The End

  64. BA/MA, N245/2, fo. 40. NL Reinhardt, letter to his wife, 26.10.44.

  65. TBJG, II/14, p. 110 (26.10.44). And see Wilfred von Oven, Mit Goebbels bis zum Ende, vol. 2, Buenos Aires, 1950, p. 170 (27.10.44). Hitler himself had responded to the news of the atrocities by demanding their propaganda exploitation within the Wehrmacht, and expressed impatience at the slowness to act in distributing photographs and eyewitness accounts. – IfZ, Nbg.-Dok. PS-1787. See also David Irving, Hitler’s War, London, 1977, p. 893, n. to p. 726.

  66. Quoted Steinert, pp. 521–2.

  67. Fisch, Nemmersdorf, pp. 144, 153 n. 8.

  68. Schwendemann, p. 240 n. 41.

  69. Some, along similar lines, were monitored by British intelligence services: NAL, FO898/187, PWE, Summary of and Comments on German Broadcasts to Germany, fos. 439, 457–8 (reports for 23–9.10.44 and 30.10–5.11.44).

  70. Fisch, Nemmersdorf, pp. 146–7.

  71. VB, 1.11.44.

  72. BAB, R55/601, fo. 181, Tätigkeitsbericht, weekly propaganda report, 23.10.44. See also Meindl, p. 434.

  73. Steinert, p. 522.

  74. TBJG, II/14, p. 69 (10.10.44).

  75. See IfZ, Fa-93, Vorlage for Bormann, 12.10.44, in which Werner Naumann, State Secretary in the Propaganda Ministry, informed him that Germans in western occupied areas were not behaving in compliance with ‘national honour’; and Himmler to HSSPF West, 18.10.44 (also in BAB, NS19/751, fo. 21), indicating that enemy press reports revealed ‘dishonourable’ conduct by German citizens under enemy occupation in the west. See also Klaus-Dietmar Henke, Die amerikanische Besetzung Deutschlands, Munich, 1995, p. 172.

  76. TBJG, II/14, pp. 176 (8.11.44), 189 (10.11.44).

  77. BAB, R55/601, fo. 204, Tätigkeitsbericht, weekly propaganda report, 7.11.44; TBJG, II/14, p. 192 (10.11.44).

  78. BHStA, MA 106696, report of RPvOF/MF, 8.11.44.

  79. BAB, R55/601, fo. 210, Tätigkeitsbericht, weekly propaganda report, 7.11.44.

  80. BAB, R55/608, fo. 29, Mundpropagandaparole Nr. 4, 7.11.44.

  81. TBJG, II/14, pp. 192–3 (10.11.44).

  82. Otto Dov Kulka and Eberhard Jäckel (eds.), Die Juden in den geheimen NS-Stimmungsberichten 1933–1945, Düsseldorf, 2004, p. 546, no. 749, report from SD-Leitabschnitt Stuttgart, 6.11.44; also in IWM, ‘Aus deutschen Urkunden, 1935–1945’, unpublished documentation, n.d. (c. 1945–6), pp. 275–6; and quoted by Steinert, pp. 522–3.

  83. BAB, R55/601, fo. 215, Tätigkeitsbericht, weekly propaganda report, 14.11.44.

  84. BAB, R55/608, fo. 30, Mundpropagandaparole Nr. 5, 8.11.44.

  85. TBJG, II/14, p. 169 (7.11.44).

  86. BAB, R55/601, fo. 223, Tätigkeitsbericht, weekly propaganda report, 14.11.44. Goebbels had concluded earlier in November that ‘the publication of the atrocities of Nemmersdorf has already been sufficient to make clear to every soldier what is at stake’. At Führer Headquarters it was thought that there was no need at present to fire up the morale of the troops by publishing details of Bolshevik atrocities against German soldiers. – TBJG, II/14, p. 159 (5.11.44).

  87. Traudl Junge, Until the Final Hour: Hitler’s Last Secretary, London, 2002, p. 145.

  88. Nicolaus von Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant 1937–45, Mainz, 1980, p. 340.

  89. Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945, ed. Max Domarus, Wiesbaden, 1973, p. 2045.

  90. Himmler had the names of those not present noted on a list – an indication that the purpose was to ensure knowledge of and complicity in what had taken place. – Irving, pp. 575–6.

  91. BA/MA, N245/2, NL Reinhardt, fo. 40 (diary entry, 26.10.44).

  92. Udo von Alvensleben, Lauter Abschiede: Tagebuch im Kriege, Frankfurt am Main, 1971, pp. 439–40 (12.2.45). Also quoted in Kunz, p. 253.

  93. See the negative imagery in letters from the front in DRZW, 9/2 (Müller), pp. 80–89.

  94. See DRZW, 9/1 (Förster), pp. 638–9.

  95. Almost 10,000 death sentences in the Wehrmacht (most of them in the army) had been carried out by the end of 1944. – DRZW, 9/1 (Echternkamp), pp. 48–50.

  96. Part of the title of Omer Bartov’s book, The Eastern Front, 1941–45: German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare, New York, 1986.

  97. Antony Beevor, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy, London, 2009, p. 522.

  98. TBJG, II/14, p. 199 (11.11.44)

  99. LHC, Dempsey Papers, no. 179, pt. II, p. 8, letter from Johanna Ambross, Munich, 20.9.44. Text in English.

  100. BA/MA, N6/4, NL Model, report (for US authorities) on Army Group B from mid-October 1944 to mid-April 1945 by Oberst im Generalstab a.D. Günther Reichhelm, compiled in 1946–7, fo. 1.

  101. Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, ‘Hitlers Ansprache vor Generalen und Offizieren am 26. Mai 1944’, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 2 (1976), pp. 123–70.

  102. Saul Friedländer, The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945, London, 2007, pp. 615–19; Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, New Viewpoints edn., New York, 1973, p. 547.

  103. Hilberg, p. 629.

  104. Friedländer, p. 628.

  105. Hilberg, pp. 630–31.

  106. See Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust, Cambridge, Mass., 2006, pp. 246–54.

  107. Kulka and Jäckel, p. 544, no. 744.

  108. Peter Longerich, ‘Davon haben wir nichts gewußt!’ Die Deutschen und die Judenverfolgung 1933–1945, Munich, 2006, pp. 304–11, where recorded criticism of such crude assessments of the bombing is also apparent.

  109. Victor Klemperer, Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten, vol. 2: Tagebücher 1942–1945, ed. Walter Nowojski and Hadwig Klemperer, Darmstadt, 1998, pp. 594–6 (27.9.44).

  110. He remarked on how depressed an acquaintance was about the defeat of the British at Arnhem. Otherwise ‘they would now have the Ruhr District and the war would be over’. – Klemperer, p. 609 (30.10.44).

  111. Klemperer, p. 605 (17.10.44).

  112. Klemperer, pp. 609–10 (2.11.44, 12.11.44).

  113. Klemperer, p. 616 (26.11.44).

  114. Klemperer, p. 609 (30.10.44).

  115. Ulrich Herbert, Hitler’s Foreign Workers: Enforced Foreign Labor in Germany under the Third Reich, Cambridge, 1997, p. 298.

  116. IWM, Memoirs of P. E. v0n Stemann (a Danish journalist based in Berlin from 1942 to the end of the war, compiled c. 1980), fo. 183.

  117. See BAB, R55/601, fo. 124, Tätigkeitsbericht, weekly propaganda report, 18.9.44.

  118. BAB, R55/601, fo. 119, Tätigkeitsbericht, weekly propaganda report, 11.9.44.

  119. IWM, ‘Aus deutschen Urkunden, 1935–1945’, unpublished documentation, n.d. (c. 1945–6), p. 276.

  120. BAB, R55/601, fo. 124, Tätigkeitsbericht, weekly propaganda report, 18.9.44. fos. 123–4.

  121. Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen, pp. 2160–67.

  122. Jung, p. 103 and p. 218 (Kreipe diary, entry for 16.9.44); Guderian, pp. 370–71.

  123. Albert Speer, Erinnerungen, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, 1969, p. 423.

  CHAPTER 4. HOPES RAISED – AND DASHED

  1. Quoted DZW, 6, p. 125; KTB/OKW, vol. 4/I, p. 436, Jodl to Chief of the General Staff at OB West, 1.11.44. See also Bodo Scheurig, Alfred Jodl: Gehorsam und Verhängnis, Berlin and Frankfurt am Main, 1991, pp. 303–6, for Jodl’s doubts about – though justification of – the Ardennes offensive. When he learnt from Speer that Hitler was about to play his last card, the leading industrialist Albert Vögler presumed, naturally enough, that it would be on the eastern front. ‘No one could be so mad as to expose the east in order to hold up the enemy in the west,’ he reasoned. – Albert Speer, Erinnerungen, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, 1969, p. 423.

  2. Hitler and his Generals: Military Conferences 1942–1945, ed. Helmut Heiber and David M. Glantz, London, 2002, pp. 539–40 (12.12.44).

  3. Walter Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters 1939–45, pb. edn., Novato, Calif., n.d. (original Eng. language edn., London, 1964), pp. 475–8; DRZW,
7 (Vogel), pp. 619–20.

  4. Hermann Jung, Die Ardennenoffensive 1944/45, Göttingen, 1971, p. 218 (Kreipe diary, 16.9.44); DZW, 6, pp. 124–5.

  5. John Erickson, The Road to Berlin, Cassell edn., London, 2003, pp. 394–7; Brian Taylor, Barbarossa to Berlin: A Chronology of the Campaigns on the Eastern Front 1941 to 1945, vol. 2, Stroud, 2008, pp. 248–59.

  6. Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944–45, London, 2004, pp. 202–25.

  7. DRZW, 7 (Vogel), p. 615.

  8. DZW, 6, pp. 212–13; DRZW, 7 (Vogel), pp. 615–16; Hastings, pp. 218–20; Joseph Balkoski, ‘Patton’s Third Army: The Lorraine Campaign, 19 September–1 December 1944’, in Albert A. Nofi (ed.), The War against Hitler: Military Strategy in the West, Conshohocken, Pa., 1995, pp. 178–91.

  9. Wilfred von Oven, Finale Furioso: Mit Goebbels bis zum Ende, Tübingen, 1974, pp. 517–18 (3.12.44); TBJG, II/14, pp. 339–41 (3.12.44); BAB, R55/608, fo. 34, Verbal Propaganda Slogan, No. 11 (18.12.44). The suddenness of the fall of Strasbourg and the chaotic attempts to evacuate the population were emphasized in an eyewitness account, later sent on to Himmler. – BAB, NS19/606, fos. 2–4v, report on the events in Strasbourg on 22–3 November 1944 (19.12.44). A propaganda report from Baden underlined the ‘enormous shock effect’ throughout the region that resulted from the fall of the city. Streams of refugees engulfed the right bank of the Rhine. The depressed mood of the people reached a low point. Trust was ‘extremely shaken’. – BAB, R55/21504, unfoliated, Gaupropagandaleiter, Reichspropagandaamt Baden, Bericht über die Propagandaführung im Gau Baden, 15.1.45.

  10. Hastings, p. 225.

  11. Hitler and his Generals, p. 541 (12.12.44) and p. 1038 n. 1556.

  12. See Franz Kurowski, ‘Dietrich and Manteuffel’, in Correlli Barnett (ed.), Hitler’s Generals, London, 1990, pp. 411–37 for pen-pictures.

  13. DZW, 6, pp. 126–8; DRZW, 7 (Vogel), pp. 621–2; Warlimont, p. 485; Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader, Da Capo edn., New York, 1996, p. 380.

  14. Warlimont, pp. 481–5; Guderian, p. 380; Scheurig, p. 305; BA/MA, RH21/5/66: Manteuffel: ‘Die 5. Panzerarmee in der Ardennenoffensive’ (deposition for US Historical Division, 1946), fo. 50; BA/MA, N6/4, Oberst G. Reichhelm (Model’s Chief of Staff), ‘Zusammendfassender Bericht über die Kampfhandlungen der deutschen Herresgruppe B von Mitte Oktober 1944 bis Mitte April 1945’ (deposition for US Historical Division, 1946–7), fos. 14–15; Guenther Blumentritt, Von Rundstedt: The Soldier and the Man, London, 1952, pp. 264–9; DRZW, 7 (Vogel), p. 620; DZW, 6, p. 125; Siegfried Westphal, Erinnerungen, Mainz, 1975, pp. 294–300: Walter Görlitz, Model: Strategie der Defensive, Wiesbaden, 1975, pp. 222–5; David Downing, The Devil’s Virtuosos: German Generals at War 1940–5, London, 1977, pp. 231–3.

  15. Quoted Warlimont, pp. 489–90. Jung, pp. 201–2, argues that the only alternative course of action open to them – to resign – would have given the command to less able generals and increased German losses.

  16. See Warlimont, pp. 481–2.

  17. NAL, WO219/1651, fos. 144–5, SHAEF: interrogation of Jodl, 23.5.45.

  18. Quoted DZW, 6, pp. 129–30.

  19. For an assessment of the catastrophic collapse, largely in the second half of 1944, see John Zimmermann, Pflicht zum Untergang: Die deutsche Kriegführung im Westen des Reiches 1944/45, Paderborn, 2009, pp. 40–65.

  20. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 368/54, deposition of Speer (13.7.45). On the economic impact of bombing in 1944, see Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won, London, 1995, pp. 130–31; and Dietrich Eichholtz, ‘Deutschland am Ende des Krieges: Eine kriegswirtschaftliche Bilanz’, Bulletin der Berliner Gesellschaft für Faschismus- und Weltkriegsforschung, 6 (1996), pp. 22–3, 27–30.

  21. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 367/26, deposition of Speer (13.8.45); Box 368/67, deposition by Saur (2–8.10.45). For the armaments situation leading up to the Ardennes offensive, see Jung, ch. 2.

  22. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 367/34, depositions of Saur and Kehrl (13.8.45).

  23. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 367/28, deposition of Bosch (11.6.45).

  24. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 367/34, deposition of Kehrl (26.7.45).

  25. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 367/34, deposition of Röchling (10.8.45).

  26. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 367/35, suppl. I, deposition of Rohland (22.10.45).

  27. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 367/34, and Box 368/93, depositions of Schulze-Fielitz (10.8.45 and undated, summer 1945).

  28. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 368/84, part II, deposition of Fiebig (25.5.46).

  29. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 367/26, deposition of Speer (13.8.45).

  30. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 368/67, depositions of Saur (2–8.10.45, 7.6.45). Hans Kehrl, Krisenmanager im Dritten Reich, Düsseldorf, 1973, p. 407, also pointed to the fact that despite all the mounting difficulties, armaments production was higher in 1944 than in each of the years 1940 to 1943, when Germany was in full command of its economic basis. Even in January 1945, the index of armaments production was higher than that of any war year apart from 1944. – Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, London, 2006, pp. 687–8, table A6.

  31. IWM, Box 367/27, deposition by Saur (11–13.6.45).

  32. See, for these decisions in November and December, Deutschlands Rüstung im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Hitlers Konferenzen mit Albert Speer 1942–1945, ed. Willi A. Boelcke, Frankfurt am Main, 1969, pp. 444–58; and for Speer’s strenuous efforts to sustain production at this time, Alfred C. Mierzejewski, ‘When Did Albert Speer Give up?’, Historical Journal, 31 (1988), p. 394.

  33. Heavy raids had repeatedly hit the big industrial cities and attacked the transport network. Over 50 per cent of American bombs at this time were aimed at destroying transport installations. The British, who dropped more bombs in the last three months of 1944 than in the entire year 1943, concentrated more on the cities, with big attacks on Dortmund, Duisburg, Essen, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Bochum and Gelsenkirchen, but also inflicted severe damage on transport, dropping 102,796 tons, mainly on railway marshalling yards, between November and January 1945. See DZW, 6, pp. 163, 166–7; Tooze, p. 650; Jörg Friedrich, Der Brand: Deutschland im Bombenkrieg 1940–1945, pb. edn., Berlin, 2004, p. 150. Alfred C. Mierzejewski, The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944–1945: Allied Air Power and the German National Railway, Chapel Hill, NC, 1988, chs. 6–7, provides a detailed account of the crippling impact of the bombing on transport in autumn 1944. Speer informed the naval leadership in mid-November of the seriousness of the air attacks. The Reichsbahn had been badly hit. Five major railway stations were out of action. There had been huge drops in coal and steel production (with four-fifths of steel mills damaged or destroyed), and gas supplies had been reduced by 40 per cent. – KTB/SKL, vol. 63/II, p. 188 (17.11.44).

  34. BAB, R3/1528, fos. 1–48, Speer’s report on the Ruhrgebiet, 11.11.44.

  35. BAB, R3/1542, fos. 1–21, Speer’s report on his trip to Rhine and Ruhr, 23.11.44.

  36. Deutschlands Rüstung, p. 444 (28.11.44).

  37. TBJG, II/14, pp. 368–9 (7.12.44).

  38. BAB, R3/1543, fos. 3–15.

  39. Speer, p. 425.

  40. BAB, R3/1544, fos. 56–73 (quoted words, fo. 71).

  41. DRZW, 5/2 (Müller), p. 771, sees this as, in effect, Speer’s ‘survival programme’ for the last phase of the war.

  42. Speer, p. 423. After his trip to the Ruhr in November, Speer engineered Vögler’s appointment by Hitler as Plenipotentiary for Armaments and War Production in the Ruhr in order to take decisions on the spot in his name in order to sustain Ruhr production. – Deutschlands Rüstung, p. 445 (28.11.44).

  43. BAB, R3/1623, fos. 3, 4, 8–10, 22 (26.7.44, 2.8.44), on retreat from the east; fos. 24–7, 46, 50–52, 66–8, 77 (10, 13, 16, 18, 19, 22.9.44), on immobilization of industry in western areas.