothing to do with all that business. I said: ‘Not only I, but none of the Generals had anything to do with it, on the contrary, we turned it down in the most definite way. Many a General was dismissed as a result of his refusal.’ Then the IO said: ‘Incidentally, the Russians will demand the handing over of a lot of officers.’ Of course those officers who held those administrative jobs should be among them. If you’re handed over, it’s all up.

CHOLTITZ: There’s a man here, General KITTEL, who was the subject of a whole evening’s broadcast.

ROTHKIRCH: He was at LVOV. He had some sort of local ‘Kommandanturen”–

CHOLTITZ: Surely he didn’t permit executions to take place, did he?

ROTHKIRCH: If you’re in charge of villages and towns and the SS comes along and takes the people away, what can you do? Of course masses of people were shot at LVOV. Thousands of them![314] First the Jews, then Poles who were also shot in thousands, non-Jews, the whole aristocracy and great landed proprietors and masses of students. It’s all very difficult.

CHOLTITZ: How dreadful!

Document 128

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 271

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 10, 11, 12 Mar. 45 [TNA, WO 208/4177]

BRUHN: If you were to ask me: ‘Have we deserved victory or not?’ I should say: ‘No, not after what we’ve done. After the amount of human blood we’ve shed knowingly and as a result of our delusions and also partly instigated by the lust of blood and other qualities, I now realise we’ve deserved defeat; we’ve deserved our fate, even though I’m accusing myself as well.’ Even if you take the indubitable courage and achievement of the population into account, we are not suffering an undeserved fate; we are being punished for letting a national resurrection which promised so well, go to the devil.

BROICH: We shot women as if they had been cattle. I was at ZHITOMIR the day after it happened, while moving forward when the second offensive was about to start. The ‘Kommandant’, an Oberst von MONICH(?)[315] happened to be there and he said, quite appalled: ‘We might drive out afterwards; there is a large quarry where ten thousand men, women and children were shot yesterday.’ They were all still lying in the quarry. We drove out on purpose to see it. The most bestial thing I ever saw.

CHOLTITZ: One day after SEBASTOPOL had fallen–whilst I was on my way back to BERLIN–I flew back with the Chief of Staff,[316] the CO of the airfield was coming up to me, when he heard shots. I asked whether a firing practice was on. He answered: ‘Good Lord, I’m not supposed to tell, but they’ve been shooting Jews here for days now.’

BROICH: The most ridiculous story is the one WILDERMUTH (PW) tells about CROATIA when he was there. Some incident had happened in a factory somewhere or other; maybe someone was shot; in any case nothing of any importance. The ‘Bataillonskommandeur’ had the six hundred workers shot, including the German foremen, without establishing their identity! Just imagine it! It all came out afterwards. The man concerned, who was in charge of it all, came along and said: ‘Good gracious, they have shot my son as well!’ WILDERMUTH experienced that incident himself.[317]