Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis (Allen Lane History)

by Ian Kershaw

  83. StA, Munich, LRA 29656, report of the SD-Außenstelle Berchtesgaden, 3 August 1944: ‘Ja, wenn’s ihn nur erwischt hätte.’

  84. Buchbender and Sterz, 146.

  85. See Buchbender and Sterz, 24, 147–8. The censor’s report showed negative comments – on matters in general, not specifically on Hitler – in 25 per cent of the letters checked, an increase on the previous month. A statistic from the end of November 1944 indicates that 9,523 members of the Wehrmacht had been shot for offences including indiscipline, subversion, and sabotage following usually perfunctory court-martial proceedings. How many had been picked up by negative remarks in letters cannot be established. Comments related to the attempt on Hitler’s life, it can be safely surmised, would have been a minuscule proportion (Buchbender and Sterz, 20–25).

  86. Steinert, 482.

  87. Steinert, 479.

  88. Jahrbucb der öffentlichen Meinung 194J–1955, ed. Elisabeth Noëlle and Erich Peter Neumann, Allensbach, 1956, 138.

  89. Michael Kater, The Nazi Party. A Social Profile of Members and Leaders, 1919–1945, Oxford, 1983, 263 (Figure 1).

  90. IWM, ‘Aus deutschen Urkunden 1935–1945’, 264, report of SD-Leitabschnitt Stuttgart, 8 August 1944: ‘Mit anderen Worten würde das heißen: Der Führer gibt zu, daft die Zeit bisher nicht für uns, sondern gegen uns gearbeitet hat. Wenn sich also ein Mann wie der Führer einer solch gewaltigen Täuschung hingegeben bat,… so wäre er entweder nicht das Genie, für das er immer hingestellt wird, oder aber, er hätte in Kenntnis der Tatsache, daß Saboteurs am Werk sind, das deutsche Volk vorsätzlich belogen, was ebenso schlimm wäre, denn mit solchen Feinden im eigenen Haus könnte die Kriegsproduktion niemals gesteigert werden, könnten wir niemals siegen…. Das Bedenklicbste an der ganzen Sache ist wohl, daß die meisten Volksgenossen, auch diejenigen, die bisher unerschütterlich glaubten, jeden Glauben an den Führer verloren haben.’

  91. IWM, ‘Aus deutschen Urkunden’, 276, report of SD-Leitabschnitt Stuttgart, 6 November 1944: ‘Es wird immer wieder behauptet, der Führer sei uns von Gott gesandt worden. Ich bezweifle es nicht. Der Führer wurde uns von Gott gesandt, aber nicht um Deutschland zu retten, sondern um Deutschland zu verderben. Die Vorsehung hat beschlossen, das deutsche Volk zu vernichten und Hitler ist der Vollstrecker dieses Willens.’

  92. Breloer, 219–20.

  93. Steinert, 498.

  94. Manfred Messerschmidt, ‘Krieg in der Trümmerlandschaft. “Pflichterfüllung” wofür?’, in Ulrich Borsdorf and Mathilde Jamin (eds.), Über Leben im Krieg. Kriegserfahrungen in einer Industrieregion 1939–1945, Reinbeck bei Hamburg, 1989, 169–78, here 173.

  95. Matthias von Hellfeld, Edelweißpiraten in Köln, 2nd edn, Cologne, 1983, especially 9–14, 38–59; Detlev Peukert, Die Edelweißpiraten. Protestbewegungen jugendlicher Arbeiter im Dritten Reich, Cologne, 1980, 103–15; Widerstand und Verfolgung in Köln 1933–1945, ed. Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln, Cologne, 1974, 394–7.

  96. Widerstand und Verfolgung in Köln, 396.

  97. See Peukert, Die KPD im Widerstand, 388–400; Merson, 293–5; Widerstand und Verfolgung in Köln, 394–7.

  98. Cit. Steinert, 499–500, 515.

  99. Oven, Mit Goebbels, ii.109, entry for 5 August 1944, and Goebbels’s speech to the Gauleiter in Posen two days earlier (Heiber, Goebbels Reden, ii.360–404, here 370, 372–3, 377–8) for his comparison with the Strasser crisis in 1932; also Orlow, ii.463.

  100. Bormann Letters, 61–5; Orlow, ii.462 and n.282.

  101. Bormann Letters, 69. Bormann wrote, in this letter to his wife dated 26 July, that the Gauleiter conference would be on 1–2 August. In fact, it took place on 3–4 August.

  102. TBJG, II/13, 221–3 (4 August 1944); Speer, 402; ‘Die Rede Himmlers’, 357–94; Goebbels’s speech of 3 August in Heiber, Goebbels Reden, ii.360–404, quotation 396: ‘das muß jetzt Schluß sein! Jetzt nimmt die Partei diese Entwicklung in die Hand’; Orlow, ii.463–4.

  103. Domarus, 2138–9; Speer, 402–3.

  104. See Teppe, 278–301, here 299–301.

  105. See Speer, 322–4, 333–4; Rebentisch, 412–13; Herbert, Fremdarbeiter, 252–5.

  106. Rebentisch, 528.

  107. Fröhlich, ‘Hitler und Goebbels im Krisenjahr 1944’, 195–224, here 205–6; Rebentisch, 512–14; Eleanor Hancock, National Socialist Leadership and Total War 1941–45, New York, 1991, 127–36; Wolfgang Bleyer, ‘Pläne der faschistischen Führung zum totalen Krieg im Sommer 1944’, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, 17 (1969), 1312–29. Speer seems to have been galvanized into action by the head of his Planning Office, Hans Kehrl, who saw the time as ripe following Goebbels’s article in Das Reich on 30 June 1944, pressing for the rigorous squeezing out of all remaining labour reserves. (See Kehrl’s letter to Speer of 10 July 1944, in Bleyer, ‘Plane der faschistischen Führung’, 1315–16.)

  108. Bleyer, ‘Plane der faschistischen Fiihrung’, 1317–25 (Speer Memoranda from 12 and 20 July 1944); Peter Longerich, ‘Joseph Goebbels und der totale Krieg: eine unbekannte Denkschrift des Propagandaministers vom 18. Juli 1944’, VfZ, 35 (1987), 289–314, text of Memorandum, 305–14; Hancock, 129, 133; Fröhlich, ‘Hitler und Goebbels im Krisenjahr 1944’, 206.

  109. 109. Rebentisch, 514.

  110. 110. TBJG, II/12, 521 (22 June 1944).

  111. 111. The text is in Bleyer, ‘Pläne der faschistischen Führung’, 1326–9. See also TBJG, II/13, 135–6 (23 July 1944); Rebentisch, 515; Hancock, 137–8; Longerich, ‘Joseph Goebbels und der totale Krieg’, 304–5; Fröhlich, ‘Hitler und Goebbels im Krisenjahr 1944’, 206–7.

  112. TBJG, II/13, 154 (24 July 1944).

  113. Rudolf Semmler (real name: Semler), Goebbels – the Man Next to Hitler, London, 1947, 147 (entry for 23 July 1944).

  114. RGBl, 1944, 1, Nr.34, 161–2.

  115. Irving, Göring, 433; Fröhlich, ‘Hitler und Goebbels im Krisenjahr 1944’, 207. For Rominten (and Göring’s other residences – he had ten at various times, apart from Carinhall, his main home, and special trains and yachts at his disposal), see Volker Knopf and Stefan Martens, Görings Reich. Selbstinszenierungen in Carinhall, Berlin, 1999, 158–9.

  116. TBJG, II/13, 153–6 (24 July 1944).

  117. Oven, Mit Goebbels, ii.94, entry for 25 July 1944.

  118. Rebentisch, 516–17; Hancock, 138.

  119. Text in Heiber, Goebbels Reden, ii.342–59, quotation 353: ‘Es wird im Lande sowohl für die Front wie für die Rüstungsproduktion so viel Kräfte frei machen, daft es uns nicht allzu schwerfallen dürfte, der Schwierigkeiten, die die Kriegslage immer wieder mit sich bringen wird, in souveräner Weise Herr zu werden.’ (Trans. amended from Seydewitz, 274.)

  120. Orlow, ii.470.

  121. According to the former housekeeper at his Munich apartment, Frau Anni Winter, Hitler’s sight had deteriorated sharply, requiring him to have five pairs of increasingly strong spectacles in as many years (IfZ, ZS 194, BI.3).

  122. Rebentisch, 518–20.

  123. Rebentisch, 521.

  124. Rebentisch, 522.

  125. Speer, 406.

  126. Speer, 405–7; TBJG, II/13, 525–7 (20 September 1944).

  127. Speer, 407.

  128. See Speer, 575 n.5; and Rebentisch, 520.

  129. Hancock, 152–5, 287 n.27. See also DZW, vi.222–37; Herbst, Der Totale Krieg, 343–7; Seydewitz, 275–9; Steinert, 505–6; Klaus Mammach, Der Volkssturm. Bestandteil des totalen Kriegseinsatzes der deutschen Bevlökerung 1944/45, East Berlin, 1981, 17–20.

  130. Hancock, 157–8.

  131. Harlan was also able to use the powers granted to him by Goebbels to acquire the services for his film of 4,000 sailors, training to counter Allied attacks on U-boats, as well as 6,000 horses. He was allowed to spend what he wanted. He put the costs of the film at around 8½ million marks – eight times as much as a good film normally cost to make. (Veit Harlan, Im Schatten meiner Filme. Selbstbiographie, Gütersloh, 1966, 184, 187–8. And see Welch, Propaganda and the German Cinema, 221ff., here 234.)

&n
bsp; 132. Mammach, 39; Franz W. Seidler, ‘Deutscher Volkssturm’. Das letzte Aufgebot 1944/45, Munich, 1989, 45–9; Padfield, Himmler, 540–3. Text of Himmler’s speech at the first ‘roll-call’ of the Volkssturm in Bartenstein (East Prussia), on 18 October 1944, in IfZ, MA 315, frames 2614201ff.

  133. Hitler had, in fact, in referring in 1937 to the reasons why he had had to ‘annihilate’ Ernst Rohm and other SA leaders three years earlier, explicitly rejected ‘the so-called levée en masse’ and the notion ‘that soldiers can be created only through the mobilisation of, let’s say, enthusiasm’ (Domarus, 424, 2150, n.312).

  134. Mammach, 32; Hancock, 141.

  135. Mammach, 24–9.

  136. RGBl, 1944, 1, Nr.53, 253–4; Mammach, 32–3.

  137. Mammach, 168–70.

  138. Mammach, 171.

  139. Mammach, 57.

  140. Mammach, 54.

  141. Mammach, 186–7.

  142. Mammach, 65–8.

  143. See Mammach, 43–51, here 47, 50.

  144. Mammach, 72–3.

  145. Benz, Graml, and Weiß, Enzyklopädie, 788.

  146. Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter, 171, seems to underplay this.

  147. See Rebentisch, 423–63, referring largely to the 1941–3 period.

  148. IMG, XXXV, 494–502, Doc.753-D (with Bormann’s reply of 5 January 1945, putting it down largely to ‘misunderstandings’). See Rebentisch, 426; Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter, 171–2; Gruchmann, ‘Die “Reichsregierung” im Führerstaat’, 211, 223 n.115; Broszat, Staat, 394–5; Lang, Der Sekretär, 309–10, 490; Dieter Rebentisch, ‘Hitlers Reichskanzlei zwischen Politik und Verwaltung’, in Rebentisch and Teppe, 65–99, here 96; Diehl-Thiele, 256–7.

  149. Padfield, Himmler, 514, even describes him as ‘undoubtedly the chief beneficiary of the failed putsch’.

  150. Padfield, Himmler, 543ff.

  151. Weinberg III, 750; DZW, vi.78–9. Total losses since the beginning of the war were, by 1 October 1944, 2,748,034 men killed, injured, missing, or captured.

  152. DZW, vi.183; Weinberg III, 750 (where the October losses are given as only one merchant ship). The total lost to U-boats in the last months of 1944 amounted to 321,732 tons of shipping, only about 2.3 per cent of the 14 million tons of Allied shipping launched the previous year (Oxford Companion, 69).

  153. KTB OKW, iv/2, 1573.

  154. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 433–4, 478, 480, 741 n.112, 786 n.155; Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 295.

  155. Weinberg III, 692–3; Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 295–6. On the military details: John Prados, ‘Cobra: Patton’s Offensive in France, Summer 1944’, in Albert A. Nofi (ed.), The War against Hitler. Military Strategy in the West, Conshokoken, PA, 1995, 133–55.

  156. In the briefing, Hitler asserted that if he could use another 800 fighters there and then, ‘the entire crisis that we have would be immediately overcome’ (LB Darmstadt, 245). In a subsequent military briefing, on 31 August, Hitler said there would always be moments when the tensions became too great to sustain an alliance. ‘Coalitions in world history have always at some point collapsed. Now we have to wait for the moment, however hard it is’ (LB Darmstadt, 276).

  157. Below, 386–7. Hitler eventually gave orders to prepare for a western offensive to take place in November on 19 August, when he told Keitel, Jodl, and Speer to prepare to raise 25 new divisions for the attack. (IfZ, MA 1360, frame 6217521: ‘Notiz Keitels über Besprechung mit General der Artillerie Buhle vom 24. August 1944’, in which Buhle communicated Hitler’s thoughts; Irving, HW, 689 and 889, n. to 689. See also Guderian, 364, where the aim was registered as defeating the western powers and throwing them back into the Atlantic.)

  158. LB Darmstadt, 243, 245, 253.

  159. LB Darmstadt, 249.

  160. LB Darmstadt, 250.

  161. LB Darmstadt, 244, 250, 260.

  162. Hitler correctly guessed what would have been Montgomery’s preference – a strike into the Ruhr. Eisenhower prevailed in his judgement that the attack on Germany should follow on a broad front along the Rhine. (See LB Darmstadt, 252, n.331; Weinberg III, 697–700.)

  163. LB Darmstadt, 251, 253, 258, 262–3.

  164. LB Darmstadt, 253, 255.

  165. LB Darmstadt, 251, also 258–9, 264.

  166. LB Darmstadt, 244.

  167. Weinberg III, 721. Dönitz had persuaded Hitler to give priority to building two new U-boat types, Type XXI and the smaller Type XXIII, faster than their predecessors and equipped with schnorkel and radar, allowing them to remain for long periods submerged and to detect enemy aircraft. Shortage of skilled labour and materials, along with disruption caused by bombing, hindered production so that, while the Americans expected 300 new U-boats in service by the end of 1944, only 180 were actually produced by the end of the war. (Parker, Struggle for Survival, 211; see also Thomas, 244–5; Peter Padfield, Dönitz: the Last Führer, New York, 1984, 387 (for Dönitz’s comments to Hitler on 16 December about the need for the new U-boats); and Doenitz, Memoirs, 424ff., 432–3 for his retrospective views on the U-boat campaign in late 1944 and early 1945.)

  168. LB Darmstadt, 244–5.

  169. LB, Darmstadt, 254–5, 259, 268. The lack of ports for the landing of men and provisions was indeed a hindrance to the Allies during the autumn. Only Cherbourg, much destroyed, was initially in their hands. The surrender of Dieppe and Ostend, and the capture of Brest, Le Havre, Boulogne and Calais made things somewhat easier by October. But the shortage of big dock cranes remained a serious handicap until Antwerp, taken by the British on 4 September, became fully operational, once the Scheldt estuary had been taken, in late November (LB Darmstadt, 253, n.335; Weinberg III, 693). For Hitler’s exchange of telegrams with the commander of the German garrison at St Malo, taken in mid-August, see Domarus, 2142. Hitler told the commander (Colonel von Aulock) that every day he held out was of profit for the German war effort. The commander promised to fight to the last man. Hitler thanked him and his ‘heroic men’, and said the commander’s name would go down in history.

  170. Irving, HW, 683–4; Weinberg III, 693; Parker, Struggle for Survival, 202.

  171. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 296–7; Weinberg III, 692–4; Parker, Struggle for Survival, 200–2; Irving, HW, 683–9.

  172. LB Darmstadt, 273. Irving, HW, 696 and n.6, 889–90, notes to 687 and 696, regards Hitler’s suspicions as justified, and is followed in this by Richard Lamb, ‘Kluge’, in Correlli Barnett (ed.), Hitler’s Generals, London, 1990, 394–409, here 407. The evidence assembled seems, however, tenuous. And it seems doubtful whether Kluge would have had the courage for such a step. Colonel von Gersdorff, who had been deeply involved in the attempts at Army Group Centre to kill Hitler, claimed he had pleaded in vain with Kluge at this time to enter into negotiations with the enemy. Gersdorff had said the decision was the sort which had faced ‘all great men in world history’. Kluge’s answer was: ‘Gersdorff, Field-Marshal v. Kluge is not a great man.’ (Cit. Gersdorff, 151–2. For Hitler’s awareness of Kluge’s connections with the resistance group, see Guderian, 341; TBJG II/13, 208, 210 (3 August 1944).)

  173. LB Darmstadt, 273.

  174. Gene Mueller, ‘Generalfeldmarschall Günther von Kluge’, in Ueberschär, Hitlers militärische Elite, 1, 130–57, here 134; Peter Steinbach, ‘Hans Günther von Kluge – Ein Zauderer im Zwielicht’, in Smelser and Syring, Die Militärelite des Dritten Reiches, 288–324, here 318–19. For Montgomery’s errors, see Weinberg III, 689–90, 693–4, 725.

  175. Hitler remarked in a military briefing on 31 August that the suspicions were such that, had he not committed suicide, Kluge would have been immediately arrested (LB Darmstadt, 272).

  176. Dieter Ose, Entscheidung im Westen. Der Oberbefehlshaber West und die Abwehr der allierten Invasion, Stuttgart, 2nd edn, 1985, 340, Anlage 18.

  177. Despite the doubts of Steinbach, ‘Kluge’, 320, and Mueller, ‘Kluge’, 135, it is clear that Hitler did receive Kluge’s letter. See TBJG, II/13, 372 (31 August 1944), a
nd Irving, HW, 696.

  178. LB Darmstadt, 279 and n.383.

  179. LB Darmstadt, 280. See also Irving, HW, 696.

  180. See Weinberg III, 761; Oxford Companion, 418–22.

  181. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 299.

  182. Domarus, 2143; DZW, vi.424–5; KTB OKW, iv/1, 358–60.

  183. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkreig, 297–9; Weinberg III, 694–5.

  184. Ronald Heifermann, World War 11, London, 1973, 229.

  185. Weinberg III, 700.

  186. The military aspects are assessed in Phil Kosnett and Stephen B. Patrick, ‘Highway to the Reich: Operation Market-Garden, 17–26 September 1944’, in Nofi, 156–77.

  187. DZW, vi.112–18; Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 302–5; Weinberg III, 701–2; Parker, Struggle for Survival, 206–8; Heifermann, 229–30. Around 17,000 men were lost by the western Allies in the fighting in the second half of September. German losses were 3,300 troops. British losses alone numbered between 12,000 and 13,000 (DZW, vi.116).

  188. Weinberg III, 752.

  189. See TBJG, II/13, 204, 209 (3 August 1944). Turkey did not, in fact, declare war on Germany until 1 March 1945 (Domarus, 2136).

  190. Guderian, 364–5; Irving, HW, 681.

  191. Weinberg III, 713.

  192. Guderian, 367.

  193. Weinberg III, 714.

  194. Weinberg III, 714–15.

  195. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 274–5; Weinberg III, 716–17; DZW, vi.90–95.

  196. Erickson, Road to Berlin, 290–307; Weinberg III, 712; DZW, vi.86–90.

  197. Weinberg III, 715.

  198. TBJG, II/13, 204 (3 August 1944).

  199. Domarus, 2142–3; Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 258.

  200. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 258–9.

  201. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 254–6; Weinberg III, 710–11.

  202. Guderian, 355.

  203. Himmler’s speech to Wehrkreis Commanders of 21 September 1944, in Smith/Petersen, Himmler. Geheimreden, 246; trans. (slightly amended), Padfield, Himmler, 524. In the handwritten notes he made for his speech to Wehrkreis commanders in Jägerhöhe on 21 September 1944, Himmler jotted: ‘General Bor in Warsaw rejects surrender. Then the population dies with him.’ (‘General Bor in Warschau lehnt Übergabe ab, dann stirbt Bevölkerung mit.’) (IfZ, MA 315, frames 2584103ff. (quotation, frame 2584105).)