The Walls Have Ears

by Helen Fry

  FIELD MARSHAL VON RUNDSTEDT

  The most senior German officer to be held at Trent Park was 69-year-old Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, Hitler’s Commander in Chief in the West. He and his son Lieutenant Hans von Rundstedt were captured together at Bad Tölz on 1 May 1945.42 The previous year the Field Marshal had presided over the Court of Honour that had tried officers involved in the failed 20 July attempt on Hitler’s life. At that time, he was the most senior officer in the German army, until replaced by Field Marshals Model and Kesselring in 1945.

  St Clare Grondona received a phone call to expect the arrival of Field Marshal von Rundstedt. On 5 July 1945, father and son arrived at Wilton Park where they were held for a month. The Field Marshal was found to be ‘the product of courtliness itself and willing to give infor-mation’.43 His name had often been canvassed by senior German officers as a possible leader of an anti-Nazi movement to bring an end to the war in the West, but they had concluded he was too old and lacking in purpose. In turn, he told them that he could never contemplate such a move, which he considered ‘high treason’.

  A large party of German generals was now being housed in the White House at Wilton Park. With von Rundstedt and his son were General Busch (second in command to Goering in the Luftwaffe) and General Dittmar. St Clare Grondona noted:

  In anticipation of their arrival, all windows were made secure, the flood-lighting system was installed and all other security measures were laid on. About an acre of ground in a field near the White House was enclosed in a thick, high barbed-wire fence overlooking which were two raised Bren gun posts . . . The feelings of those Germans as – red-tabbed, gold-braided and erect – they walked inside their barbed wire enclosed exercise ground for an hour each morning and afternoon, must have been indeed bitter; but I never sensed that their bitterness was against their captors.44

  The two field marshals were already both very sick men when they arrived at Wilton Park. Even so, no parole was offered to them; as St Clare Grondona noted: ‘We had recently been appalled by the details of the discoveries at Buchenwald and Dachau, and feelings were running very high that humanity had been thus outraged.’45

  Joining them for a short time from Trent Park was another sick commander, General von Thoma, who spent two periods in hospital. Once back at Wilton Park, he and Kurt Dittmar decided to turn an acre of land beyond the tennis courts into allotments:

  Dittmar was as enthusiastic a gardener as he was a great talker and, stripped to the waist, he and his helpers toiled exceedingly, so that in a few months, they were producing salads and other vegetables, baskets of which were sometimes sent with their compliments to our officers’ mess.46

  Bassenge was transferred back to Wilton Park for a short time. He was busy protecting the cherry orchard from being besieged by the local birds. For days, he was totally occupied with:

  . . . pieces of wire, a soldering iron, a variety of tins – ranging from tobacco containers to petrol cans – on which he got to work with snips, hammer and homemade rivets. He constructed an impressive range of windmills from tin cans which rotated and rattled to prevent the birds from eating the fruit in the orchard. He acquired some turkey feathers which he made into the shape of an aeroplane, added buttons from trousers for eyes and finished with a product that looked scarier than a hawk.47

  Bassenge’s room was full of tools for making all kinds of gadgets. He generously carved a walking stick for the frail von Rundstedt, which von Rundstedt gave to St Clare Grondona when the former left Wilton Park.48

  DEATH OF A GENERAL

  Field Marshal Ernst Busch, Commander of all German forces in north-west Europe, was never transferred to Trent Park. He remained at Wilton Park because of ill health. On 17 July 1945, he died of a heart attack in his room at Wilton Park before his batman could summon any help. Given his status as a Field Marshal, it is perhaps surprising to find no personal MI19 file for him or any official report of his death. His funeral and burial went ahead without the customary issuing of a death certificate. One was finally issued on 14 September 1945, signed by Registrar W. Stokes, nearly two months after the date of death, and Nottingham hospital was given as the place of death, not Wilton Park.49 Why the death was kept secret for two months is not clear, but probably to protect the existence of Wilton Park as a special POW camp from the public eye. The informant of death was Major Commandant St Clare Grondona of No.7 P.W. Camp (Annex) Beaconsfield and the cause was given as chronic myocarditis (heart attack), diagnosed by Dr J.S. Smith.

  Immediately after the death, St Clare Grondona awaited instructions from the War Office about the funeral. An urgent reply came through that Busch’s body was to be removed from the White House at Wilton Park by motor hearse to Aldershot the following day. The body could be accompanied by ‘reasonably appropriate military honours’.50 Regular British troops practised the funeral drill for two hours ahead of the ceremony and staged an impressive ceremonial parade:

  Next morning, two lines of troops with heads bowed over their reversed arms were drawn up between the steps of the White House and the hearse on the wide carriageway; and another party stood ready to slow-march ahead of the short column as it moved 400 yards to the South gate of the inner perimeter. Von Rundstedt and about 20 generals walked to the rear of the hearse, with British officers behind them. Then, as the gate was approached, there was a brief halt while the advance party formed two lines on either side of the hearse, and, as it moved on, they presented arms. Von Rundstedt raised his Marshal’s baton and we all came to the salute till the hearse had passed through the gate – when it accelerated in setting out on its journey.51

  The other generals immediately discussed amongst themselves the kind of funeral that they would arrange for the Field Marshal and submitted their requests to Captain Lang, the Intelligence Liaison Officer in charge of prisoners at Wilton Park. Later that day, St Clare Grondona received instructions from the War Office that eight German generals and Field Marshal von Rundstedt would be granted permission to attend the funeral. The following day, St Clare Grondona, Captain Lang and four armed guards escorted the delegation from Wilton Park to the Aldershot military cemetery for the funeral. They were driven in an army coach, the blinds drawn down over the windows. St Clare Grondona recalled:

  As we entered Eton, I thought it would be as well to let these Generals see that life hereabouts was going on as usual, so I had the blinds raised sufficiently to enable them to see, without being seen, until we had passed Windsor Castle. But, as we drew clear of Windsor Great Park, the blinds were drawn down again. The Germans had been very interested to see the Eton boys and were quite excited when we passed the Castle.52

  During the journey, von Rundstedt asked St Clare Grondona whether there would be a firing squad from the Brigade of Guards at the ceremony. St Clare Grondona was non-committal in his response and said, ‘I have no idea what arrangements have been made by the War Office’. He later reflected:

  I marvelled at the outlook of this man who had seen all our news-paper’s gruesomely illustrated accounts of the terrible discoveries made at the concentration camps, and who even yet imagined that a party of the King’s Household Brigade would now be detailed as a guard of honour at a German General’s funeral. He was soon disillusioned. The burial was conducted with a minimum of ceremony.53

  On return to Wilton Park, St Clare Grondona received a message that von Rundstedt wished to see him in his room. When St Clare Grondona entered, von Rundstedt asked him to be seated. They were alone. He said to St Clare Grondona: ‘Herr Kommandant, you will receive a letter from me expressing our appreciation of the ceremony which marked the departure of our late colleague’s body from this place. But, can you tell me why he was buried today with none of the honours due to a soldier and with no respect whatever for his rank?’ Von Rundstedt was clearly quite emotional, as he finished by saying: ‘None of us who were present at Aldershot today will ever forget what was a very bitter experience.’ St Clare Grondona’s response was careful
: ‘You must understand the state of public opinion. There is no small amount of outrage at the concentration camps.’ Not until 1963 were Busch’s remains exhumed from the Aldershot Military Cemetery and re-interred in the German Military Cemetery, Cannock Chase in Staffordshire.

  CHAPTER 14

  British Intelligence, POWs and War Crimes Trials

  Fritz Lustig was working in the M Room at Latimer House when he read in the newspaper about the liberation of Belsen on 15 April 1945. Photographs and film footage, recorded by the Allies sent shockwaves throughout the world. Earlier that month, American forces had liberated Buchenwald concentration camp and similar horrific scenes had confronted US soldiers. Nothing had prepared the liberating forces for this. Lustig commented:

  When I saw film footage of Belsen for the first time I was deeply shocked at the emaciated survivors and heaps of naked dead bodies lying around. Although coming from Nazi Germany I had known about concentration camps, I was not prepared for this. Seeing the extent of the Nazi disregard for human life raised questions about how such unspeakable acts could have been committed in the civilized country of my birth.1

  Overhearing details about concentration camps was particularly painful for the secret listeners. Many had left families behind in Nazi Germany and spent the war years worrying about their fate. When they eavesdropped on the conversations about mass shootings of Jews into shallow-dug pits in Russia, Poland or Latvia, they could have been overhearing descriptions of the murder of their own parents, sisters, brothers and friends. For them, this must have been one of the most difficult parts of their work. Secret listener Peter Hart recalled overhearing from prisoners about Buchenwald concentration camp:

  We came across many a horror story. One of the worst that I can remember was when we heard from a prisoner that the wife of the Commandant in an extermination camp, had her lampshades made from human skins taken from the inmates, selected before they were put to death, because of their attractive tattoos. We had this confirmed more than once . . . We also heard gruesome stories from prisoners who had been employed in extermination camps . . . Some of the worst reports from the extermination camps which shocked us most, were those which described the callous use made of victims’ bodies after they were gassed.2

  When asked about it too, Fritz Lustig replied:

  We all tried to be professional in our approach to hearing prisoners discussing war crimes, which meant that irrespective of the personal circumstances of our own families, we tried not to become emotionally involved in what we were hearing. We knew the terrible truth which the world would see in all its horror after the camps were liberated at the end of the war. Because we were told by Colonel Kendrick to keep the acetate records of conversations of war crimes, there was the expectation that justice would eventually be done.3

  Clearly the secret listeners who had left family in Germany in the 1930s must have suffered when they overheard the harsh details of the holocaust. Peter Ganz learned after the war that his grandfather had been murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. Fritz Lustig was fortunate in that he lost no family members at all. Rudi Oppenheimer learned that his 4-year-old niece, Eve, had survived Belsen, together with her brothers Paul and Rudi. The brothers came to England a short time later, but Eve was too young at age four to travel. In the chaos of post-war Europe, many family survivors of camps became separated. In the autumn of 1945, Kendrick granted compassionate leave to Rudi Oppenheimer to travel to Holland, where Eve then was and bring her to England. The Oppenheimer family learned that Eve’s parents perished in Belsen just months before its liberation by British forces. It was to be an all too familiar story for so many of the émigré men and women.

  DISGRACED FOR ALL TIME

  MI19 decided that the generals at Trent Park should be shown film footage and photographs of the concentration camps.4 Their reaction to what they saw was secretly recorded in the M Room, and the ‘cut’ records to be kept. Copies of black-and-white photographs of Belsen, Buchenwald and Dachau were circulated, alongside copies of the forthcoming White Paper on Buchenwald.5 This provoked some broad comments by the generals that the photographs had been faked.6

  General Felbert admitted to von Schlieben, ‘We are disgraced for all time and not a thousand years will wipe out what we’ve done.’7

  Amongst other generals, there was disbelief. Broich commented to Wildermuth that the camp stories, whether true or not, were the best possible propaganda for the Allies. Von der Heydte told a British army officer that it was useless for the senior German officers to deny know-ledge of the camps because ‘practically every German suspected that that sort of thing went on’.8 He commented that Goebbels’s propaganda, which made inmates in the concentration camps look sub-human, had been so successful that the German people did not care what happened to Jews; he even feared that photographs of the liberation of the camps would not be sufficient to convince the German people of the true horror of the situation. He appeared to be the only general at Trent Park to suggest some kind of personal recompense for the crimes committed by Germany.

  It has long been debated how much ordinary Germans knew about the concentration camps.9 The generals speculated on this issue.10 General Bassenge, who was an eye-witness to the camps (especially in Poland), told a British army officer that not even one half of one per cent of Germans knew about Buchenwald, or generally what went on inside concentration camps.11 He added that people living in the neighbourhood might know, but anyone who spoke about them would immediately find themselves inside one. He claimed to have told fellow generals stories about the camps, but these were discounted as propaganda.12

  Major General König spoke to Franz Lustig about a proposed permanent memorial at Belsen: ‘This projected memorial to perpetuate [commemorate] the Belsen concentration camp will make every German itch to blow it up, for it is only a few beasts of the SS who are to blame for the atrocities. It’s still too early for that sort of thing. The first thing is the reconstruction of our homeland.’13

  The generals looked to their own future and how they could do their utmost ‘to show they were not guilty of atrocities’.14 But MI19 had ‘abundant evidence’ of their guilt in occupied countries.15

  REACTIONS TO FILM FOOTAGE

  By now, Trent Park was holding fifty-nine German generals and almost forty senior German officers.16 Kendrick decided that it was compulsory for them to view film footage of the liberation of the camps. The footage is believed to have been screened in the Sassoon sports hall where the generals had regularly exercised, and the only place large enough to hold ninety-eight senior German officers. Their reactions were recorded by the listeners from another M Room under a nearby single-storey building.17

  After the film screening, Dittmar and Holste agreed that the scenes were revolting, but could not be compared to what had happened to Germans in Russian camps. They could not understand why the SS had not destroyed all the damning evidence before the Allies reached the camps. Siewert said: ‘It’s a very effective film; it’s a fine sort of recommendation from us! It really was like that, I saw it. The worst thing was that anyone could have anyone else put in such a camp without a sentence.’18

  Later, Bruhn philosophically commented to Schlieben: ‘I believe that when the policy of extermination overtakes us, which we have actually merited by our shedding of blood, the blood of our children will have to be shed too or perhaps that of our relations.’19

  For the generals and senior officers, images of Belsen were soon overshadowed by the news that Hitler had committed suicide in his bunker, and the suitability or otherwise of Admiral Doenitz to take over the reins of government.20 Then their concerns swiftly turned to whether they would stand trial for the crimes of the regime. Now they tried to distance themselves from the past, agreeing amongst themselves that they would say that they were ‘only obeying orders’. This line of defence continued amongst those generals still at Trent Park in the autumn of 1945.

  MI19’s intelligence report noted: ‘Various of the sen
ior officer POWs are expecting to be called as witnesses at the Nuremberg War Crimes trials.’21 Eberbach was one of them. In conversation with von Thoma and Wildermuth, he said:

  Either they want me about the shooting of the Canadian POW – I have already once proved to them that it happened before I went there. Or they want to interrogate me about the transfer of the police into the armed forces in connection with preparations for the war. I joined two years before the law was enacted. Or Speer has named me as a witness; I can tell only good of him.22

  Wildermuth advised him to say as little as possible on the matter. Von der Heydte interrupted them: ‘If I may butt in, I do not believe that it will be a staged trial.’23 Eberbach, Heim, von der Heydte and Wildermuth spoke about the duties and obligations of a witness under oath. Wildermuth commented that it would not be appropriate for any of them to shake hands with the accused whom they knew, and advised Eberbach ‘not to remember’ if he was in doubt as to the implications of any given answer.

  In a different discussion, Elfeldt expressed his belief to von der Heydte that all senior military officers would be tried by the Allies in due course. They both agreed that the British and Americans wanted to annihilate the German military and academic classes. They condemned Hitler’s use of the gas chambers, but stated that, in their view, the Germans had already been sufficiently punished. Elfeldt told Heim that too much fuss was being made about the German maltreatment of Jews: ‘After all, many more Germans died in this war than Jews died in gas chambers.’24

  The generals were very preoccupied with the war crimes trials and reacted to news that Field Marshal von Rundstedt was to be put on trial as a war criminal, and that General Dostler was wanted by the French.25 General Blumentritt engaged much of his time, with von der Heydte’s assistance, marshalling evidence and arguments to be used in defence of his former chief, should the occasion arise.