Among the remnants of the population, housed in improvised barracks or surviving in cellars in the ruined shell of the city, groups of dissident youths, foreign workers, deserted soldiers and former Communist Party members took to despairing kinds of partisan-like active resistance, which reached its climax in December. With hand grenades and machine guns that they had managed to steal from Wehrmacht depots, they waged their own war against the Cologne police, killing the head of the Gestapo in the city and, in one incident, engaging in a twelve-hour armed battle with police before being overwhelmed. Only with difficulty did the Gestapo attain the upper hand before taking savage vengeance on the 200 or so members of the resistance groups whom they arrested.70
No similar action materialized in the other cities of the Rhine–Ruhr industrial belt. But hundreds of thousands experienced similar misery to that of the population of Cologne following the devastating raids on Bochum, Duisburg, Oberhausen and other major cities of the region over the autumn. The mood in the Ruhr was bad.71 The air war was creating ‘a downright despairing mood’, Goebbels noted from the reports reaching him.72 There was only a single topic of conversation: ‘the war-weariness of all people’.73
Still, there was no collapse of discipline either in the workplace or in the army. People carried out to the best of their ability what they took to be their duty.74 There were no signs of sabotage, strikes or – beyond the events in Cologne – other prominent forms of resistance.75 Dr Walther Rohland thought shortly after the end of the war that the reason for what he saw as the extraordinary effort made by workers who had little enthusiasm for the war (or the regime) was that ‘each single person felt clearly that on the one hand there was no opportunity for the individual to take action against the war’. ‘However, if the war was lost, then, in contrast to 1914–18, Germany also, and with her the possibilities of existence for the individual, would be lost’.76 Such fears were given sustenance by the propaganda gift of the ‘Morgenthau Plan’ – as the programme prepared by the US Secretary to the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, to split up post-war Germany into a powerless, dismembered country with a pre-industrial economy swiftly became known to the German public.77
On 12 December Goebbels went to the Ruhr district to assess the situation for himself, and while he was there witnessed a heavy air raid on Witten, turning much of the town into a raging inferno. He also saw the misery of the 100,000-strong population of Bochum, deprived of all amenities, existing in primitive conditions in cellars and little more than holes in the ground. His speech in the Krupp factory in Essen failed to rouse the grim-faced workers who had been dragooned into hearing him, collars turned up against the bitter cold, hands deep in their pockets. The applause was meagre and had scarcely died down when the sirens began to wail. The Propaganda Minister and his entourage had swiftly to take cover in the vaulted cellars deep underground, where they encountered ‘grey, disconsolate faces’. Little was said, but the glances on the men’s faces were ‘not friendly’.78 Goebbels was made fully aware of the strength of feeling among the Party and industrial leaders of the Rhine and Ruhr about the failings of Göring (blamed for the inability to protect German cities against the ‘gangsters of the air’), and also Ribbentrop (held generally in contempt, and seen as inept in his conduct of foreign policy), but came away convinced of their continued ‘blind, unshakeable faith’ in Hitler.79 In early December, Goebbels was still persuading himself that ‘faith in the Führer is largely unshaken and many’ – after seeing the troop build-up near the western front and sensing a coming offensive – ‘are again beginning to believe in a German victory’.80
It was in the main a delusion. It is true that among the Party elite, those wielding power in the regions as well as at the centre of the regime, there were no signs that loyalty towards Hitler was starting to flake.81 And in enabling the regime to continue to function, this is what mattered. Among the civilian population, however, beyond Party diehards and sections of youth, it was in the main a different matter. By the end of November, propaganda reports were indicating ‘the danger of a crisis in confidence in the leadership’ which ‘can no longer be ignored’. The concern was seen as important and urgent.82 For the first time, Hitler had failed to speak in person – Himmler read out his proclamation – at the annual gathering in Munich of the Party ‘Old Guard’ for the Putsch commemoration on 8 November. Immediately, rumours flared up (mostly arising from foreign speculation) that he was dead, or seriously ill, had suffered a nervous breakdown, or had fled and that Himmler or Goebbels had taken over.83 Still, popular belief in Hitler had not altogether vanished. And indeed, even at this late hour there were those who clung as a drowning man clings to a piece of wood to their long-held faith in the Führer, and in his ability to save Germany. But such people were in a dwindling minority. Hitler’s charisma, in the sense of its popular appeal, was by now fast fading.
On the eve of the Ardennes offensive, Goebbels recorded in his diary a somewhat sobering assessment of popular feeling on the basis of the reports – themselves inevitably tending to emphasize the positive wherever they could – sent in by the regional propaganda offices. ‘The scepticism in the German public continues,’ he noted. ‘There’s no proper faith in German powers of resistance… There have been too many military disappointments recently for the people to be easily able to build up hopes.’84
Generalizations about attitudes among soldiers are hazardous. Rank, temperament and earlier approaches towards Nazism affected their mindset. There were reports, for instance, of poor morale among the new recruits of the People’s Grenadier divisions.85 Among battle-hardened veterans, however, it was often a different story. Confidence instilled by generals such as Model was a further factor affecting morale. The situation on the different fronts – and parts of the fronts – produced widely varying experiences and perspectives.
In the late autumn of 1944, away from the continuing bitter fighting in Hungary, the eastern front was relatively quiet. A naval officer who had been based in Memel, then Gotenhafen (now Gdynia), on the Baltic near Danzig, was shocked in the autumn when he travelled through southern Germany. He felt as if he had been until now living on an isolated island as he encountered repeated bombing attacks from low-flying aircraft and constant controls by the military police in the overcrowded compartments of slow-moving, greatly delayed trains. The experience made him and his fellow officers ‘deeply pessimistic, in part even despairing’. During the return journey, when almost all in the train were en route to fight the Soviets, he was struck by the unequivocal criticism of the Party and its functionaries. These were blamed for the unstoppable partisan warfare in the east, seen to have been caused by their brutal treatment of the population.86
Another officer, based in south-west Germany, was also deeply affected by what he saw while on leave in late November. Though he did not have far to travel, even short rail journeys were difficult. His heavily delayed train was packed with refugees and evacuees, many of them women and children. He was struck, as they journeyed through villages near the front, by the crowded roads, full of people carrying their few possessions and hoping to find refuge somewhere in the Reich. He eventually reached home in Emmendingen only to be told of the bombing on 27 November of nearby Freiburg, a town with a medieval core of picture-book attractiveness not far from the Swiss border to the south, without strategic or industrial significance, and with a population of more than 100,000. When he travelled to Freiburg a couple of days later, he could scarcely believe his eyes. Practically the entire old town had been obliterated. Only the glorious Gothic minster, its tall spire the very symbol of the town, was left standing, if badly damaged, much as Cologne’s cathedral had withstood everything the Allies had thrown at the city. Almost 3,000 bodies lay beneath the rubble. It was a terrible picture of devastation. The helpless rage of the survivors, amid the all-embracing misery, was directed only in part at the Allied bombing crews; it was aimed more at the Nazi Party and its leaders who had provoked such outrages. When his
leave was over, the officer travelled northwards through Mannheim and Koblenz, again deeply saddened and troubled by the destruction of once lovely towns. Amid the ruined buildings of Koblenz, at the confluence of the Rhine and the Mosel, he was reminded of how the ‘prophecy’ that Robert Ley, the Labour Front leader, had made in 1933 had in an unintended sense come true: ‘in ten years’ time you won’t recognize your town.’87
This sardonic comment reflected a weary resignation at the scale of the destruction. Such sentiments were commonplace. But other attitudes among soldiers were less pessimistic, and still supportive of the regime and what they took to be Germany’s aims in continuing the struggle. One sergeant, writing home in early December, spoke wistfully of the coming ‘feast of peace’ at Christmas. However, the bombs were still raining down and the bells not ringing out for the peace ‘which is so yearned for by all peace-loving peoples’. ‘Our enemies’, he continued, ‘have no understanding for this wish’, and so ‘we, the entire German people, still stand during this feast in a fierce struggle against these degenerate peoples, led by Jewish parasites who know no fatherland nor have one’.88
Within the SS, unsurprisingly, outrightly Nazified views were still prevalent. An SS corporal, sympathizing with his family’s living conditions after an air raid on Munich but relieved that they were well, blamed the ‘air terror’ on the Jews ‘because the damned Jews are worried about their sack of money and see that the entire world slowly understands that they are guilty of wars and are making money out of blood and tears’. He believed, however, ‘that we will be victorious, though it will still cost much sacrifice and suffering’.89 Along with many other soldiers, he had great hopes of the V2 rockets launched at Antwerp and London, after published reports of the destruction they had caused in the British capital. ‘The V2 are all the talk with us,’ he wrote in mid-November. ‘Perhaps they can be fired on America…. I believe for certain that the final victory will be ours.’90 A corporal, writing home the same day, hoped that the V2 would ‘bring a decision with England’ in 1945. Then it would be Russia’s turn in 1946. ‘I can’t help it. I have the feeling that all will be well,’ he commented.91 A gunner writing to his family from Schneidemühl in Pomerania rejoiced at the news of the V2 attacks on England. ‘Great, isn’t it?’ he remarked. The arrogance of the Allies, he felt, was being paid back in kind. His confidence had also been bolstered by the way, seemingly against the odds, German troops had managed to stabilize the fronts. ‘The German soldier has again proved that he is not yet beaten after five years of war,’ he proudly stated.92
An Army High Command censorship report in early November, which came into Allied hands, indicated that such attitudes were not isolated. Of course, it was sensible to avoid negative comments in letters that passed under the censor’s eyes and could have dire repercussions, but there was no requirement to express outrightly pro-Nazi or glowingly positive comments on the war. Yet the German censor’s report stated: ‘In spite of the fact that there are now more letters showing a rather weak belief in the final victory, the whole of the mail still proves a strong confidence. They still trust the Führer as much as ever, and some even think that the destiny of the German people depends on him alone.’ The main qualification was the increased doubts about new weapons and the view that ‘all our efforts are useless if the new weapons are not committed very soon’.93
Among higher officers, though attitudes towards the Nazi leadership varied, there was no hint of disloyalty to Hitler. For the sustenance of the regime, this was crucial. Even those far from enthusiastic about Nazism and writing privately could still find much to applaud in Hitler. In diary comments he made in late December, Colonel Curt Pollex, in charge of officer training at Döberitz, the troop-training grounds west of Berlin, was critical of the Party and the ‘bigwigs’ running it but complimentary about Hitler. He remarked positively on the need for National Socialism and the justification for the war (blame for which he attributed to Roosevelt and Stalin). Germany had to break the Versailles Treaty, he claimed, and the timing of the war had been correct. Some of Hitler’s underlings were rogues and idiots who had deceived him and the people. But, despite evident crass errors in military matters, ‘big-mouth propaganda’ and other nonsense, Colonel Pollex still thought the direction of the state leadership was right. If Hitler was ill and could no longer cope, then he should resign; but no decent person of judgement should underrate what he had achieved.94
Beyond continued loyalty to Hitler, there was in the officer corps still an independent ‘code of honour’. This had not hindered complicity in atrocities in the eastern campaigns, but it did offer its own block on action that might undermine the war effort. Major-General Johannes Bruhn, commander of a People’s Grenadier division before being captured on the western front in November 1944, and regarded by his captors as ‘anti-Nazi’ in attitude, spoke of suggestions emanating from Switzerland that German generals should lay down their arms. ‘That couldn’t be reconciled with their honour. It couldn’t possibly be done: it’s absolutely out of the question,’ he remarked to fellow officers, unaware that his comments were being bugged by his British captors. ‘The officer corps loves its country, and believes implicitly in its own respectability and ideas of honour and lives accordingly; and like a trusting child considers it quite impossible that it is being wrongly led, and that the command is other than it says it is, and that they have stained their hands with blood etc. in the most revolting way.’95
Such fragments of a mosaic never build into a complete picture. As far as it is possible to generalize, it seems that morale within the Wehrmacht was somewhat better than within the civilian population. Attitudes varied widely and as in the civilian population scepticism, apathy and resignation were evident among soldiers, alongside anxiety about loved ones suffering and dying in the bombing raids, and worry about the future. A rise in the number of desertions, though punishable by death, tells its own story.96 About 350 members of the Wehrmacht each month in the second half of 1944 were sentenced to death for desertion.97 Precise motives for desertion are not easy to establish. Probably, fear and desperation played a big part. Most soldiers were by now, like the civilian population, war-weary, just longing for the fighting to stop and to be able to get out of the daily misery and back home. However, there was also commitment, determination, a sense of patriotic duty and, among a minority, still a belief in Hitler. The vast majority of soldiers – probably without much reflection – did what they were told to do by their officers. The unquestioning obedience that was the axiom of military life, not just in Germany, continued to prevail. ‘If the troops don’t want [to fight], it’s all hopeless,’ remarked Colonel Pollex.98 Despite everything, the troops did want to fight – or at least were prepared to do so. Whatever they thought of the war, Hitler’s leadership, Germany’s plight, their own hopes of survival, for the overwhelming number of ordinary soldiers there was no sense of any alternative but to continue fighting. Unlike the last months of the First World War, there was no danger of mutiny in the ranks feeding into internal collapse.
V
There was, indeed, optimism among the German troops who advanced into the Ardennes on the early morning of 16 December. Many, according to General von Manteuffel, still believed in Hitler’s ability to turn the tide through new ‘wonder weapons’ and U-boats, and saw it as their task to win him time.99 The early stages of the offensive were so successful that the optimism and belief seemed justified. The cloak of secrecy over the operation had worked superbly. The Allies were caught completely unawares. And the bad weather, significantly hindering Allied air strikes, was exactly what the Germans wanted. Enemy forward positions were swiftly overrun. On the northern flank, Dietrich’s 6th SS-Panzer Army, hampered by bad roads and transport difficulties as well as stiff resistance, made relatively slow progress, though its most advanced troops included the SS-Panzer Regiment 1, commanded by the brutal SS-Obersturmbannführer Joachim Peiper, which left a trail of atrocities in its wake, murderin
g more than eighty American prisoners of war near Malmédy as it went on its way. Further south, Manteuffel’s 5th Panzer Army made initial spectacular progress, breaking the American lines, taking some 8,000–9,000 prisoners, and opening up a gap of more than 30 kilometres in the front. His troops poured through the opening, and had pressed forward by 18 December – though, held up by barely passable roads and detonated bridges, still more slowly than the operational plan required – almost to the Meuse, a distance of some 100 kilometres, where they encountered heavy American resistance at the vital communications point of Bastogne. The town had to be taken and the Meuse crossed if the planned advance on Antwerp was to have the remotest chance of success. But the offensive was slowing. And on 19 December, Eisenhower halted Allied offensive action along the rest of the front in order to rush reinforcements to the Meuse. Hitler’s offensive was on the verge of stalling.100
To the troops this was far from clear. One lieutenant was impressed that day, he recorded in his diary, as the ‘endless columns of prisoners pass; at first, about a hundred, half of them negroes, later another thousand’. When his vehicle stuck, he found none other than Field-Marshal Model – ‘a little, undistinguished looking man with a monocle’ – directing traffic. The roads, the junior officer noted, were ‘littered with destroyed American vehicles, cars and tanks. Another column of prisoners passes. I count over a thousand men.’101 Another lieutenant, with explicitly Nazi views, was elated at the offensive and delighted in the brutality as he thought the tables were now being turned on the Americans. ‘You cannot imagine what glorious hours and days we are experiencing now,’ he told his wife in his letter home.