Tapping Hitler's Generals

BRUNS: I’ll tell you something: some of the details may have been correct, but it was remarkable that the firing squad detailed that morning–six men with tommy-guns were posted at each pit; the pits were 24 m in length and 3 m in breath–they had to lie down like sardines in a tin, with their heads in the centre. Above them were six men with tommy-guns who gave them the coup de grâce. When I arrived those pits were so full that the living had to lie down on top of the dead; then they were shot and, in order to save room, they had to lie down neatly in layers. Before this, however, they were stripped of everything at one of the stations–here at the edge of the wood were the three pits they used that Sunday and here they stood in a queue 1½ km long which approached step by step–a queueing up for death. As they drew nearer they saw what was going on. About here they had to hand over their jewellery and suitcases. All good stuff was put into the suitcases and the remainder thrown on a heap. This was to serve as clothing for our suffering population–and then, a little further on they had to undress and, 500 m in front of the wood, strip completely; they were only permitted to keep on a chemise or knickers. They were all women and small two-year-old children. Then all those cynical remarks! If only I had seen those tommy-gunners, who were relieved every hour because of over-exertion, carry out their task with distaste, but no, nasty remarks like: ‘Here comes a Jewish beauty!’ I can still see it all in my memory: a pretty woman in a flame-coloured chemise. Talk about keeping the race pure: at RIGA they first slept with them and then shot them to prevent them from talking. Then I sent two officers out there, one of whom is still alive, because I wanted eyewitnesses. I didn’t tell them what was going on, but said ‘Go out to the forest of SKIOTAWA(?), see what’s up there and send me a report.’ I added a memorandum to their report and took it to JAKOBS myself. He said: ‘I have already two complaints sent me by Engineer “Bataillone” from the UKRAINE.’ There they shot them on the brink of large crevices and let them fall down into them; they nearly had an epidemic of plague, at any rate a pestilential smell. They thought they could break off the edges with picks, thus burying them. That loess there was so hard that two Engineer ‘Bataillone’ were required to dynamite the edges; those ‘Bataillone’ complained. JAKOBS had received that complaint. He said: ‘We didn’t quite know how to tell the FÜHRER. We’d better do it through CANARIS.’[344] CANARIS had the unsavoury task of waiting for the favourable moment to give the FÜHRER certain gentle hints. A fortnight later I visited the ‘Oberbürgermeister’ or whatever he was called then, concerning some other business. ALTENMEYER(?) triumphantly showed me: ‘Here is an order, just issued, prohibiting mass-shootings of that scale from taking place in future. They are to be carried out more discreetly.’ From warnings given me recently I knew that I was receiving still more attentions from spies.[345]

?: A wonder you’re still alive.

BRUNS: At GÖTTINGEN I expected to be arrested every day.

Document 136

CSDIC (UK), GRGG 281

Report on information obtained from Senior Officers (PW) on 8–9 Apr. 45 [TNA, WO 208/4177]

JÖSTING: A great friend of mine whom I can trust implicitly, an Austrian, still in VIENNA, as far as I know, belong to ‘Luftflotte 4’, and was down at ODESSA.[346] When he arrived there some ‘Oberleutnant’ or ‘Hauptmann’ said to him: ‘Would you like to watch? An amusing show is going on down there, umpteen Jews are being killed off.’ He answered: ‘Good Heavens, no.’ He had to pass the spot, however, and witnessed the scene. He told me himself that the barn was bunged full of women and children. Petrol was poured over them and they were burnt alive. He saw it himself. He said: ‘You can’t imagine what their screams sound like. Is such a thing right?’ I said: ‘No, it isn’t right. You can do whatever you like with them, but not burn them alive or gas them or Heavens knows what else! It’s not their fault. They should be imprisoned and after the war has been won you can say: “This people must disappear. Put them in a ship! Sail wherever you wish’, we don’t care where you land but there is no room for you in Germany from now on!”’ We have made enemies galore! We killed them everywhere in the east and as a result people hardly believe the real KATYN[347] story any longer, but say we did it ourselves.