by Ian Kershaw
114. TBJG, II/15, pp. 426–7 (5.3.45), 525 (17.3.45), 532–3 (18.3.45); and see Michael Bloch, Ribbentrop, pb. edn., London, 1994, p. 422; Reimer Hansen, ‘Ribbentrops Friedensfühler im Frühjahr 1945’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 18 (1967), pp. 716–30; and Hansjakob Stehle, ‘Deutsche Friedensfühler bei den Westmächten im Februar/März 1945’, VfZ, 30 (1982), pp. 538–55; Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, Cambridge, 1994, pp. 783–4.
115. IfZ, ZS 1953, ‘Iden des März. Ein zeitgeschichtliches Fragment über den letzten Kontaktversuch Ribbentrops mit Moskau in der Zeit vom 11.–16. März 1945’, fos. 1–13 (no date, probably early 1950s). For a description of Mme Kollontay, ‘the grand old lady of Soviet diplomacy’, and for Ribbentrop’s vain attempts to instigate some form of negotiated peace with the Soviet Union in early 1945, see Ingeborg Fleischhauer, Die Chance des Sonderfriedens: Deutsch-sowjetische Geheimgespräche 1941–1945, Berlin, 1986, pp. 58–61, 268–75.
116. TBJG, II/15, pp. 450–51 (8.3.45).
117. BA/MA, RH21/3/420, fos. 34, 40, post-war account (1950) by Colonel-General Erhard Raus (former Commander-in-Chief of the 3rd Panzer Army in East Prussia, who had taken command in Pomerania of remaining forces of the 11th SS-Panzer Army) of his meetings with Himmler on 13.2.45 and 7.3.45, and his report to Hitler on 8.3.45.
118. Guderian, p. 426.
119. The above paragraph is based on: Folke Bernadotte, The Fall of the Curtain, London, 1945, pp. 19–47; Walter Schellenberg, Schellenberg, pb. edn., London, 1965, pp. 171–5; Felix Kersten, The Kersten Memoirs 1940–1945, London, 1956, pp. 271–83; Peter Padfield, Himmler: Reichsführer-SS, London, 1990, pp. 565–6, 578–9; and Peter Longerich, Heinrich Himmler: Biographie, Munich, 2008, pp. 742–8, 967–8 nn. 131–2. In a post-war interrogation, Schellenberg – who was keen to assert both his own importance and his attempts to influence a negotiated settlement – claimed that in December 1944, in the Reichführer’s presence, he even touched on the possibility of the elimination of Hitler. – IWM, FO645/161, interrogation 13.11.45, p. 15 (1945–6).
120. DZW, 6, p. 152.
121. John Toland, The Last 100 Days, London, 1965, pp. 73, 238–44, 478–81; Padfield, pp. 573–8; Weinberg, p. 818; Peter R. Black, Ernst Kaltenbrunner: Ideological Soldier of the Third Reich, Princeton, 1984, pp. 242–5; BA/MA, N574/19, NL Vietinghoff, ‘Kriegsende in Italien’, fos. 41–6.
122. For interesting speculation on Speer’s power ambitions at this juncture, see DRZW, 10/2 (Müller), pp. 74–84; and Müller’s remarks in the conclusion to the volume, p. 718.
123. Albert Speer, Erinnerungen, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, 1969, p. 442.
124. He had engineered Hitler’s approval to his new responsibilities on 14 February, exploiting the illness of the Transport Minister Julius Heinrich Dorpmüller. – DRZW, 10/2 (Müller), p. 82.
125. BAB, R3/1623a, fos. 18–23, Aktennotiz Speer, 7.3.45. That very day, Paul Pleiger, head of the Reich Association of Coal, pointed out to Speer how serious the coal situation was following the loss of Upper Silesia, the transport problems that had effectively ruled out Ruhr coal, and the big drop in production from the Saarland. Unless things improved, he pointed out, it would be impossible to provide coal for armaments or avoid the collapse of transport, electricity and gas. – IWM, F.3, M.I. 14/163, Pleiger to Speer, 7.3.45. On 14 March Hitler ordered that because of severely reduced transport capacity, priorities in areas to be evacuated had to be determined by their value for the prosecution of the war: the Wehrmacht, coal, then food materials. Refugees could be accommodated only where there was available space. In passing on the order next day to relevant authorities, Speer pointed out that it was on his suggestion. – BAB, R3/1623a, fos. 27–8.
126. TBJG, II/15, pp. 579 (23.3.45), 603 (27.3.45).
127. TBJG, II/15, pp. 500–501 (14.3.45), 511–12 (15.3.45).
128. BAB, R3/1623a, fos. 31–8, OKH, Chef Transportwesens/General der Pioniere und Festungen, draft, no precise date in March given; Speer to Gen.stab des Heeres-General der Pioniere und Festungen, 15.3.45; OKH, Chef Transportwesens/Gend di Pi u Fest, 14.3.45; Speer, p. 442; Guderian, pp. 422–3.
129. BAB, R3/1536, fos. 3–12; IMT, vol. 41, pp. 420–25. Drafts (fos. 28–30) were appended of orders limiting destruction and giving Speer the powers to decide on exceptions to immobilization; Speer, pp. 442–3.
130. See Heinrich Schwendemann, ‘ “Drastic Measures to Defend the Reich at the Oder and the Rhine…”: A Forgotten Memorandum of Albert Speer of 18 March 1945’, Journal of Contemporary History, 38 (2003), pp. 597–614; also Heinrich Schwendemann, ‘ “Verbrannte Erde”? Hitlers “Nero-Befehl” vom 19. März 1945’, in Kriegsende Deutschland, p. 163; and, for a different interpretation, DRZW, 10/2 (Müller), pp. 86–8. An extract from the memorandum was already published by Gregor Janssen, Das Ministerium Speer: Deutschlands Rüstung im Krieg, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main and Vienna, 1968, p. 311, though without commentary, beyond pointing (p. 310) to its connection with Keitel’s order that morning to evacuate the population from the fighting zone west of the Rhine. Dietrich Eichholtz, Geschichte der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft 1939–1945, vol. 3: 1943–1945, Berlin, 1996, p. 662 n. 212, confines himself to the comment that Speer had ‘doubtless tactical aims’ with the memorandum. Neither Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth, London, 1995, pp. 476–7, nor Joachim Fest, Speer: Eine Biographie, Berlin, 1999, pp. 336–8, mentions it.
131. BAB, R3/1537, fos. 3–6 (18.3.45).
132. Hitler spoke to Goebbels in highly negative terms in late March about Speer being ‘unreliable’ and ‘failing’ at a critical time and showing a ‘defeatist’ character, tendencies ‘incompatible with the National Socialist view of the war’. – TBJG, II/15, pp. 619–20 (28.3.45).
133. This is the gist of Müller’s interpretation in DRZW, 10/2, p. 87.
134. For Speer’s late conversion to the need to save the ‘means of existence of the … people in a lost war’, see Henke, pp. 431–2.
135. BAB, R3/1538, fo. 16, handwritten letter by Speer to Hitler, 29.3.45.
136. Schwendemann, ‘ “Drastic Measures” ’, p. 605, suggests, perhaps going too far, that Speer was seeking ‘to show Hitler a way out, by offering the Führer his services as a kind of saviour, thus securing his favour’.
137. Speer, pp. 444–5; BAB, R3/1623a, fos. 39–43, two Fernschreiben of Keitel, 18.3.45; implementation order of Bormann, 19.3.45.
138. BAB, R3/1623a, fos. 46–7, ‘Zerstörungsmaßnahmen im Reichsgebiet’, Lt.-Gen. August Winter (Deputy Chief of the OKW Operations Staff) to Speer, 20.3.45, passing on Hitler’s order of the previous day (printed in IMT, vol. 41, pp. 430–31, and Hitlers Weisungen für die Kriegführung 1939–1945: Dokumente des Oberkommandos dep Wehrmacht, ed. Walther Hubatsch, pb. edn., Munich, 1965, pp. 348–9).
139. BAB, R3/1538, fos. 14–15, Speer to Hitler, 29.3.45; IMT, vol. 41, pp. 425–9; Speer, pp. 445–6.
140. See Henke, pp. 432–5; DRZW, 10/2 (Müller), p. 93; and Eichholtz, pp. 663–9. In some factories, crucial component parts were taken out of machines and hidden so that they could later be reinstated. – Zimmermann, Pflicht, p. 60.
141. Speer, pp. 450–59; BAB, R3/1661, fos. 5–8, Reiseprogramm Speer, Schulze-Fielitz, Hupfauer, etc., 22–5.3.45; fos. 20–22, Walter Rohland: Niederschrift über die Ereignisse vom 15.3 bis 15.4.45; R3/1623a, fo. 50, Bormann to the Gauleiter, passing on Hitler’s evacuation orders with the stipulation that the evacuation was not a matter for debate, and that the accommodation of the evacuees within Germany simply ‘had to be mastered’ through improvisation; IMT, vol. 41, pp. 491–3 (Rohland’s testimony at Nuremberg).
142. Speer, pp. 448, 453–4, for Model’s stance. The Wehrmacht’s head of transport spoke of creating ‘a transport desert’ in abandoned areas. – BAB, R3/1623a, fo. 59, Chef des Transportwesens der Wehrmacht, Fernschreiben 29.3.45 (referred to in Speer, p. 459).
143. Speer, pp. 454–5; BAB, R3/1626, fo. 14, unknown eyewitnes
s account, 13.9.45.
144. Speer, pp. 457–61 (quotation p. 460).
145. This is how Hitler saw it, in speaking of the matter to Goebbels soon afterwards. – TBJG, II/15, p. 643 (31.3.45). Speer’s own depiction of his defiance was almost certainly at least in part contrived. See DRZW, 10/2 (Müller), pp. 94–5.
146. Speer registered with a note in his files Hitler’s agreement that ‘scorched earth’ was pointless for a small area like Germany and could only have an effect in a huge country like Russia. He immediately transmitted Hitler’s amended order leaving implementation in Speer’s hands. – BAB, R3/1623a, fos. 75, 78–80, 85–6 (30.3.45). On 3 April (fos. 106, 108) he replied to the request from Gauleiter Ueberreither (Niederdonau) for clarification on destruction of waterworks and power stations in his region by stating: ‘According to the Führer order of 30.3.45 there is no scorched earth’, and stipulating only temporary immobilization which ‘fulfils the stated aim of the Führer’.
147. The OKW stipulated on 3 April that, despite the Führer order for the destruction of all installations that might be useful to the enemy, it could prove expedient in some cases to limit this to a ‘lengthy breach’ (nachhaltige Unterbrechung) which could be repaired for German use if there was a probability of retaking the bridges. The Wehrmacht was keen to establish its sole responsibility for the destruction of military installations. A few days later, a revised directive emphasized the need to destroy operationally important bridges, as determined by the OKW, with the most severe punishment for failure to carry this out. – KTB/SKL, part A, vol. 68, pp. 46 (3.4.45), 75–7 (5.4.45), 128 (8.4.45).
148. Henke, p. 434. A far more positive interpretation of Speer’s motives is provided in the early assessment by Reimer Hansen, ‘Albert Speers Konflikt mit Hitler’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 17 (1966), pp. 596–621, based heavily upon the documents and evidence presented to the Nuremberg Trials. Later research – particularly since the publication of Matthias Schmidt, Albert Speer: Das Ende eines Mythos, Berne and Munich, 1982 – has tended to be far more critically disposed towards Speer. See, for example, Alfred C. Mierzejewski, ‘When Did Albert Speer Give up?’ Historical Journal, 31 (1988), pp. 391–7, and, more recently, the contribution by Rolf-Dieter Müller to DRZW, 10/2.
149. TBJG, II/15, p. 613 (28.3.45).
150. See also on this point, DRZW, 10/2 (Müller), p. 92.
CHAPTER 8. IMPLOSION
1. Das letzte halbe Jahr: Stimmungsberichte der Wehrmachtpropaganda 1944/45, ed. Wolfram Wette, Ricarda Bremer and Detlef Vogel, Essen, 2001, p. 338 (10.4.45).
2. For destruction in the Tiergarten and Grunewald and the nightly activity in the city (‘eine hektische Genußsucht’), see the diary entries of the Danish correspondent Jacob Kronika, Der Untergang Berlins, Flensburg, 1946, pp. 79, 91, 98–9, 149 (30.3.45, 7.4.45, 10.4.45, 23.4.45). A description – though perhaps drawing in part on distorted memory – of Berlin, shortly before the Soviet attack, can be found in IWM, ‘Second World War Memoirs of P. E. v. Stemann’, Berlin correspondent between 1942 and 1945 of the Danish newspaper Berlinske Tidende, fos. 236–7. Vivid depictions of the city in April 1945 are provided by David Clay Large, Berlin, New York, 2000, pp. 358–9, and Roger Moorhouse, Berlin at War: Life and Death in Hitler’s Capital 1939–45, London, 2010, pp. 365–9.
3. Goebbels remarked in his diary on the emptiness of Berlin’s streets at Easter 1945 (TBJG, II/15, p. 668, 5.4.45).
4. Quoted in Moorhouse, p. 367.
5. TBJG, II/15, p. 692.
6. A fitting term, used by Hans Mommsen, ‘The Dissolution of the Third Reich: Crisis Management and Collapse, 1943–1945’, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, Washington DC, 27 (2000), p. 20, and Stephen G. Fritz, Endkampf: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Death of the Third Reich, Lexington, Ky., 2004, ch. 5.
7. DZW, 6, p. 561; and NAL, WO219/1651, fo. 145, SHAEF digests of post-war interrogations of Jodl and Kesselring, 23.5.45.
8. American losses in the battle for the Ruhr totalled around 10,000 men. – DZW, 6, p. 564.
9. For the behaviour of French troops, see Heinrich Schwendemann, ‘Das Kriegsende in Ostpreußen und in Südbaden im Vergleich’, in Bernd Martin (ed.), Der Zweite Weltkrieg und seine Folgen: Ereignisse – Auswirkungen – Reflexionen, Freiburg, 2006, pp. 101, 104; and Richard Bessel, Germany 1945: From War to Peace, London, 2009, pp. 116–17, 158–9. Evidently, the very skin colour of the North African soldiers in the French army gave rise to great anxiety among the population which had often never before seen other than white people. This may have led to exaggeration of the numbers of rapes said to have been perpetrated by ‘colonial’ troops. Numerous parish reports indicating rape and looting – though there were many cases where none were reported – are contained in Josef F. Göhri, Die Franzosen kommen! Kriegsereignisse im Breisgau und in der Ortenau, Horb am Neckar, 2005, pp. 17, 24–5, 43, 46, 50, 53, 60, 82, 88, 91, 94, 98, 119, 124–5; and Hermann Riedel, Halt! Schweizer Grenze!, Konstanz, 1983, pp. 233, 237–8, 263, 305 (where more than 200 cases were mentioned). See also Bernd Serger, Karin-Anne Böttcher and Gerd R. Ueberschär (eds.), Südbaden unter Hakenkreuz und Trikolore: Zeitzeugen berichten über das Kriegsende und die französische Besetzung 1945, Freiburg in Breisgau, Berlin and Vienna, 2006, pp. 253, 257, 269, 311–25; Manfred Bosch, Der Neubeginn: Aus deutscher Nachkriegszeit. Südbaden 1945–1950, Konstanz, 1988, p. 34; Der deutsche Südwesten zur Stunde Null, ed. Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, 1975, pp. 102–3; Paul Sauer, Demokratischer Neubeginn in Not und Elend: Das Land Württemberg-Baden von 1945 bis 1952, Ulm, 1979, pp. 18–20; Von der Diktatur zur Besatzung: Das Kriegsende 1945 im Gebiet des heutigen Landkreises Sigmaringen, ed. Landkreis Sigmaringen, Sigmaringen, 1995, pp. 92–3.
10. The above, where not otherwise indicated, is based on DZW, 6, pp. 561–71; DRZW, 10/1 (Zimmermann), pp. 443–60; Fritz, chs. 3–6; Lothar Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, pb. edn., Munich, 1975, pp. 425–32; The Oxford Companion to the Second World War, ed. I. C. B. Dear and M. R. D. Foot, Oxford, 1995, pp. 481–5; Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944–45, London, 2004, pp. 481–502.
11. Hitlers Weisungen für die Kriegführung 1939–1945: Dokumente des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht, ed. Walther Hubatsch, pb. edn., Munich, 1965, pp. 355–6. Dönitz and Kesselring were given full powers over the defence of their own zone only in the event that a break in communications prevented the transmission of Hitler’s orders and decisions. Otherwise Hitler’s own unified operational leadership was to remain unaltered. On 20 April, in line with the expectation that he would leave for the south, Hitler empowered Dönitz, in the north, to issue directives on defence to the civilian authorities in his ‘zone’. In the military sphere, Dönitz’s remit was confined to the navy, since Hitler finally decided on 25 April to remain in Berlin and to retain his operational direction of the Wehrmacht via the OKW in Rheinsberg. – Herbert Kraus, ‘Karl Dönitz und das Ende des “Dritten Reiches” ’, in Hans-Erich Volkmann (ed.), Ende des Dritten Reiches – Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs: Eine perspektivische Rückschau, Munich and Zurich, 1995, pp. 7–8 and p. 20 n. 17. The split of the Reich became reality with the meeting of Soviet and American troops at Torgau on 25 April.
12. DZW, 6, p. 523. A graphic description of the last days in Königsberg before the capitulation (and criticism of Lasch’s reluctance to capitulate until the last minute, and to save his own skin) is provided by Michael Wieck, Zeugnis vom Untergang Königsbergs: Ein ‘Geltungsjude’ berichtet, Heidelberg, 1988, pp. 168–222.
13. His wife and daughter were arrested and placed in a military prison. News of their punishment was publicized. – Robert Loeffel, ‘Soldiers and Terror: Re-evaluating the Complicity of the Wehrmacht in Nazi Germany’, German History, 27 (2009), pp. 527–8.
14. Schwendemann, p. 97.
15. In the proclamation, Hitler raised once more the spectre of the extermination of the German people that, he claimed, would follow Bolshevik conquest. ‘While old men and children are murdere
d,’ he railed, ‘women and children are denigrated to barrack-whores. The rest will march off to Siberia.’ Alerting the troops to any sign of treachery from their own officers, Hitler ordered that any officer not well known to the men giving orders for retreat was to be ‘dispatched on the spot’. – Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945, ed. Max Domarus, Wiesbaden, 1973, pp. 2223–4.
16. Drawing on DZW, 6, pp. 686–705; DRZW, 10/1 (Lakowski), pp. 631–49; DRZW, 8 (Ungváry), pp. 944–55; Gruchmann, pp. 434–6; John Erickson, The Road to Berlin, Cassell edn., 2003, pp. 563–77; Brian Taylor, Barbarossa to Berlin: A Chronology of the Campaigns on the Eastern Front 1941 to 1945, vol. 2, Stroud, 2008, pp. 307–20; The Oxford Companion to the Second World War, pp. 125–7; Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall 1945, pb. edn., London, 2007, chs. 15–16; Karl-Heinz Frieser, ‘Die Schlacht um die Seelower Höhen im April 1945’, in Roland G. Foerster (ed.), Seelower Höhen 1945, Hamburg, 1998, pp. 129–43; Manfried Rauchensteiner, Der Krieg in Österreich 1945, 2nd edn., Vienna, 1984, ch. 6; Theo Rossiwall, Die letzten Tage: Die militärische Besetzung Österreichs 1945, Vienna, 1969, pp. 78–183.