Panzer Leader

by Heinz Guderian

  Hitler then advised me to consult his personal physician, Morell, about the weak heart which he knew I had, and to let Morell give me injections. The consultation took place, but after talking to my Berlin doctor I refused the proposed injections. The example of Hitler was hardly an inducement to place oneself in the hands of Herr Morell.

  The assassination attempt had resulted in a serious contusion to Hitler’s right arm; both his ear-drums were destroyed and the Eustachian tube in his right ear was damaged. He quickly recovered from these physical effects. His already existing malady, plain for all to see in the trembling of his left hand and left leg, had no connection with the attempt on his life. But more important than the physical were the moral effects. In accordance with his character, the deep distrust he already felt for mankind in general, and for General Staff Corps officers and generals in particular, now became profound hatred. A by-product of the sickness from which he suffered is that it imperceptibly destroys the powers of moral judgment; in his case what had been hardness became cruelty, while a tendency to bluff became plain dishonesty. He often lied without hesitation, and assumed that others lied to him. He believed no one any more. It had already been difficult enough dealing with him; it now became a torture that grew steadily worse from month to month. He frequently lost all self-control and his language grew increasingly violent. In his intimate circle he now found no restraining influence, since the polite and gentlemanly Schmundt had been replaced by the oafish Burgdorf.

  After reporting to Hitler I paid a brief visit to the so-called ‘Briefing Room,’ the scene of the assassination attempt, the condition of which has been frequently described, and then made my way to the OKH and the office block assigned to the Chief of the Army General Staff, which was to be my place of work from now on. I found the office block empty. There was nobody to meet me. After looking through various rooms I eventually came upon a private soldier by the name of Riehl, sound asleep. I sent this splendid fellow off to find me an officer. After some time had elapsed he reappeared with Major Baron Freytag von Loringhoven, whom I knew from my days with the armoured force and who had been my orderly officer when I commanded a panzer army in 1941. I asked Freytag to undertake the duties of my adjutant. I then attempted to telephone the army groups in order to find out the situation at the front. There were three telephones in the Chief of Staff’s office, and no way of telling what purpose each one served. I picked up the nearest one. A female voice answered. When I said my name she screamed and hung up on me. It took some time before I managed to calm down the switchboard operators sufficiently to secure the connections I wanted.

  The development of the military situation up to July 20th, 1944, has been described in the previous chapter. It was now appalling. Before being able to be of any assistance the OKH had first to be put back in working order again. This control centre for the whole Eastern Front was in a desperate state. My predecessor had intended to move the OKH back to the Maybach Camp, at Zossen near Berlin. Considerable portions of the staff had indeed already gone there, including the Quartermaster-General and all his people, the chief of the Armed Forces and Army Transport Services and numerous other important departments. Most of our signals network had also been moved. It was only with considerable difficulty that contact with the army groups could be maintained and the supply services to the whole Army, which was the OKH’s responsibility, controlled from East Prussia. The first decision I must make was where the OKH was to be located in future. I decided on East Prussia, since Hitler and the OKW were to remain there. Those elements which had already moved to Zossen were recalled.

  The next step to take in order to make the OKH operational again was to appoint the necessary officers. I sent for General Wenck, who was then Schörner’s chief of staff, and made him chief of the Operations Department. I soon increased his responsibilities, making him Chief of the OKH Command Staff, which controlled not only the Operations and Organisation Departments, but also that part of the army intelligence service called ‘Foreign Armies East’; thus the whole apparatus for controlling the battle in the East was concentrated in one place. Colonel von Bonin was now put in charge of the Operations Department and Lieutenant-Colonel Wendland of the Organisation Department, while the reliable Colonel Gehlen had ‘Foreign Armies East.’ The Quartermaster-General, General Wagner, had committed suicide and was succeeded by Colonel Toppe. General Berlin, who had been my artillery adviser both in France and in Russia, was appointed General of Artillery with the OKH; General Praun, who had been my chief signals officer during the 1940–41 campaign, became Chief Signals Officer for the Army and the Armed Forces. It was a few days before all these men could reach East Prussia and even longer before they were fully broken in to their new work. Of the more important officers of the old OKH only the Chief Transport Officer of the Armed Forces and the Army, the excellent General Gercke, retained his post.

  During the first few weeks I was fully occupied in getting the machine in running order again. I had no time to spare for the contemplation of other problems. Matters which today seem important to the men involved in them, I hardly noticed. I was so busy that I was quite unaware of day-to-day happenings other than those at the front. My new colleagues and I worked late into the night in our efforts to save the front.

  What were the actual results of the attempt made to assassinate Hitler on July 20th?

  The man who was to be killed was in fact slightly wounded. His physical condition, not of the best beforehand, was further weakened. His spiritual equipoise was destroyed for ever. All the forces of evil that had lurked within him were aroused and came into their own. He recognised no limits any more.

  If the assassination was intended seriously to affect Germany’s governmental machine, then the most important officials of the National-Socialist regime should also have been eliminated. But not one of these was present when the bomb exploded. No plans had been made for the removal of Himmler, Goering, Goebbels or Bormann, to name only the most important. The conspirators made no attempt to ensure that they would be able to carry out their political plans in the event of the assassination succeeding. The man who actually did it, Graf Stauffenberg, was indeed well aware of this, as is proved by the fact that he did not carry out his intentions some days earlier on the Obersalzberg, giving as his reason the absence of Himmler and Goering whom he had expected to be present in the room. I do not know what made Graf Stauffenberg decide to make his attempt on July 20th even though the conditions for complete, political success were not then fulfilled. Perhaps the issue of an order for the arrest of Dr. Goerdeler had driven him to act at once.

  Even if Hitler had been killed and the conspirators had succeeded in seizing power, they would still have required an adequate body of reliable troops. But they had not one single company at their disposal. As a result they could not even gain control of Berlin when Graf Stauffenberg landed with the false news that the assassination in East Prussia had succeeded. The officers and men of the units assembled for Exercise Valkyrie had not the slightest idea of what was going on. This explains what the conspirators have called their ‘refusal to act.’ Even my agreement, on quite different grounds, to postpone the transfer of the armoured force demonstration units was of no use to the conspirators since they did not dare reveal their plans to the troops and their commanders.

  So far as foreign policy was concerned the conditions necessary for success of the undertaking did not exist. The links between the leaders of the conspiracy and important figures in the enemy countries were very slender. Not one leading political figure among the enemy had shown the slightest inclination to make any agreement with the conspirators. It is no exaggeration to say that if the assassination had succeeded Germany’s condition would be not one jot better than it is today. Our enemies were not solely interested in destroying Hitler and Nazism.

  The immediate victims of the assassination attempt were Colonel Brandt of the Operations Department of the OKH; General Korten, Chief of the Air Force General S
taff, General Schmundt, Hitler’s chief adjutant, and a stenographer named Berger. Apart from these men, many members of the OKH and the OKW were wounded. These victims were unnecessary.

  The next victims were those who took part in, or knew of, the conspiracy, together with their families. Only a small proportion of those condemned were in fact actively involved in the conspiracy. The great majority merely knew something about it and out of loyalty to their friends kept silent concerning the rumours and fragments of gossip that they had heard; the price they paid for their loyalty was a bitter death. The first to die were those leaders who had not—like Colonel-General Beck, Quartermaster-General Wagner, General von Treskow, Colonel Baron Freytag von Loringhoven and others—already taken their own lives or—like Graf Stauffenberg, Olbricht, Merz von Quirnheim and von Haeften—been summarily executed by Fromm.

  Hitler ordered that all the accused be tried by one tribunal, the so-called People’s Court (Volksgerichtshof). For the soldiers this meant that they would not be tried by court-martial but according to a special court of civilian judges; they would thus be liable not to the usual military sentences and military executions, but would be subjected to special laws dictated by Hitler and based on hatred and a thirst for revenge. Under the dictatorship there was no legal method of appealing against such laws.

  In order that the soldiers accused of complicity or of foreknowledge might be tried by the People’s Court it was necessary that they first be dismissed from the Armed Forces. These dismissals were to be carried out after an investigation by a military court which Hitler ordered to be set up and which was called the ‘Court of Honour’; this was presided over by Field-Marshal von Rundstedt, and those ordered to attend were Keitel, Schroth, Kriebel, Kirchheim and myself. I requested, in view of the very heavy duties entailed by my new appointment and by my position as Inspector-General of Armoured Troops which I also retained, that I might be excused this unpleasant task. My request was ignored. All I managed to achieve was permission that General Kirchheim be my standing deputy at those sessions of the court which my military duties made it impossible for me to attend. At first I took no part whatever in the proceedings: then Keitel came to see me, on instructions from Hitler, and told me that I must appear at least occasionally. So for better or for worse I had to attend two or three of these repulsive sessions. What I heard was extremely sad and upsetting.

  The preliminary examinations had been made by Kaltenbrunner and SS-Group-Leader Müller of the Gestapo. The former was an Austrian lawyer, the latter a Bavarian official. Neither had any understanding of the officers’ corps; Müller’s attitude towards that corps may be described as compounded of hatred and of a feeling of inferiority; for the rest his was a coldly calculating and ambitious nature. Apart from these two the Chief of the Army Personnel Office, General Burgdorf, and his assistant, General Meisel, were present at the sessions; they were responsible for procedure and also acted as Hitler’s observers. The reports of the preliminary investigations consisted principally of statements made by the accused; these were in general of an almost incredible frankness, such as officers are accustomed to make to a Court of Honour consisting of their peers with a concept of honour identical to their own. It had apparently never occurred to these unfortunate men that when they were being investigated by the Gestapo they were up against people with quite a different code. Their statements not only contained matters relating to the man who made it, but also gave the names of others together with what they had done or not done. Every person whose name thus came up was arrested and interrogated. In this way the Gestapo quickly succeeded in building up an almost complete picture of the whole scope of the conspiracy and of the whole circle that had been involved in it. And that was not all. In view of the statements they had made it was often impossible to declare these officers innocent of participation in the plot. On the rare occasions when I was present I did my best to save any man who could be saved. Only in sadly few cases was this labour of love successful. Of the other members of the court, Kirchheim, Schroth and Kriebel acted as I did. Field-Marshal von Rundstedt gave us his constant support.

  The Court of Honour had only one function: this was to decide whether or not the accused, according to the results of the preliminary investigation, was to be tried by the People’s Court, either on the accusation of complicity or of foreknowledge. If the court decided he should be tried, the branch of the Wehrmacht concerned discharged the man in question from the Armed Forces. He was thereby no longer subject to military law. These investigations might only be based on the documents already available. Examination of the accused was not allowed.

  During these melancholy sessions one was constantly beset by the most difficult problems of judgment and of conscience. Every word uttered had to be most carefully weighed, and in setting one man free there was always the danger that this would bring misfortune to others whether unsuspected or not yet arrested.

  The sentences of death pronounced by the People’s Court were to be carried out by hanging, a form of execution hitherto unknown to German law and particularly to German military law. Up to then a soldier condemned to death was shot. Execution by hanging was an Austrian importation. Unfortunately it is still performed today.

  Any man who attempts a coup d’état should reckon on the fact that if he fails he is liable to be condemned to death for high treason. But how many of those condemned as a result of 20th July had realised what was actually happening? Surely only very few. In any case this argument carried no weight with Hitler. So it came about that officers were condemned who had heard of the intended coup d’état only immediately before July 20th and who had failed to report their knowledge to the proper authorities simply because they had not immediately recognised the importance of what they had heard. Men who were in no way accomplices were sent to their death merely for the crime of having helped a friend who was wanted by the police. Perhaps the most shocking example of this was the case of General Heisterman von Ziehlberg, the son-in-law of the greatly respected General von Tschischwitz, my former Inspector and divisional commander. On the 20th of July, 1944, Ziehlberg was in command of a division on the Eastern Front. His first general staff officer, Major Kuhn, who had previously worked in the Organisation Department of the OKH, knew of the conspiracy. Ziehlberg received a telegram ordering him to arrest Kuhn at once and to send him under close supervision to Berlin. He gave Kuhn permission to drive forward alone, to a new command post. He wanted thus to give him a chance. Kuhn, however, did not take this opportunity to shoot himself but instead deserted to the enemy. Ziehlberg was arrested and tried by court-martial. He received a mild sentence. A little later Hitler learned of this. He ordered a fresh investigation with the object of enforcing the death penalty on the grounds that Kuhn, as a former member of Organisation Department of the OKH, had knowledge of most secret matters and his desertion to the enemy was therefore extremely harmful to the German war effort. Ziehlberg was shot in February 1945. My unfortunate old commander lost his other son-in- law in the same way, though for a different reason; this was that most amiable man, General Gothsche, and he was executed for saying that we were no longer capable of winning the war.

  Sad as was the fate of those condemned to death, the condition of those whom they left behind was almost worse. The crime of consanguinity for which they had to suffer caused them great hardship and spiritual anguish. There was little that could be done to help them or to mitigate their sufferings.

  From every point of view the results of the attempted assassination were frightful. For myself I refuse to accept murder in any form. Our Christian religion forbids it in the clearest possible terms. I cannot therefore approve of the plan of assassination. Apart from this religious reason, I must also say that neither the internal nor the external political situation was conducive to a successful coup d’état. The preparations made were utterly inadequate, the choice of personalities to fill the principal roles incomprehensible. The driving force had originally been Dr. Goerdeler, a
n idealist who believed that the coup d’état could be performed without the assassination. Both he and his fellow conspirators were undoubtedly convinced that what they were doing was in the higher interests of their nation. Dr. Goerdeler had also decided on the choice of the majority of the people destined by the conspirators to hold office in the new government. He had drawn up lists of names in this connection which, through his own carelessness, fell into the hands of the Gestapo. The character of Colonel-General Beck, who was to have been Head of the State, I have already described at sufficient lengths. His behaviour on 20th July proved that my previous opinion of him was correct. Field-Marshal von Witzleben was a sick man. He hated Hitler with a burning hatred, but lacked the determination necessary to carry out a military putsch in such critical and difficult circumstances. Colonel-General Hoeppner was a brave fighting man; I doubt, however, if he was fully aware of the extent of the responsibilities that he incurred by his actions on 20th July. General Olbricht was a first-class officer and very good at his job; but he had no command and no troops with which to carry out a coup d’état. By July 20th, 1944, the plan had been under discussion and debate for years on end. The number of people in the know increased constantly. It is hardly surprising that the Gestapo finally got wind of one or other of the groups of conspirators and that a wave of imprisonments threatened them all. This threat doubtless persuaded the impulsive Graf Stauffenberg to turn to assassination, a decision that the other conspirators were hardly likely to have reached on their own. The assassination was a failure. But the assassin was completely deceived as to the effect of his bomb and behaved with more than foolhardiness. The part played in the business by Colonel-General Fromm, the commander of the Training Army, is still obscure. He, too, eventually lost his life in consequence. General Heinrich von Stülpnagel, the military commander in France, a man of high principles whom I knew well and always visited when passing through Paris, had to die a dreadful death. But the worst of all was Field-Marshal Rommel’s end, of which I did not learn until I was in prison after the war. It was only when I heard of this that I realised the full extent of the tragedy through which we had passed.