by Ian Kershaw
26. Below, 305–6; Hans Baur, Ich flog Mächtige der Erde, Kempten, 1956, 216; see also TBJG, II/3, 299, 306 (13 February 1941).
27. Seidel, 377ft; Speer, 209; Fest, Speer, 181–2. Speer’s own account is unreliable and, in the published version of his memoirs (Erinnerungen, 205ft), greatly touched-up. (See Sereny, Speer, 274–83; Seidler, 366–7.) In the Speer Papers (pen-pictures of Nazi leaders, drawn up in 1946, and kindly made available to me by Gitta Sereny) AH/I/Bl.4, Albert Speer claimed that he was by chance in FHQ at the time of Todt’s crash. Speer initially asked Todt whether he could make use of the free seat in the plane to fly to Munich, backing out of the flight, scheduled for 8a.m., after talking to Hitler until the early hours. (Matthias Schmidt, Albert Speer: Das Ende eines Mythos. Speers wabre Rolle im Dritten Reich, Bern/Munich, 1982, 75.)
28. Schroeder, 132.
29. Sereny, Speer, 10 4ff.
30. Speer, 210; Seidler, 832.
31. Seidler, 403–4; Speer, 210; Speer Papers, AH/I/Bl.4.
32. Speer, 210; Sereny, Speer, 276–7; Seidler, 382.
33. Speer, 211,215,217; Overy, War and Economy, 355; Herbst, Das nationalsozialistische Deutsch-land, 410.
34. Domarus, 1836–40; Thorwald, 148.
35. Speer, 217.
36. Dietrich Eichholtz, Kriegswirtschaft 1939–1945, Bd.II 1941–1943, East Berlin, 1985, 265, 308ff.; Overy, War and Economy, 366–7.
37. TBJG, II.3, 299 (13 February 1942), 303, 308 (14 February 1942), 311–12, 318 (15 February 1942). See also Irving, HW, 367–8, 371–2; Domarus, 1841 n.73. The German delight was soon tempered by the news that the Scbarnhorst and Gneisenau had run on to mines laid by the RAF. The Scbarnborst was out of action for months; the Gneisenau was bombed while under repair and incapable of further deployment (Weinberg III, 358).
38. TBJG, II.3, 321 (15 February 1941); Below, 307.
39. Staatsmänner II, 48 (11 February 1942). Hitler had said on 18 December in the Wolfsschanze: ‘I didn’t want that in East Asia. For years I said to every Englishman: “You’ll lose East Asia if you begin a conflict in Europe”’ (Monologe, 156). He was rumoured to be unenthusiastic about the Japanese successes and have remarked that he would most like to send twenty divisions to the English to repel ‘the Yellows’ (Hassell, 305 (22 March 1942)). Over a year later he would ruminate wistfully on ‘whether the white man can sustain his superiority at all in the long run in the face of the enormous human reservoirs in the east’ (TBJG, II/6, 236 (8 May 1943)).
40. Schroeder, 132.
41. TBJG, II/3, 514 (20 March 1942).
42. Schroeder, 131.
43. TBJG, II/3, 319 (15 February 1942).
44. Domarus, 1842.
45. Below, 306.
46. Domarus, 1851.
47. Domarus, 1850. Hitler repeated the claim in his Reichstag speech on 26 April. In fact, the previous winter, of 1940–41, had been colder in the east (Domarus, 1871 and n.181; see also 1872 and n.183).
48. Domarus, 1850.
49. MadR, ix.3486–8 (19 March 1942); Steinert, 283–5. See also TBJG, II/3, 479 (16 March 1942), on the basis of SD reports: ‘The German people is in the main concerned with the foodstuffs situation.’ As a consequence ‘interest in military events dies away somewhat’.
50. TBJG, II/3, 488 (18 March 1942), 496 (19 March 1942).
51. TBJG, II/3, 479 (16 March 1942).
52. TBJG, II/3, 496 (19 March 1942).
53. TBJG, II/3, 497 (19 March 1942).
54. TBJG, II/3, 489 (18 March 1942), 496 (19 March 1942).
55. TBJG, II/3, 494 (19 March 1942).
56. TBJG, II/3, 484 (17 March 1942).
57. TBJG, II/3, 495 (19 March 1942).
58. TBJG, II/3, 499 (20 March 1942).
59. TBJG, II/3, 503 (20 March 1942). Clearly, however, Hitler detested being reminded of poor morale. Only a few days later he noted on a report on the decline in mood which had been presented to him: ‘If it were decisive, what people always say, everything would long since have been lost. The true bearing of the people lies much deeper and rests on a very firm inner bearing. If that were not the case, all the achievements of the people would be inexplicable’ (Picker, 206 (25 March 1942)).
60. TBJG, II/3, 504 (20 March 1942); Weiß, Biographisches Lexikon, 457–9.
61. For the capitulation of justice to the police-state, see especially Martin Broszat, ‘Zur Perversion der Strafjustiz im Dritten Reich’, VfZ, 6 (1958), 390–443; and Broszat, Staat, ch.10, especially 421–2. Thierack was appointed Reich Minister of Justice on 20 August 1942 (Wistrich, Wer war wer, 272).
62. TBJG, II/3, 505 (20 March 1942); Irving, HW, 366.
63. TBJG, II/3, 506 (20 March 1942).
64. MadR, ix.3526–9 (26 March 1942); Steinert, 287–9.
65. Picker, 222–5, here 225 (29 March 1942).
66. Domarus, 1857, 1859–60; Rebentisch, 419; Ralph Angermund, Deutsche Richterschaft 1919–1945. Krisenerfahrung, Illusion, politische Rechtsprechung, Frankfurt am Main, 1990, 249–50. For further interventions by Hitler in sentencing, see Rebentisch, 399 and n.83; Broszat, Staat, 418. It has been estimated that there were some 25–30 cases between 1939 and 1942 in which Hitler imposed the death sentence instead of a lesser penalty (Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, Documents on Nazism 1919–1945, London, 1974, 276). The supine behaviour of Schlegelberger in the Schlitt case stood in contrast to the readiness, remarkable in the circumstances, of Gauleiter Rover of Oldenburg, to take up with Hitler on 2 May the complaint of the President of the Higher Regional Court in Oldenburg and persuade him that he had been mistaken in presuming the sentence on Schlitt had been too lenient. Rover was left to convey Hitler’s regrets to the Oldenburg judges. His fury was directed at those who had ‘misled’ him. (Domarus, 1881; Angermund, 250.)
67. Picker, 199 (22 March 1942).
68. TBJG, II/4, 162–3 (24 April 1942).
69. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 197; Steinert, 286; Below, 308.
70. TBJG, II/4, 174 (26 April 1942).
71. TBJG, II/4, 176 (26 April 1942).
72. TBJG, II/4, 175–6 (26 April 1942).
73. See also Picker, 294–5 (25 April 1942) for an extended account of Hitler’s comments on vegetarianism at the lunchtime gathering.
74. TBJG, II/4, 177 (26 April 1942).
75. TBJG, II/4, 180 (27 April 1942).
76. TBJG, II/4, 181 (27 April 1942).
77. TBJG, II/4, 183–4 (27 April 1942). Picker’s account of the midday conversation deals solely with the question of the political comments of actors, particularly of Emil Jannings. Goebbels’s own account of the lunchtime session makes plain that this was only an unimportant subsidiary theme. (Picker, 296; TBJG, II/4, 185–6 (27 April 1942).)
78. TBJG, II/3, 561 (27 March 1942).
79. TBJG, II/4, 184 (27 April 1942).
80. TBJG, II/4, 183 (27 April 1942).
81. TBJG, II/4, 186–7 (2–7 April 1942).
82. Domarus, 1865–74.
83. Domarus, 1874–5.
84. Rebentisch, 420–21.
85. RGBl, 1942, I.247. See also Rebentisch, 421 and n.154 (for Lammers’s insertion); and Max Domarus, Der Reichstag und die Macht, Würzburg, 1968, 149–51.
86. Domarus, 1877.
87. MadR, x.3673–4 (27 April 1941); 3685–8 (30 April 1942); Steinert, 289.
88. MadR, x.3686–7; Steinert, 289–92; Angermund, 248–9; Klaus Oldenhage, ‘Justizverwaltung und Lenkung der Rechtsprechung im Zweiten Weltkrieg’, in Rebentisch and Teppe, 100–20, here 114–15.
89. Cit. Oldenhage, 115.
90. Steinert, 289–90.
91. Picker, 298–9 (26 April 1942); TBJG, II/4, 188 (27 April 1942).
92. StA Neuburg an der Donau, vorl.LO 30/35, KL Nördlingen, 11 May 1942: ‘Verzagte Gemüter… scheinen nur von einer Stelle der Rede des Führers beeindruckt worden zu sein: als der Führer von den Vorbereitungen zum Winterfeldzug 42/43 sprach. Je mehr die Grausamkeit und Härte des Winterkampfes im Osten der Heimat voll bewußt geworden ist, umso
mehr ist die Sehrsucht nach einem Ende gestiegen. Nun aber ist das Ende noch nicht absehbar – darunter leiden viele Frauen und Mütter.’
93. The ‘Osteria Bavaria’ was in Schellingstraße 62, in the ‘Party district’ of Munich (Domarus, 1878, n.198).
94. Picker, 299–300 (27 April 1942). For Hitler’s railway plans, see the excellent study by Anton Joachimsthaler, Die Breitspurbahn. Das Projekt zur Erschließung des groß-europäischen Raumes 1942–1945 (1985), 6th edn, Munich, 1999.
95. Picker, 300–303 (29 April 1942). Hitler praised Furtwängler for making the Berlin Philharmonic a far superior orchestra to the Vienna Philharmonic, despite smaller subsidies. For an assessment of the relationship with the regime of Walter, Knappertsbusch, Furtwängler, and – a rapidly rising star combining musical brilliance with ruthless career-opportunism – Herbert von Karajan, see Michael H. Kater, The Twisted Muse. Musicians and their Music in the Third Reich, New York/Oxford, 1997, 40–46, 55–61, 93–4, 114–16, 195–203. Richard J. Evans, Rereading German History 1800–1996. From Unification to Reunification, London, 1997, 187–93, offers a necessary corrective to the uncritical treatment of Furtwängler in Fred K. Prieberg, Trial of Strength: Wilhelm Furt-wängler and the Third Reich, London, 1992, and Sam H. Shirakawa, The Devil’s Music Master: the Controversial Life and Career of Wilhelm Furtwängler, New York, 1992.
96. CD, 461 (29 April 1942); Schmidt, 562.
97. Staatsmänner II, 65 (29 April 1942).
98. CP, 481–4 (29–30 April 1942); CD, 461–2 (29 April 1942); Schmidt, 562–3.
99. CD, 462–3 (dated 29 April 1942, though refers to both meetings, and here to the meeting on 30 April 1942).
100. CD, 463–4.
101. Andreas Hillgruber and Jürgen Förster (eds.), ‘Zwei neue Aufzeichnungen über “Führer–Besprechungen” aus dem Jahre 1942’, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 11 (1972), 109–26, here 116.
102. Rommel’s offensive was launched on 26 May against the numerically superior British forces of the 8th Army at Gazala in Libya, on the Mediterranean coast between Benghazi and Tobruk (Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 183; Weinberg III, 350). The invasion of Malta was never to take place. The summer of 1942 proved to be the height of the siege of the island. (See Oxford Companion, 713–16.)
103. Staatsmänner II, 79 (30 April 1942); Hillgruber and Förster, 114–21.
104. Picker, 304 (1 May 1942).
105. Weisungen, 215.
106. Weisungen, 213–19; Haider KTB, iii.420 (28 March 1942).
107. IMG, vii.290 (Testimony of Field–Marshal Friedrich Paulus).
108. See the comments of Bernd Wegner, ‘Hitlers zweiter Feldzug gegen die Sowjetunion. Strategische Grundlagen und historische Bedeutung’, in Michalka, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 652–66, here 659.
109. Hartmann, 314–16; Wegner, ‘Hitlers zweiter Feldzug’, 657.
110. Wegner, ‘Hitlers zweiter Feldzug’, 660.
111. Wegner, ‘Hitlers zweiter Feldzug’, 658–9.
112. Hartmann, 313 (on the basis of figures compiled on 2 April 1942; see 314 n.14).
113. Wegner, ‘Hitlers zweiter Feldzug’, 654.
114. Halder KTB, iii.430–32 (21 April 1942).
115. Hartmann, 314.
116. Overy, Why the Allies Won, 66.
117. Halder KTB, iii.442–4 (15–19 May 1942).
118. Halder KTB, iii.449–50 (28 May 1942).
119. Hartmann, 320 (and see n.58 for criticism of Irving’s interpretation, giving all credit to Hitler, and claiming Halder had subsequently altered his diary entry); Below, 310.
120. Domarus, 1883; TBJG, II/4, 344 (23 May 1942).
121. TBJG, II/4, 354 (24 May 1942).
122. TBJG, II/4, 354, 360–61 (24 May 1942). At lunch the previous day, Hitler had already launched into further scathing attacks on the judiciary (Picker, 371–2 (22 May 1942)); TBJG, II/4, 343 (23 May 1942).
123. TBJG, II/4, 357 (24 May 1942).
124. TBJG, II/4, 358–9, 362 (24 May 1942).
125. TBJG, II/4, 360 (24 May 1942).
126. TBJG, II/4, 361 (24 May 1942).
127. TBJG, II/4, 355 (24 May 1942).
128. TBJG, II/4, 355–7 (24 May 1942).
129. TBJG, II/4, 358–9, 361 (24 May 1942).
130. TBJG, II/4, 362–4 (24 May 1942).
131. Domarus, 1887–8; see also Picker, 493–504.
132. TBJG, II/4, 401 (30 May 1942).
133. TBJG, II/4, 402 (30 May 1942).
134. TBJG, II/4, 406 (30 May 1942). At his meeting with Mussert on 10 December 1942, Hitler would make plain that he envisaged, in the future new European order, the Netherlands, like Belgium, while not being treated as a conquered country, having no independence and being incorporated into a ‘Greater German Reich’ (‘groß-germanisches Reich’). Hitler explicitly mentioned the incorporation of Austria as an indicator of what he had in mind. (Hillgruber and Förster, 121–6, here 125.)
135. Charles Wighton, Heydrich. Hitler’s Most Evil Henchman, London, 1962, 268ff.; Charles Whiting, Heydrich. Henchman of Death, London, 1999, 141–7; M. R. D. Foot, Resistance. European Resistance to Nazism 1940–45, London, 1976, 204–6; Oxford Companion, 1018–22.
136. Foot, Resistance, 206, puts the death-toll of the reprisals at 2,000; Whiting, 159ff.; Tb Reuth, 1800, n.66.
137. TBJG, II/4, 405 (30 May 1942). Baum and his colleagues were arrested, tortured, sentenced to death, and executed. On the attempt, see Merson, 243; Arnold Paucker, Deutsche Juden im Widerstand 1933–1945. Tatsachen und Probleme, Beiträge zum Widerstand 1933–1945, ed. Gedenk-stätte Deutscher Widerstand, Berlin, 1999, 21; Wolfgang Benz and Walter H. Pehle (eds.), Lexikon des deutschen Widerstandes, Frankfurt am Main, 1994, 225–7. Hitler had given Goebbels permission to have 500 Jewish ‘hostages’ arrested, and to respond to any further attempts by shootings. (Goebbels let the leaders of the Jewish community in Berlin know that 100–150 Jews would be shot for any new attempt. He also had a number of Jews in Sachsenhausen concentration camp shot. TBJG, 4, 432 (2 June 1942).) At the same time, Hitler had commissioned Goebbels – probably at the Propaganda Minister’s own prompting – to ‘see to it as quickly as possible that the Berlin Jews are evacuated’. But Speer had objected that replacements needed first to be found for the Jews working in the armaments industry (351 (24 May 1942)). See also 386 (28 May 1942), where Goebbels referred to the list of Jewish hostages he had had drawn up, and numerous arrests he had caused to be made, after the sabotage attempt at the exhibition.
138. TBJG, II/4, 393 (29 May 1942).
139. TBJG, II/4, 405 (30 May 1942). Goebbels repeated at the end of his summary of Hitler’s remarks that he had been practically in total agreement with what the Führer had said {TBJG, II/4, 410 (30 May 1942)).
140. TBJG, II/4, 361 (24 May 1942).
141. TBJG, II/4, 405 (30 May 1942).
142. TBJG, II/4, 406 (30 May 1942). For another version of Hitler’s comments on the Jews that lunchtime, claiming they were indeed Asiatic, not European, see Picker, 378 (29 May 1942). In speaking over supper to his entourage in his headquarters near Vinnitsa in late July of the removal of the Jews, Hitler, describing them as ‘enemy number one’, once more mentioned the prospect of removing them to Madagascar ‘or some other Jewish national state’ – plans which had been abandoned in 1940 (Picker, 471 (24 July 1942)).
143. IMG, xxix.582, Doc. 2233-PS (‘Die Weisungder Judenvernichtung kommt von höherer Stelle’). Goebbels noted, after speaking to Frank on 23 May about Jewish policy in the General Government, that it was ‘no trifling matter (nicht von Pappe)’, but that Frank could take little credit for it because the Führer had appointed an SS-State Secretary (Krüger) at his side who took his orders from Himmler. This was necessary since ‘Jewish and ethnic policy must above all follow unified guidelines’. (TBJG, II/4, 352 (24 May 1942).) In his post-war memoirs, Frank was adamant that Hitler was responsible for the order to murder the Jews. See Frank, 391–2.
144. BDC, SS-HO, 933: RFSS to Berg
er, 28 July 1942: ‘Verbot einer Verordnung über den Begriff “Jude”’. ‘Die besetzten Ostgebiete werden judenfrei. Die Durchführung dieses sehr schweren Befehls hat der Führer auf meine Schultern gelegt.’ For frequent recourse by those connected with the ‘Final Solution’ to an order by or wish of Hitler, see Fleming, Hitler und die Endlösung, 62ff.
145. BDC, SS-HO/1220, Chef des OKW, 16 December 1942, betr. Bandenbekämpfung; SS-HO/1238, Reichsführer-SS, December 1942: ‘Meldungen an den Führer über Bandenbekämpfung, Meldung Nr.51, Rußland-Süd, Ukraine, Bialystok. Bandenbekämpfungserfolge vom 1.9 bis 1.12.1942’. Himmler’s handwritten note at the top indicates that he presented the report to Hitler on 31 December 1942.
146. See Walter Laqueur, The Terrible Secret. Suppression of the Truth about Hitler’s ‘Final Solution, Harmondsworth, 1982, 15n., 17–18; Steinert, 257. Raul Hilberg, Die Vernichtung der europäischen Juden, revised trans. edn, Frankfurt am Main, 1990, iii.1283–4, has an unduly complex explanation of the excision of the explicit language by Himmler. The Reichsführer, he suggests, was keen to boast of his ‘achievements’. But he faced a problem. Speer and the Commander of the Reserve Army, General Fritz Fromm, had criticized Himmler and queried with Hitler himself the RSHA’s statistics on arrests of Jews who, they claimed, were needed for the armaments industry. Himmler’s way round his problem was to have a statistical report drawn up for Hitler, but to present it in camouflaged language. Irving, HW, 392, 503–4, 871, takes the view that the Korherr report was doctored to prevent Hitler knowing about the killing operations.
147. See Mommsen, ‘Realisierung’, 414–17.
148. TBJG, II/3, 561 (27 March 1942).
149. In his speech to the Reichs – and Gauleiter after Röver’s death, Hitler indicated that he had little interest in overseas colonies, stating instead: ‘Our colonial territory lies in the East’ (TBJG, II/4, 363 (24 May 1942)).
150. Irving uses this to allege that Hitler did not know of the ‘Final Solution’; see HW, 327 and 850–51 (n. to 326).
151. Laqueur, 18 refers to Himmler’s chief of staff, Karl Wolff, denying in his post-war trial that his boss had ever mentioned mass murder to him. Himmler’s chief adjutant, Werner Grothmann, indicated similarly in an interview long after the war that he had never heard Himmler discuss the ‘Final Solution’ (Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York, Toland Papers, C-58, I/T2/Si/10, taped interview with John Toland, 7 October 1971). Once – if the much later account of a telephonist in Führer Headquarters is to be trusted – the Reichsführer-SS did inadvertently break the code. He was, it was recalled, overheard on the line in mid-May 1942 telling Bormann he had good news for the Führer from Auschwitz that again 20,000 Jews had been ‘liquidated’ there. He immediately corrected the word to ‘evacuated’. But Bormann angrily reminded him that such reports, as arranged, were only to be sent to him by SS courier for passing on to the Führer (Schulz, 98). The veracity of the account is impossible to check. That Hitler was sent frequent reports by SS courier sounds doubtful; as does Himmler’s slip of the tongue. The date, too, seems early, since the routine and systematic mass extermination in Auschwitz only began in July 1942 (Longerich, Politik, 515).