The End

  52. BA/MA, N54/8, NL Keitel, ‘Die letzten Tage unter Adolf Hitler’, fo. 19.

  53. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 447 (16.5.45); 1945: Das Jahr der endgültigen Niederlage der faschistischen Wehrmacht. Dokumente, ed. Gerhard Förster and Richard Lakowski, Berlin, 1975, pp. 422–5.

  54. Hillmann, pp. 46–7; DZW, 6, p. 770; Die Niederlage 1945, pp. 429–30 (5.5.45).

  55. BA/MA, N54/8, NL Keitel, ‘Die letzten Tage unter Adolf Hitler’, fo. 19.

  56. IfZ, ZS 145, Schwerin von Krosigk, Bd. I, fo. 24, Eidesstattliche Erklärung, Nuremberg 1.4.49 im Spruchverfahren gegen Ernst Wilhelm Bohle.

  57. IfZ, ZS 145, Schwerin von Krosigk, Bd. III, fo. 62, 7.12.62.

  58. Die Niederlage 1945, pp. 431–2, Dönitz-Tagebuch, Tagesniederschrift 6.5.45; IfZ, ZS 145, Schwerin von Krosigk, Bd. III, fo. 62, 7.12.62.

  59. Hillmann, pp. 5–7. Dönitz had initially wanted to change the leadership of the Wehrmacht. He and Krosigk agreed that Keitel and Jodl would be dismissed and replaced by Field-Marshal Erich von Manstein as the new head of the Wehrmacht. But the whereabouts of Manstein (according to one version) could not be located. – Walter Baum, ‘Der Zusammenbruch der obersten deutschen militärischen Führung 1945’, Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau, 10 (1960), p. 255. In another account, Manstein said he had been summoned by the OKW to meet Dönitz without being given a reason. He could not attend that day and heard no more about it. Dönitz told Krosigk that Manstein had declined to take over from Keitel, which was not the case. – Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, Es geschah in Deutschland, Tübingen and Stuttgart, 1951, p. 374.

  60. IfZ, ZS 145, Schwerin von Krosigk, Bd. III, fo. 62v, 7.12.62; Schwendemann, p. 18.

  61. IfZ, ZS 1810, Großadmiral Karl Dönitz, Bd. II, fos. 60–61, ‘Letzte Kriegszeit als Ob.d.M. Zeit als Staatsoberhaupt’, no date; Lüdde-Neurath, pp. 81–2.

  62. Müller and Ueberschär, p. 103. Major-General Dethleffsen recalled some months later (BA/MA, N648/1, NL Dethleffsen, Erinnerungen, fo. 57) that he had been unable to resist pointing out to the NSFO of Army Group Vistula on hearing the news of Hitler’s death that he should think overnight of a new form of greeting since ‘Heil Hitler’ was now out of date. The thought turned out to be a little premature.

  63. DZW, 6, p. 776, lists some of the sentences by military courts and the executions that followed.

  64. IWM, EDS, H1, 2.5.45. Printed in 1945: Das Jahr der endgültigen Niederlage der faschistischen Wehrmacht, pp. 361–4. When Dönitz had consulted Ribbentrop about a new Foreign Minister, the latter had been able to think of no one more suitable for the post than himself. – Lüdde-Neurath, p. 82.

  65. The ‘Tagesniederschriften’, taken down by Dönitz’s adjutant, Korvettenkapitän Walter Lüdde-Neurath, exist in BA/MA, N374/8, NL Friedeburg with copies in IWM, EDS, F.3, AL2893. They are quoted here from the printed version in Die Niederlage 1945, p. 421 (2.5.45). Hillmann sees Dönitz’s attempt to work through partial capitulations as continuity rather than ‘a new characteristic of policy’, since most of Hitler’s paladins had at one time or another tried to gain a ‘separate peace’ or partial capitulation. This overlooks the fact that, before Hitler’s death, such actions remained ‘unofficial’, undertaken behind his back, or were blocked at the outset, whereas once Dönitz became head of state they became overnight official policy. – Hillmann, pp. 48–9. Dönitz repeated in a statement soon after the end of the war that he regarded an immediate total capitulation as impossible for Germany. The horror at what the Soviets had done was so strong that an immediate general capitulation, abandoning the soldiers in the east and the refugee civilian population to the Red Army, ‘would have been a crime against my German people’, and the order would not have been followed by German troops, who would have continued to try to fight their way to the west. – IfZ, ZS 1810, Karl Dönitz, Bd. II, ‘Kriegsende 1945’, 22.7.45, fo. 3.

  66. DZW, 6, p. 426.

  67. NAL, Premier 3/221/12, nos. 3736–7, fos. 413–15, Churchill to Eden, 16.4.45, fos. 392–3, Eisenhower to Combined Chiefs of Staff, 23.4.45, fo. 361, Eisenhower to Combined Chiefs of Staff, 1.5.45. See also Bob Moore, ‘The Western Allies and Food Relief to the Occupied Netherlands, 1944–45’, War and Society, 10 (1992), pp. 106–9. I am grateful to Bob Moore for providing me with these references.

  68. Die Niederlage 1945, pp. 421 (2.5.45), 425 (3.5.45); BAB, R3/1625, fos. 4–5, Blaskowitz to Lüdde-Neurath, n.d. (30.4.45; the original telex in BA/MA, RM7/854, fo. 177, has no date, though 30.4 is pencilled in the top right-hand corner); Seyß-Inquart ‘an den Führer’ (i.e. to Dönitz), 2.5.45. For Blaskowitz’s stance in the last days of the war, see John Zimmermann, Pflicht zum Untergang: Die deutsche Kriegführung im Westen des Reiches 1944/45, Paderborn, 2009, pp. 340–41.

  69. Keitel pointed out that the news took Dönitz by surprise but that he supported it. – BA/MA, N54/8, NL Keitel, ‘Die letzten Tage unter Adolf Hitler’, fo. 20.

  70. BA/MA, N574/19, NL Vietinghoff, ‘Kriegsende in Italien’ (1948), fo. 45; also Förster, p. 56.

  71. BA/MA, N574/19, NL Vietinghoff, ‘Kriegsende in Italien’ (1948), fos. 53–4.

  72. IWM, EDS, F.3, M.I. 14/284 (A), Kaltenbrunner to Hitler, 1.5.45.

  73. DZW, 6, pp. 152–3.

  74. BA/MA, N574/19, NL Vietinghoff, ‘Kriegsende in Italien’, fos. 56–9.

  75. IWM, EDS, F.3, M.I. 14/284 (A), Kesselring to Dönitz, Keitel and Deputy Chief, Wehrmacht Operations Staff, General Winter, 2.5.45.

  76. BA/MA, N574/19, NL Vietinghoff, ‘Kriegsende in Italien’ (1948), fos. 60–62. For Kesselring’s account, see The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring, Greenhill Books edn., London, 1997, pp. 288–9. See also, for the capitulation in Italy, DZW, 6, pp. 749–52; DRZW, 10/1 (Zimmermann), p. 472.

  77. BA/MA, RW44II/3, fo. 20, Winter to Jodl, 2.5.45.

  78. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 423 (2.5.45); Schwendemann, p. 18.

  79. BA/MA, RM7/854, fo. 13, for Dönitz’s order for the capitulation of the city, issued the previous day, 2 May.

  80. BA/MA, RM7/854, fos. 33, 36, reports of Kdr. Adm. Deutsche Bucht, 4.5.45. Serious disintegration within the 3rd Panzer Army in Mecklenburg had already been reported on 27 April by General Hasso von Manteuffel, who spoke of scenes which he had not even seen in 1918. – 1945: Das Jahr der endgültigen Niederlage der faschistischen Wehrmacht, pp. 343–4; DRZW, 10/1 (Lakowski), p. 655.

  81. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 429 (5.5.45); BA/MA, RM7/854, fo. 24, for the earlier confirmation order of 3.5.45 to scuttle ships. A directive had already been issued on 30 April that ‘in the event of an unforeseen development of the situation’ on the codeword ‘Rainbow’, all ships, including U-boats, were immediately to be sunk. The demand to hand over all weapons, including U-boats, was seen by Keitel and Jodl as incompatible with German honour. Dönitz accepted the demand only with extreme reluctance. Some 185 U-boats were, in fact, scuttled by their commanders with the Dönitz administration turning a blind eye, before the order to hand them over could take effect. – KTB/SKL, part A, vol. 68, p. 421A, Funksprüche der Skl., 3.5.45; Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, ‘Persönliche Erinnerungen’, part 2: ‘25 Jahre Berlin 1920 bis 1945’, unpublished typescript, n.d., p. 324; DRZW, 10/1 (Rahn), pp. 166–7.

  82. DZW, 6, p. 742. This figure includes SS and OT members. Howard D. Grier, Hitler, Dönitz and the Baltic Sea: The Third Reich’s Last Hope, 1944–1945, Annapolis, Md., 2007, p. 218, has a Wehrmacht strength of 350,000 troops.

  83. Die Niederlage 1945, pp. 423 (3.5.45), 426–7 (4.5.45), 430 (5.5.45); DRZW, 10/1 (Zimmermann), pp. 472–4; DZW, 6, pp. 773–4; Albert Speer, Erinnerungen, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, 1969, pp. 496–7; Schwendemann, pp. 18–19.

  84. BA/MA, RM7/854, fo. 117, Chef OKW, 6.5.45.

  85. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 425 (3.5.45).

  86. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 432 (6.5.45); DRZW, 10/1 (Zimmermann), pp. 474–5; DZW, 6, p. 758; Müller and Ueberschär, pp. 102–3; Schwendemann, p. 23.

  87. BA/MA, RM7/854, fo. 71, Keitel telegraph, 5.5.45.


  88. BA/MA, RM7/854, fo. 48, FS Chef SKL, 4.5.45.

  89. According to the OKW’s calculations, 1,850,000 soldiers belonged to the army in the east on 7 May 1945. – DRZW, 10/1 (Lakowski), p. 675.

  90. DZW, 6, pp. 745, 761, 763; Schwendemann, p. 24, for the figures given above, representing the OKW’s estimates on 8 May. According to DRZW, 10/1 (Lakowski), p. 674, the size of Army Group Centre was estimated at between 600,000 and 650,000 men on 7 May.

  91. DZW, 6, p. 740; Müller and Ueberschär, p. 108. On Hela, the commander reported on 3 May that, short of men and weapons, the troops there were facing ‘certain destruction’. – BA/MA, RW44I/33, fo. 26, KR Blitz von General der Panzertruppe, AOK Ostpreußen an Obkdo. d. WMFStOber (H) Nordost, 3.5.45. There were some 150,000 soldiers and 50,000 refugees on Hela at the time. – Schwendemann, p. 23.

  92. BA/MA, RW44I/86, fo. 5, Bev. Gen. Kurland, gez. Möller, Brigadeführer, an Dönitz, 5.5.45.

  93. Die Niederlage 1945, pp. 426–7 (4.5.45).

  94. DZW, 6, p. 758; Rendulic´, pp. 378–81; Schwendemann, pp. 25–6.

  95. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 429 (5.5.45). Löhr’s request to be allowed to offer Field-Marshal Alexander his cooperation in an attempt to ‘prevent the total Bolshevization of Austria’ is printed in KTB/SKL, part A. vol. 68, p. 439A.

  96. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 430 (6.5.45); Schwendemann, p. 20.

  97. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 425 (3.5.45).

  98. DZW, 6, p. 761; Die Niederlage 1945, pp. 427–8 (4.5.45).

  99. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 422 (2.5.45).

  100. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 423 (3.5.45).

  101. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 431 (6.5.45).

  102. DZW, 6, pp. 758–67; Müller and Ueberschär, p. 104.

  103. Die Niederlage 1945, pp. 430–31 (6.5.45).

  104. Die Niederlage 1945, pp. 432–3 (7.5.45). Eisenhower had given Jodl half an hour to reach a decision, but communications difficulties with Flensburg delayed the arrival of his message and receipt of Dönitz’s approval. – DZW, 6, p. 774. See also Bodo Scheurig, Alfred Jodl: Gehorsam und Verhängnis, Berlin and Frankfurt am Main, 1991, pp. 331–3.

  105. Reproduced in facsimile in Müller and Ueberschär, pp. 178–9. Britain had introduced ‘double summer time’ during the Second World War. This placed Britain one hour ahead of Central European Time.

  106. Müller and Ueberschär, pp. 106, 180–81; Schwendemann, p. 30; Baum, p. 261. For a description of the scene, see G. Zhukov, Reminiscences and Reflections, vol. 2, Moscow, 1985, pp. 399–400; also Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall 1945, pb. edn., London, 2007, pp. 403–5.

  107. Speer, pp. 498–9.

  108. IWM, EDS, F.3, M.I. 14/284 (A), report on a discussion between Keitel and General Ivan Aleksandrovich Serov, deputy commissar of the NKVD (the Soviet internal security organization, headed by Lavrenty Beria); printed in KTB/SKL, part A, vol. 68, pp. 469–71A. Authentication of part of a jawbone which the Soviets had found in the garden of the Reich Chancellery as belonging to Hitler was only made a few days later. Stalin and the Soviet authorities continued for years to disbelieve accounts of Hitler’s death.

  109. BA/MA, RM7/854, fo. 120, Kriegstagebuch Seekriegsleitung, 7.5.45; KTB/OKW, vol. 4/2, pp. 1482–3 (7.5.45); Schwendemann, p. 25.

  110. Schwendemann, p. 26.

  111. Klaus Granzow, Tagebuch eines Hitlerjungen 1943–1945, Bremen, 1965, p. 177 (5.5.45).

  112. BA/MA, NL Schörner, N60/18, unfoliated, proclamation by Schörner to soldiers of Army Group Centre, 5.5.45.

  113. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 431.

  114. Schwendemann, p. 25.

  115. DZW, 6, p. 767.

  116. BA/MA, RW44I/54, unfoliated 4pp. ‘Aufzeichnung über die Dienstreise des Oberst i.G. Meyer-Detring zu Feldmarschall Schörner am 8.5.45 (p. 3: Unterredung mit Feldmarschall Schörner); Die Niederlage 1945, p. 438, for Meyer-Detring’s report to Dönitz.

  117. BA/MA, NL Schörner, N60/18, unfoliated, proclamation by Schörner to soldiers of Army Group Centre, 5.5.45; printed in Roland Kaltenegger, Schörner: Feldmarschall der letzten Stunde, Munich and Berlin, 1994, pp. 297–8.

  118. In a case that raised great public interest, with much support for Schörner as well as heated criticism of his actions, the former field-marshal was found guilty in October 1957 of condemning to death without a court, then the hanging, of a corporal said to have fallen asleep, drunk, at the wheel of his lorry in March 1945. He was sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment, of which he served two before being released on health grounds. The Federal Republic refused him a pension. He lived a secluded existence in Munich supported by friends and former military comrades, until his death in 1973 at the age of eighty-one. – Peter Steinkamp, ‘Generalfeldmarschall Ferdinand Schörner’, in Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.), Hitlers militärische Elite, vol. 2: Von Kriegsbeginn bis zum Weltkriegsende, Darmstadt, 1998, pp. 240–42; Klaus Schönherr, ‘Ferdinand Schörner – Der idealtypische Nazi-General’, in Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring (eds.), Die Militärelite des Dritten Reiches, Berlin, 1995, pp. 506–7. See also, for the controversy around Schörner’s trial, Kaltenegger, Schörner, pp. 330–54.

  119. DZW, 6, p. 767; DRZW, 10/1 (Lakowski), p. 673; Schwendemann, p. 31; Sebastian Siebel-Achenbach, Lower Silesia from Nazi Germany to Communist Poland, 1942–49, London, 1994, pp. 77–8.

  120. BA/MA, NL Schörner, N60/74, ‘Mein Verhalten bei der Kapitulation im Mai 1945’ and ‘Zur Vorgeschichte der Kapitulation’, both 10.3.58.

  121. Steinkamp, p. 238. Kaltenegger, Schörner, pp. 306–7, 315, supports Schörner’s own account. See also Roland Kaltenegger, Operation ‘Alpenfestung’: Das letzte Geheimnis des ‘Dritten Reiches’, Munich, 2005, pp. 336–46.

  122. One ordinary soldier in Schörner’s army noted in his diary how he and a few comrades were ordered out of the lorry in which they were leaving, desperately trying to reach the Americans after the dissolution of his unit had been determined. The staff officers of his company then climbed in and drove off. ‘We are the cheated ones,’ the soldier concluded. – Granzow, p. 179 (9.5.45).

  123. Schwendemann, p. 27.

  124. DRZW, 10/1 (Lakowski), p. 677. According to a report for the navy leadership, ships shuttling backwards and forwards across the Baltic ferried out between 11 and 17 May 109,205 soldiers, 6,887 wounded and 5,379 civilian refugees. – BA/MA, RM7/854, fo. 333, Lage Ostsee, 18.5.45.

  125. Müller and Ueberschär, pp. 107–8.

  126. DRZW, 10/2 (Overmans), pp. 502–3.

  127. See Schwendemann, p. 27.

  128. Neitzel, Abgehört, p. 49.

  129. KTB/OKW, vol. 4/2, pp. 1281–2 (9.5.45); repr. in Müller and Ueberschär, p. 181; Die Wehrmachtberichte 1939–1945, vol. 3: 1. Januar 1944 bis 9. Mai 1945, Munich, 1989, p. 569 (9.5.45).

  130. Dönitz, p. 471.

  131. Die Niederlage 1945, pp. 440, 445 (12.5.45, 15.5.45). Dönitz was still insisting on 18 May that there should be no concession to Allied demands to remove ‘emblems of sovereignty’ from German military uniforms. – 1945: Das Jahr der endgültigen Niederlage der faschistischen Wehrmacht, pp. 411–13.

  132. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 439 (11.5.45).

  133. Speer, pp. 499–500, for a description of the continued Dönitz administration; Die Niederlage 1945, pp. 433–49, for the entries in Dönitz’s diary on the workings of his administration between 8.5.45 and 17.5.45.

  134. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 446 (16.5.45). For the continuity in Dönitz’s political ideas, see Steinert, pp. 283–6, and also Lüdde-Neurath, p. 81.

  135. BAB, R3/1624, fos. 10–13, Speer to Krosigk, 15.5.45; Dönitz, p. 471; and see Matthias Schmidt, Albert Speer: Das Ende eines Mythos, Berne and Munich, 1982, pp. 167–71.

  136. Speer, p. 500.

  137. IWM, EDS, F.3., M.I. 14/950, memorandum of Stuckart, 22.5.45; Die Niederlage 1945, pp. 433–5, 441–2 (8.5.45, 12.5.45) for discussions of Dönitz’s resignation. See also Dönitz, p. 472.

  138. Description from David Stafford, Endgame 1945: Victory, Retribution, Libera
tion, London, 2007, pp. 407–8. See also Dönitz, pp. 473–4. For divisions of opinion within the Allied leadership on how to deal with the Dönitz administration, and the steps leading to the arrest of its members, see Marlis Steinert, ‘The Allied Decision to Arrest the Dönitz Government’, Historical Journal, 31 (1988), pp. 651–63.

  139. United States Strategic Bombing Survey, New York and London, 1976, vol. 4, p. 7. The figure given there for those killed, 305,000 people, has been shown to be too low. See Jörg Friedrich, Der Brand: Deutschland im Bombenkrieg 1940–1945, pb. edn., Berlin, 2004, p. 63, who puts the figure at between 420,000 and 570,000, and DRZW, 10/1 (Boog), p. 868, which estimates the civilian dead – not the total number – at 380,000–400,000. Rüdiger Overmans reckons the losses at between 400,000 and 500,000. – ‘Die Toten des Zweiten Weltkriegs in Deutschland’, in Wolfgang Michalka (ed.), Der Zweite Weltkrieg: Analysen, Grundzüge, Forschungsbilanz, Munich and Zurich, 1989, p. 860. See also Rüdiger Overmans, ‘55 Millionen Opfer des Zweiten Weltkrieges? Zum Stand der Forschung nach mehr als 40 Jahren’, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 48 (1990), pp. 107, 109. Yet a further estimate puts the most likely figure at 406,000, though an upper limit has ranged as high as 635,000. Most were killed in the last phase of the war. – Dietmar Süß, ‘Die Endphase des Luftkriegs’, in Kriegsende in Deutschland, Hamburg, 2005, p. 55. More than half the civilian deaths from bombing occurred in the last eight months of the war. – Nicholas Stargardt, Witnesses of War: Children’s Lives under the Nazis, London, 2005, pp. 264 and 430 n. 4.