“Yes my Fuhrer!” I shout just as the door to the Chancellery bunker glides open.
In walks General Dietrich von Saucken, newly reinstated from being fired last month for insisting it is pointless to continue the war.
How will The Fuhrer treat this Prussian aristocratic general? How will a general who was just fired and rehired handle meeting The Fuhrer?
General von Saucken slowly and casually walks into the room wearing his cavalry sabre and monocle.
He has his sword and monocle on, not to mention his sidearm, all are forbidden in The Fuhrer’s presence.
Seeing the Fuhrer, the general offers a soft, almost half-hearted military salute without removing his monocle.
The Nazi salute has been compulsory for all officers since the assassination attempt last July.
I eye Bormann; he looks back at me.
What will The Fuhrer do to this general who is blatantly disrespecting him?
“General Guderian, brief General von Saucken on conditions in East Prussia, and the Danzig area, where he will take over 2nd Army Group,” Hitler orders.
Did The Fuhrer not notice the general’s contempt? The general is eying the Fuhrer with such loathing.
I provide a short brief to the general, informing him of Russia’s disposition in the area and the current strength of the 2nd Army.
“And, in Danzig area you will have to accept the authority of Gauleiter Forster,” the Fuhrer adds, as an afterthought.
Ah, The Fuhrer is making General von Saucken report to a local Nazi party official, rather than a military commander. That can’t go well! No Prussian general would take orders from a party functionary.
Bormann gives me another insecure look. General von Saucken stiffens with a withering look aimed directly at the Fuhrer, who doesn’t seem to notice as he looks down at the maps on the table.
Leaning over the table, General von Saucken, who still has the monocle in his eye, slams the flat of his hand down on its solid wood surface of the table with the full force his powerful arms can deliver. The room falls silent.
Surprised by such insubordination, the Fuhrer looks up directly into General von Saucken’s eyes.
“I have no intention, Herr Hitler, of placing myself under the orders of Gauleiter!” General von Saucken declares with utter contempt for the man he sees as some mere corporal, rather than the esteemed leader of a now crumbling nation.
A small bug walking across the carpeted floor would make an echoing boom across the whole of the room in such a silence. General von Saucken just refused to take a direct order and belittled him by addressing him as “Herr Hitler” instead of “Mein Fuhrer.”
Bormann looks at me again, then looks toward General von Saucken. I look at both with an imploring visage.
Please don’t get The Fuhrer angry today! It seems Hitler is physically shrinking from the general’s words. His face looks even more waxen, his body more bowed than ever.
After a few tense moments Hitler quietly mumbles, “Alright Saucken, keep the command to yourself,” while waving the general away.
Making a half-hearted bow, without providing a Nazi salute, General von Saucken turns his back on Hitler and leaves the room.
Someone stood up to Hitler in his presence. It can be done! Finally, it has been done.
*****
General von Saucken
http://www.jmarkpowell.com/the-man-who-said-no-to-hitler-and-lived-to-tell-about-it/
On March 12, 1945, Hitler was so blatantly talked back to by one of his generals, but this time the general was not fired. The conservative Prussian aristocrat General Dietrich von Saucken did not take orders from what he referred to as the brown mob of Nazis. When Hitler ordered him to defend Danzig, he was agreeable. But, when Hitler told the general that he would take orders from the local Nazi party official, the general would not have it. Hitler relented, and the general was able to command as he saw fit, leading to a strong defense by under equipped and ill-trained men in the German 2nd Army. Hitler was feared by many, but yet he succumbed to the force of a clearly better man. Not intimidated by Hitler’s ravings nor hypnotized by his charisma, General von Saucken replied as he saw fit. How many times in Hitler’s rise to power could someone have stood up to him, preventing the horror he wrought on the world, if only they had as much nerve as this Prussian general?
General von Saucken was the last German awarded the Diamonds of The Knight’s Cross (on May 8, 1945) for his masterful defense of Danzig. He was offered a flight out to safety in the West but refused, insisting instead to surrender with his army. After surrendering, von Saucken went into Soviet captivity. He refused to sign a false letter and was subsequently sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment and sent to a Siberian work camp. Here he was tortured and spent twelve months in solitary confinement. He returned to Germany in 1955 as a marked man and settled in Munich, where he took up amateur painting. He passed away in 1980.
(Source: Beevor, Antony. Berlin the Downfall 1945 ISBN 0-670-88695-5. p.120.)