24. DZW, 6, pp. 549–50; Sönke Neitzel, Abgehört: Deutsche Generäle in britischer Kriegsgefangenschaft 1942–1945, Berlin, 2005, p. 190, 9.3.45 (Eng. edn., Tapping Hitler’s Generals: Transcripts of Secret Conversations, 1942–45, Barnsley, 2007, pp. 141–2).
25. BAB, NS6/135, fos. 79, 97, Erfahrungs- und Stimmungsberichte über die Haltung von Wehrmacht und Bevölkerung, 23.3.45, 29.3.45.
26. BfZ, Sammlung Sterz, O’Wm. Peter B., 9.3.45.
27. Henke, p. 806 and n. 132.
28. BAB, R55/601, fos. 295–7, Tätigkeitsbericht, weekly propaganda reports, 21.3.45.
29. BAB, NS6/169, fos. 4–9, Bericht des Hauptgemeinschaftsleiters Twittenhoff über den Sondereinsatz der Partei-Kanzlei in Hessen-Nassau, for period 24–30.3.45. The consequence of providing a realistic description was the recommendation that Twittenhoff was not suitable for further work in the ‘Special Action’ of the Party Chancellery.
30. BAB, NS6/169, fo. 49, Vorlage an Reichsleiter Bormann, 19.3.45; fo. 51, Sprenger to Bormann, 14.3.45.
31. DZW, 6, pp. 550–51; 1945: Das Jahr der endgültigen Niederlage der faschistischen Wehrmacht. Dokumente, ed. Gerhard Förster and Richard Lakowski, Berlin, 1975, pp. 212–14, Staff of Army Group G to Gauleiter Gustav Simon about signs of a hostile attitude towards German troops and flight, in drunken condition, of the Volkssturm at the attack of the Americans on Trier. For further examples of a negative stance of the civilian population towards the Wehrmacht – even one case, in Göttingen, when civilians were said to have fired on their own tanks – see John Zimmermann, Pflicht zum Untergang: Die deutsche Kriegführung im Westen des Reiches 1944/45, Paderborn, 2009, p. 75.
32. BAB, NS6/51, fos. 1–3, Letter from Hauptmann Heinz Thieme, Pzjäger Abt. 246, SD agent, Abt. Ostland, to Bormann, 15.3.45.
33. Marlis Steinert, Hitlers Krieg und die Deutschen, Düsseldorf and Vienna, 1970, p. 559; Neitzel, Abgehört, p. 190 (9.3.45) (Eng. edn., Tapping Hitler’s Generals, p. 141). See also Saul K. Padover, Psychologist in Germany: The Story of an American Intelligence Officer, London, 1946, pp. 219, 230, 270, for his experiences of defeatist attitudes and Germans welcoming the arrival of the Americans.
34. See John Zimmermann, ‘Die Kämpfe gegen die Westalliierten 1945 – ein Kampf bis zum Ende oder die Kreierung einer Legende?’ in Jörg Hillmann and John Zimmermann (eds.), Kriegsende 1945 in Deutschland, Munich, 2002, pp. 130–31.
35. TBJG, II/15, p. 406 (3.3.45).
36. Katharina Elliger, Und tief in der Seele das Ferne: Die Geschichte einer Vertreibung aus Schlesien, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 2006, p. 107.
37. Workers in Berlin were reported in March as saying that no punishment was severe enough for the cowardice of deserters. – Das letzte halbe Jahr, p. 277 (3.3.45).
38. IfZ, Fa-91/2, fos. 330–31, Parteikanzlei, Vermerk für Pg. Walkenhorst, 10.3.45. For Hanke’s brutal rule in Breslau in the last months of the war, see Guido Knopp, Der Sturm: Kriegsende im Osten, pb. edn., Berlin, 2006, pp. 150–62.
39. DZW, 6, p. 548, for Rundstedt’s order. For Kesselring’s advocacy, after taking command in the west, of ruthlessness towards deserters and those seen to be failing in their duty, see Andreas Kunz, Wehrmacht und Niederlage: Die bewaffnete Macht in der Endphase der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft 1944 bis 1945, Munich, 2007, pp. 276, 279. Hitler’s order to establish the ‘flying court martial’ is printed in Rolf-Dieter Müller and Gerd R. Ueberschär, Kriegsende 1945: Die Zerstörung des Deutschen Reiches, Frankfurt am Main, 1994, pp. 163–4; see also Neitzel, Abgehört, pp. 202–3, 540 n. 161 (Eng. edn., Tapping Hitler’s Generals, pp. 150–51). Hübner, a fanatic who had long been involved in attempts to instil Nazi ideology into the troops, was given unrestricted powers to impose the death penalty. – DRZW, 9/1 (Förster), pp. 580–82; Manfred Messerschmidt, Die Wehrmachtjustiz 1933–1945, Paderborn, 2005, p. 413. Flying courts martial had been in use by Army Group North since 3 February. – BAB, NS6/354, fo. 88, RS 123/45g, Maßnahmen zur Stärkung der Front durch Erfassung Versprengter (passing on to the Gauleiter an order of the Commander-in-Chief Army Group North, Colonel-General Lothar Rendulic´), 9.3.45.
40. 1945: Das Jahr der endgültigen Niederlage der faschistischen Wehrmacht, pp. 229–30.
41. Henke, p. 348.
42. DZW, 6, p. 548.
43. DZW, 6, p. 522; Stettin/Szczecin 1945–1946, Rostock, 1994, pp. 35, 37.
44. BAB, NS6/354, fos. 163–165v, PK Bekanntgabe 149/45g, 19.3.45, transmission by Bormann of Schörner’s secret circular of 27 February.
45. DZW, 6, p. 539.
46. Zimmermann, Pflicht, p. 338; Christopher Clark, ‘Johannes Blaskowitz – der christliche General’, in Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring (eds.), Die Militärelite des Dritten Reiches, Berlin, 1995, pp. 35, 43.
47. DZW, 6, p. 545.
48. Quoted in DRZW, 10/1 (Zimmermann), p. 316; and Zimmermann, Pflicht, p. 293.
49. BAB, R3/1623a, fo. 71a, Bormann to the Gauleiter, Reichsleiter, Reich Youth Leader, etc., 30.3.45, passing on Jodl’s circular of the previous day to commanders of the Army Groups and the Defence Districts in the west. Jodl still believed that any sacrifice was worthwhile to win time and bring about a split in the unnatural enemy coalition. – Bodo Scheurig, Alfred Jodl: Gehorsam und Verhängnis, Berlin and Frankfurt am Main, 1991, pp. 313–14, 319.
50. For the unprompted initiatives of the generals in the last phase to ensure the continued, utmost military effort, see DRZW, 10/1 (Zimmermann), pp. 307–36.
51. BAB, NS6/134, fo. 19, Dönitz, Kurzlagebericht vom 4.3.45.
52. DRZW, 9/1 (Förster), pp. 554, 584–6. See, for Dönitz’s fanatical leadership of the navy, Sönke Neitzel, ‘Der Bedeutungswandel der Kriegsmarine im Zweiten Weltkrieg’, in Rolf-Dieter Müller and Hans-Erich Volkmann (eds.), Die Wehrmacht: Mythos und Realität, Munich, 1999, pp. 259–62.
53. Kathrin Orth, ‘Kampfmoral und Einsatzbereitschaft in der Kriegsmarine 1945’, in Hillmann and Zimmermann, pp. 137–55.
54. BA/MA, N574/22, NL Vietinghoff, ‘Die Generale’, 25.7.49.
55. BA/MA, N574/19, NL Vietinghoff, ‘Kriegsende in Italien’, fos. 44–5 (1950). See also DRZW, 10/1 (Zimmermann), p. 321; and Zimmermann, Pflicht, pp. 297–8.
56. Neitzel, Abgehört, pp. 180–81, 185 (quotation, p. 186) (28–31.1.45, 18–20.2.45) (Eng. edn., Tapping Hitler’s Generals, p. 138). Also NAL, WO208/
4365, reports of monitored conversations of prisoners of war, nos. 251–3, 28–31.1.45. A former corps commander, a lieutenant-general, later told his British captors that Rundstedt had favoured capitulation after the failure of the Ardennes offensive, and reckoned with the support of a majority of the higher ranking members of the officer’ corps, but knew that the hold of the Nazi regime meant that there was no chance of undertaking negotiations and that no member of the Wehrmacht would be authorized to contact the Allies for such a purpose. – LHC, Dempsey Papers, no. 317 pt. II, p. 5, (16.4.45).
57. Neitzel, Abgehört, pp. 184–5, 187 (14–15.2.45, 2–3.3.45) (Eng. edn., Tapping Hitler’s Generals, pp. 137, 139).
58. NAL, WO208/5543, interrogation reports on German prisoners of war, 16.4.45, ‘Enemy Expectations, Intentions and Sources of Information’, 16.3.45.
59. BA/MA, N712/15, NL Pollex, fos. 43, 44, 47, 49–51, 54, 57, 59–61, 65, entries for 3.3.45, 5.3.45, 8.3.45, 12.3.45, 21.3.45, 25.3.45, 27.3.45, 31.3.45.
60. BA/MA, N265/118, NL Heinrici, fo. 74a–b (1952).
61. Karl Dönitz, Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days, Da Capo edn., New York, 1997, p. 432.
62. LHC, Dempsey Papers, no. 307, pt. II, app. A (6.4.45).
63. Andreas Kunz, ‘Die Wehrmacht in der Agonie der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft 1944/45: Eine Gedankenskizze’, in Hillmann and Zimmermann, p. 131.
64. See Kunz, Wehrmacht und Niederlage, pp. 36–44.
65. Neitzel, Abgehört, p. 189, 9.3.45 (Eng. edn., Tapping Hitler’s Generals, p. 141).
66. Steinert, pp. 570–71.
67. StAM, LRA 29656, fo. 576, report of SD-Außenstell
e Berchtesgaden, 4.4.45; fo. 592, report of Gendarmerie-Posten Markt Schellenberg, 24.3.45.
68. MadR, 17, pp. 6732–40 (report to the Propaganda Ministry, 28.3.45, undated SD report from the end of March); see also Steinert, pp. 572–6; and Henke, pp. 815–16.
69. BAB, R55/603, fos. 533–8, extracts from weekly Tätigkeitsberichte der Reichspropagandaämter of 20–23 March (4.4.45).
70. Quoted Steinert, p. 570.
71. NAL, FO898/187, Summary of and Comments on German Broadcasts to Germany, fos. 79–80, 140–41, monitoring of German press reports (26.2.45–4.3.45, 26.3.45–1.4.45).
72. Das letzte halbe Jahr, pp. 281 (3.3.45), 311 (31.3.45); LHC, Dempsey Papers, no. 291 pt. II, p. 5, (21.3.45), citing a report of 7 March sent by the Berlin correspondent of a Swedish newspaper.
73. NAL, WO219/4713, SHAEF reports on conditions in the newly occupied areas, 14.3.45.
74. StAM, LRA 29656, fos. 574, 580, report of SD-Außenstelle Berchtesgaden, 7.3.45.
75. BHStA, Reichsstatthalter Epp 528, unfoliated, Bayerische Staatsminister für Wirtschaft, Landesernährungsamt Bayern, Abt. B, 22.3.45.
76. BAB, NS6/353, fo. 146, Anordnung 184/45, 26.3.45.
77. LHC, Dempsey Papers, no. 308, pt. II, p. 8 (7.4.45), citing a letter from Vreden, a small town close to the Dutch border, from 19 March as an example typical of the situation just east of the Rhine before the Allied offensive.
78. IWM, EDS, F.3, M.I. 14/369, correspondence of Krosigk and Education Minister Bernhard Rust, etc., 23–6.3.45.
79. BAB, NS6/353, fo. 75, Bormann, Rundschreiben 125/45 (10.3.45).
80. BHStA, Reichsstatthalter Epp 686/1, unfoliated, draft order of Bormann, in cooperation with the Reichsführer-SS and the Reichsgesundheitsführer, Heranziehung der Gefolgschaftsmitglieder der Krankenhäuser, Kliniken usw. zum Dienst im Deutschen Volkssturm, 9.3.45.
81. BAB, R55/603, fo. 529, Reichspropagandaamt Mark Brandenburg, Referat Volkssturm, to Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda, Berlin, 5.3.45.
82. An example: the owner of two major newspapers, the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten and München-Augsburger Abendzeitung, desperate to receive reports from the Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro but unable to contact Berlin could only do so when the Gauleiter of Munich-Upper Bavaria, Paul Giesler, gave him special permission to telephone from his command post twice a day – StAM, NSDAP 13, fos. 144530–33, exchange of letters from Gauleiter Giesler and Herr Direktor A. Salat, Firma Knorr & Hirth, 2–14.3.45.
83. BAB, R470 altR48/11, Reichspostminister an die Presidenten der Reichspost-Direktion, 26.3.45.
84. See Dietmar Süß, ‘Der Kampf um die “Moral” im Bunker: Deutschland, Großbritannien und der Luftkrieg’, in Frank Bajohr and Michael Wildt (eds.), Volksgemeinschaft: Neue Forschungen zur Gesellschaft des Nationalsozialismus, Frankfurt am Main, 2009, pp. 129–35.
85. DZW, 6, p. 628; Oron J. Hale, The Captive Press in the Third Reich, Princeton, 1973, pp. 306–7.
86. DRZW, 9/1 (Blank), p. 415.
87. For example, instructions were sent out in early March to local authorities in Bavaria to alter arrangements for budgetary plans for 1945, emphasizing that local taxes should be passed on time to the towns and rural districts. – StAM, LRA 31908, unfoliated, Deutscher Gemeindetag, Dienststelle Bayern, Haushaltspläne der Gemeinden und Gemeindeverbände für 1945, 7.3.45. The Landrat in Berchtesgaden was still enquiring on 28 April 1945 when building work on new barracks, commissioned the previous August to extend accommodation for evacuees, would begin. – StAM, LRA 31645, unfoliated, Landrat Berchtesgaden to OT-Sonderbauleitung, 28.4.45.
88. On the policing of air-raid shelters, see DRZW, 9/1 (Blank), pp. 385–8.
89. By late March firemen in small communities of Sachsen-Anhalt were complaining that they were being called away from their work, where they were urgently needed, almost daily and often unnecessarily, at the ‘pre-alarm’ stage by the frequency of air raids. – IWM, EDS, F.3, M.I. 14/369, Krosigk to Goebbels, 26.3.45. Some people registered for voluntary fire service to try to escape recruitment to the Volkssturm. – StAM, LRA 31919, Gauleitung München to HSSPF Mühe on training of Volkssturm and air protection, including attempted regulation by the Regierungspräsident of Oberbayern of air protection service and service of voluntary firemen in the Volkssturm of 30.12.44 and the dispute of firemen serving in the Volkssturm of 25 and 31.1.45 and 21.2.45.
90. DRZW, 9/1 (Blank), p. 384.
91. Bernhard Gotto, Nationalsozialistische Kommunalpolitik: Administrative Normalität und Systemstabilisierung durch die Augsburger Stadtverwaltung 1933–1945, Munich, 2006, p. 373, surmises, most likely correctly, that Party representatives in Augsburg operated more through ‘actionism’ than idealism in the very last phase of the war.
92. For the organizational and controlling functions of the Party’s Block Leaders (who in the mid-1930s had numbered around 200,000), see Detlef Schmiechen-Ackermann, ‘Der “Blockwart”: Die unteren Parteifunktionäre im nationalsozialistischen Terror- und Überwachungsapparat’, Vf Z, 48 (2000), pp. 594–6.
93. Pätzold and Weißbecker, p. 375. See also Herwart Vorländer, Die NSV: Darstellung und Dokumentation einer NS-Organisation, Boppard, 1988, p. 183 for the NSV’s mobilizing and control function. Unpaid workers for the NSV and the German Red Cross numbered more than a million. Although the NSV welfare activity was always underpinned by Nazi racial objectives, the work that it carried out in the crisis conditions of the last months of the war made it popular, even among many Germans who were negatively disposed towards the regime. – Vorländer, Die NSV, pp. 173–6, 186; Herwart Vorländer, ‘NS-Volkswohlfahrt und Winterhilfswerk des deutschen Volkes’, Vf Z, 34 (1986), pp. 376–80; Armin Nolzen, ‘Die NSDAP und die deutsche Gesellschaft im Zweiten Weltkrieg’, in Kriegsende in Deutschland, Hamburg, 2005, pp. 192–3.
94. See DRZW, 9/1 (Nolzen), p. 191; and Armin Nolzen, ‘Von der geistigen Assimilation zur institutionellen Kooperation: Das Verhältnis zwischen NSDAP und Wehrmacht, 1943–1945’, in Hillmann and Zimmermann, pp. 90–92.
95. IWM, EDS, F.3, M.I. 14/369, Krosigk to Speer, 13.2.45.
96. IWM, EDS, F.3, M.I. 14/369, Krosigk to Goebbels, 22.3.45.
97. This paragraph, when not otherwise referenced, is based on Dieter Rebentisch, Führerstaat und Verwaltung im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Stuttgart, 1989, pp. 529–30.
98. Jill Stephenson, Hitler’s Home Front: Württemberg under the Nazis, London, 2006, p. 324.
99. Gotto, p. 363.
100. StAA, Gauleitung Schwaben, 1/30, fos. 328904–6, Wahl to Bormann, 17.3.45; also Gotto, pp. 374–5.
101. StAA, Kreisleitung Augsburg-Stadt, 1/8, fos. 300554–5, Rundspruch an alle Kreisleiter, 30.3.45. Every Gau was to produce 100 ‘volunteers’, and Wahl laid down – on what criteria it is not clear – the contingents from each district in his region. He criticized the Kreisleiter in mid-April for doing too little to gain recruits. – Gotto, p. 375.
102. Perry Biddiscombe, Werwolf! The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement 1944–1946, Toronto and Buffalo, NY, 1998, pp. 12–14 (where the derivation of the name is discussed).
103. Biddiscombe, pp. 38, 128, 134–9.
104. TBJG, II/15, pp. 630 (30.3.45), 647 (31.3.45). For Ley’s extreme radicalism in advocating a fight to the last, see Ronald Smelser, Robert Ley: Hitler’s Labor Front Leader, Oxford, New York and Hamburg, 1988, pp. 291–2.
105. Biddiscombe, pp. 266–8; Henke, pp. 837–45.
106. Biddiscombe, p. 276, and ch. 5 for many instances of minor, uncoordinated and sporadic resistance to the Allied occupiers by former Hitler Youth members, former SS men and other Nazi diehards that punctuated the late spring and summer of 1945 and beyond, though they were only tangentially related to the Werwolf groups that had been established in the last weeks of the war.
107. Biddiscombe, p. 282, uses Allied assessments to suggest that 10–15 per cent of Germans supported the partisan movement, though this probably conflates general backing for continued resistance
to the Allies and support for the regime with specific support for Werwolf activities. See Henke, pp. 948–9, for a more dismissive appraisal of support.
108. TBJG, II/15, pp. 422, 424 (5.3.45). Hitler had also thought the Mosel could be defended. – TBJG, II/15, p. 533 (18.3.45).
109. As suggested by Bernd Wegner, ‘Hitler, der Zweite Weltkrieg und die Choreographie des Untergangs’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 26 (2000), pp. 493–518; also in DRZW, 8, pp. 1192–1209.
110. TBJG, II/15, p. 479 (12.3.45).
111. Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945, ed. Max Domarus, Wiesbaden, 1973, p. 2212.
112. TBJG, II/15, pp. 422–3 (5.3.45).
113. TBJG, II/15, p. 425 (5.3.45). For Goebbels’ fantasies of heroism as the end approached and his wife’s reluctant determination to stay in Berlin and accept not only her own death, but that of her children, see Ralf Georg Reuth, Goebbels, Munich and Zurich, 1990, pp. 587–8. Magda had apparently accepted both the certainty of Germany’s defeat and that death ‘by our own hand, not the enemy’s’ was the only choice left. – David Irving, Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich, London, 1996, p. 506 (though based on recollections, reproduced in an article on Magda in a periodical in 1952 (Irving, p. 564 n. 9), of her sister-in-law Eleanor (Ello) Quandt, whose testimony as Irving acknowledges (p. 564 n. 19) was not always reliable).