HELLDORF: My father [the police president of Berlin] had unlimited access because he always told him what he thought directly without any crawling. The Führer appreciated that a lot.
BORN: Back then, I think it was near CHARKOV, Standartenführer Krumm (Kumm?) received the oak cluster, and Krüger, I think. In any case it was two or three people, and a Hauptsturmführer. At the award ceremony, the Führer must have asked something special. In any case, these three men fell silent and looked at each other. The Führer noticed that something wasn’t right. They received orders to report to him the following day for a discussion. They spent no less than three hours with the Führer and laid everything out of the table, with total honesty.
HELLDORF: That’s what the Führer is lacking.
BORN: It’s said one of them gave him a real shock.
HELLDORF: The Führer is fully isolated. He exists on what three or four people tell us. He depends on them and they… well, I don’t want to use any hard words but…
BORN: Who are the three people.
HELLDORF: It’s BORMANN, one of the worst figures there is among us. Then, on the military side of things there’s KEITEL, and politically… in the same company is GOEBBELS.
BORN: Strangely, until now, it’s always been the case that the REICHSFÜHRER [HIMMLER] is permanently with him.
HELLDORF: The REICHSFÜHRER is half to blame.
BORN: Consciously or not, the Führer has never been in agreement with all these Jewish actions. I know that for a fact. A lot of the time no one told him what was going on and instead… did it on their own authority. The Führer isn’t as terribly extreme and terribly sharp as he’s depicted.515
Even a high-ranking officer like Field Marshal Erhard Milch put forth a variation of this conspiracy theory. In May 1945, he proposed:
MILCH: The FÜHRER in 1940/41 was not the man he was in 1934/35, but was completely confused, and had completely wrong ideas and followed these wrong ideas. He must have been made ill, I’m convinced of that, though of course too much responsibility is enough to make you ill on its own.516
In another example, a POW regretted that the constant manipulation of Hitler unjustly diminished his historical significance. But even more lamentable was the fact that the misinformation of the Führer had led to things for which the German military was now going to be held responsible. Major General Reiter articulated this fear:
REITER: He was a historical figure; only history will be able to give him his proper due; one must first hear all that happened; we have heard nothing. Those incompetent fools who never told the FÜHRER that he was being lied to in reports etc! We, too, shall be blamed for that, you can be sure of that.517
