The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel

by Walter Gorlitz

  It was all the easier for him to reach the decision he did, early in September, to authorise the launching of a strategic air offensive against Britain, whereby the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, Göring, hoped to destroy Britain’s air force and armaments industry, especially as with the German air force’s great numerical superiority these air battles, with the heavy losses they would inflict on the British, would inevitably be to the advantage of our planned invasion should it ever take place. But the massive German air offensive, although it was executed with exemplary skill by the German units involved, gradually slowed to a standstill as the illusory and comforting impression gained currency that the British fighter squadrons had been wiped out; and operation Sea Lion itself was never put into effect, because nobody ventured to predict a sufficiently long period of fine weather for it. The reduction of Britain in the autumn of 1940 became an illusion, and the last chance of bringing the war to a swift conclusion had been lost.

  Hitler never told us soldiers whether he ever really entertained hopes of winding up the war with Britain after the collapse of France. I do know that attempts were made to extend such feelers, although when I asked Hitler outright about them he insisted he had not asked for any direct negotiations with Britain, other than the [peace] offer implicit in his Reichstag speech of 19th July. One day, no doubt, the British archives will show the world which of these versions is true.

  We all flew back to Berlin from our headquarters in the Black Forest to be present at that memorable Reichstag session on 19th July. Never before and never again were the generals of the German armed forces represented in such strength on the rostrum. A seat had been allocated to me behind Raeder and Brauchitsch on the government benches, behind the Cabinet Ministers, while Göring took the chair as Reichstag president. The Führer was greeted with a tremendous roar of applause as he entered the chamber, just as he had been on arriving in Berlin and during his drive through the Brandenburg Gate.

  The honours showered upon the armed forces at this Reichstag session were probably the strangest event of my life as a soldier. The honours announced in the form of promotions and decorations for the senior commanders—especially those of the Army and Air Force—exceeded all expectations; Göring became a Reichsmarschall, and he was awarded the Grand Cross to his Iron Cross.

  As far as I was concerned [Keitel was promoted to Generalfeldmarschall] I though it all too much of a good thing, because without wishing to injure the feelings of the other generals who were promoted to field-marshal, I was disturbed that the rank was no longer restricted only to front-line ‘warriors’. I failed to see what justification there was for such an honour being bestowed upon myself as Chief of the OKW or upon the Secretary of State for Air [Colonel-General Erhard Milch]. I had not been a front-line general and had led no troops into action. I could not see why the Air Force generals were not promoted to Luftmarschälle—‘air marshals’—instead. I would be lying if I denied that I was pleased by the honour, but I would also be lying if I denied that inwardly I was downright ashamed of myself, although the cheers from the whole House as Hitler announced my name, last of all, showed that they were in broad agreement with the award.

  It was on this occasion that Hitler designated the then Wehrmacht-Führungs-Amt—armed forces operations office—‘my own armed forces operations staff’, a move that he had discussed with me shortly before the Reichstag session; and at the same time, he promoted its chief, Major-General Jodl, to full general, by-passing the rank of lieutenant-general.

  Shortly after this Reichstag session Hitler moved his quarters to the Berghof; with Jodl and a few colleagues I followed soon after, moving into the Reich Chancellery’s quarters at Berchtesgaden, and at the end of July I took ten days’ leave to pay a visit to my hunting friends in Pomerania. For one last time I was able to throw off my harness for a few carefree days, to devote my time to hunting roebuck, deer and wild boar, to stroll through my fields at Helmscherode and go to Hildesheim to purchase new farm implements and rubber-tyred farm carts for the estate; during those few days I was just a full-time farmer again—my lifelong dream—a farmer again for the last time in my life.

  * In Keitel’s original manuscript there follow further details on the construction the West Wall; these have been omitted by the Editor.

  * In Keitel’s original manuscript there follow further details on the construction of the West Wall; these have been omitted by the Editor.

  * In Keitel’s original manuscript there follow details of the return journey to Berlin, via Breslau; these have been omitted by the Editor.

  † In Keitel’s original manuscript there follow further family details and matters concerning the affairs of his estate at Helmscherode, especially on the restoration of the estate chapel; the latter is interesting as an instance of the field-marshal’s continued firm religious convictions and protestant faith, despite Hitler’s hostile attitude to the two great Christian faiths. The passage has been omitted by the Editor.

  * In Keitel’s original manuscript there follow details about his youngest son, Hans-Georg, fighting as an N.C.O. in an artillery regiment outside Warsaw; these have been omitted by the Editor.

  † In Keitel’s original manuscript there follow details of Zoppot and of Hitler’s visit to Danzig; these have been omitted by the Editor.

  * In Keitel’s original manuscript there follow here further details on the lack of contact with the Russians and a suspicion that the Russians took more prisoners in Poland than did the Germans; to which he added a polemic about the Soviet murder of Polish officer P.o.W.s at Katyn. Keitel put the number at 10,000 but, in fact, it was about 4,000 (see Hans Thieme’s essay Katyn—ein Geheimnis, published in Vierteljahresheft für Zeitgeschichte [Munich], No. 4, 1955, p. 409 et seq.). The whole passage has been omitted by the Editor.

  * In Keitel’s original manuscript there follows a lengthy description of the by now well-known history of the postponement of the date of attack and Hitler’s reasons; this has been omitted by the Editor.

  * In Keitel’s original manuscript there follows a description of a number of highlights of the Norwegian campaign; these have been omitted by the Editor.

  * In Keitel’s original manuscript there follow here further details no longer of any interest, in which he describes visits to the front-line and the well-known course of the breakthrough in the Artois region; and an account of how his youngest son, Lieutenant Hans-Georg Keitel, was gravely wounded in an artillery regiment; these have been omitted by the Editor.

  * In Keitel’s original manuscript there follow details from hearsay of a meeting between Hitler and Mussolini at the advanced second Führer’s headquarters in the Belgian village of Bruly-de-Pesche, code-named Wolfsschlucht—Wolf’s Ravine—where the Field-Marshal had his headquarters in the schoolroom of the evacuated village. These have been omitted by the Editor.

  4

  Prelude to the Attack on Russia

  1940–1941

  WHEN I returned to Berchtesgaden from my leave, on about ioth August, 1940, I still had no idea of Hitler’s further plans; I knew only that there was no hope of ending the war with Britain, for the United States and all her unlimited resources stood behind her. Now that our plans for an invasion [of Britain] in the autumn of 1940 had had to be shelved until the spring of 1941 at the earliest, there remained only for us to look for some other way of forcing the British to sue for peace.

  I was charged by the Führer to analyse the prospect of contributing to the Italian war against the British in North Africa, in a personal meeting with Marshal Badoglio, the Chief of the Italian General Staff; I was to offer him two German armoured divisions, in recognition of the serious position into which we knew Marshal Graziani their C.-in-C. in Tripolitania had got himself with the British on the Italian colony’s frontier. Jodl and I stayed at Innsbruck for a day and a half for these discussions, which naturally took in other questions implicit in the Italian war effort, in particular her armaments problems, the intensifi
cation of the anti-aircraft defences round the munitions plants in northern Italy, assistance with fuel supplies and so forth.

  Our talks ended with Badoglio rejecting our offer, claiming that tanks would be ineffective in the desert because of their lack of mobility in desert sand. The only concrete benefits we derived were the hams which Badoglio left for Jodl and myself in our hotel room as a food ‘subsidy’. We returned to our Berchtesgaden headquarters without having accomplished our mission. Our only achievement was an agreement that we should send a team of tank experts to North Africa under Colonel Freiherr von Funck.

  An additional measure in our campaign against Britain had been arranged between the Führer and Mussolini—the despatch of German Air Force units to southern Italy to subdue the Mediterranean convoy traffic to the British naval and air base in Malta, and thereby help to protect Italy’s sea communications with Tripoli, which were already under attack from the British. All this could unfortunately not be put in hand without reducing German frontline [air] strength tied down in the Battle of Britain; but Mussolini had talked the Führer round by promising to despatch Italian submarines to engage the British in the Battle of the Atlantic. But this offer was of as little value to us as the Italian Air Force had been: the latter’s operations against Britain from northern France had altogether miscarried. The Führer however had deduced that he could not reject these offers without offending Mussolini, especially as we were at the time planning to send German U-boats to the Mediterranean as well.

  Finally the Führer was planning—while keeping the whole thing absolutely secret from Italy—to seize Gibraltar, with the acquiescence of Spain, of course. The diplomatic feelers and military investigations for that were still outstanding, but work was to begin on them very shortly.

  What most disturbed me at this time, however, were the Führer’s thoughts on a possible war with the Soviet Union, upon which theme he expanded in more detail in a private talk with Jodl and myself on the very first day of my return from leave. As Jodl told me as we drove home, it was a continuation of discussions which he had first brought up with Jodl as early as the end of July; as I found out for myself, investigations were already in hand to see how far the transfer of several divisions from France could be accelerated: the Commander-in-Chief of the Army had been ordered by Hitler himself to concentrate a number of divisions in Poland, and to estimate the time it would take to move troops up to offset the considerable concentrations of Russian forces in the Baltic provinces and in Bessarabia, a circumstance which filled the Führer with strong forebodings about Soviet intentions.

  I immediately raised the objection that we had forty to fifty divisions tied down in Norway, France and Italy; and as they could not be released from those countries, they would not be available for any war in the east; but without them we should be far too weak. Hitler replied at once that that was no reason to fail to take action designed to avert an imminent danger; he had already ordered Brauchitsch, he said, to double the number of armoured divisions. Finally he added that he had not created this powerful mobile army only to have it rot for the rest of the war: the war would not come to an end of its own accord, and he was not going to be able to use his army against Britain in the spring of 1941 after all, as an invasion would not be practicable then. As he immediately resumed his discussion with Jodl, I did not speak again, but resolved to find out from Jodl afterwards what had already been mooted while I was away and what appeared to have been already put in hand.

  Next day I requested a brief interview with the Führer, intending to ask him to his face what reasons he had for his ominous interpretation of Russia’s intentions. His reply, in brief, was that he had never lost sight of the inevitability of a clash between the world’s two most diametrically opposed ideologies, that he did not believe it could be evaded, and that that being the case it was better for him to shoulder this grave burden now, in addition to the others, than for him to bequeath it to his successor. Besides, he believed there were indications that Russia was already girding herself for war with us, and she had certainly far overreached the agreements we had made on the Baltic provinces and Bessarabia while our hands had been tied in the west. In any case, he said, he only wanted to take precautions against being taken by surprise, and he would not reach any decisions until he had recognised how justified his distrust of them was. When I again objected that our forces were already fully extended in the other theatres of war, he rejoined that he intended to speak to Brauchitsch about expanding our forces and releasing some of those from France. On that note our interview ended, as he was called away to a briefing conference.

  The whole thing bothered me so much that I decided to write a personal memorandum on the problem, without calling upon the operations staff, and without any detailed statistics to back me up. That was how my memorandum of the second half of August 1940 came about, without even Jodl’s knowing about it. As a result of the [Nuremburg] Trial, the story of my visit to the Foreign Secretary, von Ribbentrop, at Fuschl has become well known: I wished to win him over to dissuading the Führer from the idea at any cost, before Hitler had the chance to tackle him on the subject. In this I was successful: during a very private discussion à deux, Ribbentrop swore to support me from the political side. Each of us promised the other to say nothing of our talk to Hitler, lest we be accused of conspiring against him.

  After a war conference some days later, I showed my handwritten memorandum to the Führer; he promised to discuss it with me once he had had time to peruse it. For several days I waited in vain, then I reminded him about it; I was summoned to see him by myself that afternoon. What I then had with Hitler was not so much a discussion as a one-sided lecture on my memorandum’s basic strategy; it had not convinced him in the least. My reference to our previous year’s pact with Russia was just as misleading: Stalin had as little intention of abiding by it as he had himself, once the situation had changed and a new set of circumstances obtained. In any case, Stalin’s only motives in signing the pact had been firstly to guarantee his share in the carve-up of Poland and secondly to spur us on to launch our attack in the west, in the belief that we would get bogged down there and bleed to death. Stalin had planned to exploit this period of grace and our own heavy casualties as a means of subduing us all the more easily afterwards.

  I was very upset by this savage criticism and by the tone of voice in which he had delivered it, and I suggested that it would be better for him to replace me as Chief of the OKW with somebody whose strategic judgment was of greater value to him than my own; I felt that in this respect I was not suited for my position, I added, and I requested to be sent to a front-line command. Hitler harshly rejected this: did he then have no right to inform me if in his view my judgment was wrong? He really would have to forbid his generals to go into a huff and ask to resign every time somebody lectured them, and in any case he had no chance of resigning his office either. He wanted it understood once and for all that it was nobody’s right but his to relieve a person of his office if he saw fit, and until then that person would just have to put up with the job; during the previous autumn, he said, he had had to tell Brauchitsch the same as well. We had both risen to our feet; I walked out of the room without a word. He held on to the memorandum I had written; no doubt it vanished into his safe and probably it was burnt. The draft I wrote might be among the papers of the OKW operations staff, as Jodl and Warlimont claim to have read it.

  Here I will skirt round the further developments in our relations with the Soviet Union, Molotov’s visit to us early in November, and how Hitler decided that a Russian campaign was now definitely to be prepared. The actual sequence of events during January 1941, with Hitler’s thorough briefing by the Chief of the Army General Staff on the stage reached both by our own and the enemy’s war preparations has been dealt with in such detail during the Trial—and to some extent in my own affidavits for defence counsel—that I need dwell upon them no longer here. But it cannot be stressed too much that, however much we c
ontinued to reinforce our eastern frontiers and the demarcation line between us and the Russians, we always lay both quantitatively and qualitatively far behind the Russians’ own troop concentrations. The Soviet Union was methodically preparing for an attack on us; and their preparations along the whole front line were exposed by our own attack on 22nd June 1941.

  It was inevitable that as a result of our difference of opinion over war with Russia my general relations with Hitler again deteriorated, and I often detected from his asides when we were dealing with questions bearing on the eastern front that the differences between us had not been satisfactorily resolved.

  Admittedly, once our preventive attack* had been launched, I was forced to concede that he had been right after all in his assessment of the imminence of a Russian invasion of our country, but—perhaps because of my recollection of the Red Army’s autumn manoeuvres in 1931 when I had visited the Soviet Union as their guest—my view of Russia’s capacity to make war was different from Hitler’s.

  He always assumed that Russia’s real armaments industry was still in embryo and nothing like fully expanded; he stressed moreover that Stalin had purged the élite among his military commanders in 1937, so there was a shortage of able brains to back him up.

  He was obsessed with the idea that the clash was bound to come sooner or later and that it was wrong for him to sit back and wait until the others were ready and could jump on us. Statements from Russian staff officers captured by us confirmed Hitler’s judgment on this score too; only in his assessment of the capacity of the Soviet armament industry—even without the Donets basin—was Hitler misled: the Russian tank forces had a quantitative lead over us which we never could and never did catch up.

  I must, however, categorically deny that—apart from some general-staff-type studies made by the OKW’s operations staff and the Army General Staff—any preparations were made for a war with Russia before December 1940, except that orders were issued for the railway system and railheads in what used to be Polish territory to be improved to enable them to carry our troops more rapidly to the eastern frontiers of the Reich.