"I can see," I said, "that in a tightly controlled country like Nazi Germany it would take many people, that it would take much planning, that it could not be done overnight, and that all involved would have to be willing to risk their lives."
"And how do you find such people?" asked Boineburg rhetorically. "They must be strategically placed, as Stuelpnagel and I were in Paris. And you can try to involve only those who, if they refuse to join you, will at least not obstruct you and above all will not tip off the Gestapo. To further complicate matters, remember that the plans of the political leaders and the military leaders must mesh. The press and the radio, particularly the radio, must come under your instant control."
"I am surprised," I broke in, "that the putsch got as far as it got, that only a fluke prevented Hitler's death."
"A most unfortunate fluke," said the general bitterly. "His death would have been a godsend. Millions who have died since would be alive today. I thank the Lord every day for the silence of Stuelpnagel and Linstow."
Boineburg was not the only officer to be saved by the silence of others. Soon I was to meet General Hans Speidel, the man in charge of the German forces opposing Eisenhower on D-Day, Field Marshal Rommel being temporarily away from his post. Speidel, too, was to tell me how the silence of Stuelpnagel and another had saved him from hanging.
October 5: Today one of the generals asked one of the runners if he didn't have a butt he could smoke. The depth to which these men have been reduced is pitiful to see.
Toward the end of October I took over the interrogation at Internment Camp 80 near Ulm. It was an old stone fort with all brick buildings. Here, as at every camp I had worked in, I received numerous letters from prisoners seeking early release. One was from a former professor of criminology. Among the contents of the letter was the statement that he had attended a party at which Eva Braun was present and had taken a picture of her. While much was rumored, little was known as fact about the Fiihrer's private life, but Eva Braun was reputedly his inamorata, and he had taken her as his wife just before their joint suicide. Close-up pictures of her were rare, so my curiosity was sufficiently piqued to see the man and his photograph.
Eva Braun, the Fiihrer's inamorata, who became Mrs. Adolf Hitler an hour or two before her death. Photo from an inmate of Internment Camp 80.
Another supplicant was a man named Heinz Lorenz, a former deputy of Otto Abetz, the German ambassador to France. He wished, he wrote, to testify in behalf of Abetz, who was to be tried by the French as a war criminal. Before the war Abetz had been a leading German proponent of Franco-German rapprochement and was a lover of French culture. During the war he had served not only as ambassador to the Vichy government but also as high commissioner of Occupied France. Called in, Lorenz told me about Abetz at considerable length and about his stormy relationship with the German foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop.
I advised the deputy to write up his proposed testimony and promised to forward it through channels to the French authorities. In reality, I felt certain that the proffered testimony would be ignored and Abetz executed, because the French were out more for revenge than justice. However, when his trial came up four years later, it ended with a sentence of twenty years' imprisonment, not the execution I had expected. It is possible that Lorenz's testimony was instrumental in this decision.
It wasn't easy for an internee to gain access to me. Had it been, I would have been besieged en masse. Every prisoner would have liked to plead his case to the head honcho in hopes of winning immediate freedom.
While most supplicants sought my early attention through letters, some resorted to more dramatic means. One afternoon a tall, handsome individual suddenly stood in front of my desk unannounced.
"How the hell did you get in here?" I asked in German, annoyed.
"Sorry for the intrusion, Captain," he said in faultless British English. "I had to see you."
"This better be good," I growled.
The man was Anthony Steane, a fifty-two-year old British actor whose stage name was Jack Trevor, one of the highest-paid silent film movie stars. He was making a picture with Emil Jannings on the Baltic coast when war broke out. He said he had not been warned by the British consulate to leave Germany, and then later could not get out. The Nazis, he claimed, forced him to broadcast propaganda to Britain-or go with his family to a concentration camp.
Wearing a trenchcoat simi lar to that worn by officers, impeccably groomed and oozing aplomb and authority, the Englishman had simply brushed by my staff in the outer offices. Had he pushed his luck and represented himself to the guards at the gate as a member of the British Control Commission or some such entity, I am sure he could have walked right out of the camp. Ingenious and nervy, he was a personable son of a gun to whom I took an immediate liking. Unfortunately, he was badly wanted by the British authorities, so I transferred him to their custody. But he had achieved his immediate hearing.
Over the course of months of interrogation work, I had refined the camp system to a speed and efficiency that permitted me, if there were no pressing matters to be resolved, to take an afternoon off, visit a point of interest, or go for a drive along the Neckar River where the scenery was so beautiful it must have inspired generations of painters, poets, composers, and lovers. Such afternoons, and weekends, I now applied to researching the Rommel story. I would never forget how one day, in the middle of the night, I had learned the truth about the dramatic end of his life.
TWO DAYS AFTER MY FIRST MEETING WITH ROMMEL' S WIDOW ON APRIL 25, my turn came up for night duty in the war room. This meant manning the G-2 desk, which sat beside the huge situation map that was covered by an acetate sheet. On this was marked with red grease pencil the location of the enemy units and symbols representing all intelligence information of significance.
The G-3 desk on the other end of the map was manned by an operations officer who kept track, in blue grease pencil, of our units and their activity.
As fate would have it, on this night the enlisted men's roster called for Sergeant Greiner, my "translator" for the interrogation of Mrs. Rommel, to hold down the fort in the G-2 section. My instructions to him were to continue with the translation of the letters whenever his regular nighttime G-2 duties permitted.
April 28 (My diary):... Greiner, I've noticed for the past two days, has been trying to get something off his chest, and tonight while we were both on night duty, he did. Told me that on his trip back to the Rommel house, to return the documents we did not want, Mrs. Rommel confided to him that her husband had not died of a heart attack as she had first told us, but had been poisoned by two generals sent to Herrlingen by Hitler for that purpose. Since she still had a son in the Army, she begged Greiner to say nothing until the boy was either killed or captured.
1 told Greiner to write up his notes for a story to be written once the Rommel ho' 's fate was known. Some time after midnight, when Greiner was not quite through with his notes, Major Murray of G-3 handed me a teletyped report from the French. The last line read, "Son of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel captured. " / returned to the G-2 section, showed Greiner the French report, and spent the remainder of the night using Greiner's notes to write his story. I am sending him back in the morning to tell Mrs. Rommel her son has been captured and is well.
Greiner was an ascetic, bespectacled Caspar Milquetoast type. Jewish, of scholarly bent, he was a young man who was going through a spiritual crisis and in his spare time was studying other religions, particularly Catholicism and Buddhism. He struck one as a harmless boy who needed mothering, and I think this may have caused Mrs. Rommel to open up to him completely the day after our initial meeting when I sent him to return some of the papers she had given us.
Before going off duty in the morning I showed the story I had written to Colonel Langevin, who found it so sensational that he insisted we get Army Headquarters' approval before printing it. It took the censors four days to do this. The delay baffled me, since the revelation of the murder of its most
popular general could have served only to demoralize further the German army and the German people.
May I (my diary): The story on Rommel's murder, which I wrote from Greiner's notes in the early hours of the morning ofApril 27, was finally passed by army censorship and we are printing it in the morning.
Colonel Langevin just called and told me the chief of staff had talked with General de Lattre [Jean-Marie de Lattre commanded the First French Army] today about the Rommel story and that the Rommel boy had told the exact same story, adding that his father had been convicted in a secret session of the court in which it was decided who the guilty ones were in the attempt on Hitler's life, and that Rommel had been given the choice of taking poison or being hanged publicly.
This is the piece I wrote for Greiner and which was picked up by the press and radio worldwide:
On April 26, / 945, the day after Captain Charles Marshall and I first inten'iewed Mrs. Rommel, I returned there to deliver some of her papers, which we had removed the previous day for inspection. A conversation developed without my having had any intention of questioning her further.
Mrs. Rommel again compared the clothing and equipment of our army with that of the German forces and emphasized how hopelessly inferior their situation had always been, and how futile an undertaking this was for Germany. During the discussion I mentioned the Russian campaign and she assured me the entire German High Command had advised against it, especially General Haider, who conducted operations. But the generals had orders to undertake it and dared not disobey.
As we started talking again about her deceased husband, she became frightened about her son still in Nazi hands. Only after my assurance that this conversation would go no further did she continue:
"My husband wrote a personal report to the Fuhrer, "she said, "just one day before he was injured. In this report he stated clearly, as commander of the forces opposing the Allied invasion, that the enemy superiority in the air, armor, and materiel made any further attempt at resistance futile. He urged the Fuhrer to stop further bloodshed and destruction and enter into negotiations with the enemy immediately. "
That was startling news. So I inquired what sort of reply he received and what Hitler's reaction had been to such a report. Of course I realized that Rommel's accident caused problems, but surely the Fuhrer and the High Command did not just drop the matter. It was then that she began to tremble and terror came into her eyes.
She asked me whether I would give her my word of honor that the matter would not go further until her son was accounted for. I said that I had already told her so and it was up to her to decide whether or not to trust me. She had another crying spell and then burst out: "Do you really think my husband died of a heart attack? Those who saw him during his recuperation could not believe it. He had recovered from his wounds. His heart was sound. BUT HE WAS MURDERED! He was poisoned, right here! Now you know it!"
I was aghast. "Do you mean to say, " I asked, "that they murdered him just because of his report?"
"Because of 'that and something else, too. You are Tamil iar with the July 20th attempt on Hitler's life and the plan the conspirators had to succeed him. M• husband knew nothing about the plan, I am sure, but they apparently decided that he would be the best man to negotiate with the Allies. You see, they knew my husband's opinion on the futility of.further war and they also knew he was well respected abroad. So they chose him, and it leaked out. "
"But how on earth could they' do it, poison him here in his own home? Did he know about it?"
Mrs. Rommel emitted a shrill, frustrated laugh: "Ever since he returned from France, wounded, they were after him. You know, they did not want to let him out of France. But he wanted to come home in the worst way, because he knew France would be overrun in no time. He pulled all the strings at his disposal and fooled the doctor, because he wanted to be back here. He would not have done that had he known about the plan, would lie? Yet the moment he arrived, he was guarded and watched by the Security Sen'ice. He did not dare go out of the house by himself; because he was sure that a bullet would hit him. Oh, they prepared well for that sort of thing, you know. For months they had been broadcasting stories about enemy agents hiding out around here. They would have found one to play the "agent. „
"Then they sent hint a message to report to Berlin for a new assignment. That was ridiculous, my husband could not travel; the surgeon forbade it. And what new assignment could then have had for him? No, I tell you, as sure as I am sitting here, I know that his train would have blown up on the war-"victim of a terror bomb attack "-would have been the explanation.
"Well, "continued Mrs. Rommel, "when they saw that that, too, wouldn't work, they had to resort to a cruder method. They sent two generalsfrom the WarDepartment to see him, General Meissner and I General I Bogen. My husband had not known them before. They arrived here on October 14, 1944, and were alone with him for half an hour. When they lift, he called me in. He sat right here on this chair and bade me good-bye. He told me he was going to die now. Fifteen minutes later he was dead and his lips were drawn downward in a smile of contempt. "
It was Jiff icult for me to grasp this. "But how, " I asked, "were they able to force him to take the poison, if he had not wanted to? Sureh•, they could not have used force on hint?"
"Oh, they knew him well. They knew he would obey. He was a soldier and throughout his entire life he had trained himself to carry out orders without asking. He carried out even the last order, even though in doing so he could not help but smile in contempt.
"But, you see, up to the last minute he believed in the Fuhrer. He was sure that the Fuhrer himself did not know about all this. 1, too, believed that for a while, but I find it harder and harder to believe. No, in fact, lam now sure he must have known. And to think that ever, evening, for years and years, I prayed for the welfare of that man, the murderer of my husband!
"My son was brought up to worship Hitler. I guess he still believes in him. How can I face him if he comes back? Can I tell him that his father was murdered by his idol?"
I asked Mrs. Rommel whether she believed other generals of the German Army would have been as obedient.
"What choice have they? Do you think von Rundstedt wanted to launch the Ardennes offensive? Do you think he did not know that he could not succeed and would only sacrifice thousands of lives in vain ? He knew it yen' well. But he received orders to attack then and there. And he did his utmost to do his job as well as possible.
"On the Russian campaign, I know that Halder warned against it and so did List, but when the order came down, the' had to do their jobs, and they did them as well as then could. Holder is in jail now, because they suspect he was connected with the July 20th attempt.
"Do you think Field Marshal von Witzleben, who devoted his entire life to the service of his country, is a coward and traitor? Don 't you believe a man like that must have pondered a thousand times before he made this desperate decision to save his country from utter ruin? And then he was convicted by a 'People's Court' and hanged like a dog!
"They are not even satisfied with the person himself. If they cannot get him, they take his famiiv. Take Field Marshal von Paulus. He is a man as straight and faithful as the come. I know his wife and family well. They are all imprisoned now. Or how about the commander of Koenigsberg? Do you real!' think that man would have surrendered had he seen any possible way out? Imagine his situation with the thousands of civilians on hand, half started to death. Imagine the responsibility. And now his family-thrown into prison like criminals.
"Do you understand why 1 cannot talk? My son is in their hands, and they keep an eve on him. They must he aware of the fact that I know how my husband died. "
1 had heard enough and wished to go no further.
T/3 Thomas S. Greiner
It is now 0245, 29 Apr 45, as I finished writing the above. A minute ago I received word that Rommel's son has been captured. Therefore I no longer regard myself honor-bound and release this story.
> Sergeant Greiner's account, considering he had found it unseemly to take notes during his visit with Mrs. Rommel, proved to be remarkably accurate, erring only in misremembering the names of Hitler's emissary executioners. As I was to learn from postwar interviews with the widow, they were not Meissner and Bogen, but Ernst Maisel and Wilhelm Burgdorf. Maisel, I was later to discover, headed the legal section of the Army personnel branch and Burgdorf inherited the post of chief adjutant to Hitler after Schmundt, ever at the Fuhrer's side, died as a result of injuries he sustained in the July 20 putsch attempt. As for Rommel, if ever a man needed a friend in court, this was the time. Had Schmundt, Rommel's only friend among Hitler's coterie and a confidant of the Fiihrer, survived the bomb blast, it is conceivable that Schmundt might have derailed the murder of the Swabian.
To the Allies it seemed incredible that this man, reputedly Hitler's favorite officer, who had been promoted from major general to field marshal in less than a year, whose loyalty to the Fuhrer had never been questioned, would have been ordered by Hitler to commit suicide.
Yet, so it was. On the afternoon of October 14, 1944, one month short of his fifty-third birthday, Erwin Rommel, his country's greatest war hero, lay dead on a hospital cot in the cathedral city of Ulm. As the sun fell behind the cathedral, steepled shadows slowly settled over the army reserve hospital in the Wagner School. They blanketed an intelligent, spirited countenance now gray and icy. The lips, which in happier days had issued orders sending racing armored columns coursing across the sands of Africa to victory after victory, were blue and drawn upward in one corner and downward in the other. "The frightful expression of contempt into which my husband's features had settled," said Mrs. Rommel to me during a future visit, "struck my sister-in-law, who was still ignorant of the truth, as it had me. It was an expression that neither of us had ever seen on his face at any time in his life."
Discovering the Rommel Murder Page 22
