In Europe

by train to Naples, then by ship across the Mediterranean to Tripoli. Back in those days you could simply walk into an Italian hotel andask the switchboard operator to put you through to any telephone number in England. That was typical of the situation. During the African campaign there was a sort of mutual code of chivalry. You see, we, the Germans and the British, formed lonely little tank groups out there in that enormous void. We raced around in the desert, we tried to outsmart the Tommies, we could intercept each other's messages, we knew each other's names. Sometimes we would leave a crate of beer behind for them, or they would leave a few bottles of whisky for us. Of course people were killed or wounded. But the war didn't have the kind of stark horror that it did later on.
    ‘Did I have any doubts at that point about the outcome? I don't think so. We were very optimistic. Our tanks and armaments were, at first at least, much better than those of the British. Germany wanted to conquer Egypt and reach the Suez Canal from the other side as well, by way of the Caucasus and Turkey. But when we realised how dependent we were on our overseas supply lines, and when we saw how those were being cut off by the British submarines, that is actually when we started to worry.
    ‘Rommel scavenged for his own supplies by attacking British fuel dumps. We got away with that a few times, but of course you can't run a campaign on that basis. Even that early in the proceedings we started wondering out loud among ourselves whether this would all turn out all right in the longer term. I still clearly remember crowding around a short-wave receiver in the middle of the desert at 5 a.m. and hearing that German troops had crossed the Russian border. “This is the end of our successes,” I said to the soldiers around me. “This is a decisive day. Now we are getting into a war on two fronts again, and, just like Napoleon, we will get caught in it.” I said that out loud, and no one contradicted me. Everyone was thinking the same thing: the Führer has gone mad. That was on 22 June, 1941.
    ‘After that our Afrika Korps began running into trouble. The British had received reinforcements, they had a brilliant new commander, Montgomery, and they had new tanks: American Shermans. During a reconnaissance mission we were taken by surprise by the first column of Shermans we had ever seen, and we barely got out of there alive. We were hit badly. I had some shrapnel in my chest, so I was taken back to a German hospital. Once I'd been patched up again, I went back to Potsdam for further military training.
    ‘In Berlin, I saw Jews walking around wearing stars. But I had absolutely no idea how bad the situation was for them. As young, up-and-coming officers, everyone wined and dined us, including the diplomats. But we never heard a thing about the mass murder of the Jews, which by that time was already going on in the East. I'm not trying to make excuses for myself, but, unlike many other officers, I had not personally attended mass executions on the Eastern Front. Those kinds of things were not going on in Africa. And when I got to Stalingrad later there were almost no civilians left, never mind Jews. Don't forget, staff officers like us lived in a fairly isolated world of our own. None of us belonged to the Nazi Party, we weren't even allowed to.
    ‘I spent almost a year in Berlin. I went through training, there were lots of parties, I met my future wife. But in October 1942 that was all over. I was ordered to join the staff of General Paulus, the commander-in-chief of the 6th Army at Stalingrad. I was in charge of updating the maps that showed our positions and those of the enemy. I knew exactly how the supplies were running, how many tons had been flown in, how many tons were dropped, etc. The person who is in charge of that is one of the best-informed officers in the whole army. That's why they chose me to tell Hitler the truth.
    ‘When I arrived at Stalingrad I was given a detailed briefing by the person in charge of enemy-troop reconnaissance, a man by the name of Niemeyer, a very pleasant fellow. He showed me his maps, they were covered with red lines. “Take a good look,” he said. “We're in big trouble. That's what we tell headquarters every day, but no one up there wants to listen. Look here: 2,000 Russian vehicles, with their lights on, have been sighted over here, and over there we've spotted hundreds of tanks, all moving