Adolf Hitler never trusted or liked most of his generals and field marshals. The reasons ranged from class envy to a deep disdain for the traditional German general staff system.
Many of Germany's senior officers came from aristocratic families, a fact reflected in the noble "von" that preceded so many surnames. Hitler, by contrast, had never risen above the equivalent of a private first class in the army. He had no commission and no staff training.
Hitler also disliked the way the general staff worked. Officers would argue a problem, advance competing opinions, form a plan, and then delegate responsibility to subordinate commanders. Hitler increasingly preferred to micromanage his armed forces himself. He showed little trust in his generals and little interest in having his ideas challenged.
That micromanagement produced a bizarre situation. In 1938, Hitler engineered the dismissal of his war minister, Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg. He then merged the chancellor's office with the war ministry, becoming Führer and supreme commander of the armed forces.
After Germany conquered Poland and France in 1939 and 1940, Hitler took much of the credit. At that early stage, the generals were largely responsible for the victories, though Hitler contributed a few clever ideas. His supposed military genius began to fail once Germany was embroiled in the Soviet Union. His interference and rigid orders grew worse as the war went on, hastening Germany's defeat.
It is little wonder that some of the generals Hitler disdained eventually tried to kill him and take over the war effort. The German resistance failed, and after the July 1944 bomb plot Hitler unleashed a reign of terror on the officer class. That effectively stifled dissent until the war's end.
The question remains why so many well-trained, experienced generals went along with Hitler's military leadership for so many years. The answer appears to have had little to do with loyalty to Hitler or the regime. It had more to do with human greed.
Hitler was bribing his top generals to keep them on his side. An elaborate system of secret monetary payments was established, and soon field marshals and senior generals were drawing money from the Nazi state.
Rewarding supporters is common under every political system. Monarchs have granted titles and estates, and modern honors lists have occasionally produced scandals. Winston Churchill's family rose to prominence this way, when his ancestor John Churchill won a key battle for the king and was elevated to Duke of Marlborough and rewarded so handsomely that he built Blenheim Palace.
Those honors, however, were publicly given. Hitler made his gifts in secret. Though not technically illegal, they carried the whiff of corruption. Hitler was buying his generals' loyalty.
The chief of the Reich Chancellery, Hans Heinrich Lammers, created a secret slush fund codenamed Konto 5. Its initial budget in 1933 was 150,000 marks. By 1945, Konto 5 had a budget of 40 million Reichsmarks.
During World War II, the Reichsmark had a rough exchange value of about 2.2 to the US dollar. That gave Konto 5 a 1945 value of roughly $16 million, or about $276 million in 2024 terms. The fund had no oversight from any part of the government. Payments required only Hitler's approval.
After Hitler reorganized the armed forces in 1938 and became commander in chief, he declared that the service chiefs would hold the same rank as cabinet ministers and be paid the same. On top of that came the under-the-table Konto 5 payments.
Among the recipients were General Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the OKW; General Franz Halder, chief of the OKH; Field Marshal Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe; and Grand Admiral Erich Raeder of the Kriegsmarine. In 1940, three of them were promoted again. Keitel and von Brauchitsch became field marshals, and Göring became Reichsmarschall.
All officers of field marshal or grand admiral rank received a monthly tax-free payment of 4,000 Reichsmarks from Konto 5. Other generals received 2,000 Reichsmarks. A field marshal could therefore expect 48,000 Reichsmarks a year in off-the-books income, worth about $336,000 at 2024 prices.
That was not all. Hitler usually ensured that field marshals and grand admirals received special annual birthday presents of 250,000 Reichsmarks each, tax-free. That is an astonishing $1.7 million in 2024 terms.
In total, an average German field marshal could earn about $2.2 million a year from this system. His state salary was 26,000 Reichsmarks, his monthly Konto 5 payments totaled 48,000 Reichsmarks a year, and his birthday gift added 250,000 Reichsmarks. They also received numerous tax exemptions and allowances.
Before the scheme began paying, a senior officer would meet privately with Lammers. Lammers would outline the payments available and make clear that the Konto 5 cash depended on continual loyalty to the Führer. He warned that payments could be removed for disloyalty, told the officers not to tell anyone, and instructed them to keep minimal written records.
It is therefore little wonder that the Third Reich's top military leaders failed to remove Hitler, even when opportunities presented themselves. Few generals and field marshals seem to have associated themselves with the July plot or the wider German resistance.
Many senior officers were prosecuted or killed after the July plot failed, often on very tangential evidence or distant links to resistance groups, or even because of anti-Hitler comments made in private. Historians have evidence that right up to the war's end, field marshals both serving and retired kept contacting Lammers's office to ensure their slush fund payments went to the right bank accounts.
As the Allies overran Germany, these men, despite their stiff Prussian demeanors and often their disdain for Hitler, were corrupt. Some were more corrupt than others. Taking such payments from Hitler eliminated their independence and corrupted their judgment. It allowed them to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of their own soldiers to keep their secret stipend flowing.
Erwin Rommel appears to have been one of the few senior German officers not to have taken the huge Konto 5 birthday gifts, though it is suspected he did receive the monthly stipends. Other examples found by historians are particularly egregious.
Walther von Brauchitsch divorced his wife in 1938 to marry a younger woman. Hitler used taxpayers' money to pay the entire divorce settlement, up to 250,000 Reichsmarks. Hermann Göring was told in 1943 that he could select an estate for himself in Poland. After several visits, he chose a 937-hectare estate, which was confiscated from its owner and given to Göring tax-free for his lifetime.
That gift was especially interesting. Before receiving the estate, Göring had opposed Hitler's new Operation Citadel, the offensive at Kursk on the Eastern Front. Once the estate was his, Göring suddenly changed his mind and supported the operation viciously.
Officers who were critical of Hitler, including very senior generals, often received bigger Konto 5 payments. Among them were Erich Raeder and Gerd von Rundstedt. Grand Admiral Raeder was particularly greedy, continually pestering Hitler for more money and more estates.
Some field marshals and generals were financially penalized, as Lammers had warned, for their disloyalty. When Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered to the Soviets at Stalingrad in January 1943, his Konto payments continued to his family. They were abruptly stopped in August 1943, after the Soviets persuaded Paulus to appear on the radio, where he correctly blamed Hitler for the defeat.
The largest number of field marshals and generals to lose their Konto 5 payments were those involved in the July plot, or accused of involvement. The families of Field Marshal Günther von Kluge and Generals Franz Halder and Fritz Fromm no longer received payments after they were implicated. Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, a retired officer, was executed for his part in the plot, and his family was ordered to repay substantial amounts of the bribes he had received.
After the war, surviving field marshals and generals were brought to account by the Allies. Many stood trial for war crimes committed by units under their command. When the Konto 5 bribes came up in court, these seemingly respectable and honorable military officers offered every excuse under the sun to justify the payments, embarrassing themselves badly in open court.
It is the oldest story of all: the corrupting power of money. All a German general or field marshal had to do to achieve huge wealth under the Nazi system was accept the payments and stay loyal.