On 15 December Rundstedt put out his ‘order of the day’, exhorting his troops on the eve of battle. ‘Soldiers of the western front!’ he proclaimed. ‘Your great hour has struck. Strong attacking armies are marching today against the Anglo-Americans. I don’t need to say any more. You all feel it: it’s all or nothing!’ Model’s own ringing exhortation followed: ‘We will not disappoint the trust of the Führer placed in us, nor that of the homeland, which has forged the sword of retaliation. Advance in the spirit of Leuthen’ (the legendary victory of Frederich the Great in the Seven Years War, almost two centuries earlier).18 At 5.30 a.m. on 16 December, an hour-long artillery barrage began. About 7 a.m., before sunrise on a frosty morning, with thick cloud offering protection from enemy aircraft, the German infantry marched out of the dawn mist and began their assault. Germany’s last major offensive was under way. The stakes could scarcely have been higher. They were indeed, as Jodl had put it, all placed on one card.
II
Nor had the civilian leadership of the Reich given up hope that depressing autumn. Whatever illusions Nazi leaders harboured, however ready they were to delude themselves and listen to their own propaganda, they were intelligent enough to see how rapidly the situation was deteriorating. Yet they still somehow hoped against hope that Hitler would find a way out, that the Allied coalition would collapse under the weight of its own contradictions, or that the deployment of new ‘wonder weapons’ could bring a dramatic change of fortunes.
Few Nazi leaders were apprised of the plan for the Ardennes offensive. One who was, however, was Albert Speer, among the most resigned about Germany’s inevitable fate (to go from his later account) but possibly the most crucial of Hitler’s immediate lieutenants in enabling the war to continue. Without Speer’s efforts, drive and organizational skill in the autumn of 1944 in making the armaments available, the Ardennes offensive would not have been feasible however much Hitler and his top military aides wanted it.
It is striking, in fact, how late the almost complete collapse of the economy took place and how great the efforts were, even then, to overcome the increasingly insuperable difficulties. In their post-war interrogations, Speer and the leading figures in his ministry were adamant that the damage to Germany’s economic infrastructure only became insurmountable during the autumn of 1944, largely as a consequence of the systematic destruction of the transport and communications network through a relentless Allied bombing campaign that had begun in October. Whatever their private thoughts about Germany’s chances of avoiding defeat, the actions of Speer’s able and energetic subordinates showed they were far from resigned to inevitable disaster. They performed organizational near miracles (if in part by grossly inhumane exploitation of foreign workers) to enable the economy to continue functioning at all, prolonging the war in its most destructive phase. Some indeed, most notably Karl Otto Saur, the ruthless head of the Technical Department, retained an astonishingly optimistic view of Germany’s chances almost down to the end of 1944.
By the autumn of 1944 it was impossible to manufacture enough to compensate for the losses.19 Heavy air raids caused a sharp drop in the availability of steel for manufacture of ammunition.20 Coal production was cushioned until late autumn by reduced deliveries for winter stocking, but catastrophic from November onwards, while serious shortages of most indispensable basic products mounted in the second half of 1944. Speer reckoned that there was a drop in armaments production of 30–40 per cent across 1944, worsening sharply as the year went on. By late autumn there were critical shortages of fuel and gas. The emergency needs of the Luftwaffe could be met only until around October. Aviation fuel levels could not be sustained following the attacks earlier in the year on the synthetic oil plants, though minimum production of motor spirit and diesel oil continued to the end of the war. By autumn, anti-aircraft defence was being accorded priority over fighter production. Speer estimated that some 30 per cent of the total output of guns in 1944 and 20 per cent of heavy calibre ammunition together with up to 55 per cent of armaments production of the electro-technical industry and 33 per cent of the optical industry went on anti-aircraft defences, meaning diminished armaments provision for the front and a weakening in the fighting power of the Wehrmacht. Emergency transport arrangements meant that armaments production could be more or less sustained until late autumn. By then, increasingly damaging attacks on the transport network, including crucial attacks on canals in late autumn, were causing massive disruption to both civilian and military supplies, to the growing concern of the OKW. The severe lack of fuel and other supplies so evident at the outset of the Ardennes offensive, which worried Model and Dietrich, arose in good part from the transport difficulties as the number of railway wagons available for armaments fell by more than a half. Speer went so far as to claim that transport problems, meaning that adequate fuel supplies could not be provided to the frontline troops on time, were decisive in causing the swift breakdown of the Ardennes offensive.21
Speer’s departmental heads broadly agreed with his assessment that late autumn was the time when the economic crisis became overwhelming. According to Hans Kehrl, head of the Raw Materials and Planning departments, the concentrated Allied attacks on the Reich’s transport system had an increasingly drastic effect on production from October onwards and became a decisive factor after December. He estimated that the drop in output owing to lack of transport facilities was around 25 per cent from June to October, but 60 per cent between November and January 1945.22 The effects on the distribution of raw materials were particularly severe. Werner Bosch, in Kehrl’s department, highlighted the critical shortage of cement, needed for building works (including the extensive underground factories run largely on slave labour), as supplies halved from November onwards. He allocated the dwindling supplies through rigorous rationing on a system of priorities. He claimed after the war that he had realized by spring 1944 that the war could not be won and thought (as, he imagined, did Speer himself) that Germany’s leadership should have sought peace terms as soon as possible. ‘As it was, however,’ he remarked, ‘people in his position could do nothing except get on with their own work.’23 Whatever his post-war claims and his private reflections at the time, Bosch, in ‘getting on with his own work’ so effectively in the interests of the war effort, had helped to keep things going even in such desperate straits.
The impact of the transport crisis on iron and steel production in the escalating crisis of the autumn was extremely grave. Supplies from Belgium and France had dried up during the summer, but German production remained almost at full capacity until September before entering upon a steep decline from October onwards, and was down by half in December from 2 to 1 million tons in the month.24 Hermann Röchling, head of the Reich Iron Federation and a member of the Technical Department in Speer’s ministry, pointed out the huge drop, about 350,000 metric tons a month, in raw steel when Lorraine and Luxemburg fell out of production, then the big fall of around 50 per cent in production from the Saar and the Ruhr district, partly on account of disruption of the railways through bombing.25 In the Ruhr, Germany’s biggest industrial heartland, steel production had been sustained at relatively stable levels, despite increased difficulties, during the first nine months of 1944, according to Dr Walther Rohland, head of the main committee for the iron-producing industry in the Speer Ministry and Deputy Chief of the Reich Iron Federation. Reserves were, however, almost used up by September. Then, from October, a drastic deterioration set in as the transport crisis deepened.26
According to Günther Schulze-Fielitz, head of the Energy Department, the total capacity of Germany’s power stations had expanded during each year of the war. Electricity supplies held up well until November but then declined sharply as coal deliveries became seriously impaired. By November, coal stocks at power stations were down by 30 per cent compared with the previous year. Many had sufficient coal for only a week.27 As most of the reports acknowledged, the impact of the incessant air raids on transport installations was u
ppermost in the production problems by late 1944. By the end of the autumn the difficulties were becoming impossible to surmount.
Without the constant improvisation in all production areas by Speer’s capable subordinates, the decline would undoubtedly have set in earlier and been more steep. Richard Fiebig, head of the main committee for railway vehicles, pointed out, for instance, that through efficiencies his department ‘not only succeeded in balancing the losses of workshops through bombing and loss of territory, but we actually increased the output’. From September, 1,100 to 1,200 locomotives per month were being lost to enemy raids, but 6,800 were being repaired each month during the autumn, in spite of decreasing repair capacity.28 Extraordinarily rapid, though inevitably piecemeal, repairs were also made in towns and cities, in factories and workshops, after bombing raids, thanks in no small part to the surplus of manpower through inactive production that the raids themselves had made available. From autumn onwards, between 1 and 1.5 million people were at any one time engaged on work resulting from air-raid damage.29
Perhaps most remarkably, according to Saur, owing to long gestation periods in production the total output of weapons increased continuously throughout 1944, reaching its absolute peak for practically all weapon types in December 1944.30 Saur was prone to excessive optimism (and invariably ready to convey this to Hitler). He went so far as to claim, as ‘one of the best informed men in Germany as to the war situation’, that, on a purely statistical basis, Germany’s situation on the eve of the Ardennes offensive ‘looked good’. He pointed out that Germany’s total number of soldiers under arms was greater than ever before, as was production of guns, tanks and U-boats in that month and the quantity of weapons and ammunition in the hands of the fighting troops. Of course, as he acknowledged, when it came to the quality of the troops, which had certainly fallen as increasingly the young, ill-trained or battle-weary were conscripted, it was a different matter. Saur’s final point, emphasizing the great numerical strength of the Volkssturm, whose fighting capabilities were widely derided within both the Wehrmacht and in the civilian population, is sufficient indication of the spurious grounds for his apparently optimistic outlook. Nevertheless, it is striking that, far from being resigned to inevitable defeat, Saur still felt that at the outset of the Ardennes offensive ‘Germany held many good cards’.31
Speer certainly did all he could during the deepening transport and production crisis that autumn to sustain the faltering German war economy. His efforts included a visit to the Ruhr and three to the western front to inspect the extent of the crisis and assess what improvised measures could be taken to improve the dire situation. Each time he reported directly to Hitler, enabling him to put specific proposals in his briefings in the full expectation of gaining Hitler’s approval.32
On 11 November he informed Hitler of the increasingly serious situation in the Ruhr district, subjected to systematic intense bombing that autumn.33 Transport was the overriding concern. Speer appointed a plenipotentiary, the head of the Reichsbahn administration, Dr Karl Lammerz, with powers to coordinate transport throughout the region without waiting for directions from Berlin, and also organized emergency measures to keep supplies moving (including food for the civilian population) and set industry to work again. These involved deploying 50,000 foreign workers supplied by Bormann by removing them from digging fortifications, another 30,000 taken from the armaments industry – a sign of the desperation – and 4,500 skilled electricians, pipe-layers and welders brought in from other parts of the Reich. The Gauleiter were ordered by Bormann to draft the local population of their areas, if necessary, to help in the removal of damage. Some 10 per cent of mineworkers were envisaged for this work, even at the cost of temporarily reducing output from the pits – another extraordinary reflection of how bad the situation was. Other emergency measures were put in place to clear the waterways. The local population was to be mobilized, as in times of flood emergencies, to help in repairing the damage. Despite all this, Speer pointed out, it was not possible in the short term to prevent a drastic drop in production. The severity of the damage meant that stockpiles of coal sufficed for no more than ten days and would be exhausted by the end of November if no great improvement could be made. Rail transport, gas and electricity supplies were seriously threatened. He was, therefore, instigating an emergency programme (including strict allocation of railway wagons and priority for coal transportation) that would guarantee at least partial armaments production and sustain current levels of arms deliveries in the short term.34
Between 15 and 23 November Speer visited several units of Army Group B, the Krupp works at Essen and several other major concerns in the Ruhr. He made a number of recommendations to overcome the damage to waterways, shipping and bridges, and improve anti-aircraft defences. He urged the accelerated expansion of aerodromes to take the Messerschmitt 262 jet-fighter and other modern planes, and more efficient use of the labour force. He was critical about the sluggishness in providing the necessary labour from other parts of the Reich, especially when 128,000 men from the Ruhr, among them skilled workers, had been conscripted for fortification work outside the area when they were so badly needed to restore the damaged Ruhr industrial heartland. He wanted alterations in steel allocation, with priority to be removed from U-boats and shifted to restoration of transport and reconstruction of Ruhr industrial works. Otherwise, he could propose only minor improvements. Lack of transport meant people were having to walk long distances to work each day over damaged roads. There was a shortage of shoes, which Speer requested be provided from elsewhere in the Reich. Because of damage to power stations and electricity cables, many people were without lighting. He recommended a ‘special action’ to provide candles and other means of lighting, including pit-lamps. Factories could not contact each other since the telephone system was not fully working, and the Reich postal service did not have the manpower to restore the system. He advocated a communications regiment from the army to be sent to restore and maintain a communications system for industry. Overall, the tenor of his report was that, despite the huge damage, there were still unused capacities of labour and resources if systematically deployed to overcome the worst.35
Hitler accepted Speer’s recommendations at their meeting at the end of November. He agreed, for example, that the Reich should provide a labour force of between 100,000 and 150,000 to assist the Ruhr, and that all workers from the area conscripted for digging elsewhere should be returned. He also ordered an improvement in shoe provision for the Ruhr.36
In the build-up to the Ardennes offensive, Speer paid another, shorter, visit to the western front between 7 and 10 December, visiting mainly units of Army Groups B and G to hear their experiences and suggestions on the armaments situation. Major improvements were no longer possible. The armaments industry was by now scraping the barrel. (This had not prevented Speer, however, just before leaving for the western front, impressing a selected audience with an array of improved weapons in preparation.37) He was reduced to recommending incentives – additional army stores goods or leave – for troop units with especially low losses of weaponry. He also encouraged intensified propaganda efforts by the NSFOs to explain how well the armaments industry was performing despite all difficulties, and to combat rumours on shortages of tanks and fuel that were damaging troop morale. He pointed out to Hitler that Saar coal and gas were keeping the whole of south-west German industry going. The severe consequences if the Saar fell to the enemy were obvious.38
Speer’s third trip to the western front took place in the second half of December, during the Ardennes offensive, when he took soundings from a number of units of Army Group B. There was little concrete return from his visit. The most significant part of the report emphasized again the crisis on the railways. The Reichsbahn network in the region had, he reported, been ‘almost completely smashed’ beyond repair. (Sepp Dietrich complained that his troops were getting no munitions because the communications routes had been destroyed by air raids.)39 Other m
ethods had to be deployed to ensure that materials were delivered and that inefficiencies, such as leaving loaded wagons at the mercy of air attacks, were reduced. Speer recommended the deployment of Party Local Leaders who, together with stationmasters, could organize alternative transport, get railway wagons unloaded and convey important communications by car or motorbike to the army commanders. However, minor improvisations to try to keep things moving could not gloss over, even for Hitler, the fact that the end was approaching.40
With the end of the war and the onset of a post-Hitler era plainly in view, Speer’s considerable energies were not least directed, in collaboration with industrial leaders and the army, at preserving what could be saved of German industry.41 Industrialists were under no illusions about the outcome of the war. Their main concern was avoiding the total destruction of their industries in a futile struggle so that they could be swiftly restored and continue in operation when Hitler was gone. Albert Vögler, head of the Federated Steelworks and among the Ruhr’s foremost industrial magnates, a long-standing Hitler supporter, asked the Minister directly, in full recognition of the desolate state of the economy, when Hitler would end the conflict. ‘We’re losing too much substance,’ he said. ‘How shall we be able to reconstruct if the destruction of industry goes on like this only a few months longer?’42
Neither Speer’s later actions to fend off Hitler’s ‘scorched earth’ order, nor that order itself, came out of thin air. Under the ever more obvious fiction that immobilizing rather than totally destroying German industrial installations would enable them to be restored to working conditions as soon as the areas lost to military action were retaken, Speer had been issuing corresponding directives both on the eastern and western fronts since July.43 In early December he had to contend with instructions from Keitel, indicating Hitler’s wish that, where industrial installations could be quickly reconstructed to serve the enemy, they should be completely destroyed, not just paralysed. Keitel emphasized in particular that the Saar coal mines should on no account be allowed to fall undestroyed into enemy hands.44 Speer evidently intervened directly with Hitler to have the order amended. The same day he wired Saarbrücken: ‘all directives stating that coal mines are not to be crippled but destroyed are invalid. The Führer has again stipulated today that he only wants the coal mines to be crippled in the way we have established.’ Four days later Keitel transmitted Hitler’s decision that industrial installations endangered by the enemy in the area of Army Group G were merely to be crippled, not destroyed, and that all contrary orders were cancelled.45 Speer’s exertions to head off the destruction of Germany’s industry were not, however, over yet. The big conflict with Hitler on this front still awaited him.