Hitler’s authority remained intact. But if they could have found an escape route by removing him or discarding him, there were now those among his closest paladins who would have followed it.
IV
Meanwhile, the vice around Hitler’s Reich was tightening. Between June and September the Wehrmacht lost on all fronts well over a million men killed, captured, or missing. The losses of tanks, guns, planes, and other armaments were incalculable.151 The war in the air was by now almost wholly one-sided. Fuel shortages left many German fighters unable to take to the air as the British and American bomber armadas wreaked havoc on German towns and cities with impunity by day as well as by night. The war at sea had also by this time been definitively lost by Germany. The U-boat fleet had never recovered from its losses in the second half of 1943, while Allied convoys could now cross the Atlantic almost unmolested. In the second half of 1944, only twelve ships, with a tonnage of 55,290 tons, were sunk in the northern Atlantic (with no losses at all in October). Another sixty-five ships – a tiny fraction of the overall Allied shipping crossing the seas – fell victim to German submarines off the shores of Britain. In all, 138 U-boats were lost over the same period.152 In the meantime, the territories of the Nazi empire were shrinking markedly by the end of the summer following the advances of the Allies on both western and eastern fronts since June.
On the western front, Germany’s military commanders had by then long viewed the continuation of the war as pointless. On replacing Rundstedt in early July, the weak and impressionable Kluge was easily persuaded by Hitler that the western commanders, especially Rommel, had been far too pessimistic in their judgement of the situation. After a two-day visit to the front, however, Kluge had been forced to admit that Rommel was right. In his letter to Hitler of 15 July, Rommel had explicitly stated that, heroically though the troops were fighting, ‘the unequal struggle is heading for its end’. He felt, therefore, compelled to ask Hitler, he wrote, ‘to draw the consequences from this position without delay’.153 He let the leaders of the conspiracy against Hitler know that he would be prepared to join them if the demands for an end to the war were dismissed. Germany’s most renowned field-marshal was never put to the test. Three days before Stauffenberg’s bomb exploded, Rommel was seriously injured when his car skidded from the road after being strafed by an enemy aircraft.154
Five days after the assassination attempt on Hitler, ‘Operation Cobra’, the Allied attack southwards towards Avranches, began with a ferocious ‘carpet-bombing’ assault by over 2,000 aircraft, dropping 47,000 tons of bombs on an already weakened German panzer division in an area of only six or so square miles. It ended on 30 July with the taking of Avranches and the opening not only of the route to the Brittany coastal ports, but also to the exposed German flank towards the east, and to the heart of France.155
The significance of the loss of Avranches was still not fully appreciated when Hitler provided Jodl with his overview of the entire military situation on the evening of 31 July. Hitler was far from unrealistic in his assessment. He was well aware of how threatening the position was on all fronts, and how impossible it was in the current circumstances to combat the overwhelming Allied superiority in men and materials, above all in air-power. His main hope was to buy time. Weapon technology, more planes, and an eventual split in the Alliance would open up new opportunities.156 He had to get some breathing-space in the west, he told his Luftwaffe adjutant, Nicolaus von Below, shortly after his briefing with Jodl. Then, with new panzer divisions and fighter formations, he could launch a major offensive on the western front. In common with many observers, Below had thought it more important to concentrate all forces against the Red Army in the east. Hitler replied that he could attack the Russians at a later point. But this could not be done with the Americans already in the Reich. (He led Below to believe at the same time that he feared the power of the Jews in the USA more than the power of the Bolsheviks.157) His strategy was, therefore, to gain time, inflict a major blow on the western Allies, hope for a split in the Alliance, and turn on the Russians from a new position of strength.
Hitler thought, so he told Jodl, that the eastern front could be stabilized, as long as additional forces could be mobilized. But a breakthrough by the enemy in the east, whether in East Prussia or Silesia, imperilling the homeland itself and bearing serious psychological consequences, would pose a critical danger.158 Any destabilization on the eastern front would, he went on, affect the stance of the Balkan states – Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary. Preventive measures had to be taken. It was vital to secure Hungary, both for vital raw materials such as bauxite and manganese and for communications lines with south-eastern Europe. Bulgaria was essential to securing a hold on the Balkans and obtaining ore from Greece.159 He also feared a British landing in the Balkans or on the Dalmatian islands, which Germany was scarcely in a position to ward off and which ‘could naturally lead to catastrophic consequences’.160
On the Italian front, Hitler saw the greatest advantage in the tying down of significant Allied forces which could otherwise be deployed elsewhere. The withdrawal of German forces into the Apennines would remove tactical mobility, would still not prevent an Allied advance, and would leave only retreat to alpine defence positions as a possibility – thereby freeing up Allied troops for the western front. But as a last resort, he was prepared to give up Italy (and the entire Balkans), pull back German troops to the Alps, and withdraw his main forces for the vital struggle on the western front.161
This was for him the decisive theatre of war. The troops would not understand him remaining in East Prussia when valuable western parts of the Reich were threatened, and behind them the Ruhr – Germany’s industrial heartland.162 Preparations would have to be made to move Führer Headquarters to the west.163 Command would have to be centralized.164 Kluge, supreme commander in the west, could not be left with the responsibility. So paranoid was Hitler by now about treachery within the army, that he told Jodl it would be necessary in such an event to avoid communicating such a plan to army command in the west – pointing to Stülpnagel’s involvement in the plot against him – since it would probably be immediately betrayed to the enemy.165
Hitler pointed to what he saw as a decisive issue in the west. ‘If we lose France as a war area (Kriegsgebiet), we lose the basis of the U-boat war.’166 (Though, as we have noted, the U-boats were ineffective in the second half of 1944, Hitler was persuaded by Dönitz that new, improved submarines would soon be ready, and would be a vital weapon in the war against the western powers.167) In addition, essential raw materials – he singled out wolfram, important for steel production and electro-technical products – would be lost. If it were not so important to the war effort to hold on to France, he said, he would vacate the coastal areas – still vital for U-boat bases at Brest and St Nazaire – and pull back mobile forces to a more defensible line. But he saw no prospect at present of holding such a line with the forces available, wherever the line might be drawn. ‘We’ve got to be clear,’ he stated, ‘that a change could come about in France only if we succeed – even for a certain time – in gaining air-supremacy.’ But he drew the conclusion that, ‘however bitter it might be at the moment’, everything had to be done to hold back ‘for the most extreme case’ as a ‘last reserve’ whatever Luftwaffe divisions could be assembled in the Reich – though that could take weeks – to be deployed wherever it might be possible ‘at the last throw of the dice (wo die letzten Würfel fallen)’ to bring about a decisive shift in fortunes.168
Hitler was desperate to buy time. ‘I can’t operate myself,’ he said, ‘but I can make it colossally difficult for the enemy to operate in the depths of the area.’ For this, it was essential to deprive the enemy of access to ports on the French coast, preventing the landing of troops, armaments, and provisions. (At this point only Cherbourg, with a much-damaged harbour, was in Allied hands.) Hitler was prepared, as he bluntly stated, ‘simply to sacrifice certain troops’ to this end. The ports were
to be held, he emphasized, ‘under all circumstances, with complete disregard for the people there, to make it impossible for the enemy to supply unlimited numbers of men’. Should this not happen, a breakthrough could come quickly. Along with this, in an early glimpse of what would become a ‘scorched-earth’ policy targeted finally at the Reich itself, all railway installations, including track and locomotives, were to be destroyed, as were bridges. The ports, too, were in the last resort to be destroyed if they could not be held. If the ports could be held for between six and ten weeks in the autumn, precious time would have been gained.169
Time was, however, not on Hitler’s side. Learning of the gravity of the Allied capture of Avranches, he ordered – picking up on an operational plan that had been put forward by Kluge – an immediate counter-strike westwards from Mortain, initially intended to take place on 2 August, aimed at retaking Avranches and splitting the advancing American forces under General George S. Patton.170 The counter-offensive, eventually launched on 7 August, proved disastrous. It lasted only a day, could not prevent some of Patton’s troops from sweeping down into Brittany (where stiff defence, however, saw the garrison at Brest hold out until 19 September), and ended with the German forces in disarray but narrowly avoiding even worse calamity.171
On 15 August Hitler refused Kluge’s request to pull back around 100,000 troops threatened with imminent disaster through encirclement near Falaise. When he was unable to reach Kluge that day – the field-marshal had entered the battle-zone itself in the heart of the ‘Falaise pocket’ and his radio had been put out of action by enemy fire – Hitler, well aware of Kluge’s flirtation with the conspiracy against him and of his pessimism about the western front, jumped to the conclusion that he was negotiating a surrender with the western Allies.172 It was, said Hitler, ‘the worst day of his life’.173 He promptly recalled Field-Marshal Model, one of his most trusted generals, from the eastern front, appointed him to take over from Kluge and dispatched him to western front headquarters. Until Model arrived, Kluge had not even been informed by Hitler that he was about to be dismissed. Hitler’s peremptory handwritten note, handed over by Model and ordering Kluge back to Germany, ended with the threateningly ambiguous comment that the field-marshal should contemplate in which direction he wished to go. Model’s arrival was unable to alter the plight of the German troops, but under his command – assisted by tactical errors of the Allied ground-forces commander, General Montgomery – it proved possible to squeeze out at the last minute some 50,000 men from the ever-closing ‘Falaise pocket’ to fight again another day, closer to home. As many again, however, were taken prisoner and a further 10,000 killed.174
Kluge must have reckoned with the near certainty that he would be promptly arrested, expelled from the Wehrmacht, and put before the People’s Court for his connections with the plotters against Hitler.175 On the way back to Germany on 19 August, in the vicinity of Metz, he asked his chauffeur to stop the car for a rest. Depressed, worn out, and in despair, he swallowed a cyanide pill.
The day before, he had written a letter to Hitler. The field-marshal, who (as Hitler knew) had had prior knowledge of the bomb-plot, and who had even the year before Stauffenberg’s attempt shown sympathy for Tresckow and the oppositional group in Army Group Centre, used his dying words to praise Hitler’s leadership. ‘My Führer, I have always admired your greatness,’ he wrote. ‘You have led an honest, an entirely great struggle,’ he continued, with reference to the war in the east. ‘History will testify to that.’ He then appealed to Hitler now to show the necessary greatness to bring to an end a struggle with no prospect of success in order to release the suffering of his people. This dying plea was as far as he would go to distance himself from the dictator’s war leadership. He ended with a final vow of loyalty: ‘I depart from you, my Führer, to whom I was inwardly closer than you perhaps imagined, in the consciousness of having carried out my duty to the very limits.’176
Hitler’s direct reaction to the letter is not known.177 But Kluge’s suicide merely convinced him not only of the field-marshal’s implication in the bomb-plot, but also that he had been trying to surrender his forces in the west to the enemy. Hitler found it difficult to comprehend, as he bitterly reflected. He had promoted Kluge twice, given him the highest honours, made him sizeable donations (including a cheque for RM250,000 tax-free on his sixtieth birthday, and a big supplement to his field-marshal’s salary).178 He was anxious to prevent any news seeping out about Kluge’s alleged attempt to capitulate. It could seriously affect morale; it would certainly bring further contempt on the army. He let the generals know about Kluge’s suicide. But for public consumption the field-marshal’s death – from a heart-attack, it was said – was announced only after his body had lain in the church on his Brandenburg estate for a fortnight. Kluge’s funeral was a quiet affair. Hitler had banned all ceremonials.179
On the day that Kluge had temporarily been out of contact, 15 August, the Allies undertook ‘Operation Dragoon’, the landing of troops on the French Mediterranean coast.180 Quickly capturing Marseilles and Toulon, they pushed northwards, forcing Hitler reluctantly to agree to the withdrawal to the north of almost all his forces in southern France in the attempt to build a cohesive front along the upper Marne and Saône stretching to the Swiss border.181 The end of the German occupation of France was now in sight. Though it would take several more weeks to complete, the symbolic moment arrived when, prompted by strikes, a popular uprising, and attacks by the French Resistance against the German occupiers, and by the eventual readiness of the German Commander, General Dietrich von Choltitz to surrender (despite orders from Hitler to reduce Paris to rubble if it could not be held),182 the Allied Supreme Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, gave a French division the honour of liberating the French capital on 24 August. The liberation was celebrated by enormous crowds two days later as they cheered the triumphal march down the Champs-Elysées of General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French.183 Bitter recriminations within the country against those French citizens who had collaborated with the occupiers were only momentarily held back in the joyous scenes.
By now, the western Allies had over 2 million men on the Continent.184 Advancing into Belgium, they liberated Brussels on 3 September and next day captured the important port of Antwerp before the harbour installations could be destroyed. Only Cherbourg, of the major channel ports, had up to this point been in Allied hands, and supplies through that route were seriously hampered by the level of destruction. Antwerp was vital to the assault on Germany. But it was as late as 27 November before the Scheldt estuary was secured and before the approaches to the harbour were fully cleared of mines.185 In the interim, the Allied drive towards the German borders suffered a major setback with the serious losses suffered, especially by British troops, in ten days of bitter fighting in the combined airborne and land operation – ‘Market Garden’ – launched on 17 September, to seize the river crossings at Grave, Nijmegen, and Arnhem.186 Beyond supply problems, battle fatigue, and replacing the men lost, the Allied advance was stalling because of the stiff German defence, aided by shortened supply lines, redeployment of the men extricated from the Falaise Pocket, and reinforcements drawn from the east.187 In the west, it was plain, despite the dramatic Allied successes since D-Day, the war was far from over.
In the east, following the Red Army’s big summer offensive, the German network of alliances with Balkan countries started to unravel in August much as Hitler had feared. On 2 August, Turkey announced that it was breaking off relations with Germany. Economically, it meant the loss of chrome supplies.188 Militarily, it was clear that Turkey would at some point join the Allies.189 Three days later, on 5 August, Hitler, accompanied by Ribbentrop, Keitel, and Guderian, received Marshal Antonescu at the Wolf’s Lair in a vain attempt to shore up the alliance with Romania.190 The talks proceeded civilly enough. But Romania had already made peace soundings with the Allies. And forces were gathering in Bucharest aimed at toppling Antonescu and tak
ing Romania out of a war for which the country, following its severe battlefield losses at Stalingrad and in the Crimea, had long lost heart.191 On 20 August, when the Soviets attacked Army Group South Ukraine, Romanian units deserted en masse, many of them joining the enemy and turning on their former allies. Reaching the Danube before the retreating Germans, Romanian troops closed the river-crossing. Sixteen German divisions, exposed to the onslaught of the Red Army, were totally destroyed.192 It was a military calamity of the first order. Three days later, Antonescu was deposed following a coup in Bucharest. His successor, King Michael, sued for peace. Romania swapped sides, declaring war on Germany – and on Hungary (from which it now intended to regain the territory in Transylvania that it had been compelled to give up in 1940). The Red Army, joined by Romanian units, was now free to sweep across the Danube. The Wehrmacht, meanwhile, had lost 380,000 indispensable troops within a fortnight.193