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Bribery of senior Wehrmacht officers

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Corruption within the Wehrmacht refers to the dishonest or fraudulent conduct of the high-ranking officers of the Armed Forces of Nazi Germany to enrich themselves through bribes from the regime. The corruption mechanisms tied the Wehrmacht to the Nazi regime and demanded loyalty in exchange for personal wealth in cash and estates. It was one of the elements that aligned the military with Adolf Hitler's colonial and genocidal goals during World War II.

Mechanism

In order to ensure the absolute loyalty of the Wehrmacht officers and to console them over the loss of their "state within the state", Hitler had created what the American historian Gerhard Weinberg called a "...a vast secret program of bribery involving practically all at the highest levels of command".[1] Hitler routinely presented his leading commanders with "gifts" of free estates, cars, cheques made out for large sums of cash and lifetime exemptions from paying taxes.[2] Typical of the Führer's "gifts" was the cheque made out for a half-million Reichmarks presented to Field-Marshal Günther von Kluge in October 1942 together with the promise that Kluge could bill the German treasury for any and all "improvements" he might wish to make to his estate.[2]

Such was the success of Hitler's bribery system that by 1942 many officers had come to expect the receiving of "gifts" from Hitler, and were not willing to bite the hand that so generously fed them.[2] When Hitler sacked Field Marshal Fedor von Bock in December 1941, Bock's first reaction was to contact Hitler's aide Rudolf Schmundt to ask him if his sacking meant that he was not longer to receive bribes from Konto 5 slush fund.[3]

Konto 5 special fund

The basis of the corruption system were regular monthly tax-free payments deposited in their bank accounts of 4,000 Reichmarks for field marshals and grand admirals and 2,000 Reichmarks for all other senior officers, which came from a special fund called Konto 5 run by the chief of the Reich Chancellery, Hans Lammers.[4] On top of the money from Konto 5, officers received as birthday presents cheques usually made out for the sum of 250,000 Reichmarks, which were exempt from income taxes, through taxes had to paid on interest earned from them.[5]

This money came as an addition to the official salary of 26,000 Reichmarks a year for field marshals and grand admirals and 24,000 Reichmarks a year for colonel generals and general admirals plus tax-exempt payments of 400 and 300 Reichmarks a month to help deal with rising living costs in war-time.[6] In addition, senior officers were given a life-time exemption from paying income tax, which was in effect a huge pay raise given Germany's high income tax rates (by 1939, there was a 65% tax rate for income over 2, 400 R.M) and they were also provided with spending allowances for food, medical care, clothing, and housing.[6] By way of contrast, infantrymen who given the dangerous task of clearing landmines were given a one Reichmark a day danger pay supplement.[6]

The money from Konto 5 was deposited for the officer's life-time, and did not stop if the officer retired.[7] In the last months of the war, Erich von Manstein, Wilhelm List, Georg von Küchler, and Maximilian von Weichs kept on changing the bank accounts into which Lammers had the money from Konto 5 deposited in order to avoid the Allied advance.[6] Much correspondence followed between these officers and Lammers as they kept writing anxiously to make certain that Lammers was depositing their monthly bribes into the right accounts.[6]

Nature of payments

Every officer who started to receive the money always had a meeting with Lammers first, who informed them that the future payments would depend on much loyalty they were willing to show Hitler, and what the Führer gave with one hand, could just as easily be taken away with the other.[8] Payments from Konto 5 to the bank account of General Friedrich Paulus stopped in August 1943 not because Paulus had lost the Battle of Stalingrad, but because Paulus had gone on Soviet radio to blame Hitler for the defeat.[9] In the same way, after the failure of July 20 putsch of 1944, the families of Erwin Rommel, Franz Halder, Friedrich Fromm and Günther von Kluge were punished by being cut off from the monthly payments from Konto 5.[9] In the case of Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, it was demanded that his family pay back all of the bribe money he had taken from Konto 5 since the money was given as a reward for loyalty to the Führer, which Witzleben was evidently not.[9] The illicit nature of these payments was underlined by Lammers when he informed the officer that he was to receive money from Konto 5 when Lammers warned them not to speak about these payments to anyone and to keep as few written records as possible.[8]

The Konto 5 slush fund run by Lammers started with a budget of about 150,000 R.M in 1933 and by 1945 had grown to about 40 million R.M.[4] Payments from Konto 5, known officially as Aufwandsentschädigungen (compensation for expenses) had made to Cabinet ministers and senior civil servants from April 1936 onwards.[10] As part of the reorganization of the military command structure following the Blomberg–Fritsch Affair in early 1938, it was declared that the service chiefs, namely OKW chief Wilhelm Keitel, Army commander Walter von Brauchitsch, Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring and Kriegsmarine commander Erich Raeder were to have the same status as Cabinet ministers and as such, they all started to receive publicly the same pay as a Cabinet member and privately payments from Konto 5.[11]

Recipients

August von Mackensen

The first officer to be bribed into loyalty was the old World War I hero Field Marshal August von Mackensen, who criticized the Nazi regime for the murder of General Kurt von Schleicher in a speech before General Staff Association in February 1935, and to silence him, Hitler gave Mackensen a free estate of 1,250 hectares later that same year in exchange for a promise never to criticize the Nazi regime again in either public or private.[12] The agreement mostly worked; Mackensen never criticized the Nazi regime in public again, through Hitler was much offended in February 1940 when Mackensen mentioned to Walter von Brauchitsch his view that the army had disgraced itself by committing massacres during the recent campaign in Poland. Hitler felt that to be a violation of their agreement of 1935, through Mackensen was not punished by losing his estate.[12]

Walter von Brauchitsch

In 1938 Brauchitsch had decided to divorce his wife to marry a much younger woman who happened to be a "two hundred per cent rabid Nazi".[13] The divorce court had a less kind view of Brauchitsch's decision to end his marriage than did Brauchitsch's political master, and awarded a substantial settlement in favor of the first Frau von Brauchitsch. Hitler then won Brauchitsch's eternal gratitude by agreeing to use the German tax-payers' money to pay his entire divorce settlement, said to have been between 80,000 and 250,000 R.M.[14] Given that Brauchitsch had been promoted Army commander to replace Fritsch who had resigned following false allegations of homosexuality, and Brauchitsch had been very much a compromise candidate as the Army had refused to accept Hitler's first choice of Walther von Reichenau as Fritsch's successor,[15] paying Brauchitsch's divorce settlement might be deemed a good investment for the Nazi regime.

Heinz Guderian

Besides for the money, General Heinz Guderian was also rewarded with a bribe of a free estate of 937 hectares (which was also tax-free for his entire life-time) in Poland which was confiscated from its Polish owner, and handed over to Guderian.[16] Guderian was informed in early 1943 that if he wanted an estate in Poland, to tell Hitler whose land he wanted and he would get it, which led Guderian to make several visits to Poland to find the right estate to steal. This caused some problems with the SS, which also had designs on some of the estates that Guderian desired before a deal was worked out about what estate Guderian could take.[16] Much of Guderian's fury that he expressed in his 1950 memoirs Erinnerungen eines Soldaten about what he regarded as unjust border changes after the war in Poland's favor seemed to be related to Guderian's intensely held private view that the Poles had no right to take away from him the estate that Hitler had given him in Poland.[17]

The American historian Norman Goda wrote that after Guderian received his estate in Poland in the spring of 1943, that the doubts that he had been expressing since late 1941 about the Hitler's military leadership suddenly ceased to be expressed, and he became one of Hitler's most ardent military supporters, or as Goebbels described him in his diary, "a glowing and unqualified follower of the Führer".[18] Before receiving his "gift" of a Polish estate, Guderian as Inspector General for the Panzers had been opposed to the plans for Operation Zitadelle, which was to lead to the Battle of Kursk, one of Germany's worst defeats of the war; after receiving the estate, Guderian did a 180° turn about the wisdom of Operation Zitadelle.[18] Instead of criticizing Zitadelle openly, Guderian approached Goebbels to ask him if he could somehow talk Hitler out of Zitadelle, behavior that Goda described as very atypical for Guderian.[18] Guderian was well known for his brash, bluntly outspoken style; for his rudeness to those he disliked (in a notorious incident later in 1943, Guderian refused to shake the hand of Field Marshal Kluge because as he told Kluge to his face he was not worthy of shaking hands with) and for using vulgar, profanity-ridden language to describe a plan if he believed it to be bad one.[18][19]

During the July 20 putsch of 1944, Guderian ordered Panzer units to Berlin to crush the putsch, and then sat on the Court of Honor that had the responsibility of expelling officers involved in the putsch so that they could be tried before the Volksgerichtshof, a duty that Guderian performed with considerable zeal.[20] It was only after January 1945, when Guderian's estate fell behind Soviet lines that Guderian began to once more to disagree with Hitler, disagreements that were so intense that Hitler fired Guderian as Chief of the General Staff in March 1945.[21]

Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb

Through this did not involve taking away someone's else land, in 1943 the retired Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb managed to have the German state buy him an entire district of prime forest land valued at 638,000 Reichmarks in Bavaria in which to build his estate.[22] In late June-early July 1941, Leeb as the commander of Army Group North had witnessed first-hand the massacres committed by the Einsatzgruppen, Lithuanian auxiliaries and the men of the 16th Army outside of Kaunas.[23] Leeb was described as being "moderately disturbed" after seeing the killing fields of Kaunas, and sent in mildly critical reports about the massacres.[23] Leeb approved of the killing of Lithuanian Jewish men, claiming that this was justified by the crimes that they were supposed to have been involved in during the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, but that the killing of women and children might have been taking things too far.[24] In response, Hitler's aide General Rudolf Schmundt told Leeb that he was completetly out of line in criticizing the massacres at Kaunas, and should in the future co-operate fully with the SS in "special tasks".[23]

Schmundt asked if Leeb really appreciated his monthly payments from Konto 5, and reminded him that was birthday was coming up in September, for which the Führer was planning to give him a 250,000 R.M cheque as a birthday present in reward for his loyalty. Leeb never said a word in protest about the "Final Solution" again, and duly received his 250, 000 R.M cheque as his birthday present in September 1941.[25] In September 1941, Franz Walter Stahlecker, the commander of Einsatzgruppe A in a report to Berlin had nothing but praise for Leeb's Army Group North, which Stahlecker reported had been exemplary in co-operating with his men in murdering Jews in the Baltic states.[26] The American historian Norman Goda used Leeb as an all-too typical example of a Wehrmacht officer whose greed overwhelmed any sort of moral revulsion that they might had felt about the Holocaust.[25]

Other officers

In general, officers who were in some way critical of Hitler's military, if not necessarily political leadership, such as Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, Admiral Erich Raeder, and Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt received (and accepted) larger bribes than officers who were well known to be convinced National Socialists such as General Walter Model, Admiral Karl Dönitz and Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner.[23] The success of Hitler's bribery system backfired in that some officers, who proven themselves especially greedy such as Guderian and Raeder came to be regarded by Hitler as a serious annoyance because of their endless demands for more money and more free land for their estates.[27] Raeder's demand in 1942 that on top of his life-time exemption from paying income taxes that Hitler also cancel out taxes on the interest he earned from his 4,000 Reichmarks a month payment from Konto 5 was viewed as outrageous.[27] In 1944, Wolfram von Richthofen wrote to the OKW to argue that since he was stationed in Italy, that at least 1,000 Reichmarks of the 4,000 Reichmarks deposited in his bank account every month should be in lire to cancel out the effects of rampant inflation in Italy, a demand that was regarded as unreasonable even by Keitel, who normally did not reject to providing financial rewards of service for the Führer.[28]

Post-war

The subject of corruption proved to be an embarrassing one for its recipients. Under oath at Nuremberg, Walther von Brauchitsch committed perjury when he denied taking any bribes.[29] Brauchitsch's bank records showed that he had been receiving 4,000 R.M/month payments from Konto 5 from 1938 until the end of the war.[29] At his trial in 1948, General Franz Halder perjured himself when he denied that he had taken bribes, and then had to maintain a stern silence when the American prosecutor James M. McHaney produced bank records showing otherwise.[29] Erhard Milch admitted accepting money when under oath in 1947, but claimed that this was only compensation for the salary that he had been making as an executive at Lufthansa, a claim that Goda called "ridiculous".[29] Weinberg commented that "the bribery system understandably does not figure prominently in the endless memoir literature of the recipients and has attracted little scholarly attention".[30]

Known participants

References

Notes

Citations

  1. ^ Weinberg, p. 455.
  2. ^ a b c Wheeler-Bennett, p. 529.
  3. ^ Goda, p. 124.
  4. ^ a b Goda, p. 102.
  5. ^ Goda, p. 111.
  6. ^ a b c d e Goda, p. 108.
  7. ^ Goda, p. 113.
  8. ^ a b Goda, p. 105.
  9. ^ a b c Goda, p. 106.
  10. ^ Goda, p. 103.
  11. ^ Goda, p. 130.
  12. ^ a b Goda, p. 110.
  13. ^ Shirer, p. 319.
  14. ^ Goda, pp. 102 & 129.
  15. ^ Wheeler-Bennett, pp. 370–371.
  16. ^ a b Goda, p. 115.
  17. ^ Goda, p. 116.
  18. ^ a b c d Goda, p. 126.
  19. ^ Murray & Millet, p. 72.
  20. ^ Goda, pp. 126–127.
  21. ^ Goda, p. 127.
  22. ^ Goda, p. 117.
  23. ^ a b c d Goda, p. 112.
  24. ^ Krausnick, Helmut & Wilhelm, Hans-Heinrich Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges: Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD 1938–1942, Stuttgart: 1981 pages 207–209.
  25. ^ a b Goda, p. 112–113.
  26. ^ Hilberg, Raul The Destruction of the European Jews, New York: Holmes & Meier, 1985, p. 301
  27. ^ a b Goda, p. 125.
  28. ^ Goda, pp. 124–125.
  29. ^ a b c d Goda, p. 123.
  30. ^ Weinberg, p. 1045.

Bibliography

  • Goda, Norman (2005). "Black Marks: Hitler's Bribery of his Senior Officers During World War II". In Kreike, Emmanuel; Jordan, William Chester (eds.). Corrupt Histories. Toronto: Hushion House. pp. 96–137. ISBN 978-1-58046-173-3. Originally published as: Goda, Norman (June 2000). "Black Marks: Hitler's Bribery of his Senior Officers During World War II". The Journal of Modern History. 72 (2): 413–452. doi:10.1086/315994.
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