Hitler's Generals in America
Page 4
The generals, fresh from Tunisia, joined distinguished company upon their arrival in England. Lieutenant General Ludwig Crüwell had been in British custody since May 1942, when his plane was shot down over the Italian lines in North Africa. Before his capture, Crüwell had earned a reputation as an excellent tactical commander. He first led the Eleventh Panzer Division in Yugoslavia, where he was credited with the capture of Belgrade in April 1941. For this he was awarded the Knight’s Cross and later became the first divisional commander to be awarded the additional Oak Leaves on September 1, 1941, for his command of the Eleventh Panzer on the Russian Front. This distinction elevated Crüwell, along with his colleague General Borowietz, into elite company. These men were two of fewer than nine hundred recipients of the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves during the entire war.17
After a brief respite on the continent in the spring of 1942, Crüwell returned to North Africa in May and assumed responsibility for a combined German and Italian force.18 In a meeting with Hitler in 1942, Crüwell expressed concern about the condition and morale of his Italian forces in North Africa. Curiously, his apprehension about the Italian contingent would be his undoing. With his new position came the responsibility to monitor the Italian Front. He arranged to be flown in a Fieseler Storch reconnaissance plane over the Italian lines on May 29, 1942, with soldiers on the ground charged with lighting flares to indicate the front’s location. In a bizarre turn of events, the officer in charge of lighting the flares was called to the telephone moments before Crüwell’s plane flew over, and the flares were never lit. By the time Crüwell figured out that he had overflown his intended target, British antiaircraft shells sent his plane into a crash landing. Miraculously, the Storch held together well enough for the general to emerge relatively unscathed, although now a British prisoner of war. His capture was a substantial loss to Rommel’s effort in North Africa.19
General der Panzertruppe Ludwig Crüwell (Courtesy of the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum)
Crüwell’s British captors first housed him near Cairo in a single room with a balcony, but they transferred him to Trent Park in early September 1942. A few weeks after his arrival, Crüwell informed a Swedish camp inspector that he did not have the slightest grounds for complaint with his treatment by the British. The inspector noted that Trent Park offered the general a “spacious cottage” situated on extensive grounds and adorned with beautiful trees and a “well-kept park.” He also complimented the large, comfortable, well-furnished bedroom, bathroom, living room, and dining room and praised British willingness to allow the general two-hour, daily walks around the estate and occasional sightseeing trips outside the camp. The inspector was most impressed, however, with the level of respect with which the British guard detail treated the distinguished prisoner.20
Also a “guest” of the British in May 1943 was General Ritter von Thoma, who had been captured in North Africa two months after Crüwell’s arrival at Trent Park. General Montgomery, the British victor at El Alamein, had invited von Thoma to dine with him after the opposing general’s capture. The two discussed their moves of the preceding battle over dinner and von Thoma later graciously thanked Montgomery for the chivalry that the British general had displayed. He even invited Montgomery to join him on his estate in Germany following the conclusion of the war. Upon learning of this, the British press heavily criticized Montgomery for having been too cordial with the enemy. But Prime Minister Winston Churchill stemmed the controversy with a snide remark to the British House of Commons: “Poor von Thoma,” he said, “I too have dined with Montgomery.”21
The primary function of CSDIC at Trent Park was, of course, gathering information, and this it did with proficiency. The Cockfosters estate allowed the British government to house its German generals in rather grand surroundings, albeit surroundings that had been enhanced to allow British officers to glean important information from the prisoners. The generals’ rooms were bugged, with microphones in the light fixtures. These listening devices all connected to a central “switchboard” where the British eavesdroppers at Camp No. 11, nicknamed Mother by the staff, surreptitiously listened to conversations among their guests. Von Thoma and Crüwell, hungry for news, quickly greeted incoming POWs to discuss the latest battles and war developments. Consequently, both were of “considerable value to the British.” Crüwell’s conversations with U-boat commander Wolfgang Römer in late 1942, for instance, provided the British with valuable information about German submarine tactics.22
Von Thoma and Crüwell had also previously been interrogated at the London District Cage, a somewhat notorious British military intelligence interrogation center in Kensington Palace Gardens. Here the two generals, during a “bugged” conversation, discussed their surprise at seeing most of London still standing. One explained to the other about the German testing of unmanned flying machines that could inflict very heavy damage. This admission prompted an investigation by British intelligence that eventually uncovered the existence of the German research program developing the deadly V-1 and V-2 rockets.23
These two were far from the only generals to provide the British with valuable information about German leaders and German military organization or, later, with interesting divulgences about war crimes or the generals’ views on the German resistance. In addition to simple eavesdropping, the British obtained such information in part because of their ingenious techniques to loosen the prisoners’ tongues. The most interesting of these was Lord Aberfeldy. Lord Aberfeldy’s real name was Ian Munroe, and he was, in reality, an agent of MI19, the British intelligence division responsible for enemy prisoners of war. Aberfeldy lived at Trent Park with the prisoners, ostensibly as an interpreter. He acted the part of a British officer and aristocrat who took the generals not only on long walks around the Cockfosters estate but also occasionally on dining or shopping trips into London. He also ran errands for them, making regular trips into the city to purchase items for the generals that they could not obtain at the camp canteen. Along the way, Munroe attempted to win the generals’ trust and maneuver them into conversations that could provide information of value to British intelligence.24
Aberfeldy’s efforts among the prisoners facilitated Mother’s work behind the scenes. German and Austrian refugees manned Mother’s eavesdropping equipment and subsequently translated the German text of the generals’ recorded conversations into English for dissemination.25 These agents monitored daily conversations from the time of Crüwell’s arrival in 1942 until the end of the war in Europe in May 1945. During this time, CSDIC routinely circulated reports on information received from the generals to the intelligence departments of the three branches of the British military and, at times, even to U.S. military intelligence as well.
With playing cards, board games, table tennis and billiards, or painting and reading as their only distractions, the generals at Trent Park had a great deal of time for conversation. CSDIC operatives learned the generals’ feelings on an array of topics, including the reasons for the failed German offensive in North Africa, the current state of the war, and the generals’ respective views of the Allies, Hitler, and the German High Command. Many of the comments recorded during their first weeks at Trent Park consisted of the generals’ attempts to justify their recent surrender, mock their Italian allies, or disparage the Allied victors.26
Despite these divulgences and the more revealing ones that followed over the course of the next two years, it is difficult not to conclude that the generals suspected their conversations were being monitored by British intelligence. Berlin had previously issued strict rules of conduct for German prisoners of war in British hands that specifically mentioned the possibility of hidden microphones and the use of stool pigeons like Lord Aberfeldy.27 But if the generals, in fact, suspected that Mother was listening, this raises interesting questions about what their comments were intended to achieve. Complaints about insufficient supplies and defiant criticisms of the character and fighting ability of both the British and Americ
an armies sound a lot like sour grapes, intended to inform their enemy that if only the Germans had had sufficient supplies they would have bested the “astonishingly slow” Allied army. And it is unlikely that the general officers cared whether Mussolini found out about their low opinion of Italian soldiers.
Yet what is puzzling is that, once ensconced in the stately Trent Park mansion, the generals offered some detailed information about the ongoing German offensive against the Soviet Union. If they suspected they were being recorded, as it seems quite likely they did, the generals must certainly have realized that statements about German commanding officers and the German order of battle, logistics, and their Romanian, Bulgarian, and Hungarian allies could easily have been transmitted to the Allied army general staff. Most curiously, however, the prisoners also offered some fairly revealing comments about Adolf Hitler and certain members of the German High Command.
For example, General Krause insinuated that Hitler would be “obstinate” and “stupid” not to consider uniting with either the British and Americans against the Russians or vice versa, even though this would mean “modifying his demands considerably.” Von Arnim referred to the German failure in North Africa as “this whole catastrophe” that occurred “because no one really dared to say, ‘It just won’t work.’ ” The generals intimated that Hitler and the German High Command shifted the responsibility for any failure entirely to the troops in the field, even when they had not been properly supplied. The officers contended that battlefield commanders felt they had no choice but to simply follow the orders they received from higher authorities without question because disagreeing with the Führer was not tolerated. They cited the example of General Franz Halder, chief of the German General Staff, who had openly disagreed with Hitler and subsequently been removed from his post.28 Generals von Arnim and Bülowius also made derogatory remarks about the Hitler Youth, observing how it made them sick to see their own children marching with the “H.J.s” and that they were beginning to “realize the stupidity of it.”29
Assuming the generals knew their British captors monitored all of their conversations, their comments insisting that Hitler and the Wehrmacht High Command made all of the important decisions and that none of the general officers were allowed to question them suggests that the origins of the myth of the clean Wehrmacht began at Trent Park. Much like their fellow German general officers who provided the U.S. Army Historical Division with accounts of the war after its conclusion in 1945, the generals at Camp No. 11 attempted to absolve themselves of any responsibility for their part in the war. Perhaps following their surrender in North Africa, coming on the heels of the capitulation of von Paulus’s Sixth Army at Stalingrad a few months earlier, the prisoners at Camp No. 11 determined that the war was lost. Perhaps the generals believed that by offering small amounts of useful intelligence about the Eastern Front, they could convince British eavesdroppers to trust the veracity of the information they supplied them, especially their criticisms of Hitler and their insinuation that the Führer bore sole responsibility for the war. Instances also abounded where prisoners who refused to provide British interrogators with information promptly returned to their rooms and told their fellow officers exactly what information they had withheld.30 Perhaps this too was designed to inspire British trust in the information that was spoken directly into Mother’s microphones.
Yet some questions remain. As new faces emerged at Trent Park in the months following the successful Allied invasion of France, the generals at Trent Park turned their conversations to discussions of war crimes in which a few of them admitted to questionable, even criminal behavior. It seems puzzling that some of the prisoners would make such admissions knowing they were speaking into British microphones and that their remarks would be sent to British and American military authorities. Furthermore, in his memoirs, written some time after the war, von Sponeck claimed that the generals at Trent Park did not suspect Lord Aberfeldy. Von Sponeck described the “special advantage” of having an English officer who was fluent in German and who obliged the generals’ special requests on his frequent shopping trips to London. Aberfeldy earned the generals’ trust, according to von Sponeck, and they did not learn of his real identity until some years after the war.31
Again, perhaps the admissions of war crimes and even von Sponeck’s comments in his memoirs were designed to further a political agenda, which may have included feigned ignorance of Aberfeldy’s identity to justify having shared information with him. It may also be that, given a certain amount of time in captivity, the generals had grown comfortable at Trent Park and ceased to care about the presence of microphones in their quarters. Either way, comfortable that the information the generals provided was of some value, CSDIC operatives continued their work unabated.
Indeed, CSDIC seemed to particularly value the generals’ evaluations of various German military leaders. One report lauded the assessments the generals had provided the British of men like Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, Germany’s commander in chief south; Field Marshal Erwin Rommel; Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, commander in chief of the Luftwaffe; and his second in command, Deputy Reich Commissioner for Aviation Erhard Milch, among others.32 Unfortunately, the report did not state exactly what the British learned about these German leaders or how the information was used.
Much of this activity had been conducted with a small, unchanging population of prisoners beginning in June 1943 and continuing for almost a year. Generals von Vaerst, Borowietz, Bülowius, and Köchy departed for the United States on June 1, 1943, and four more German generals from North Africa took their place at Trent Park. These four generals, Schnarrenberger, von Liebenstein, von Sponeck, and Friedrich von Broich, had journeyed from Gibraltar to London aboard the British battleship HMS Nelson and had been temporarily interned a few miles away at Wilton Park until space could be made available for them at Camp No. 11. Their arrival brought Trent Park’s total population of German prisoner-of-war generals to thirteen, eight of whom would also eventually be transferred to American custody.33
Aside from attempting to glean operational and tactical intelligence from the general officer prisoners, the British also took a particular interest in the prisoners’ political orientations. For example, shortly after the prisoners arrived at Trent Park, they began to divide themselves into cliques that CSDIC labeled “anti-Nazi” and “pro-Nazi.” The two cliques centered around the two men who had been in camp the longest, Ritter von Thoma and Ludwig Crüwell. British intelligence labeled von Thoma’s group, which included generals von Sponeck, Hans Cramer, Gerhard Bassenge, Georg Neuffer, von Liebenstein, and von Broich, as “Anti-Nazi and Defeatist.” Von Thoma openly espoused “violent anti-Nazi views” and took great pains to antagonize his pro-Nazi opponents by verbally chastising them as well as circulating German-language, anti-Nazi literature that had been supplied to him by British camp authorities.34
The British labeled Ludwig Crüwell’s clique, politically opposite from von Thoma, “Anti-Defeatist” and pro-Nazi. In addition to Crüwell, this group included generals Frantz and von Hülsen. Trent Park authorities found these three to be a nuisance, noting that they were “always moaning and demanding the impossible. They seem to consider this a sanatorium for tired German generals rather than as a [prisoner-of-war] camp. They even go out of their way to complain.”35
Not surprisingly, British intelligence at Trent Park viewed the members of von Thoma’s anti-Nazi clique in a significantly more favorable light. A CSDIC report from June 1943 noted, “The defeatist section comprises all those who are most intelligent, most traveled and who have [the] most culture. They never complain about conditions in the camp and continue to tell us how grateful they are for the excellent treatment which is meted out to them here.”36 These types of statements illustrate as much about the British observers as they do about the German prisoners and reveal a common Allied misperception. Throughout the war, British and American officials alike often confused prisoner cooperativeness with anti-
Nazi views and vice versa. Consequently, Trent Park officers would certainly have seen von Thoma’s clique as more intelligent, cultured, and politically savvy simply because they showed gratitude and did not complain.
Also indicative of British perceptions are the revealing character studies of each of the generals compiled by CSDIC officers at Trent Park in June and July 1943. These evaluations again demonstrate some Allied misperceptions and exaggerations. For instance, the “pro-Nazi” generals are largely portrayed as buffoons or insidious agitators, while the members of the “anti-Nazi” clique appear as intelligent, educated men of culture.
Significantly, these British evaluations of the early general officer prisoners compiled in 1943 provided some of the foundation for the American relationship with the Wehrmacht general officers who were later sent to the United States and, consequently, for some Allied decisions made about the generals in the postwar era. Indeed, until May 1945, the majority of the general officer prisoners sent to the United States had first been assessed by CSDIC at Trent Park. And the group of senior officers who were the focus of these character studies would be the next parcel of general officer POWs delivered to the Americans, even though it took almost a year before this occurred. Without doubt, these initial British judgments influenced American perceptions of the generals at least to some degree, especially considering that the Americans expended no time or resources evaluating these men for themselves. It is unlikely to have been pure coincidence that two of the five generals later chosen by American officials for reeducation and groomed to be potential leaders for postwar Germany, von Sponeck and von Liebenstein, were two British favorites from the beginning. This, in turn, raises questions about how much von Sponeck’s and von Liebenstein’s “anti-Nazism”—and that of other generals like them—was calculated to achieve just such an end.