by Ian Kershaw
53. TBJG, II/7, 456–7 (2 March 1943).
54. TBJG, II/7, 456–8 (2 March 1943); Speer, 273, 275.
55. Speer, 271.
56. TBJG, II/8, 98 (12 April 1943).
57. TBJG, II/8, 521 (24 June 1943).
58. TBJG, II/7, 456 (2 March 1943).
59. Speer, 271 and 553 n.5.
60. Rebentisch, 460, 498. Bormann’s influence was indeed great, and growing. Above all, his proximity to Hitler and control of the access of others (with important exceptions) to the Führer, in addition to his leadership of the Party, gave him his unique position of power. But in 1943, Lammers was able for the most part to hold his own, and come to a working arrangement with Bormann, in matters relating to the state administration. Later, his own access to Hitler was increasingly circumscribed by Bormann, whose power was at its peak in the final phase of the Third Reich (Rebentisch, 459–63, 531). Even then, however, Bormann had no independent power, but remained, as Lammers put it, ‘a true interpreter of Adolf Hitler’s directives’ (cit. Rebentisch, 83, n.182 (and see also 498)).
61. Speer, 274; TBJG, II/7, 501–2 (9 March 1943).
62. TBJG, II/7, 503 (9 March 1943); Speer, 275.
63. TBJG, II/7, 505–6, 512 (9 March 1943).
64. TBJG, II/7, 507 (9 March 1943).
65. Speer, 275–6; TBJG, II/7, 516 (9 March 1943).
66. TBJG, II/7, 576–7 (18 March 1943); Speer, 276.
67. Rebentisch, 495.
68. Speer, 278 (claiming it arose from Göring’s morphine addiction). A medical examination by the Americans in 1945 revealed Göring’s dependence on dihydro-codeine, whose effects and level of addiction were only a fraction of those of morphine (Irving, Göring, 476).
69. Irving, Göring, 383.
70. Speer, 279.
71. TBJG, II/9, 549–50 (21 September 1943).
72. Rebentisch, 482–3.
73. Rebentisch, 483–4.
74. Rebentisch, 485–6.
75. Rebentisch, 486–7.
76. Rebentisch, 489–90. According to one report, from Vienna, of 84,000 who had reported there under the ‘combing-out action’, closures had yielded only 3,600 men, of whom a mere 384 were useful for the armed forces (Rebentisch, 490).
77. See Steinert, 332ff.
78. StA Würzburg, SD/13, report of SD-Auβenstelle Bad Kissingen, 22 April 1943: ‘Das Ansehen der NSDAP wurde durch ein[e] Einschaltung der Partei bei der Geschäftsschlieβung und dem Arbeitseinsatz in der Provinz stark beeinträchtigt. Gerüchtweise verlautet, daβ Vg. welche durch Schlieβungen wie auch durch Verluste von Angehörigen heimgesucht wurden, Fübrerbilder in ihrer Wohnung heruntergerissen und zertrümmert hätten.’
79. For a brief sketch of Weber’s character and career, see München – Hauptstadt der Bewegung, ed. Münchner Stadtmuseum, 1993, 231–2. Weber is the subject of a documentary-novel written with much insight by Herbert Rosendorfer, Die Nacht der Amazonen. Roman, dtv edn, Munich, 1992.
80. All the above rests on Rebentisch, 490–92.
81. Guderian, 288.
82. See Churchill, IV, ch.xxxviii for a description of the conference and 615 for Churchill’s surprise. The surprise was somewhat disingenuous. As Churchill admitted, and the minutes of the war cabinet of 20 January showed, he had already before the Casablanca Conference approved the notion of stipulating a demand for ‘unconditional surrender’. For the implications – often exaggerated – of the demand for ‘Unconditional Surrender’, see Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 342–4; Weinberg, iii.482; Oxford Companion, 1174–6.
83. Below, 330; and see also 329, 339 for Hitler’s repeated recourse to the ‘unconditional surrender’ demand to reinforce his view that any suggestion of capitulating or searching for a negotiated peace was pointless. Goebbels, on the other hand, made no mention of it during his ‘total war’ speech and little or no use of it in the direction of propaganda. (See Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 344; Irving, HW, 478 n.4.)
84. Below, 329; Manstein, 406–13; Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 238.
85. Guderian, 302.
86. Eberhard Schwarz, Die Stabilisierung der Ostfront nach Stalingrad: Mansteins Gegenschlag zwischen Donez und Dnieper im Frühjahr 1943, Diss. Köln, 1981, 325–6; Below, 330–31; Guderian, 302; Weinberg III, 457–9.
87. Below, 332.
88. Warlimont, 312.
89. TBJG, II/7, 593 (20 March 1943).
90. Guderian, 306.
91. Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht (Wehrmachtführungsstab), Band III:1. Januar 1943–31. Dezember 1943, ed. Walther Hubatsch, Frankfurt am Main, 1963 (= KTB OKW, iii) pt.2, 1420–2 (Operationsbefehl Nr.5, Weisung für die Kampfführung der nächsten Monate an der Ostfront vom 13.3.1943). See also Manstein, 443–6; and Weinberg III, 601.
92. KTB OKW, iii/2, 1425–8 (Operationsbefehl Nr.6, Zitadelle, 15.4.43), quotation 1425.
93. Domarus, 2009; Manstein, 447.
94. Guderian, 306.
95. For brief portraits of Model, see Joachim Ludewig, ‘Walter Model – Hitlers bester Feldmarschall?’, in Smelser and Syring, 368–87; Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr and Gene Mueller, ‘Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model’, in Ueberschär, Hitlers militärische Elite, ii.153–60; and Carlo D’Este, ‘Model’, in Barnett, 318–33.
96. Guderian, 306.
97. Guderian, 308–9.
98. See LB Darmstadt, 197–8 (26 July 1943).
99. Timothy Mulligan, ‘Spies, Cyphers, and “Zitadelle”. Intelligence and the Battle of Kursk’, JCH, 22 (1987), 235–60; Glantz and House, 162–6.
100. Warlimont, 308, 311.
101. Warlimont, 307.
102. Warlimont, 308–10. Hitler was aware that Kesselring was ‘an enormous optimist (ein kolossaler Optimist)’, and that he needed to be careful not to be blinded by this optimism (LB Darmstadt, 95–6 (20 May 1943)).
103. Warlimont, 312.
104. Below, 333–4.
105. So Hitler told Goebbels, almost a month later (TBJG, II/8, 225 (7 May 1943)). The meetings at Klessheim took place between 7 and 10 April (Hauner, Hitler, 1 82–3).
106. Schmidt, 563.
107. TBJG, II/8, 225 (7 May 1943).
108. Dollmann, 35–7; see also Irving, HW, 504–6.
109. TBJG, II/7, 225 (7 May 1943).
110. Domarus, 2003–8.
111. 111. Staatsmanner II, 214–33, especially 217–24, 228–33 (quotations 215, 233).
112. Staatsmänner II, 234–63, quotation 238.
113. Nuremberg and Fürth were about four miles apart in the region of Middle Franconia, and had been linked in 1835 by Germany’s first stretch of railway. Nuremberg’s tradition as a ‘Freie Reichsstadt’ (Free Imperial City) in the days of the Holy Roman Empire, the ‘German’ virtues associated with the city through Wagner’s Meistetsinger von Nürnberg, and, in the Nazi era, its standing as the ‘City of the Reich Party Rallies (Stadt der Reichsparteitage)’ all contributed (together with the extreme antisemitic climate influenced by the Jew-baiting Gauleiter, Julius Streicher) to singling it out for Hitler as an especially ‘German’ city. Fürth, by contrast, had, until the late nineteenth century, had the largest Jewish population in Bavaria, coming to epitomize for the Nazis a ‘Jewish town’. In fact, by the time that Hitler came to power the proportion of Jews in the population of Fürth (2.6 per cent) was scarcely greater than that of Nuremberg (1.8 per cent). By 1939, the relative proportions had dwindled, respectively, to 1.0 per cent and 0.6 per cent (Ophir/Wiesemann, 179, 203).
114. Hillgruber, Staatsmänner II, 256–7.
115. TBJG, II/7, 515 (9 March 1943).
116. Hilberg, Vernichtung, iii. 1283–5; Fleming, Hitler und die Endlösung, 148–53; Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution, (1953), Sphere Books edn, London, 1971, 534 – 5.
117. Hilberg, Destruction, 323. For the uprising, see Yisrael Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw 1939–1943. Ghetto, Underground, Revolt, London, 1982, ch.14. The length of time it took to crush the uprising was a reflection, as Gutman shows, of the exte
nt to which the German occupying forces had underestimated the activities and tenacity of the Jewish underground in the ghetto.
118. TBJG, II/8, 104 (14 April 1943).
119. TBJG, II/8, 114–15 (17 April 1943). Hitler let Goebbels know a few days later that he wished to talk with him about the future treatment of the ‘Jewish Question’, of which he had very high hopes (II.8, 165 (25 April 1943)). For Goebbels’s exploitation of Katyn for propaganda purposes, see Bramsted, 330–32; Reuth, Goebbels, 526–7; and David Welch, The Third Reich. Politics and Propaganda, London, 1993, 112–13. Reports of the Katyn massacres by the Bolsheviks had the effect, however, of provoking comment about the killing of the Jews by the Germans. See the entry in the diary of Hassell, 365 (15 May 1943), indicating knowledge of gassing of hundreds of thousands in specially built chambers (Hallen). And see also Steinert, 255; Lawrence D. Stokes, ‘The German People and the Destruction of the European Jews’, Central European History, 6 (1973), 167–91, here 186–7; Bankier, 109; Kershaw, Popular Opinion, 365–7; and Kulka, ‘“Public Opinion”’, 289 (for the telling report from the Gauleitung of Upper Silesia pointing out wall-daubings in the area comparing Katyn and Auschwitz).
120. TBJG, II/8, 235, 237 (and see 229) (8 May 1943). Hitler returned on several occasions to emphasize the vital role to be played by antisemitic propaganda in discussions with Goebbels during the following days (TBJG, II/8, 261 (10 May 1943), 297–90 (13 May 1943)).
121. TBJG, II/8, 105 (14 April 1943), 225 (7 May 1943).
122. TBJG, II/8, 236 (8 May 1943).
123. Deutschland im Zweiten Weltkrieg, ed. Wolfgang Schumann et al., 6 vols., East Berlin, 1974 – 84, iii.411–13.
124. TBJG, II/8, 236, 238 (8 May 1943).
125. TBJG, II/8, 224 (7 May 1943).
126. TBJG, II/8, 229, 233–40 (8 May 1943).
127. Warlimont, 313; Domarus, 2014; Weinberg III, 446; Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 221.
128. Karl Doenitz, Memoirs. Ten Years and Twenty Days, (1958), New York, 1997, 299ff., 342ff.; Thomas, 218, 226–7. On taking office Dönitz had, however, changed his mind about scrapping the battleships and was successful in persuading Hitler to retain them (Doenitz, 371ff.; Thomas, 227).
129. TBJG, II/7, 239 (8 May 1943).
130. Lagevorträge, 510 (5 June 1943): ‘Niederschrift über die Besprechung des Ob.d.M. beim Führer am 31.5.43 auf dem Berghof.’
131. Doenitz, 341; Roskill, ii.470; Thomas, 230–31.
132. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War. Volume V, Closing the Ring, London etc., 1952, 6–10; Overy, Why the Allies Won, 50–9; Oxford Companion, 68–9, 1168–9.
133. Weinberg III, 594.
134. Warlimont, 317–19.
135. LB Darmstadt, 97–8 (20 May 1943).
136. LB Darmstadt, 100–101.
137. LB Darmstadt, 104–6.
138. Warlimont, 331.
139. TBJG, II/8, 300 (15 May 1943), 314 (17 May 1943), 337 (21 May 1943), 351 (23 May 1943).
140. Below, 339.
141. TBJG, II/8, 492–8 (19 May 1943).
142. Kershaw, ‘Hitler Myth’, 202–3.
143. TBJG, II/8, 527–8 (25 June 1943). Hitler thought, as he had said before on occasion, that it was not so bad that the inner-cities had been destroyed. Most of the industrial cities had been badly laid out and constructed. The British air-raids gave the opportunity for grandiose rebuilding schemes after the war.
144. TBJG, II/8, 533 (25 June 1943).
145. TBJG, II/8, 291 (13 May 1943).
146. TBJG, II/8, 287 (13 May 1943).
147. TBJG, II/8, 288 (13 May 1943).
148. TBJG, II/8, 288 (13 May 1943).
149. TBJG, II/8, 290 (13 May 1943).
150. The Stroop Report. The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw Is No More. A facsimile edition and translation of the official Nazi report on the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, introd. by Andrzej Wirth, (1960), London, 1980,(unpaginated), entry for 16 May 1943.
151. Broszat, Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik, 164–71; Madajczyk, Okkupationspolitik, 422–8; Irving, HW, 528–9. Hitler expressed on several occasions his dissatisfaction with Frank, and thought of replacing him with Greiser. But, as so often, he took no decision, and ultimately pointed out that Frank’s task in the General Government was so difficult that it was beyond anyone to accomplish. (See TBJG, II/8, 226 (7 May 1943), 251 (9 May 1943), 535 (25 June 1943).)
152. IfZ, MA 316, Frames 2615096 – 8, ‘Vortrag beim Führer am 19.6.1943 auf dem Obersalzberg: “Bandenkampf und Sicherheitslage”’, quotation Frame 2615097; Fleming, Hitler und die Endlös-ung, 33. That the suggestion came from Himmler is supported by the similar wording of his letter to Hans Frank some weeks earlier, on 26 May, when he wrote: ‘The evacuation also of the last 250,000 Jews, which will without doubt provoke unrest for some weeks, must despite all the difficulties be completed as rapidly as possible’ (IfZ, MA 330, Frames 2654157–8, ‘Einladung des Generalgouverneurs an den Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler zu Besprechung’, 26 May 1943; 2654162–3, Antwortschreiben Himmlers, 26 May 1943 (quotation, 2654162: ‘Die Evakuierung auch der letzten 150,000 Juden, die für Wochen noch ohne Zweifel Unruhe hervorrufen wird, muß trotz aller Schwierigkeiten so rasch wie möglich vollzogen werden’).
153. Schirach, 288; TBJG, II/8, 265 (10 May 1943), 458 (II June 1943).
154. Schirach, 289.
155. Schirach, 290–91.
156. Schirach, 291–2.
157. Schirach, 292–4; also Monologe, 403–6, for a watered-down version; TBJG, II/8, 538–41 (25 June 1943), describing Frau von Schirach as behaving like a ‘silly goose (dumme Pute)’; Hoffmann, Hitler Was My Friend, 190–91; Below, 340 (who does not mention the incident with the Jewish women); Henriette von Schirach, DerPreis der Herrlichkeit. Erlebte Zeitgeschichte, (1956), Munich/Berlin, 1975, 8–10.
158. Guderian, 310.
159. Guderian, 3II.
160. Warlimont, 333–4.
161. TBJG, II/8, 531–2 (25 June 1943).
162. Domarus, 2021; see also Irving, HW, 532–3.
163. Below, 340.
164. See LB Stuttgart, 269–75, 297_8, 309–12, 338–40, 364–8 (midday and evening briefings, 25 July 1943), where it is apparent that tank production figures were lower than those Hitler had expected; Guderian, 306–9; Manstein, 448–9; Earl F. Ziemke, Stalingrad to Berlin: the German Defeat in the East, Washington, 1968,130–32,135–73; John Erickson, The Road to Berlin, Boulder, Colorado, 1983, 86, 97ff., 135; Ernst Klink, Das Gesetz des Handelns: Die Operation ‘Zitadelle’ 1943, Stuttgart, 1966, 140–44, 196; Weinberg III, 601–3; Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 239; Overy, Why the Allies Won, 86–97; Overy, Russia’s War, ch.7, especially 203–12; Glantz and House, 166–7; Irving, HW, 533. Accounts of the battle give differing numbers of tanks involved. Ziemke, 101, has 4,000 Soviet and 3,000 German tanks. DZW, iii.545, numbers the Soviet tanks at 2,700; see also Erickson, Road to Berlin, 144–5; and Klink, 205.
165. Guderian, 311; and see Manstein, 448.
166. Below, 341; Manstein, 448 – 9; Weinberg III, 603.
167. Guderian, 312.
168. Warlimont, 334.
169. Below, 341; Warlimont, 335–8; Weinberg III, 594; Irving, HW, 534–5; Oxford Companion, 1001–3. Looking back in 1944, Mussolini himself remarked on the poor morale of the Italian troops in Sicily prior to the Allied landing (Benito Mussolini, My Rise and Fall, (1948), New York, 1998, two vols, in one, ii.25.
170. Warlimont, 336–7.
171. Staatsmänner II, 287–300; Baur, 1ch flog Mächtige der Erde, 245–6; Warlimont, 339.
172. Based on: Staatsmänner II, 286–300; IfZ, ED 100, Irving-Sammlung, Hitler-Dokumentation (1943), extracts from Mussolini’s diary, Auswärtiges Amt, Serial 715/263729–32, 263755–8 (in Italian, and in German translation); Mussolini, ii.49–51; Irving, HW, 541–2; Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini, Paladin edn, London, 1985, 341–2; Warlimont, 339–40; Schmidt, 340; Domarus, 2022–3-
173. IfZ, MA 460, Frames 2567178–81. Hi
mmler was informed on 19 July and cabled Bormann without delay. See also Irving, HW, 543; and Meir Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews. German Italian Relations and the Jewish Question in Italy 1922–1945, Oxford, 1978, 339–40.
174. LB Darmstadt, 148 and n.207 (25 July 1943); TBJG, II/9, 157 (25 July 1943); Below, 342.
175. Mussolini, ii.55–67; Mack Smith, 342–5; Domarus, 2023 and n.250. See also Hans Woller, Die Abrechnung mit dem Faschismus in Italien 1943 bis 1948, Munich, 1996, 9–35.
176. Mussolini, ii.68–81; Mack Smith, 346–9.
177. LB Darmstadt, 148–9. The extremist Roberto Farinacci was only one of the forces behind calling the Council meeting. The faction around the more moderate Dino Grandi intended to use the meeting to pave the way for ending Italy’s involvement in the war, (See LB Darmstadt, 148 n.207 (25 July 1943); Mack Smith, 344.)
178. LB Darmstadt, 153 (25 July 1943).
179. LB Darmstadt, 156–7, 160.
180. LB Darmstadt, 149–50, 158.
181. LB Darmstadt, 160.
182. LB Darmstadt, 159–61.
183. TBJG, II/9, 166 (26 July 1943).
184. TBJG, II/ 9, 169 (27 July 1943).
185. LB Darmstadt, 168–70 (26 July 1943).
186. TBJG, II/9, 169 (27 July 1943).
187. LB Darmstadt, 171 (26 July 1943).
188. TBJG, II/9, 174 (27 July 1943).
189. MadR, xiv, 5560–2 (2 August 1943).
190. TBJG, II/9, 169–74 (27 July 1943)-
191. LB Darmstadt, 173–96 (26 July 1943).
192. LB Darmstadt, 206 (26 July 1943).
193. TBJG, II/ 9, 177 (27 July 1943), 185 (28 July 1943).
194. TBJG, II/ 9, 179–80 (27 July 1943).
195. TBJG, II/9, 185 (27 July 1943).
196. Warlimont, 373.
197. Warlimont, 373; Irving, HW, 550.
198. Domarus, 2026. ‘The Will to Power’ (‘Der Wille zur Macht’) was the title of the work -intended as a systematic statement of his philosophy – which was left unfinished at Nietzsche’s death.
199. LB Darmstadt, 133 n.179; Broszat-Frei, 278; Weinberg III, 616; Churchill, v.459–60; Martin Middlebrook, The Battle of Hamburg: Allied Bomber Forces against a German City in 1943, New York, 1981, 252ff. (for reports from citizens of Hamburg), 322ft for an assessment of the raid. For popular opinion and the difficulties facing the propaganda machine, see Gerald Kirwin, ‘Allied Bombing and Nazi Domestic Propaganda’, European History Quarterly, 15 (1985), 341–62, here 350–51.