Hitler's Secret Records: Unpublished Stenographic Reports of Hitler's Talks With His Generals

THESE stenographic records were begun in December, 1942, as the result of a dispute between Halder, the Army Chief of Staff, and Hitler. Halder was dismissed from office and henceforward Hitler, in complete control, was surrounded by generals who believed—or said they believed — in his military genius. He insisted that there should always be two (usually there were three) stenographers present. He gave less and less authority to field commanders and took more and more details upon himself. He believed increasingly that any suggested withdrawal or retreat was motivated by lack of courage and that his intuition, plus a more courageous attitude on the part of his subordinates, was sufficient for victory.

Morale, the full use of modern techniques, and the political considerations seemed more important to him than to the more conventional professional soldiers. His point of view was upheld with great obstinacy; and while his ideas were effective when the war was going well, he clung to them when reverses made them ineffective or destructive. It cannot be said, however, that Hitler’s amateur generalship showed intellectual feebleness. It was in some respects highly intelligent, but it was conceited, egotistic, and controlled by fixed ideas.

Hitler’s sentences were badly constructed and repetitive, and his language was extremely vulgar. Also it will be seen that he was mean in argument and amazingly ill informed on vital political and economic facts in connection with countries, such as the United States, with which he was personally unfamiliar. — FELIX GILBERT

AFTER TEHERAN

December 20, 1943. The starting time of this conference is not indicated in the manuscript; it ended at 11 P.M.

PARTICIPANTS: Hitler, Buechs, Buhle, Fegelein, Jodl, Keitel, von Puttkamer, Voss, and Zeitzler.

This whole transcript is very badly damaged. The first part deals with a report by Zeitzler and a general discussion on the situation at the Eastern front.

HITLER: I have studied most of these documents. [Reference is probably to reports of the Teheran and Cairo meetings.] There is no doubt that the attack in the West will come in the spring. There’s absolutely no doubt about it. I have the feeling that they want to operate on very broad fronts.

. . . But judging from the proposed treaty with furkey, it appears that they will go ahead with a second front. We must count on additional landings in Norway, as well as in the Balkans and on the Bay of Biscay. . . . There’s a distinct possibility that they will make a landing in Norway.

. . . Of course that would only be a diversion, but it could become unpleasant for us if the bastards hang on there and lure out our Air Force. . . . We must use a lot of submarines because we mustn’t let them gain a foothold there. If the enemy does gain a foothold, it would be fatal for our whole northern army. We wouldn’t be able to get any more transports through to them. In the South we have found out what it means if the bastards sit on an island. That’s the one thing. The other is the Bay of Biscay. We have to send a lot of submarines down there. We must operate with a lot of the submarines down there, as well as with all the other stuff that has been prepared.

Voss: Yes, that has been planned and will be done.

HITLER: .... The whole problem of the West has to be carefully considered. I am constantly thinking about new ways to improve the defense. Automatic flame throwers, for instance, and oilcans which can be thrown in the sea and then begin to burn.

ZEITZLER: Also the new mines which are detonated by the mine detector. I thought perhaps it would be better not to use them in the East, just in the West. The first will probably be ready in January. If we use them in the East to begin with, the Russians will become acquainted with them. They would figure them out quickly. It would be better to put them all in the West. When the invasions come and they start to use the mine detectors, they won’t expect the mines to explode. HITLER: That will immediately shatter their confidence.

Voss: The Commander-in-Chief, Navy [Doenitz], summoned all of his commanders the other day and called their attention to the danger in the West.

HITLER: There is no doubt that they have made a decision. The attack in the West will begin in the middle, of February or the beginning of March.

I don’t have the feeling that the English are approaching this attack with very much enthusiasm. There are too many cautious people over there who are saying, oven now, “We had better not do it if this or that condition prevails.” There’s another school of thought in England. Just as we once wanted to keep our small navy intact up to the end of the war [the First World War], these people want to keep their army intact because it is so small. That is clear.

On top of that, the English production potential is falling extremely fast. One can see that day by day. They blame that on public opinion which doesn’t believe that danger exists any more. Actually, however, their steel production is decreasing. If one produces a million tons of coal less per year, the steel supply is not going to increase. That is all connected. Do you suppose that is going to be made up by the Americans? They are doing the same thing we are. We were pledged to deliver this and that to our allies, but the fact is that even from the beginning we cut the deliveries to the bone. Somehow, everyone is his own best friend in time of war. Nobody is going to give the other person steel if he doesn’t have enough for himself. In our case, we couldn’t even fulfill these decreased quotas. We delivered somewhat less all the time. We were supposed to deliver 1 to 1.2 million tons of coal, but all we ever sent was 900,000 tons. If the Americans are supposed to deliver something of which they themselves are short, they will certainly deliver less and less all the time. Consequently the English are also holding back. But actually, they have done a lot. Just imagine, the English must have 50 percent of their armed forces scattered all over the world, if one counts India, Africa, the Near East, and Australia, that means they have at least 50 per cent of their forces out there, and 50 per cent at the most in England, and of course they want to maintain that ratio so as not to lose some possessions at the last minute. But the attack will come; there’s no doubt about that any more. . . .

A lengthy discussion follows as to the expected attack on Norway.

Voss: I doubt if they will have the punch to get through there. After all, they have the example of this business in Italy, where they got completely bogged down.

HITLER: But we had certain advantages in Italy. First of all, we are defending. Secondly, we have a narrow strip, about 100 kilometers wide, with unequaled natural obstacles. We have divisional sectors as we had them in the First World War in other words, not with such huge battle areas. In the World War they were 9, 10, 11 kilometers. That’s about the same down there, that’s the good thing about Italy. In addition, the enemy has to bring everything up from a great distance. On the other hand, we have practically no Air Force down there.

We are hoping that our new planes will arrive before the enemy attacks. Every moment we delay that attack improves our situation, With each month, the likelihood increases that we will get a group of jet fighters. The decisive thing is to drop bombs on their heads the moment they land, That will force them to take cover. Even if there is only one plane in the air. they will have to take cover, which will waste hours and hours. In hall a day we’ll have started to move up our reserves. Even if we only pin them down on the beach for six or eight hours, you can imagine what that will mean for us. It means that they will be pinned down until our reserves arrive. Also, by then we would have an over-all picture. It would be nice to get an over-all picture at the first moment, to see which is the diversion and which is the main attack. I am very worried that they might use these 4000kilogram blockbusters against the locks of our submarine pens.

PUTTKAMER: Brest and Lorient don’t have any locks. Only St. Nazaire, La Pallice, and Bordeaux have them.

HITLER: The pressure must be enormous. If 3000 kilograms of high-powered explosives hit the water, it will push the whole works into the air. Yes, that is a great worry. We have one advantage. ‘They will come with entirely inexperienced units.

BUHLE: If by January wc really get all the units designated for the West, nothing can happen there.

HITLER: Let’s hope so.

BUHLE: But if everything is taken away from the West Every time I have organized something, it is taken away from me.

HITLER: Why do you tell me all this? I will not. be blamed for taking everything away from you. You have to talk to Zeitzler about that. . . . But I have terrible troubles too. I see the situation in the East every day, and it is terrible. With live or SIX divisions we might still force the decision, or at least a great victory. But I have always been worried about the West, I have never had the opinion that nothing is going to happen there; rather, I think that the moment will come when the English are forced to end the war in some fashion.

And the Americans have their presidential election. If Roosevelt can’t show any military successes, and if he continues to get deeper and deeper into this business, he may lose. If Roosevelt does lose, he will be tried before an American court six months later. After what that man has done he can leave office only after a won war, with the national debt reduced by half. But as a defeated presidential candidate, his successor, for motives of self-preservation, will have to indict him. . .

The successor must do it, because he has to solve the problems left to him. In that nation, which has a liberal capitalist system — that’s what they’re fighting for — a national debt which might by then amount to a couple of hundred billion dollars cannot be digested by the economy. They can always contract new debts, but how can they pay them off? With taxes? Then they will have to tax away nine tenths instead of two thirds. They can’t do that any more. The thing is like a deluge. They are holding it up a little with every possible manipulation, but actually you can only do that with the authority of the State; that means by force. We can do that in Germany, but they can’t do it. His successor will have to do something about that. No matter who the successor is, he will have nothing better to do than to prove that the whole mess is Roosevelt’s fault. That is the instinct of self-preservation. They will look for someone to blame, and he is to blame. That’s obvious. One might say that it doesn’t make any difference because he will be in again after four years. Well, four years is four years; in the course of these years the other hopes that the situation will change. At any rate, that man Roosevelt will do anything not to get beaten in this election. After all, his government is also pushing him on, because it has to, and if the man wants to stay in he must show some kind of successes, and for that reason he will attack.

The English are terribly clever. They want to give the supreme command to the Americans. They are being very clever about that, because if the Americans have the supreme command, the English will give precedence to the Americans, that’s certain. If the whole thing fails, the Americans will be responsible. If it should fail under English command, they would be responsible. It is obvious that the English are not as confident about the whole business as Eisenhower is. Eisenhower has achieved one lucky landing, in both [sie] cases only with the help of traitors. He isn’t going to find any traitors in our ranks. He’ll catch hell here. There is a difference between landing in North Africa and being greeted by Mr. (brand, or being Opposed by Italians who mostly sit in their holes and don’t fire a shot, and landing in the West where there is really going to be shooting. As long as our batteries can fire, they will fire, that’s certain. . . .

HITLER: I am of the opinion that the moment it starts, it will be a relief. We saw that last year at Dieppe. Actually that was a glorious action. I saw Dieppe that time. You remember how it was fortified then. Since then I have seen how the present fortifications look. I have only seen a small sector; compared to how it was before, it is a thousand times better. . . . Can’t we give a special allotment of flame throwers to the West? Flame throwers are the best thing for defense. That is a terrible weapon.

BUHLE: We have 1200 of them. And there are thousands of those Russian automatic electric ones in the West.

HITLER: .... Flame throwers are the most terrifying thing there is for defense. If someone with a rifle advances, then I can see him. Moreover he has to get close. But the defender is under cover. The attacker doesn’t even know that the defender has a flame thrower. All he sees is the hole in which the defender has two little brackets, one for the machine gun and one for the flame thrower.

J he attacker approaches up to 20 meters, and suddenly the thing goes off. That’s a very unpleasant feeling.

BUHULE: If during the months of January and February production goes according to schedule, there won’t be a pillbox in the West without a flame thrower. We have 2000, then il will be 1000.

HITLER: But we have more pillboxes than that in the West. We already have about 7.500 now. There will be 10,000. . . . We can call up Sauer¹ about that right away. . . .

HITLER: The elimination of factories gives us a certain reserve of workers, which can always be added somewhere for an extra. I don’t know if the plants are working on two or three shifts yet.

In case of a landing, we could also burn or blow up barrels on the beach, so that they would have to wade through fire. We can do that at certain places but not on broad stretches. We can figure out the most diverse deviltries at different places.

For example, one place is mined to such an extent that absolutely no one can reach the shore. At another place, oil barrels start burning; at a third place the Russian flame throwers — the one that squirts fire — can be installed; at still another place we could concentrate a terrific artillery barrage from the rear. One can think of all kinds of things. After it is all over, they can get together and swap their experiences during the landing. . . . The other day I was thinking if it wouldn’t be possible to infest the mine fields with other mines as well as with anti-personnel mines; to such an extent that even our own men can’t pass these mine fields, because they explode no matter who steps on them. These mines should be cased in plastic instead of metal.

BUHLE: The mine fields on the beaches are impassable even for our own men. Even they can only get through by means of the exactly marked lane, which can only be seen from our side.

HITLER (on the telephone): Sauer, how many flame throwers are you making now per month?

. . . Yes, the exact number. ... I need three times that many, and in two months time. You have to pour in workers as fast as possible. In other words, during January and February I want three times as much as you are making now. ’That is the minimum demand. . . . Only 1200? I thought it was 2400. I wanted three times that number. . . . Well, hurry it up. We need more and more. We need them very urgently. Thank you. Heil! Merry Christmas. . . .

THE ATTEMPT ON HITLER’S LIFE

August 31, 1944. This conference began at 3.35 p.m.; the closing time is not indicated in the manuscript.

PARTICIPANTS: Hitler, Keitel, Krebs, and Westphal

In the conference preserved in this fragmentary transcript Hitler gave General Westphal, who had just been appointed Chief of Staff of the Commander-in-Chief, West, and General Krebs, who had been made Chief of Staff of Army Group “B" in the West, information about the conspiracy of July 20, 1944. The record is interesting because of the light which it sheds on Hitler’s attitude toward this conspiracy.

HITLER: YOU know that Field Marshal Kluge committed suicide.² There are strong reasons to suspect that, had he not committed suicide, he would have been arrested anyway. The trial at the People’s Court was interrupted yesterday.³ I personally promoted him twice, gave him the highest decorations, gave him a large estate so that he could have a permanent home, and gave him a large supplement to his pay as Field Marshal.

Therefore I am as bitterly disappointed as I could possibly be. The manner of his involvement may have been tragic. Perhaps he just slipped into it;

I don’t know. Maybe he couldn’t find his way out again. He saw that a large group of officers had been arrested, and he feared their testimony. His nephew, who was deeply implicated, made statements in court which caused President Freisler to interrupt the proceedings right away, which was correct, Freisler wanted to question the Field Marshal; but by that time he was no longer alive.

I don’t want this to leak out. I don’t want to disgrace the German armed forces by having this business talked about. If it ever came out that Field Marshal Kluge intended not only to surrender the entire forces in the West but also intended himself to go over to the enemy, it might not lead to a complete demoralization of the German people, but it would certainly foster contempt for the Army. For that reason I want to keep silent about this.

We only told the generals that he committed suicide. He did commit suicide. The first reports were wrong. First it was said that he had had a brain hemorrhage. Actually he was waiting for an English patrol. They missed each other. He had sent his general staff officer away. The whole business didn’t succeed. English and American patrols pushed forward, but evidently no contact was made. He also sent his son into the pocket. The English reported that they were in contact with a German general. The officer who probably arranged this contact is under arrest. Supposedly he was released from British captivity under some pretense in order to make this contact, but now he is under arrest. The conspirators thought to bring about a change in fate by using this man to arrange a capitulation to the British and to have them join us in the war against Russia. An idiotic idea. [An undecipherable fragment about Rommel follows.]

HITLER: The 15th of August was the worst day of my life.⁴ But for a coincidence, this plan would have been put into operation. All those things that were ordered by the Army Group headquarters can only be explained on that basis. Otherwise they would be inexplicable. I must say that there is something wrong with the staff of the 7th Army. I think it would be a good idea, General Krebs, if you would lake completely trustworthy men with you, and that you take all action necessary in order to clean up that staff. It is unfortunate that while Field Marshal Rommel is a very great and inspiring leader in victory, he becomes a complete pessimist at the slightest difficulty. In North Africa, after the loss of El Alamein, he lost his nerve completely, and he began to conceive ideas which couldn’t be carried out. He should have tried to hold the line in front; that would have been the only way to save everything. The superiority of the enemy was not counterbalanced by Rommel’s move into open space, but was just made effective thereby. It might have been possible to withstand an attack on this narrow front of 60 kilometers. Once we were pressed out of there . . . then, according to the lessons of desert warfare, the enemy had the opportunity to overtake us all the time. Then the enemy, instead of Rommel, could maneuver. When I heard of this decision that night– it was really in the early morning I immediately countermanded the order. Because of an unfortunate chain of circumstances, the thing was held up here and was submitted to me too late. ... He did the worst thing a soldier could do in a case like that; he looked for other than military solutions. He even prophesied our immediate collapse in Italy. Up to now that hasn’t happened. The events have proved him completely wrong, and I was right in my decision to leave there Field Marshal Kesselring, in whom I see a great political idealist as well as a military optimist, and I don’t believe that military operations can be conducted without optimism. Within certain limits I consider Rommel an extremely brave and also clever leader.⁵ I do not consider him to have endurance. ’That is also the opinion of all the other gentlemen.

KEITEL: Yes, that became more and more apparent.

HITLER: All the things that happened in the “Center.”things which are only coming to light now, the disgrace that there are German officers who are willing to speak on the enemy radio, the fact that German officers and generals are capitulating– all that can’t be compared to what happened in the West.⁶ That was the most unheard-of thing that ever happened, I think, Westphal, that you will get a staff that is almost uncorrupted. First of all, Field Marshal von Rundstedt is reliable and decent. Then, Blumentritt is perfectly all right and his record is clear. I think that he doesn’t have the experience to lead a staff like that, and that he is very worried about what happened at that headquarters. But there’s nothing against him.

In the section of the General Staff directed by Gerke, who is himself completely all right, not a single person who had anything to do with this conspiracy was found. On the other hand, in the other sections — Quartermaster General, Plans and Operations, Foreign Armies, and so forth —this disgraceful business was fostered from the chiefs on down. Everything that happened here was directed against me. If they had succeeded, it would have meant a catastrophe for Germany. The fact that it didn’t succeed gives us the opportunity to free Germany of this cancer. But the damage which it has done to our foreign policy, to our prestige with the Rumanians, the Bulgarians, the Turks, the Finns, and all the other neutrals– that can’t be underestimated. . . . If I had had the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions in the West, the whole thing probably wouldn’t have happened. They were not sent there for what I think are criminal reasons, to bring about a revolution here. These people imagined that they could either go with the English against the Russians, or second, the Schulenburg :|⁷ school, with the Russians against the English, or the third and craziest school of thought, playing one out against the other. Incredibly naïve. ... It is like a Wild West novel. If one looks at these people, Stieff’⁸ and the others, their level is really incredibly low. I dismissed a man like General Hoeppner⁹ not only because he didn’t carry out an order but also because he was of such a small caliber. Even Kluge was convinced that he would have to go. The events have shown how right I was. At the trial all the people in the courtroom could see what little men all those people were. The assistant judges asked how such men could have become officers. Well, how could they? I had to take what was available, and tried to make the best of that material.

HITLER: The time hasn’t come for a political decision. I guess I have proved plenty of times during my life that I am capable of achieving political success. I don’t have to explain to anybody that I won’t pass up such an opportunity. But it is childish and naïve to expect that at a moment of grave military defeats the moment for favorable political dealings has come. Such moments come when you are having successes. I have proved that I did everything to come to some understanding with the English. In 1940, after the French campaign, I extended my hand to the English, abandoned all my claims. I didn’t want anything from them. Even on September 1, 1939, I repeated an offer which I had already made through Ribbentrop in 1936: that is the suggestion of an alliance under which Germany would guarantee the British Empire...All of these proposals were opposed first, by Churchill, and then the whole circle of hatred around Vansittart, who wanted the war and now can’t back out of it. They rush towards their own destruction, but the time will come when the tension between the Allies will become so great that the break will occur just the same. All of the coalitions have disintegrated in history sooner or later. The only thing is to wait for the right moment, no matter how hard it is.

Since the year 1941 it has been my task not to lose my nerve, under any circumstances; instead, whenever there is a collapse, my task has been to lind a way out and a remedy, in order to restore the situation. I really think one can’t imagine a worse crisis than the one we had in the East this year. When Field Marshal Model came, the Army Group “Center” was nothing but a hole. I think it’s pretty obvious that this war is no pleasure for me. For five years I have been separated from the rest of the world. I haven’t been to the theater, I haven’t heard a concert, and I haven’t seen a movie. I live only for the purpose of leading this fight because I know that if there is not an iron will behind it, this battle cannot be won. I accuse the General Staff of weakening combat officers who joined, its ranks, instead of exuding this iron will, and of spreading pessimism when General Staff officers went to the front. . . .

If necessary we’ll fight on the Rhine. It doesn’t make any difference. Under all circumstances we will continue this battle until, as Frederick the Great said, one of our damned enemies gets too tired to light any more. We’ll fight until we get a peace which secures the life of the German nation for the next fifty or one hundred years and which, above all, does not besmirch our honor a second time as happened in the year 1918. . . . Things could have turned out differently. If my life had been ended, I think that I can say that for me personally it would only have been a release from worry, sleepless nights, and a great nervous suffering. It is only a fraction of a second, and then one is freed from everything, and has one’s quiet and eternal peace. Just the same, I am grateful to destiny for letting me live because I believe. . . .

BEGINNING OF THE END

January 27, 1945. This conference lasted from 4.20 p.m. until 6.50 P.M.

PARTICIPANTS : Hitler, Assmetnn, von Below, von Brauchitsch, Buechs, Buhle, Burgdorf, Fegelein, von FreytayLoringhoven, Goehler, Goering, Guderian, Guensche, Hewel, Jodl, John von Freyend, Keitel, holler, von Puttkamer, Scherff, Schuster, Voss, Waizenegger, Winter, and Zander.

This is the abridgment of an enormously repetitive transcript which gives a striking picture of the atmosphere of unreality and self-deception current at Hitler’s conferences when, with defeat staring them in the face, he and his staff were scraping the bottom of the barrel for combat officers.

BURGDORF: .... This matter about the officers, which I have presented here, has been taken up by the Reichsmarschall again. The Reichsmarschall takes the view that it would be better to let the people keep their rank and simply use them in lower positions for which they are suited.

GOERING: For instance, I have a commanding general as company commander in a parachute regiment. Up to now, demotion has been part of the punishment when someone committed a crime. If somebody has been discharged with full honors, and if he is now conscripted again, he only gets a smaller job because he can’t fulfill a larger task any longer; we can’t draft him as a staff sergeant. That is a demotion. I don’t see why anyone would want to become an officer under those circumstances. Even an honorable record wouldn’t protect a man any more.

HITLER: Only it becomes very difficult if you have a general command a company under a battalion commander who might be a first lieutenant.

GOERING: In this case it works quite well. Only he should not be demoted.

BURGDORF: If I may explain the development as it occurs frequently in the Army; at this time we have several thousand officers who have never had combat service, or at least not since the end of the First World War. Since that time they have either had office jobs or administrative jobs, or else they were used as railroad station commanders or commanders of rail line patrols at a time when the fronts were far away and these areas had to be protected. Now these people are surplus. . . . The question is, how can they be used?

GOERING: These people did their duty as officers in the First World War and were honorably discharged. ... I am of the opinion that it is impossible in any profession all over the world — that a man who has served with honor and against whom nothing can be said be deprived of his rank just because he has to be used in a subordinate position. . . .

BURGDORF: It would have to be decided whether to form units consisting entirely of officers. In an officers unit a lieutenant colonel might be a squad leader and a captain a platoon leader, so that ranks would just be nonsense. However, I should like to warn against that because I have seen these men. The last remnants of respect for the officer corps can be destroyed if an entire battalion of officers should run away. Because these people I saw will run away.

GOERING: That’s right. But are you going to get men to become officers if they know that they can be demoted at any time without having done anything wrong?

Burgdorf: The moment the Führer adopted the policy of promoting men according to their ability instead of their seniority, the logical thing would have been to demote those people who did not have the ability for the rank they were holding. . . .

HITLER: One thing has to be avoided, and that is that people who are lit for service but can’t do a certain job any more do not fight at all, while others who are only good for limited service have to do the lighting. Today I have to consider the psychological effect on the entire German people, not just on the officers. After all, that isn’t a humiliation.

GOERING: Hut all that has to be made clear.

JODL: They should not feel that they are being demoted without cause.

BURGDORF: They’ll be given six weeks training to show the stuff they are made of. I have seen these people, and, Herr Reichsmarschall you would immediately say: “Those guys have to take their uniforms off entirely.”I just don’t have the personnel necessary to give detailed legal justifications for thousands of demotions.

GOERING: In a case like that I would just say: “Out of the Armed Forces and into the Volkssturm with them.”

BURGDORF: The Volkssturm is for old men. This way we would fill it up with men who might only be forty-six years old, fully fit for service, who goldbricked successfully and were in the West.

GOERING: Well, you can demote people like that.

HITLER: People like that can’t command troops either. They’ve never had jobs like that. I can’t even trust them with the smallest units.

GOERING : Then you’ll have to take quite a number of people out of the line outfits, too. . . .

HITLER: After all, the military profession is a fighting profession. That has to be the goal.

GOERIXG: It just has to be settled in principle, because it is a completely different way of looking at it.

HITLER: It isn’t a demotion at all. Instead, the original rank is in abeyance during the combat, period. If the man is capable, he will soon be back in his old rank. He has it much easier than other people. But some sort of solution must be found.

One thing has to be avoided, and that is that a military housecleaning takes place which results only in cleaning people out of the military bureaucracy and putting them into civilian idleness. I can’t even use them in the labor program, because we have a certain labor surplus. But even disregarding that, the public rightly says: “That man is fit for military service, that other one is not, and yet the latter one is drafted.”

BURGDORF: The transfer of a mortar platoon to the Reichsführer in the Black Forest did wonders for the Officers Training Regiment. But it did make a bad impression down there, in the Black Forest, when a lieutenant colonel and three lieutenants were dragging around a mortar.

HITLER: In my eyes that’s much more degrading than the other alternative. The other alternative consists of giving a person a job that is commensurate with his abilities and with which I can trust, him. In the other case I let him run around in his old uniform and do work which a private or noncom can do.

GOERING: That way one has to draw the consequences right away by freezing promotions, and so forth.

BURGDORF: Only the line officers should be promoted.

GOERING: Then nobody will stay on the staffs. . . .

HITLER: The eases we are discussing arise from the fact that we have to dismantle five sixths of our administration. It is not a question of defamation. The administration has to be dismantled, and this five sixths cannot be let out of the Army just because they cannot be given a command commensurate with their rank.

GUDERIAN: Then they must be used in a different capacity. If a colonel can only be used as a battalion or company commander, then he will do that and will take off his epaulets for the period of this service.

HITLER: Well, that’s the whole point.

GUDERING: But he won’t, become a noncom.

GUDERIAN: No, he will remain a colonel or a general, with full pay and allowances.

GOERING: Let’s leave the pay out of this. . .

(The End)