The Ulrich von Hassell Diaries by Ulrich von Hassell

Author:Ulrich von Hassell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 1947-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

26 September 1942, Ebenhausen87

Ever more gloom. Stalingrad is beginning to loom large like Verdun.88 The prospect of a new winter campaign is becoming more certain against an enemy still unbroken despite having been hurt very seriously and fighting on with great difficulty. In addition increasingly heavy air raids – now even on Munich! All our possessions in the barn missed destruction by a hair’s breadth). Additionally serious casualties in Russia. Dieter [son] wrote deeply worried 16 September. The trend in his letters from 31 August to 16 September is horrifying.

It is my great worry that serious problems are beginning at the periphery. The Finnish ambassador Prokopé in Washington, whom one could always infer was ‘Western’ oriented and embraces its psychology, has made some very heretical utterances, the most significant being his drawing attention to the fact that there is no persecution of the Jews in Finland.89 The most disturbing is Japan’s statement that without large imports of iron ore she will not be able to undertake anything major.90 In Spain the feeling against us is growing very strong, while the mood in Greece (see my note) is similar.91 My political barometer Schmitt (former minister) with whom I dined at the Üxkülls’ with Vicco Bülow and K. L. Guttenberg yesterday evening, made statements which in contrast to his former dignified and optimistic outpourings prove not only his instability, but above all the collapse in public confidence. He related how in Munich after the big air raid, pictures of Hitler were thrown into the street accompanied by curses. Ilse, who fetched me today added to this that the enemy is also being roundly abused too. Vicco Bülow described a notable mood of defiant resistance in the heavily damaged towns in western Germany, but on the whole there is no doubt that defeat will come. Obviously nothing is to be expected from this ‘mood of the people’ as such.

We are the strangest mixture of heroes and slaves. The latter are particularly to be found amongst the generals, who in the most admirable way have managed to reduce their own authority before Hitler to zero. After the disasters in the East he ranted and raved again, for when things go wrong, it is not the ‘greatest warlord of all time’ who is in charge, but the generals.

Sauerbruch, who saw him recently, found him aged and drooping; in conversation he murmurs unconnected ideas: ‘I must go to India’ or ‘For every dead German, ten enemies must die’. Sauerbruch is convinced beyond doubt that Hitler is insane. After Bock [15 July], he elevated List [12 September] out of his command and also Ruoff [July] as army group commanders, also several commanding generals, amongst them the skilful Wietersheim92 and finally Halder [24 September]. In place of the latter comes Rundstedt’s chief of staff, Zeitzler, by all accounts a nasty piece of work.93 The ‘head of state’ is now leading Army Group South personally. He has viciously shut out Keitel, the man who by his servility has had heaped upon himself the heaviest guilt.

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