When I again tried to persuade Hitler to make Göring Blomberg’s successor as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces—I could see no other way out—he rejoined that he had already decided to take over the immediate Supreme Command himself, while I was to remain as his Chief of Staff; I was to be neither allowed nor enabled to desert him at an hour like this. If he eventually found that I was not indispensable in such a position, then he would appoint me Commander-in-Chief of the Army, but until such a time I was to remain at my present post. I unhesitatingly agreed to do so.
That evening I visited Fritsch to place myself at his disposal should he need me. I found him outwardly very calm but obviously deeply embittered about such a disgraceful libel on his person. He showed me his written resignation lying on his desk; it contained a demand to be tried by court martial. I could only agree with him on this point: there was no other way for him to cast off the slur on his character, for the absence of a judicial verdict would be tantamount to a tacit confession of guilt. Hitler appeared at first to disagree, but then he said I was right and he decreed that there should be a trial along the lines I suggested. The Commanders-in-Chief of all three services were appointed to judge the case with Göring as their president and two additional high-ranking professional judges to assist them; Hitler held open his final decision on Fritsch’s resignation although there was apparently no longer any intention of reinstating him in his former office; the accusations were sufficient for him to be discredited and cast off in what would appear a perfectly justifiable manner. They had already sufficed for him to be debarred from consideration as Blomberg’s successor. Minister Gürtner’s indictment, which probably originated with the secret State police [Gestapo] authorities, had proved ideal for such a contingency: it had been thawed out for this questionable use only after it had been kept on ice for a considerable time.
During the days that followed, the Führer called in Generals Beck and von Rundstedt, and Grand-Admiral Raeder, in order to discuss the question of Fritsch’s successor with these senior officers, too. In addition I spent several hours a day with him. I could see that he still could not give up his idea of having Reichenau; but I remained loyal to my iron conviction and finally my own views prevailed: von Brauchitsch had already been waiting for two days at his hotel by the time I finally summoned him to the Führer’s presence. I had personally fetched him from Leipzig where he had been in command of the Fourth Army Group there; my action in doing so had led to a violent quarrel with General Beck, who considered himself to be deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Army and forbade me to take such ‘unauthorised’ actions again. Von Rundstedt smoothed Beck’s ruffled feathers. Now began a series of endless three-cornered discussions: Brauchitsch acknowledged in detail his views on National Socialism, the Church, the expansion and replenishment of the Officer Corps, and so on.* Finally, after our third meeting, on the morning of 4th February, 1938, Hitler rose, spontaneously held out his hand to von Brauchitsch and appointed him Commander-in-Chief of the Army; he thereby opted for Fritsch’s total abdication while I myself had advocated only that a temporary substitute should be found for him.
Meanwhile, as I was able to discern from his several telephone calls to me, Dr. Lammers, Head of the Reich Chancellery, was endeavouring to formulate the order for the newly-created position of ‘Chief of the OKW’. Finally, we called jointly on Hitler with it who signed the order shortly before that evening’s Cabinet meeting after making a few alterations in its text. Brauchitsch and I were presented to the members of the Cabinet by Hitler in a short speech, and the other changes being made in the composition of the Cabinet itself (von Neurath, etc.), and the order setting up a Privy Cabinet Council were read out by Lammers. There was no subsequent discussion in the Cabinet.
Hitler left for Berchtesgaden and the Berghof soon afterwards. Not a syllable did he utter to Brauchitsch, the Cabinet or myself about his imminent plans and policies. The only thing that he did intimate to the two of us was that he was making use of the current bad odour left especially abroad by the departure of Blomberg and Fritsch to carry out a major Cabinet reshuffle: he was placing von Neurath at the head of a Privy Cabinet Council in order to ensure that no impression was given of any change of course in our foreign policies.
After the frightful day of Blomberg’s resignation I did speak with him once more, on the following day [28th January, 1938]. He handed to me the key to his safe and two large sealed envelopes. One contained the secret Order of the Succession to Hitler, and the other contained Fritsch’s memorandum on the command of the Armed Forces, which he had tabled in the spring of 1937, after the manœuvres. It had caused a critical dispute between the two of them at the time, with Blomberg threatening to resign if Fritsch insisted on handing in this memorandum to the Führer; but both of them had been persuaded to change their minds. Apart from these things, he left me nothing, either written or spoken, as he went.
He informed me that he was embarking on a voyage to the Indian Ocean with his wife, but before that he would be staying for some weeks in Italy; even so, he could not keep on the move for a whole year. He planned to write to me in good time to ask for Hitler’s consent to his taking up residence in his cottage at Bad Wiessee. He would be putting up half the money for Dorle’s wedding, as it was wrong to keep on postponing it any longer.
I have gone to some trouble to write such a detailed account of the whole affair in order that at least one truthful version should be committed to paper: the version reproduced by Gisevius and the various other rumours and gossip in the circles frequented by the generals and Party officials are baseless and false. To suggest that the Secret State Police had a finger in the Blomberg affair is demonstrably incorrect. As far as Fritsch was concerned I still believe today that the charge had been trumped up against him in an intrigue designed to make his continued tenure of office impossible: I do not know who was behind it, but it was probably either Himmler or Heydrich, his evil genius, for it was well known in the SS and in the Army too that Fritsch was implacably opposed to the military aspirations entertained by the SS now that the Sturmabteilung [Storm Detachment] had lost its influence.
I must have been in a daze all that first week after 4th February, with my appointment as Chief of the OKW—the High Command of the Armed Forces—and certainly I never dreamed that the sword I had accepted was to prove so double-edged. It is evident from the notes that Jodl entered in his diary that I can only have given him the barest outline of events at the time.
Perhaps a speech delivered by Hitler to his Berlin generals before the Cabinet meeting is worthy of some mention: he announced tactfully what had occurred and the consequences, and that he had assumed Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, while a High Command was to be established with myself at its head. General von Manstein was the only one to ask whether a ‘Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff’ would ever be appointed, to which Hitler replied that the way was open for that if occasion should arise.
I was fully aware at the time that like a novice monk I was faced by great hardships, and that I was entering upon a new world, but on the other hand I was able to comfort myself with the thought that I could find enough support in my familiar old Wehrmachtsamt, my Armed Forces Office, to do justice to the task allotted me: that it was virtually insoluble, and that I would become the victim of Hitler’s unbridled dictatorship were things which no human being could have foreseen. For the execution of his plans, which were unknown to us, he needed impotent tools unable to inhibit him, men who would be obedient and faithful to him in the real soldiers’ tradition. How easy it is for all those who are not exposed to the ball and shot and who do not have to face up to a demon like that man day after day, to criticise! I do not deny that I made mistakes as well, perhaps I lost the opportunity of compelling him to adopt at least some restraint; but in wartime, when everything was at stake, it was twice as hard. It is my hallowed conviction now that it would have been equally impossible for any other general even if he had been far tougher
, far more critical and intelligent than I, to have halted our landslide into misfortune.
Why did Brauchitsch fail to do so? Why did the generals who have been so ready to term me a complaisant and incompetent yes-man fail to secure my removal? Was that all that difficult? No, that wasn’t it: the truth was that nobody would have been ready to replace me, because each one knew that he would end up just as much a wreck as I.
In view of my candour in my dealings with Brauchitsch it would not have been too difficult for him to have turned Hitler against me or to have awakened his mistrust in me, for in that respect Hitler was more than sensitive and he never failed to follow these things up. I know from Brauchitsch himself that in 1939 [General] Milch, the Secretary of State for Air, was being nominated to replace me. There would certainly have been endeavours from the Army’s side to eliminate me as well, had they been able to find even one person prepared to accept my thorny office. But it was more comfortable for them to curse me and to heap all the responsibility on to my shoulders; and nobody was trampled underfoot in any rush to assist me and stand by my side. I myself advised Hitler three times to replace me with von Manstein: the first time was in the autumn of 1939, before our campaign in the west; the second was in December 1941, when Brauchitsch went; and the third time was in September 1942 when his big quarrel with Jodl and myself flared up. But despite his frequently expressed admiration for Manstein’s outstanding talents, Hitler obviously feared to take such a step and each time he turned it down; was it sheer indolence on his part of some other unvoiced objection he had to him? I have no idea. Nobody can ever have known how miserable I felt in my new office; perhaps only Jodl does to a certain extent. My admission at the end of my closing speech during the Trial says everything that needs to be said; it shows that at least in retrospect I am wiser than I was at the time.
For myself and for my family, how I wish that I had been granted an upright and honourable soldier’s death; why did Fate deny me that on 20th July, 1944, during the attempt on the Führer’s life?
* This conference is dealt with separately by Keitel in a note for his Defence Counsel, Dr. Nelte.
* In Keitel’s original manuscript there follows lengthy descriptions of the Keitel family’s social intercourse in Berlin during 1937, frequently involving meetings with Major-General Oshima, the Japanese military attaché, and Colonel Szymanski, the Polish one; the Field-Marshal believed that he had ‘made a good impression’ on the French and British ambassadors, André François-Poncet and Sir Nevile Henderson. The whole passage has been omitted by the Editor.
* In Keitel’s original manuscript there follow lengthy descriptions of family affairs and the business of their Helmscherode estate; these have been omitted, as have other details summarised above, by the Editor.
* From Keitel’s original text it is not clear whether Brauchitsch expounded on his own views or identified himself with Hitler’s; the result was the same.
3
1938-1940: From Austria to the end of
the French Campaign
Nuremberg, 7th September 1946
ON the evening of 4th February, 1938, after his final monologue to the Reich Cabinet, Hitler departed for the Berghof. Major Schmundt, who had just been appointed on my recommendation as Hitler’s ‘chief military adjutant’ accompanied him, together with a special army adjutant Captain Engel, who had been appointed to satisfy von Brauchitsch’s own particular wishes, the latter hoping in this way to establish a direct and, to a certain extent, personal link with the Supreme Commander. In addition to Engel there was also a naval adjutant, Commander Albrecht, and one from the air force, Captain von Below, all three being subordinated to Schmundt. The need for serving two masters at the same time, as Hossbach had had to under the Chief of the General Staff in the past, was thus obviated.
Brauchitsch had failed to comply with Hitler’s wishes and recommendation that he surround himself as the new Commander-in-Chief of the Army only with lieutenants whom he could trust, as for example Dönitz did in 1943. But only in one instance did Hitler insist on a change, and that was that there should be another Chief of the Army General Staff; even so, I witnessed myself how Brauchitsch argued at great length with him to let him keep Beck on in office at least until the autumn of 1938 to acquaint him with his duties and daily responsibilities as the Army’s Commander-in-Chief.
I myself am today convinced that this was Brauchitsch’s first big mistake; his second was his failure to select as his lieutenants only those upon whom he could completely rely to give him their unconditional support, however little they applauded his appointment as their new Commander-in-Chief. The result was that while the reshuffle which took place on Hitler’s orders simultaneously with Brauchitsch’s appointment on 4th February, 1938 had in fact been decided upon in many conferences with Hitler before the one I attended, the changes not only failed to serve the interests of the new Commander-in-Chief but occasioned the first damage to [Hitler’s] trust both in him and in myself.
A further factor was that to find a new Chief of Army Personnel as a replacement for Schwedler, Brauchitsch had—admittedly on my advice—chosen my own brother whom he knew quite well. All these were only half measures and they did more harm than good; they evoked immediate criticism from the broad mass of the generals. Nobody knows better than Brauchitsch or I how heavy was the burden that he had inherited: Fritsch had enjoyed unlimited respect and admiration, and his shameless hounding had caused a wave of unjustified bitterness. Brauchitsch was harried day and night by Beck and the commanding generals all demanding that he speak out for his predecessor’s immediate rehabilitation and reinstatement, insisting on Hitler’s promoting him to field-marshal, and the like. At the time the position was that it was brought home pretty bluntly to Brauchitsch that their faith in him was conditional upon his pressing through these demands.
Fritsch’s trial had ended with the acquittal everyone had expected. One can thank Göring alone for the masterly way in which, by pitiless cross-examination, he forced the sole prosecution witness, the convict who had earlier sworn that he had had a homosexual mésalliance with the accused and allegedly recognised him afterwards in the Reich Chancellery, to admit that he did not even know Colonel-General von Fritsch and that it was all a mix-up over names: his real co-respondent had been a retired cavalry captain, von Frisch. The accused was acquitted as his innocence had been proven. But those who had either set this disgraceful trial in motion or exploited the opportunity presented by a possibly entirely fortuitous similarity of names, had succeeded in their secondary objective: the Commander-in-Chief of the Army had been smeared and eliminated from the scene.
Now a demand was raised for the victim’s public rehabilitation and promotion to be exacted from Hitler, and the storm broke around Brauchitsch’s ears. As I judged the situation, I thought everything should be left to take its time; it was hard for Hitler to admit that he himself had been the victim of deceit or even of an intrigue. All Brauchitsch’s endeavours to carry Hitler with him foundered on the sheer impossibility of putting across his point of view. Finally Hitler appointed Fritsch an honorary colonel of the 12th Artillery Regiment, but the generals remained unappeased.
I could see that Brauchitsch was jeopardising what little confidence Hitler still had in him, without on the other hand winning the generals over to his side; in my view this was his second mistake.
I called Brauchitsch’s attention to this and advised him for the time being not to sap his prestige in Hitler’s eyes any further over this delicate matter. But General Beck, the spiritual leader of the opposition, gave him no peace: he was an agitator, always goading his new master on and finding ready listeners all the time among the other senior generals. Where was the cry: le roi est mort, vive le roi? There was no such spirit in the Army, only this pernicious campaign, with all its disastrous consequences. In 1943 Admiral Dönitz as Raeder’s successor was to succeed to just such a grievous burden: two military dogmas stood face to face against each other i
nside the Navy. Dönitz was able to draw the proper conclusions and ruthlessly replaced every one of his senior officers with men he could vouch for, and the result was a 100 per cent success.
I have no doubt whatsoever that after Fritsch’s departure, General Beck was the one who strew the largest rocks in the path between Brauchitsch and the Führer. I cannot say what kind of motive led Beck to move into the camp of the ‘resistance movement’, the first step along the road towards his later high treason, as early as this time: was it his injured vanity? Or his own designs on the office of Commander-in-Chief of the Army?
One thing is certain: nobody did more damage to von Brauchitsch’s reputation in the Army and in the Führer’s eyes than Beck, together with the deeply embittered Colonel Hossbach and the chief adjutant to the C.-in-C. Army, Lieutenant-Colonel Siewert; they were from Fritsch’s old guard, they were the protectors of his interests. For them von Brauchitsch was only a means to an end, but despite my warnings he did not attempt to find a way out of the impasse. I always made excuses for Brauchitsch in Hitler’s presence, admittedly not so much out of soldierly discretion or decorum as from my own selfishness, as I could only feel some responsibility towards Hitler for having recommended him. The generals never idolised Brauchitsch as they had idolised Fritsch before him; it was not until they eventually lost Brauchitsch that they recognised the true calibre of the man.
Brauchitsch always acted honourably in his dealings with the Führer and the generals: the War Crimes Trial should not be allowed to conceal this fact. He always wanted to get the best, even from Hitler, but he never knew how to get it. But I deny him any right to impeach me for my shortcomings or my weakness with Hitler, as I have far more right and reason to say things like that about him; at least neither of us can make any accusations about the other in this respect.
The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel Page 7