People Of Nazi Germany

"I could not tell Himmler everything because he was too false and two-faced."

"No one. That was the difficulty of my position. Any day something might happen to me. Himmler told me at the end of April 1945, after I had held a conference with the Zionist leader in Sweden, that he felt sorry for what he had done in his life, regretted his sneakiness toward other people, and excused himself for that. He said, to quote Himmler from my memory: 'If I had only listened to you, Schellenberg, in 1943, there still would have been time to do something for the German people.' I always had the impression that Himmler was under the influence of Hitler. Himmler was suggestible - could easily have been under the influence of Hitler. Himmler conspired with me too much for it to be true that Hitler was under Himmler's influence. Himmler and I plotted against Hitler too much for that. Toward the end of 1943 Himmler actually talked with me about killing Hitler. That was the danger in my position. Should someone change his mind, it would be the end of me. It became even more obvious after the Attentat of July 20, 1944, when Kaltenbrunner worked more and more closely with Hitler. Kaltenbrunner conspired against Himmler."

"In my opinion, a war between England and Germany was a war between brothers. In my inner self I admired the English government and political system."

"When in the summer of 1941 he (Hitler) gave me the order to prepare installations at Auschwitz where mass exterminations could take place, and personally to carry out these exterminations, I did not have the slightest idea of their scale or consequences. It was certainly an extraordinary and monstrous order. Nevertheless the reasons behind the extermination programme seemed to me right. I did not reflect on it at the time: I had been given an order, and I had to carry it out. Whether this mass extermination of the Jews was necessary or not was something on which I could not allow myself to form an opinion, for I lacked the necessary breadth of view."

"In my case, though I had an idea of what was going on - I purposely didn't see it."

"For instance, against the tremendous resistance of Hitler and Kaltenbrunner, and at first Himmler too, I managed to save nine thousand Norwegians and Danes, whom I had released from concentration camps."

"Not justified - but Himmler told me that if the Jews were not exterminated at that time, then the German people would be exterminated for all time by the Jews."

"Many of my personal enemies picture me as a cold type - a person who acts according to a certain line, a calculating type."

"I can only be responsible for my orders. I cannot be responsible for all the acts of Himmler."

"Well, it was war - I could not have carried on as an administrative officer if I had let myself be swayed emotionally by my feelings."

"I would have left all the Jews in Germany, but put them on an alien status, under alien law, and naturally closed them out of jobs like doctor or lawyer. But why execute them? In that way, strong Jewish influence would have been cast aside and there would be no need for atrocities. Whenever we would have discussions in our own circle, I would mention my solution, whereupon Himmler would say to me, 'Pohl, you are too soft.' Therefore, I did my best to keep out of the whole final solution of the Jewish problem."

"Ach! If Hitler had given me an immoral order I would have refused. Think of it! To break teeth out of a dead body! Think of it! Why, if I had been only a simple soldier, I would not have obeyed. I would have said that it was against my religious conviction. That dog Pohl knew all about it."

"Pohl I did not know at all except, of course, that I had heard of him and perhaps I did see him occasionally at the Fuhrer's headquarters or at large meetings. But that a man could be in charge of all the concentration camps in Germany, Himmler's right-hand man without a doubt, making him one of the great criminals of our age - what sort of man is he? Does he talk? Does he proclaim innocence like Kaltenbrunner? I really can't understand such people."

"There is a difference. If you kill to take money or rob, it is plain murder, but if you kill because of political reasons, that is a political murder."

"In Copenhagen, there was an associate of Best, Paul Barandon. Pancke asked that I put an explosive in Barandon's desk or house. Barandon was a German. Pancke and Barandon had served in the same regiment in the last war; they had had an old quarrel years before, and that was enough for Pancke. It wasn't done."

"I don't hold it against the men who beat me because undoubtedly there are some ruffians of every nationality and the English are not exceptions."

"Pancke gave me orders to blow up a museum in Copenhagen, where students gathered, and some other places. I declined and said I needed a written order by Himmler. Pancke was angry, but it was not done. Another example: The State Police were billeted. These billets included the offices of Best, my own, Pancke, and staff, and commissioner of the Ordinary Police and his staff. Near it was a big tourist hotel. Pancke ordered that property blown up as an act of countersabotage. I asked why. The reason was that once in that hotel Pancke's secretary couldn't get a meal served after 7 p.m."

"I assumed that some of the gold bars I received were melted gold teeth."

"Hitler explained quietly that he wanted these things done. It is of interest that no one objected or talked back. It was law and it was genius speaking."

"At present, there are hundreds of thousands of prisoners in Germany of all nationalities and degrees, partly in camps, but for the most part, however, as workers...The dangers of inter-mixing and bastardizing of our people are extraordinarily grave. They lie to a great extent in the almost unlimited lack of knowledge throughout our nation of the problems of blood."

"I accept responsibility for the camps, but as far as measures against the Jews, I had nothing to do with them. Those orders came from the RSHA. Himmler sent orders to Kaltenbrunner, who transmitted them to Mueller of the Gestapo, and the latter had the entire extermination program under him. That was the way all of Himmler's orders went. I did not participate in the murder of the Jews."

"He was a powerless tool in the hands of Himmler, of whom he was afraid, and by whom he was treated poorly. Himmler insulted Pancke like a schoolboy. Pancke was about forty-eight to fifty years old, came from northern Germany."

"Hitler had a great dislike for the Danes for the following reason: the Danish king had been congratulated by Hitler on his birthday, and the king answered cryptically with 'Many thanks.' Hitler was said to have had an attack of rage. And ever since then Hitler hated Denmark."

"One night a German officer was shot in the back and the army asked for reprisals, but Best tried to impose money fines. Pancke became afraid of Himmler and ordered me to shoot several Danes at once. I told him I didn't know who, we just could not go on the street and shoot Danes. He ordered me to take political prisoners. Three internees, Communists, should be brought before a court-martial and shot while escaping. It was to be prearranged. Himmler was to be informed that three Danes were shot while escaping."

"Ewald von Kleist was an officer and a gentleman in an era when such characteristics were liabilities."

"Sabotage became more frequent. On December 18, I went on a furlough and was supposed to return on January 5. When I arrived home I got a wire to be back in Copenhagen on December 29. It came from Pancke through his deputy. I later learned the reason through the deputy. Best, Pancke, Hannekan, and Kaltenbrunner were all called to Hitler's headquarters on December 30 for lunch. I went to Berlin, reported to Mueller on December 28 and 29, and told him that because I didn't execute countersabotage orders these people were to be scolded by Hitler. Mueller said: 'Comrade Mildner, watch yourself. Himmler is angry with you.'"

"The Russians were five times superior to us poor but brave Germans, both in numbers and in the superiority of their equipment. My immediate commander was Hitler himself. Unfortunately, Hitler's advice in those critical periods was invariably lousy."

"Present at the lunch with Hitler were Hannekan, Best, Pancke, Jodl, Kaltenbrunner, Keitel, and Himmler. Ribbentrop was ill at the time. The lunch took three hours and not because it was an elaborate meal. Hitler explained his plans for Denmark and said it could only be made peaceful through intensive countersabotage. In other words, murder and explosion. It shouldn't be kept at all secret. If a Dane who worked for the Nazis was murdered or a Danish factory working for Germany damaged, on the very same day a Danish factory or prominent person should be murdered, and the papers should carry the story prominently the next day. A prominent Danish scientist was murdered by unknown men, or a factory blown up, the papers should read, with satire and irony. In other words, it was not to be made secret anymore. The Danes were to know."

"Himmler chose certain camps and, together with Kaltenbrunner and Mueller, ordered the commandants of these camps to carry out the extermination program. This was done in the chain of command as I have just told you. I emphasize that it was Himmler to Kaltenbrunner to Mueller to Gluecks, who was also one of my subordinate generals, to the individual concentration camp commandants, who had been selected by Himmler to perform the exterminations. Otherwise, Himmler would have had to give the orders to me because I was technically in charge of the concentration camps. What I am trying to bring out is that although I am responsible for the camps, and the extermination program took place within these camps, I am not responsible for the extermination program itself, because these orders did not go through me, but went through the chain of individuals I have just mentioned."

"It is interesting but it was tragic. If you receive a military order you must obey. That is where the big difference between a military and a political order comes in. One can sabotage a political order but to disobey a military command is treason."

"Let them try me. I shall have plenty to say about the Allies. I have some very good friends among the Americans and English, and the French industrialists, too. I have done nothing of which I am ashamed."

"He is a shrewd, Napoleonic, short man, who is very affable, but as poisonous as hell with his affability."

"That Germany beat these countries was due to better planning and not better preparedness."

"It was true enough, he did not appear ashamed — merely worried about his own immunity from trial as a war criminal."

"In Flossenbürg, you noticed things more; you had to notice every day so many people hanged in the courtyard. People were brought to their execution completely naked. They were driven into the courtyard and I could hear the noise of naked feet on the court ground right outside my window. Stretchers with corpses were carried past the doors of our cells. If by chance the peek holes were open, one could see them going by. In the courtyard where you took a walk, they had gallows arranged in such a way that you were obliged to look at them."

"There were daily quarrels all summer. The point upon which we had our final disagreement was the decision of an offensive on the Caucasus and Stalingrad - a mistake, and Hitler didn't want to see it. I told him the Russians would put in another million men in 1942 and get another million in 1943. Hitler told me that I was an idiot - that the Russians were practically dead already. When I told Hitler about Russian armament potentials, especially for tank materials, Hitler flew into a rage of fury and threatened me with his fists."

"There is no reason to believe that Milch was not absolutely sincere in his idealistic belief in Imperial Germany. Its destruction, however, caused a fundamental change in him: idealism in Erhard Milch was extinguished forever. From this period on, Milch became more and more the slave of his own ruthless ambition."

"Whenever I go and see the Führer, I've got a loaded pistol in my pocket."

"The Russian colossus...has been underestimated by us...whenever a dozen divisions are destroyed the Russians replace them with another dozen."

"Bad weather has grounded the Luftwaffe and now we must stand by and watch countless thousands of the enemy getting away to England under our noses."

"The Führer confirms my impressions of yesterday. He would like an understanding with Great Britain. He knows that war with the British will be hard and bloody, and knows also that people everywhere today are averse to bloodshed."

"It was a distance about twice as long as this room; then there was a wall, and just beyond it the crematory. When the wind blew in at the south I got smoke in my cell. It was a fat smoke, big flakes of smoke - human smoke."

"Recently I was discharged from the German army while in this prison and was informed that I am on the so-called war criminal list number seven. I haven't the faintest idea of what war crime I could have committed. The main thing is that I have a clear conscience."

"I had eleven main concentration camps under my command. From these eleven camps, internees were sent to other so-called labor camps. That was my job. I had nothing to do with the final solution of the Jews. That was an act done by camp personnel such as the commandants. Of course, the center of all those orders for the extermination of the Jews was Mueller of the Gestapo, who received his orders from Kaltenbrunner, who carried out the plans of Himmler."

"What can I say? If I knew in 1934 what I know now, I would have remained in the navy. I didn't know that this was going to happen and I didn't know that Germany was going to lose the war and be in ruins."

"If later on we instruct in the technical handling of weapons, this task demands that the young soldier should also be taught National Socialist ideology and the problems of life. This part of the task, which becomes for us both a duty of honor and a demand which cannot be refused, can and will be carried out if we stand shoulder to shoulder and in sincere comradeship to the Party and its organization. The armed forces and the Party thus became more and more united in attitude and spirit."

"...the basic principles of the military services are unchangeable. Courage and candor, obedience and comradeship, love of fatherland and loyalty to the State: these are ever the distinguishing characteristics of the soldier and sailor. Building character through intelligent training and education is always the first and greatest goal."

"This is the reason for the clear and unsparing summons to fight Bolshevism and international Jewry, whose race-destroying activities we have sufficiently experienced on our own people. Therefore, the alliance with all similar-minded Nations who, like Germany, are not willing to allow their strength, dedicated to construction and peaceful work at home, to be disrupted by alien ideologies as by parasites of a foreign race."

"...to protect our position in the Norwegian and Arctic areas by threatening the flank of enemy operations against the northern Norwegian areas, and by attacking White Sea convoys...to tie down enemy forces in the Atlantic, so that they cannot operate in the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean or the Pacific."

"Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler had made the clear political request to build up for him in 5 years, that is, by the first of April 1938, armed forces which he could place in the balance as an instrument of political power."