Tapping Hitler's Generals полностью

I can tell you how PW were treated; they were usually set to work at the front straight away. One thing is certain. My documents contained a huge number of cases, confirmed by numerous witnesses, of excessive cruelty at the moment of capture.[197] That is partly due to the Slav character which doesn’t fear death but is afraid of torture. The following happened: at KIEV where we were stationed a long time[198] the Russians had agents consisting of men and women in civilian clothes who roamed the streets allegedly on a visit to some aunt of theirs. Some of these people were taken and discovered to be agents; they were to find out military secrets. These people were interrogated not by the SS according to SS methods but by my intelligence men as is the proper military way. If they refused to talk we threatened to beat them. Then they talked. If you said: ‘You’ll be shot!’ they didn’t say a word. But if you hinted there were other methods besides shooting etc.–that we had learnt a lot from the Russians in that respect! A completely different way of looking at things. For instance, eyes put out, cut off noses, ears and genitals–it was difficult to tell whether this took place before or after death–but a great number of thus mutilated corpses were found. Now comes a peculiar fact: Russian PW were well behaved and quiet, they didn’t grumble–that’s typically Slav too. When they get excited, become angry, also in the fury of battle, they become cruel. When they are conquered or when they are left in peace and you don’t want anything from them they are the most reliable, useful and placid people I know. Undoubtedly we Western Europeans are up against a mentality foreign to us. In retrospect, when looking back at BUCHENWALD etc., we must come to the conclusion that HITLER didn’t respect and even envy STALIN for nothing. They had something in common, with the difference that on the one side it was the actual expression of a completely different national character and with us just something pathological.

CSDIC (UK) SR REPORT, SRM 145 [TNA, WO 208/4165]

LUDWIG CRÜWELL–General der Panzertruppe–Captured 29 May 42 in North Africa.

WILHEIM RITTER VON THOMA–General der Panzertruppe–Captured 4 Nov. 42 in North Africa.

Information received: 5 Dec. 42

THOMA: In November or December the order came down from the Army Group HQ that the (Russian) Regimental Commissars were to be taken prisoner.[199] Of course that very soon became known and therefore everyone was after these Commissars and they got to know about it too, they were absolute fanatics–they said: ‘Then I shall hold out to the last and drive my men on, because I shall be killed in any case.’ I had one who had been in BERLIN in TUKHACHEVSKI’s time.[200] He called himself liaison officer between the encircled Army Group, the Corps which we had there, and the man in command of the partisans, that was General BELOW(?),[201] and this particular colonel was the liaison officer. He spoke a little German and I said to him: ‘You’ve been in GERMANY, do you really believe that we kill people? Look out of the window’–a crowd of Russians happened to be going past at that moment–we had Russian workmen, whom we treated well and they worked hard. I said: ‘Take a look out of the window, those men aren’t at all badly off.’[202] Then he said: ‘Yes, that may be, you need them for labour, but you shoot the Commissars, we’ve got some of your orders.’ I denied it, or course, and said: ‘You’re wrong there.’ He said: ‘No, we can’t be wrong there, because a number of such orders have been found.’[203] Then I said: ‘But we haven’t got any Commissars.’ ‘Yes, your officers and Commissars are one and the same,’ he said. I reported it at the time. Then a few weeks later we lost two captains, both splendid leaders who had advanced too far from an excess of zeal and had been captured. And we didn’t retake this village until some weeks later, it was near VLASITCHI(?),[204] and we asked the peasants about them immediately and they said they had been taken to the next village. We sent the interpreter to make enquiries in the next village: ‘Yes, they were brought here by sledge and were shot here behind the barn.’ And then they uncovered the grave and there they were in it, they had all been shot in the back. ‘Yes,’ he said calmly, ‘your officers are also Commissars.’ I know that HALDER, BRAUCHITSCH and everyone were absolutely opposed to that order.[205]

CRÜWELL: You must have been at the FÜHRER’s Headquarters at that time?