The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

by William L. Shirer

Rundstedt did not protest against this restriction, nor did another member of the court, General Guderian—who the day after the bombing had been appointed as the new Chief of the Army General Staff—though the latter, in his memoirs, confesses that it was an “unpleasant task,” that the court sessions were “melancholy” and raised “the most difficult problems of conscience.” No doubt they did, for Rundstedt, Guderian and their fellow judges—all generals—turned over hundreds of their comrades to certain execution after degrading them by throwing them out of the Army. Guderian did more. In his capacity of General Staff Chief he issued two ringing orders of the day to assure the Nazi warlord of the undying loyalty of the officer corps. The first, promulgated on July 23, accused the conspirators of being “a few officers, some of them on the retired list, who had lost all courage and, out of cowardice and weakness, preferred the road of disgrace to the only road open to an honest soldier—the road of duty and honor.” Whereupon he solemnly pledged to the Fuehrer “the unity of the generals, of the officer corps and of the men of the Army.”