rise-and-fall-of-the-third-reich-william-shirer-pdf

THE ALLIED INVASION OF WESTERN EUROPE AND THE ATTEMPTTO KILL HITLER 967that Rommel would be told of the evidence against him and given the choiceof killing himself or standing trial for treason before the People’s Court. If hechose the first he would be given a state funeral with full military honors andhis family would not be molested.Thus it was that at noon on October 14, 1944, two generals from Hitler’sheadquarters drove up to the Rommel home, which was now surrounded by S.S.troops reinforced by five armored cars. The generals were Wilhelm Burgdorf,an alcoholic, florid-faced man who rivaled Keitel in his slavishness to Hitler, andhis assistant in the Army Personnel Office, Ernst Maisel, of like character. Theyhad sent word ahead to Rommel that they were coming from Hitler to discusshis ”next employment.””At the instigation of the Fuehrer,” Keitel later testified, ”I sent Burgdorfthere with a copy of the testimony against Rommel. If it were true, he wasto take the consequences. If it were not true, he would be exonerated by thecourt.””And you instructed Burgdorf to take some poison with him, didn’t you?”Keitel was asked.”Yes. I told Burgdorf to take some poison along so that he could put it atRommel’s disposal, if conditions warranted it.”After Burgdorf and Maisel arrived it soon became evident that they had notcome to discuss Rommel’s next assignment. They asked to talk with the FieldMarshal alone and the three men retired to his study.”A few minutes later,” Manfred Rommel later related, ”I heard my fathercome upstairs and go into my mother’s room.” Then:We went into my room. ”I have just had to tell your mother,” hebegan slowly, ”that I shall be dead in a quarter of an hour . . . Hitleris charging me with high treason. In view of my services in AfricaI am to have the chance of dying by poison. The two generals havebrought it with them. It’s fatal in three seconds. If I accept, none ofthe usual steps will be taken against my family . . . I’m to be givena state funeral. It’s all been prepared to the last detail. In a quarterof an hour you will receive a call from the hospital in Ulm to saythat I’ve had a brain seizure on the way to a conference.”And that is what happened.Rommel, wearing his old Afrika Korps leather jacket and grasping his fieldmarshal’s baton, got into the car with the two generals, was driven a mile or twoup the road by the side of a forest, where General Maisel and the S.S. driver gotout, leaving Rommel and General Burgdorf in the back seat. When the two menreturned to the car a minute later, Rommel was slumped over the seat, dead.Burgdorf paced up and down impatiently, as though he feared he would belate for lunch and his midday drinks. Fifteen minutes after she had bidden herhusband farewell, Frau Rommel received the expected telephone call from thehospital. The chief doctor reported that two generals had brought in the bodyof the Field Marshal, who had died of a cerebral embolism, apparently as theresult of his previous skull fractures. Actually Burgdorf had gruffly forbiddenan autopsy. ”Do not touch the corpse,” he stormed. ”Everything has alreadybeen arranged in Berlin.”It had been.