Armageddon - Max Hastings [366]
“What extraordinary people the Germans are,” mused Bill Deedes. The British officer found himself being addressed by a German colonel in a PoW cage almost as if he was a subordinate. “It seemed that the concept of defeat was right outside his reckoning.” Even now, many Germans seemed to regret only that they had lost the war. The last order of the day on 6 May from the general commanding 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division declared defiantly: “Every man of the division should look to the future with pride. If our soldiers do as much towards building a new Germany as they have done towards fighting for the old one, our nation will rise again.”
Field-Marshal Schörner, who had driven his men to resist fiercely to the end, said wistfully in captivity: “It might have been different if we had only had to deal with Britain . . .” He added, not without satisfaction: “Britain has lost its leading role in Europe. Russia now dominates Germany. Soon, she will be able to take the next step—to the Channel.” Another German officer in Soviet captivity spoke with scorn of Russian demands for reparations: “Russians tend to forget that Germany has also suffered huge damage, mostly from the British and Americans. We never took plant or material from Russia. This is simply an attempt by Russia to enrich herself at our expense.” A German general said: “Think how many roads and railways we built in the territory we occupied in Russia.” A Wehrmacht doctor suggested that Russians should reflect that “some of the destruction was the consequence of their own actions . . . the figures are meaningless—we can never pay anyway. Poor Russians! They talk as if we were living in castles in their country. Russians don’t even know what a castle looks like!” A lieutenant said: “The only damage I ever did to Russia was to slaughter a couple of pigs. I wish I had killed the whole herd!” Some captives made pitiful efforts to divide the Allies. Göring, interviewed by a Russian officer in his American prison, “whispered to his interpreter that he had something important to say, when no British or Americans were present.” They never discovered what this was.
Von Rundstedt, being driven as a captive through the ruins of Kassel, angrily reproached his escorting officer: was not he, as an American, shocked by the devastation caused by Allied bombing? Several times during their journey, reported von Rundstedt’s guardian, the rugged old veteran “broke down in tears of self-pity and rage” about the humiliations of defeat and imprisonment. The Russians reported that those members of the German high command who fell into their hands behaved in a “most defiant” manner:
They professed to be outraged that they were being isolated from the Americans and British. F-M Keitel and other generals under interrogation answered questions only briefly . . . Negotiations between General Zhukov and the Allies went well, except for the 2–3 hours delay in signing the capitulation, which was attributable to the negligence of a Foreign Ministry official, Ambassador Svirnov, who had omitted four lines from the text of the document. This was noticed by the Allies, who refused to sign the draft . . . During dinner, Keitel said that the present German government had learned its lesson from this war, and hoped that in future the German nation would display the same unity as the Soviet Union had done. He had no doubt that Germany would assume its place in the world again, and would enjoy normal relations with Russia.
General Erich von Straube, after signing the surrender of his forces in Holland to First Canadian Army, was being escorted back to the German lines by Brigadier James Roberts. After driving for some twenty minutes in silence, von Straube’s aide tapped Roberts on the shoulder and said that his commander wished to know what the brigadier had done before the war: “Were you a professional soldier?” Roberts was momentarily bemused by the question. He had indeed been a soldier for so long