West of Delancey: Hamas, Iran and the Holocaust

Even though the Second World War ended more than 62 years ago, new secrets keep coming out. One of them, in a new book to be published in August, Taping Hitler’s Generals, tells the amazing story of how the British Secret Service taped the conversations of high-ranking Nazi generals that were captured and in British custody during WWII. The transcripts of the conversations go to the heart of the question – Was the German Army – the Wehrmacht complicit with Hitler’s war crimes against the Jews?

At Nuremberg, an historic distinction was made on the question of culpability. The judges decided that those who were members of the SS, Gestapo, and SD were automatically adjudicated as belonging to criminal organizations, while the Wehrmacht escaped such general classification. While a few high-ranking German generals such as Alfred Jodl, Chief of Operations of the German Army and Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of Staff of the Wehrmacht were convicted of war crimes and hanged at Nuremberg, they were the exceptions to the rule.

Most of the leadership of the German Army escaped charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The premise being that the “Final Solution” against the Jews was carried out by police organizations under secret orders from Hitler, Himmler, and Senior SS leaders, without the knowledge of the Army command.

But the new British intercepts of high-ranking German generals, that were held in Trent Park in North London, blur that distinction. 

For example, General Dietrich von Choltitz, famous for having refused Hitler’s orders to burn Paris, is heard on the transcripts as saying that when he was in the Crimea in 1941, he was told by the CO of the airfield where he was flying, “Good Lord, I’m not supposed to tell, but they’ve been shooting Jews for days now.” 

General von Thoma is heard saying, “I am actually ashamed to be an officer,” explaining that he had protested to the Army Chief of Staff, General Franz Halder about the atrocities, only to be told “that’s a political matter and nothing to do with me.” When he protested to the Army Commander Chief, General Walther von Brauchitz, he was told, “do you want me to take it further – if you do, anything might happen.” 

More horrifying, is the conversation of Lieutenant General Heinrich Kittel, who was overheard telling Major General Paul von Felbert, “the things I’ve experienced in Latvia near Dvinsk – there were mass executions of Jews – there were about 15 SS and 60 Latvians known to be the most brutal people in the world.  When I was lying in bed, I kept hearing shots.” He then investigated and found “men, women and children counted and stripped naked. 

The executioners laid the clothes in one pile, then 20 women had to take up their positions naked on the edge of the trench – they were then shot and fell down into it.” “How was it done?” asks General Felbert. “They faced the trench and then 20 Latvians came up behind and simply fired through the back of the heads.” 

Kittel then says he gave orders forbidding such executions where people can look on. “If you shoot people in the woods, or somewhere where no one can see,” he said to the SS men, “then that’s your own affair, but no shooting here. We’re drinking water from the springs and we’re getting nothing but corpse water here.” “What did they do to the children?,” General Felbert asks him. Sounding excited according to the transcriber, Kittel answers, “they seized 3 year old children by the hair, held them up, shot them with a pistol and then threw them in. I saw that myself.” 

Another General, Hans Schaeffer, asks General Kittel, “Did they weep? Did they have any idea what was in store for them?” “They knew perfectly well,” was the reply.

Later on Kittel muses, “If one were to destroy all the Jews of the world simultaneously, there wouldn’t remain a single accuser. Those Jews are the pests of the East.” “What happened to the young, pretty girls,” General Felbert asks, as the conversation turns to the concentration camps. “Were they formed into a harem?” “I didn’t bother about that,” Kittel answers. “I only found they did become more reasonable. You have no idea what mean and stupid things are done.”

Later on, that day, General Kittel tells Schaeffer about Auschwitz. He says, “In upper Silesia, they simply slaughtered the people systematically. They were gassed in a big hall –there’s the greatest secrecy about all those things.” Later, he adds, “I’m going to hold my tongue about what I know about these things.”

What a desecration to the memory of the victims that British Intelligence held on to these intercepts for so long, and for no reason. 

And what a lesson for our contemporary world, particularly those in Europe, who like making similar distinctions, like distinguishing between the military wing of Hamas and the political leadership perpetuating the myth that Hamas government leaders are not informed and do not approve of terrorist operations. 

The lesson of these intercepts teaches us that genocide cannot be carried out by a few people – it takes a village and a mindset of a whole nation to create an Auschwitz. At the very least, the British government should send these intercepts by special courier to President Ahmadinijad and Khaled Mashaal, the notorious Holocaust deniers of our time.

For more information on this issue, go to www.wiesenthal.com