Opposition of The Nazi Party
General Bittrich was among a circle of young Reichswehr officers who appreciated the SS's military doctrine and took the opportunity to form the new service. He always described himself as convinced of large parts of the Nazi ideology, but felt disdain for his "incompetent" leaders and thought the regime's crimes would violate an officer's sense of honour.
According to German historian Heinz Höhne, Bittrich vowed to support a plot against the Nazi regime on July 15, 1944 when he met Erwin Rommel and promised that he and his troops were at Rommel's disposal if the Field Marshal so requested, but like many he warned that Hitler had to be removed from power first. This condition was never met. Bittrich is also reported to have been the most sarcastic man in Germany. He was allegedly marked for death by Heinrich Himmler in 1945 as a result of the extremely unflattering comments he made about the Nazi leadership. In any case it is known that his superiors tried to replace him by force several times; during Operation Market Garden in 1944, Himmler had sent "Reichsarzt-SS" Karl Gebhardt to relieve Bittrich from his command and bring him back to Berlin.
Following operation Market-Garden in 1944, Albert Speer visited the frontlines and had an opportunity to meet General Bittrich. Speer later wrote:
Other visits (to the front) showed me that efforts were being made on the Western Front to arrange agreements with the enemy upon special problems. At Arnhem, I found General Bittrich of the Waffen-SS in a state of fury. The day before, his Second Tank Corps had virtually wiped out a British airborne division. During the fighting the general had made an arrangement permitting the enemy to run a field hospital behind the German lines. But party functionaries had taken it upon themselves to kill captured British and American pilots, and Bittrich looked like a liar. His violent denunciation of the party was all the more striking since it came from an SS general.
After his unit had been tasked with the defense of Vienna in spring 1945, Bittrich immediately pulled his troops out of the city to save it from destruction despite the order to hold Vienna "to the last breath".
Read more about this topic: Wilhelm Bittrich
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