The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel

by Walter Gorlitz

  In about the middle of December [1937] Ludendorff died after a grave illness; the Führer decreed a state funeral in Munich with an oration delivered by Blomberg as the senior representative of the Services. The Führer had in the meantime ceremoniously promoted Blomberg to Generalfeldmarschall, handing him his field-marshal’s baton before an audience of senior officers of all three services in the large hall of the War Ministry building.

  For our journey to Munich I had ordered a small special train for the field-marshal and ourselves, to which had been coupled the shining new saloon-coach he had just been given by the Führer. We were obliged not only to call for him at Oberhof but to set him down there upon our return from Munich as well. None of us guessed that this was to be his first and last journey in the new coach—he least of all.

  Over Christmas, Blomberg’s daughters Sibylle and ‘Dorle’ [i.e. Dorothea] stayed with us while their father celebrated the holiday, again at Oberhof. The picture was growing clearer to me now: he was going to marry again. He confirmed my suspicions confidentially upon his return: he was thinking of a quiet marriage in January. It was true, he admitted, that the lady concerned was from a simple milieu, but that was no obstacle to him; in any case he had made up his mind upon this step. He was glad, he said, that his Dorle was engaged to my Karl-Heinz, and he would even like to find some way for our children to get married earlier; he would be giving them a suitable monthly allowance. In any case, it was no disgrace in our modern National Socialist Germany to marry a ‘child of the people’ and he did not care a hoot for the gossip in so-called society. He had called all his offspring together and discussed the whole matter quite frankly with them, and they had shown great understanding and would lay no obstacles across his path. That was all that either I or my family learned: it was to be some nameless ‘child of the people’. A number of odd suspicions did pass through our minds but I hesitated to ask questions if Blomberg himself, whatever his motives, did not choose to discuss the affair.

  From his adjutants I learned that the wedding, a civil one, was to take place very privately towards the middle of January, in a hall at the War Ministry building, and that Hitler and Göring had accepted invitations to attend as witnesses. I myself received no invitation to the ceremony, which was not followed by any religious wedding service; probably only the War Minister’s three adjutants and—if I am not mistaken—von Friedeburg, a family friend and his former naval adjutant were present. That evening Blomberg left Berlin with the young lady on a honeymoon of which the Press published a photograph taken in Leipzig or Dresden, showing them visiting a zoo, with the couple posing in front of a cage full of monkeys. It struck me as more than tasteless.

  Their honeymoon had to be suddenly broken off because Blomberg’s aged mother, who was living in Eberswalde with one of her daughters, fell seriously ill with little hope of recovery. Whether or not grief was a contributory factor I do not know; Fräulein [Margarete] von Blomberg, who frequently called on my wife after her mother’s death, was wrapped in silence so that I never learned whether her mother had in fact learned any closer details about Blomberg’s wife. I went to the funeral of Frau von Blomberg and actually saw the couple standing by the graveside at the cemetery at Eberswalde; the young lady’s face was heavily veiled and unrecognisable. On this occasion the condolences usual for the next-of-kin had been forbidden and the couple were the first to vanish; even I was unable to express my sympathy to them.

  Towards the end of the month the Chief of Police in Berlin, Count von Helldorf, called on me in my office, having urgently asked for an interview. He was very agitated and began at once to ask me what the young bride had looked like. He found it hard to believe that—apart from the funeral at Eberswalde cemetery—I had not yet set eyes on her, particularly as with the announcement of our children’s engagement I was now one of the family. Finally, he pulled out of his pocket a change-of-address registration-card with a passport-style photograph of one Fräulein Erna Gruhn. This police file card reported her move to Blomberg’s flat in the Ministry building on Tirpitzufer; it had been sent up to him by her local police station.

  The first thing Helldorf wanted to know was whether the photograph was identical with Blomberg’s young wife: I was unable to answer the question. Helldorf demanded that I find Blomberg at once and ask him outright about it, as it was vital to establish the truth. I was so taken aback that I telephoned the Minister’s outer office at once, to ask whether he was available; I was told that he was not, as he had gone out to Eberswalde to put his late mother’s affairs in order. Helldorf listened in to my telephone conversation. Finally he came out with it: the Fräulein Erna Gruhn, who had in her new name as Blomberg’s wife checked out with the police authorities where she had lived had in fact a criminal record for immorality. It would be indecorous of me to expand upon the details, which I was able to read for myself on her police record card.

  Now I knew why Helldorf was so agitated; I expressed it as my view that Blomberg would certainly dissolve the marriage at once should the identity of his wife be proven beyond doubt. We discussed what our next moves should be: I said I was prepared to show Blomberg her record card next day, although I could not conceal the fact that as his daughter’s future father-in-law I would find the matter highly embarrassing. Helldorf, however, refused to let me hang on to the card until next day; he said he would prefer not to let it out of his sight; he wanted to clear the matter up at once. I accordingly referred him to Göring, who as a witness at their wedding had, of course, met and seen the young lady.

  Helldorf was immediately all for this solution. I telephoned Göring’s office to arrange their interview, and Helldorf went straight round there. I kept turning it all over in my own mind; I was also hoping that I had now been relieved of making the painful disclosure to Blomberg myself, for there could scarcely be any doubt that the Erna Gruhn of the registration card, who had reported her change of address, was von Blomberg’s bride. That evening, Helldorf telephoned me and informed me that Göring had immediately confirmed the identity beyond all possible doubt; it was, he said, a calamity of the first order. He said that Göring was going to speak to Blomberg next day about it and he could imagine that it would only be a relief to me not to be exposed to such an embarrassing situation. I had escaped the painful duty only by the merest coincidence, for really I should have been the one.

  Göring called on Hitler that same evening, and broke the news to him. He was ordered to inform Blomberg next day about the lady’s criminal past. If he was prepared to have the marriage dissolved on the spot they would find some way of avoiding a public scandal; the police officials concerned had on Göring’s orders been sworn to secrecy. Blomberg rejected the idea of the annulment suggested to him by Göring on the Führer’s instructions; he justified this stand later to me by saying that he was deeply in love with his wife and claimed that had Hitler and Göring only wanted to help him he would have been able to stand firm on the ‘position he had taken’ in the affair. The fact was, however, that neither Hitler nor Göring believed Blomberg’s protestations that he had embarked innocently upon this adventure; they were beside themselves with rage at having been exploited as witnesses at his wedding. Both were convinced, as I learned from them later, that Blomberg had wanted to compel them in this way to hush up and stamp out any rumours and after-effects that might follow his step.

  I did not speak with Blomberg until that midday, upon his return from seeing first Göring and then the Führer; he was absolutely shattered and near to collapse. He had repeated to the Führer his disinclination to dissolve his marriage, and their long interview had ended with his resignation.

  Afterwards Blomberg confided to me that he laid the blame squarely on Göring; if Göring had not entertained hopes of becoming his successor they would very easily have been able to cover up the whole affair with the mantle of true love. He had known all along that his wife had lived loosely in the past, but that was no reason for casting a woman out for ever; in a
ny case, she had for some time now been employed by the Reich Egg Board and earned her keep like that, though her mother was only an ironing-woman.

  The Führer had also discussed with him the question of who ought to succeed him; he would be telling me the rest himself. In any case, [Colonel-General] von Fritsch [Commander-in-Chief of the Army] was also on his way out, as serious legal proceedings were pending against him of a kind that could not be set aside; I would be hearing all that from Hitler too. He, Blomberg, had proposed Brauchitsch’s name as his successor. He had parted with the Führer on amicable terms, the latter telling him that if ever the hour should come when a war had to be fought, he would be seeing him at his side once again.

  I gained the immediate impression that Blomberg was clutching very strongly at these words and saw in them an easy way out. He added that as a field-marshal he would, in the old Prussian tradition, still be ‘on call’ and continue to draw full pay even though he was for the time being condemned to inactivity. I tried to persuade him to consider once again whether it would not be better to divorce his wife after all, and I reproached him for not having consulted me before taking such a step; I was only a little younger than he, but I would at least have been able to make inquiries about this woman beforehand. He waved my remonstrances aside, explaining that he would never have done that even for our children’s sake, and I would have to try to understand that. He indignantly rejected the idea of a divorce, as it had been a love-match on both sides, and he would ‘rather put a bullet in his head than do that’. Telling me I was to report to the Führer in plain clothes at one o’clock that afternoon he left me standing there in the middle of his office, and rushed out of the room and into his flat with his eyes full of tears.

  I was so dazed by the whole situation that before I could leave his room I had to sit down for a while. I had always known how thickheaded and obstinate he was, once he had set his mind on a course of action. And now there was to be a second calamity over Fritsch; what on earth could that be? I was still at a loss to know when I went home for lunch and a change into plain clothes; I could not screw myself up sufficiently to tell my wife anything. Shortly afterwards I was telephoned by Göring in person, and asked to come round to see him as soon as possible; I agreed to do so, and drove round to his flat.

  He wanted to know what Blomberg had told me after his interview with the Führer, and who was to be his successor. ‘You are the only one in the running for that,’ I told him, ‘because you probably won’t be wanting to take orders from yet another Army general.’ This he at once confirmed, saying that there was absolutely no question of his putting up with that. The Fritsch business suddenly occurred to me, and I began to wonder who could be behind it. Göring was telling me that he had known of Blomberg’s wedding plans for some time in advance; the lady had wanted to marry some other man, but at Blomberg’s request he had been able to persuade the man in question to turn her down by bribing him with a well-paid job abroad; the whole thing had gone off perfectly and the rival was already overseas. In the meantime, Göring had ascertained all the details of the lady’s earlier character and he told me everything, but I intend to keep these details to myself even now, even though Mr. Gisevius wagged his tongue about them in the witness box at Nuremberg; no doubt Count von Helldorf was his oracle.

  I reported at the Reich Chancellery at five o’clock that afternoon [26th January, 1938] and was at once shown up to Hitler’s study. I had only spoken with him once before, on the occasion of our re-occupation of the demilitarised zone, together with Neurath and Fritsch; otherwise I had met Hitler only while accompanying Blomberg, once during a Cabinet meeting on the reform of the penal code, in conjunction with a number of other secretaries of state, and again during a conference with Schacht, the President of the Reichsbank, on the subject of the financing of our rearmament programme. Both of these occasions had been back in 1936. I had not been called upon to speak, but had just sat behind Blomberg taking notes. Hitler knew my name only from reports to him and from the manœuvres of 1935 in which I had commanded an infantry division.

  Colonel Hossbach, the Führer’s adjutant, had carefully avoided ever permitting me to get through to the Führer, probably to prevent a situation like that arising with Reichenau, who just announced his own arrival or gatecrashed the Führer’s dinner-table in the same way as a number of ministers and senior Party officials were generally wont to do. Even later I still attended these functions only when I had been expressly invited by Hitler to attend.

  My first impression was that the Führer had certainly been deeply shaken by the Blomberg affair; but pace Gisevius he had certainly not suffered a ‘nervous breakdown’. He spoke of his great admiration for Blomberg and of his indebtedness to him, but he made no attempt to conceal that it had deeply offended him to have been abused in his position as witness to the wedding. He asked me whether the officer corps would ever have steeled itself to accept such an impossible marriage, whose circumstances would not have remained shrouded for long. I was obliged to agree that they would not; I was aware that in any case there was no love lost on him at least in the Army and no tears would be shed over his departure, although I did not say so. Hitler told me he had given Blomberg a world tour as a wedding present and had expressed the hope that they would stay away from Germany for a year. Blomberg had accepted the offer. Hitler wanted, he said, to discuss the question of a successor with me, and whom did I propose?

  My first nomination was Göring, and I told him bluntly the reasons I had for proposing him. Hitler turned him down at once, saying that there was no question of it as he had given Göring the Four Year Plan and he had to hang on to the Air Force as well, as there was nobody better for that than he; anyway, Göring had to gather experience in the affairs of State as his own predestined successor as Führer. I suggested Fritsch next. He crossed to his writing-desk and handed to me an indictment personally signed by Gürtner, the Minister of Justice, charging Fritsch with an offence under Paragraph 175 of the penal code. He informed me that he had had this indictment in his hands for some time already, but had suppressed it up to now as he had not believed the charge. But now that the question of the succession had suddenly and unexpectedly become acute the matter would have to be cleared up, and in these circumstances he could no longer allow things to rest as they were. Besides Gürtner, Göring had also been put in the picture.

  I was horrified at the charge: while on the one hand I could not believe Gürtner would have drawn it up without good reason, on the other hand I would never believe that it could be true of Fritsch. I said that either there must be some mistaken identity involved, or else it was sheer slander because I knew Fritsch too well to accept that such an allegation could possibly be well-founded. Hitler ordered me to say nothing to anybody about this; he would have a talk à deux with Fritsch next day and suddenly ask him point-blank about it, without warning, and see from his reaction what truth there was in the charge. Then we would be able to look one stage further.

  He asked me who I would suggest for Fritsch’s successor, and I nominated von Rundstedt first of all. He replied that he valued him very highly and would have accepted him without the least hesitation, despite his hostile attitude towards the National Socialist ideology. No considerations like that would ever have stood in his way, Hitler said, but he was too old for the job; it was a pity that he was not five or ten years younger as his selection would then have been automatic. So I put forward von Brauchitsch’s name.

  The Führer was silent for a moment, then spontaneously asked ‘Why not von Reichenau?’ I at once told him what my reasons were: not thorough enough, not a hard worker, a busybody, too superficial, little-loved and a soldier who sought satisfaction for his ambitions more in the political than in the purely military sphere. Hitler admitted that I was right about my last point, but suggested the rest of my assessment had probably been a bit harsh on him. By way of contrast, I recommended Brauchitsch as a 100 per cent soldier, an able organiser and trainer a
nd a leader highly valued by the Army. Hitler told me that he would be speaking with Brauchitsch himself, and that in the meantime our discussion was to remain a close secret; he would speak with Fritsch next day. I was ordered to present myself again on the following afternoon. In the meantime only Blomberg’s abdication had been decided upon.

  When I called on Hitler next day he was in a high degree of agitation. Fritsch had been with him earlier and had, of course, denied the unnatural offences alleged of him; but he had left a distressed and nervous impression. Quite apart from that they had fetched from prison the witness who had incriminated him and stood him by the entry to the Reich Chancellery building, so that he could get a good look at Fritsch. The man had afterwards confirmed that this was the officer; in other words he claimed to have recognised him again. Fritsch was, said Hitler, thus heavily incriminated and it was impossible for him to remain Commander-in-Chief of the Army; he had for the time being been given leave of absence and confined to his flat. Then Hitler’s indignation turned towards Hossbach; this officer, his own personal adjutant, had shamelessly gone behind his back and, despite his having forbidden it, warned Fritsch of what was afoot. Hossbach had broken confidence and he never wanted to see him again; I was to explain this to Hossbach and suggest somebody to take his place immediately. As I had already been commissioned by Blomberg some months before to select from the General Staff a major capable of replacing Hossbach should the latter be required for the front-line posting for which he had been earmarked, I had after considerable thought eventually decided upon Major Schmundt whom I had known well from my T-2 days, and from when he had been my former regimental adjutant at Potsdam. I suggested his name to Hitler and he accepted it. He took over the office a few days later without any kind of initiation, coming to me for this during his early days. It was a thankless duty for me to have to inform Hossbach that he had been dismissed his office without any formal leavetaking.