Tapping Hitler's Generals

BECK: When I was in ITALY the people there were disgusted when we arrived because we were people who could really tell them something. But when I went to see General BREITH, CO of artillery schools,[421] in BERLIN, he said: ‘I will give you a piece of good advice. Don’t talk too much or you’ll be the cause of your own undoing. I know of two officers who got away from STALINGRAD and who talked so much that they are now under lock and key.’

Did you know LÖFFELHOLZ-KOLBERG(?)[422]? He was completely done for. He had had tropical fever. He was totally incapable of giving a straight answer any more. They had originally intended him as GSO I (Ops) for that ‘Division’ in SICILY, because I was too young.

LATTMANN[423] was, for us, the epitome of decent, arch-Prussian commanders, and he, too, was infected by National Socialism in so far as his actions were similarly guided by ‘blind faith’. At that time he held speeches of one or two hours’ duration each week to the ‘Fahnenjunker’ and, in my opinion, everything that he said was absolutely his own conviction. He often used to visit me at home and each time one found confirmation of the fact that, in that respect, he was really talking from conviction. I can’t imagine that the man has swung right round merely on account of his STALINGRAD experience. That’s why I believe that the whole peculiar business with the liberation committee in MOSCOW isn’t too clear either.

VIEBIG: SEYDLITZ was our ‘Gruppenkommandeur’ in the fighting to open the pocket round DEMIANSK,[424] that’s how I know him well.

BECK: He’s an extraordinarily decent fellow and a clever man. But even then, although he was advancing at great speed on STALINGRAD–from CHUGUEV[425] near KHARKOV[426] it went in one thrust as far as KALATCH–he was already very pessimistic about the outcome of the war, so that it’s quite possible that SEYDLITZ really is speaking his own mind.

VIEBIG: I know LATTMANN, I have my doubts about him.