The End

  72. Ralf Meindl, Ostpreußens Gauleiter: Erich Koch – eine politische Biographie, Osnabrück, 2007, p. 452.

  73. Wilfred von Oven, Finale Furioso: Mit Goebbels bis zum Ende, Tübingen, 1974, pp. 635–7 (12.4.45); Meindl, p. 455; Alastair Noble, Nazi Rule and the Soviet Offensive in Eastern Germany, 1944–1945: The Darkest Hour, Brighton and Portland, Ore., 2009, p. 240; Isabel Denny, The Fall of Hitler’s Fortress City: The Battle for Königsberg, 1945, London, 2007, p. 230; Speer, p. 498. Whether, as Oven claimed (p. 636), Koch had influenced Hitler in condemning General Lasch, commander of Königsberg, to death in absentia for his ‘cowardly’ capitulation is doubted by Meindl, p. 454.

  74. Höffkes, p. 24.

  75. BAB, NS6/277, fos. 76–8 (17.4.45). Printed in Karl Kunze, Kriegsende in Franken und der Kampf um Nürnberg im April 1945, Nuremberg, 1995, pp. 217–19.

  76. Kunze, pp. 243–4, 265, 283–5; Höffkes, p. 156. The local attempts of courageous individuals and groups of citizens in Central Franconia to prevent the mania of Nazi fanatics from bringing about the destruction of their towns can be seen in Hans Woller, Gesellschaft und Politik in der amerikanischen Besatzungszone: Die Region Ansbach und Fürth, Munich, 1986, pp. 46–57.

  77. Ernst Hornig, Breslau 1945: Erlebnisse in der eingeschlossenen Stadt, Munich, 1975, pp. 129–31; Hans von Ahlfen and Hermann Niehoff, So kämpfte Breslau: Verteidigung und Untergang von Schlesiens Hauptstadt, Munich, 1959, p. 83; Friedrich Grieger, Wie Breslau fiel…, Metzingen, 1948, pp. 23–4; Joachim Konrad, ‘Das Ende von Breslau’, Vf Z, 4 (1956), p. 388.

  78. TBJG, II/15, pp. 692–3 (9.4.45). Höffkes, p. 122, dates the award to 12 April, though Goebbels refers to the granting of the honour already on 9 April.

  79. BAB, R3/1625, fo. 2, Speer to Hanke, 14.4.45.

  80. After his flight from Breslau, Hanke was captured on 6 May by Czech partisans, though not recognized, and was killed early the following month while trying to escape. – Höffkes, pp. 122–3; Michael D. Miller and Andreas Schulz (eds.), Gauleiter: The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and their Deputies, CD-ROM, n.d. (c. 2004), vol. 1.

  81. BAB, NS6/353, fo. 151, Anordnung of Bormann to all Reichsleiter, Gauleiter and Verbändeführer, 1.4.45; also in IfZ, Fa-91/4, fo. 1099.

  82. Ferdinand Stadlbauer, ‘Die letzten Tage des Gauleiters Wächtler’, Waldmünchner Heimatbote, 12 (1985), pp. 3–10; Höffkes, pp. 360–61; Joachim Lilla, Die Stellvertretenden Gauleiter und die Vertretung der Gauleiter der NSDAP im ‘Dritten Reich’, Koblenz, 2003, pp. 100–101.

  83. Text in Justiz und NS-Verbrechen: Sammlung deutscher Strafurteile wegen nationalsozialistischer Tötungsverbrechen 1945–1966, Register, ed. C. F. Rüter and D. W. De Mildt, Amsterdam and Munich, 1998, p. 199; Klaus-Dietmar Henke, Die amerikanische Besetzung Deutschlands, Munich, 1995, p. 787. Himmler’s draft of 29.3.45, and the OKW telex and draft sent to him, are in BA/MA, RH/20/19/196, fos. 103–5.

  84. Reproduced in Fritz Nadler, Eine Stadt im Schatten Streichers, Nuremberg, 1969, p. 41; Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, Register, p. 199. Himmler’s decree of the same day, ordering that ‘every village and town will be defended and held with all possible means’ is printed in Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, Register, p. 200 and in Rolf-Dieter Müller and Gerd R. Ueberschär, Kriegsende 1945: Die Zerstörung des Deutschen Reiches, Frankfurt am Main, 1994, p. 171.

  85. See, for example, the good local study by Herfried Münkler, Machtzerfall: Die letzten Tage des Dritten Reiches dargestellt am Beispiel der hessischen Kreisstadt Friedberg, Berlin, 1985.

  86. Heinz Petzold, ‘Cottbus zwischen Januar und Mai 1945’, in Werner Stang and Kurt Arlt (eds.), Brandenburg im Jahr 1945, Potsdam, 1995, pp. 121–4.

  87. Norbert Buske (ed.), Die kampflose Übergabe der Stadt Greifswald im April 1945, Schwerin, 1993, pp. 15–30, 37.

  88. Henke, pp. 843–4; Zimmermann, Pflicht, pp. 360, 363.

  89. Paul Sauer, Württemberg in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Ulm, 1975, pp. 492–4; Andreas Förschler, Stuttgart 1945: Kriegsende und Neubeginn, Gudensberg-Gleichen, 2004, pp. 8–19; Jill Stephenson, ‘ “Resistance” to “No Surrender”: Popular Disobedience in Württemberg in 1945’, in Francis R. Nicosia and Lawrence D. Stokes (eds.), Germans against Nazism, Oxford and Providence, RI, 1990, pp. 357–8; Jill Stephenson, Hitler’s Home Front: Württemberg under the Nazis, London, 2006, pp. 324–5.

  90. Hildebrand Troll, ‘Aktionen zur Kriegsbeendigung im Frühjahr 1945’, in Martin Broszat, Elke Fröhlich and Anton Grossmann (eds.), Bayern in der NS-Zeit, vol. 4, Munich and Vienna, 1981, pp. 650–54; Fritz, pp. 140–49.

  91. Serger, Böttcher and Ueberschär, pp. 255–7, diary entry of Gertrud Neumeister, 17.4.45.

  92. See Henke, pp. 844–61; Fritz, ch. 5; Elisabeth Kohlhaas, ‘ “Aus einem Haus, aus dem eine weiße Fahnen erscheint, sind alle männlichen Personen zu erschießen”: Durchhalteterror und Gewalt gegen Zivilisten am Kriegsende 1945’, in Cord Arendes, Edgar Wolfrum and Jörg Zedler (eds.), Terror nach Innen: Verbrechen am Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges, Göttingen, 2006, pp. 51–79; Egbert Schwarz, ‘Die letzten Tage des Dritten Reiches: Untersuchung zu Justiz und NS-Verbrechen in der Kriegsendphase März/April 1945’, MA thesis, University of Düsseldorf, 1990, pp. 14–19, 23–7, 35–8 (a regional study of Northern Rhineland-Westphalia); and DZW, 6, pp. 652–4, for numerous examples.

  93. Troll, p. 652; Fritz, p. 146.

  94. Zeitzeugen berichten… Schwäbisch Gmünd, pp. 43, 49, 77, 83–4; Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 2, ed. Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann and C. F. Rüter, Amsterdam, 1969, pp. 77–101; Albert Deible, Krieg und Kriegsende in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Schwäbisch Gmünd, 1954, pp. 26–8, 34–5, 66–8; Kohlhaas, p. 51.

  95. Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 1, ed. Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann and C. F. Rüter, Amsterdam, 1968, pp. 505–29; Henke, pp. 848–9; Kohlhaas, p. 51, has fourteen victims, though this figure must include those shot at but not actually hit. As in so many cases, the Kreisleiter had given the order ‘to defend the town to the last drop of blood’, whereas most people were wholly opposed to such a stance. – Robert Bauer, Heilbronner Tagebuchblätter, Heilbronn, 1949, p. 46. Drauz was executed in 1946, his main accomplice sentenced to fifteen years in a penitentiary. For Drauz, notable for his fanaticism, see also Stephenson, Hitler’s Home Front, pp. 332–3.

  96. Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 10, ed. Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann, H. H. Fuchs and C. F. Rüter, Amsterdam, 1973, pp. 205–40; Henke, pp. 851–3.

  97. BBC Archives, The Nazis: A Warning from History (1997), written and produced for BBC2 by Laurence Rees, interview of Walter Fernau by Detlef Siebert, n.d., c. 1997, roll 219, pp. 211, 213; roll 221, pp. 352–3. See also the book of the series: Laurence Rees, The Nazis: A Warning from History, London, 1997, pp. 232–4 and 247. Much of the lengthy interview (rolls 217–21, 403pp., in German, with English translation) gives Fernau’s own account of the operation of Helm’s ‘flying court martial’ and the trial and execution of Karl Weiglein. Fernau was sentenced in 1952 to six years in a penitentiary for his part in the affair (and in a further case).

  98. Jürgen Zarusky, ‘Von der Sondergerichtsbarkeit zum Endphasenterror: Loyalitätserzwingung und Rache am Widerstand im Zusammenbruch des NS-Regimes’, in Arendes, Wolfrum and Zedler, pp. 116–17; Andreas Heusler, ‘Die Eskalation des Terrors: Gewalt gegen ausländische Zwangsarbeiter in der Endphase des Zweiten Weltkrieges’, in Arendes, Wolfrum and Zedler, p. 180.

  99. Zarusky, p. 113.

  100. For numerous cases of mass killing of prisoners in April 1945, see Gerhard Paul, ‘ “Diese Erschießungen haben mich innerlich gar nicht mehr berührt”: Die Kriegsendphasenverbrechen der Gestapo 1944/45’, in Gerhard Paul and Klaus-Michael Mallmann (eds.), Die Gestapo im Zweiten Weltkrieg: ‘Heimatfront’ und besetztes Europa, Darmstadt, 2000, pp. 554–60.

  101. Nikolaus Wachsmann, Hitler’s Prisons: Legal Terror in Nazi Germany, New Haven and London, 2004, pp. 336–7.

  102. Eberhard Kolb, ‘Bergen-Belsen: Die Errichtung des Lagers Bergen-Belsen und seine Funktion
als “Aufenthaltslager” (1943/44)’, in Martin Broszat (ed.), Studien zur Geschichte der Konzentrationslager, Stuttgart, 1970, p. 151; Eberhard Kolb, Bergen-Belsen 1943 bis 1945, Göttingen, 1985, pp. 47–51. For Himmler’s orders, see Eberhard Kolb, Bergen-Belsen: Geschichte des ‘Aufenthaltslagers’ 1943–1945, Hanover, 1962, pp. 157–60.

  103. Kolb, Bergen-Belsen 1943 bis 1945, p. 48; Katrin Greiser, Die Todesmärsche von Buchenwald: Räumung, Befreiung und Spuren der Erinnerung, Göttingen, 2008, p. 134.

  104. Karin Orth, Das System der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager: Eine politische Organisationsgeschichte, Hamburg, 1999, pp. 301–5, 308, 311–12; Peter Longerich, Heinrich Himmler: Biographie, Munich, 2008, p. 745.

  105. Orth, p. 307.

  106. Orth, pp. 307–8, 311; IMT, vol. 11, p. 450 (testimony of Rudolf Höß). The order to ‘secure’ the concentration camps in an emergency – presumed to be a prisoners’ uprising – had been first issued on 17 June 1944, though this made no explicit mention of what should happen to the prisoners. – IfZ, Nbg-Dok., PS-3683, ‘Sicherung der Konzentrationslager’ (not in the published trial volumes), by which Himmler gave responsibility for security measures involving the concentration camps to the Higher SS and Police Leaders; Orth, p. 272. According to the testimony of Höß, this left up to them the question of whether a camp should be evacuated or handed over. In early 1945, with the approach of the enemy, the situation changed. In January and February 1945 commandants carried out new instructions to kill ‘dangerous’ prisoners. Himmler’s agreement in March, with the intention of using Jews as pawns in possible negotiations with the western Allies, then temporarily blocked ideas of killing all concentration camp prisoners. – Orth, pp. 296–305. But in April there was another shift. The order indicating that there had been a reversion to the earlier stance was apparently issued on 18 April (not 14 April as often stated) and received in the camp at Flossenbürg the following day. A German text of this order has never surfaced, though its authenticity has been ascertained on the basis of several near contemporary partial translations. – Stanislav Zamecnik, ‘ “Kein Häftling darf lebend in die Hände des Feindes fallen”: Zur Existenz des Himmler-Befehls vom 14–18. April 1945’, Dachauer Hefte, 1 (1985), pp. 219–31. See also DZW, 6, pp. 647–8.

  107. IMT, vol. 11, p. 450 (Höß testimony); Orth, p. 312; Daniel Blatman, ‘The Death-Marches and the Final Phase of Nazi Genocide’, in Jane Caplan and Nikolaus Wachsmann (eds.), Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany: The New Histories, London and New York, 2010, p. 175; DZW, 6, pp. 647–8.

  108. Orth, p. 307.

  109. Orth, pp. 305–9. The conditions in Buchenwald during the final days and the liberation of the camp are vividly described by a prisoner at the time, Eugen Kogon, Der SS-Staat: Das System der deutschen Konzentrationslager, pb. edn., Munich, 1974, pp. 335–43.

  110. Orth, pp. 312–28. The western Allies went to considerable lengths after the war to establish the precise routes of the marches, the numbers killed in each place they passed through, and the exact place of burial of those murdered. The extensive files are housed at the ITS, especially Bestand ‘Tote’ (83 boxes) and ‘Evak’ (9 boxes).

  111. Greiser, p. 138.

  112. Blatman, ‘The Death-Marches and the Final Phase of Nazi Genocide’, p. 174.

  113. Unpublished ‘Reminiscences’ (1989) of Dr Michael Gero, Hamburg, pp. 111–12, most kindly sent to me by Mr George Burton, the son of one of the prisoners so casually and brutally murdered. What happened to the blond SS murderer is not known.

  114. Blatman, ‘The Death-Marches and the Final Phase of Nazi Genocide’, pp. 176–7, 180–81.

  115. Blatman, ‘The Death-Marches and the Final Phase of Nazi Genocide’, pp. 177–8; Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, pb. edn., London, 1997, p. 364; Greiser, pp. 136, 140, concludes that, as regards Buchenwald prisoners, non-Jews were no less exposed to the torment than Jews were.

  116. ITS, Tote 80, fo. 00044a, Celle, (1946–7), estimates the death toll from the bombing raid at a thousand prisoners. Later estimates have varied wildly, but the most likely assessments seem to be 400–500. – Bernhard Strebel, Celle April 1945 Revisited, Bielefeld, 2008, pp. 114–15.

  117. Daniel Blatman, Les Marches de la mort: La dernière étape du génocide nazi, été 1944–printemps 1945, Paris, 2009, pp. 282–8 (quotation, p. 286). Strebel (whose book offers a careful assessment of the available evidence for the dire events in Celle) estimates (p. 115) around 200 victims of the massacre. See also ‘Hasenjagd’ in Celle: Das Massaker am 8. April 1945, Celle, 2005, for eyewitness accounts and an assessment of how the town subsequently dealt with the memory of the massacre.

  118. Blatman, Les Marches de la mort, pp. 318–61; Joachim Neander, Das Konzentrationslager ‘Mittelbau’ in der Endphase der nationalsozialistischen Diktatur, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, 1997, pp. 466–77; Joachim Neander, Gardelegen 1945: Das Ende der Häftlingstransporte aus dem Konzentrationslager ‘Mittelbau’, Magdeburg, 1998, pp. 27–35, 40–45; Diana Gring, ‘Das Massaker von Gardelegen’, Dachauer Hefte, 20 (2004), pp. 112–26; Goldhagen, pp. 367–8; Robert Gellately, Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany, Oxford, 2001, p. 246; DZW, 6, p. 648.

  119. Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen, Ludwigsburg, IV 409 AR-Z/ 78/72, fos. 1192, 1234; IV 409 AR-Z/105/72 1 fo. 96. I am grateful for these references to Dr Simone Erpel.

  120. Both quotations in Greiser, p. 258. A fourteen-year-old boy on the march from Flossenbürg in mid-April recalled that ‘most Germans regard us prisoners as criminals’. – Heinrich Demerer, ‘Erinnerungen an den Todesmarsch aus dem KZ Flossenbürg’, Dachauer Hefte, 25 (2009), p. 154.

  121. Goldhagen, p. 365, and p. 587 n. 23; Simone Erpel, Zwischen Vernichtung und Befreiung: Das Frauen-Konzentrationslager Ravensbrück in der letzten Kriegsphase, Berlin, 2005, pp. 176–7.

  122. Cited Blatman, Les Marches de la mort, p. 286.

  123. ITS, Tote 83, Hütten, fo. 00011a–b (1.4.46, though the evidence is weakened by the fact that the former mayor and Wehrmacht officer were signatories to the report).

  124. ITS, Tote 4, Altendorf, fos. 00088a–00099b (July 1947).

  125. Some instances are presented in Greiser, pp. 259–75, and in Delia Müller and Madlen Lepschies, Tage der Angst und der Hoffnung: Erinnerungen an die Todesmärsche aus dem Frauen-Konzentrationslager Ravensbrück Ende April 1945, Berlin, n.d., pp. 56–7, 87, 89–90. Heinrich Demerer recalled sympathetic faces among civilians watching the marching prisoners and frequently being given bread by civilians, though he thought it was because he was so small, since the other prisoners received virtually nothing as they passed by. – Demerer, pp. 152, 154. Memories of the Ravensbrück death marches provide instances where children at the time recollected their parents putting water and boiled potatoes on the streets for prisoners. The former prisoners themselves, on the other hand, recall, not such instances of aid, but the rejection of the bystanders. – Simone Erpel, ‘Machtverhältnisse im Zerfall: Todesmärsche der Häftlinge des Frauen-Konzentrationslagers Ravensbrück im April 1945’, in Jörg Hillmann and John Zimmermann (eds.), Kriegsende 1945 in Deutschland, Munich, 2002, p. 198.

  126. Blatman, ‘The Death-Marches and the Final Phase of Nazi Genocide’, p. 180; and see Goldhagen, p. 365.

  127. Ardsley Microfilms, Irving Collection, Reel 1, R97481, Göring interrogation, 24.5.45.

  128. This is the speculation of Rolf-Dieter Müller in DRZW, 10/2, pp. 102–4. Speer acknowledged in his post-war trial that he still had conflicting feelings and was after all that had happened even now ready to place himself at Hitler’s disposal. – IMT, vol. 16, p. 582. Schmidt, pp. 162–3, suggests that Speer sought to influence Hitler to appoint Dönitz as his successor, in the expectation that he himself would play an important role in the administration.

  129. Speer, pp. 487–8.

  130. BAB, NS19/3118, fo. 3, Himmler’s order of 24.1.45, reminding SS men of Hitler’s order of 25.11.44 (fo. 2
) on required behaviour of officers, NCOs and men ‘in an apparently hopeless situation’.

  131. Von Oven, pp. 647, 650 (19–20.4.45).

  132. Von Oven, pp. 646–7 (18.4.45). Goebbels had also ensured that his diaries had been copied onto glass plates in an early form of microfiche. – TBJG, Register, Teil III, Elke Fröhlich, ‘Einleitung zur Gesamtedition’, pp. 37–47. His posthumous image was much on Goebbels’ mind at this time. Speaking to his staff on 17 April and referring to the new colour film Kolberg, which had been produced to bolster willingness to hold out and defy the odds, the Propaganda Minister reportedly stated: ‘Gentlemen, in a hundred years’ time they will be showing another fine colour film describing the terrible days we are living through. Don’t you want to play a part in this film, to be brought back to life in a hundred years’ time? Everybody now has the chance to choose the part which he will play in the film a hundred years hence. I can assure you it will be a fine and elevating picture. And for the sake of this prospect it is worth standing fast. Hold out now, so that a hundred years hence the audience does not hoot and whistle when you appear on the screen.’ The fifty or so men who heard this did not know whether to laugh or swear. – Semmler, p. 194 (17.4.45).