by Ian Kershaw
204. Himmler stated this in his address to the Wehrkreis commanders on 21 September (see Padfield, Himmler, 524). For the order to raze Warsaw by Hitler on 11 October, see IMG, xii.88, cit. Dok. USSR-128 (=PS-3305); also Padfield, Himmler, 524–5; and Guderian, 358.
205. Guderian, 356; Höhne, Death’s Head, 502; Padfield, Himmler, 524–5; Benz, Graml, and Weiß, Enzyklopädie, 440, 539, for the Dirlewanger and Kaminski units. See also, Hellmuth Auerbach, ‘Konzentrationslagerhäftlinge im Fronteinsatz’, in Benz, Miscellanea. Festschrift für Helmut Krausnick, 63–83, here especially 66–7.
206. Padfield, Himmler, 527; DZW, vi.61. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 257, has lower figures for both Polish and German losses.
207. IMG, xii.88; Guderian, 358.
208. Schenck, 148; Irving, Doctor, 160; also Redlich, 207.
209. Schenck, 337–8, 342–3.
210. Schenck, 329, 333–6; Irving, Doctor, 161–2, 252–6; Redlich, 224–5, 368–9. Schenck, 336–7. dismisses suggestions that Hitler might have at any point suffered a heart attack, as has sometimes been claimed (e.g. in Hauner, Hitler, 193, and Toland, 822).
211. Schenck, 148. Below, 389, attributed Hitler’s physical collapse to the news that Himmler had just given him of the involvement by Canaris, Goerdeler, Oster, Dohnanyi, and Beck in plotting against him as early as 1938–9. But Himmler gave that information to Hitler on 26 September, as Below notes (see also Irving, HW, 710–11); Hitler’s severe stomach spasms had begun in the night of 23–4 September, as Morell’s diary indicates. For Hitler’s ‘agitation’ over Arnhem and the failure of the Luftwaffe, see Irving, HW, 706–8.
212. Irving, Doctor, 163; Irving, HW, 712; Below, 389.
213. Schenck, 148–9; Irving, Doctor, 164; Irving, HW, 712; Redlich, 207.
214. Schenck, 44, 150–3; Irving, Doctor, 164–8, 172–3.
215. Irving, Doctor, 169–79; Redlich, 209.
216. Linge, Bis zum Untergang, 161.
217. See Redlich, 244–52 for a balanced assessment of Morell. Far more critical is Schenck, 287–8.
218. Redlich, 237–44. Schenck, 196–215, assesses the numerous medicines given to Hitler. See also Irving, Doctor, 259–70. Leonard L. Heston and Renate Heston, The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler, London, 1979, build up an implausible theory of Hitler’s dependency upon amphetamines as the basis of his irrationality. (See Redlich, 240–42 for a critique.)
219. See Redlich, 233; and Schenck, 325ff. and Redlich, 224–5 for cardiovascular problems.
220. Redlich, 332–41.
221. Ingeborg Fleischhauer, Die Chance des Sonderfriedens. Deutsch-sowjetische Geheimgespräche 1941–1945, Berlin, 1986, 265ff; Ziemke, Stalingrad to Berlin, 404–5; and Martin, Deutschland und Japan im Zweiten Weltkrieg, 195ff.
222. IMG, xvi.533 (Speer’s testimony of 20 June 1946); Boyd, 158–9; Irving, HW, 891 (note to 699). It is unclear why Weinberg III, 720, thinks ‘there is some evidence that in the fall of 1944 Hitler for the first time seriously considered a possibility he had hitherto always dismissed out of hand’.
223. TBJG, II/13, 524 (20 September 1944).
224. TBJG, II/13, 52.4–5 (20 September 1944). Word of Oshima’s proposal had evidently by this time spread further than Goebbels’s own ministry. The following day, Goebbels castigated in his diary entry a speech, held in private to a select audience, by Labour Front leader Robert Ley which reported on the Oshima initiative and indicated that peace with Moscow was to be expected in the near future (TBJG, II/13, 535 (21 September 1944)).
225. TBJG. II/13, 536–42 (23 September 1944). The rest of his letter was an attack on Ribbentrop, his old adversary, as the man least likely to be capable of bringing about the skilful manoeuvre needed, and a disclaimer that he himself had any ambitions other than to serve Hitler, whose genius in successfully guiding this ‘greatest war in our history’ to victory and securing a happy future for the German people he did not doubt for a second.
226. TBJG, II/13, 556 (24 September 1944), 562 (25 September 1944); TBJG II/14, 83–4 (12 October 1944).
227. See Irving, HW, 689.
228. Below, 390; Guderian, 364.
229. Speer, 423.
230. Below, 390.
231. Below, 386–7.
232. Speer, 417–19. And see Kirwin, ‘Waiting for Retaliation’, for the expectations.
233. Speer, 377. Even this would have carried an explosive load of less than half that of a single combined British and American bombing sortie towards the end of the war (Speer, 572, n.9).
234. Speer, 378.
235. Below, 390.
236. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 284–5; DZW, vi.176.
237. Speer, 239–43; Mark Walker, German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power 1939–1945). Cambridge, 1989, 77–8 and ch.4, especially 136–7, and 155; Mark Walker, ‘Legenden um die deutsche Atombombe’, VfZ, 38 (1990), 45–74, here 53; Monika Renneberg and Mark Walker (eds.), Science, Technology, and National Socialism, Cambridge, 1994, 2; Kristie Macrakis, Surviving the Swastika. Scientific Research in Nazi Germany, New York/Oxford, 1993, 173–4, 244 n.41.
238. LB Darmstadt, 245.
239. Speer, 415–17.
240. Speer, 578 n.21.
241. Speer, 414.
242. Speer, 414–15.
243. Irving, Doctor, 166.
244. TBJG, II/14, 117 (29 October 1944).
245. Speer, 423.
246. Speer, 413.
247. Domarus, 2141 (in response to Papen’s offer to take soundings via Spain).
248. Speer, 423.
249. TBJG, II/13, 208, 210 (3 August 1944). See also his negative comments about Rommel on 31 August in LB Darmstadt, 273–5.
250. Keitel, 332; Domarus, 2155; Speidel, Invasion, 1 78ff.; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 651–2; Fest, Staatsstreich, 313–14.
251. Domarus, 2157.
252. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 275–6 (and see Irving, HW, 722–3).
253. Skorzeny, 126, 130, 132, 134.
254. Skorzeny, 134–5.
255. Skorzeny, 133–5.
256. Skorzeny, 136–8.
257. See Skorzeny, 138ff.; Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 275–8; Irving, HW, 719–24; DZW, vi.531–2; Hilberg, Destruction, 552–4.
258. Hilberg, Destruction, 546.
259. Hilberg, Destruction, 552.
260. Hilberg, Destruction, 553 and n.1035.
261. Hilberg, Vernichtung, ii.925–6.
262. Skorzeny, 146.
263. IfZ, F29, diary of General Werner Kreipe, Luftwaffe Chief of Staff, Fol.21. See also Guderian, 370–71; Irving, HW, 705. Guderian’s warnings that an offensive in the west would seriously weaken the defences in the east would all too soon prove prophetic. (See Weinberg III, 770.)
264. TBJG, II/13, 498, 500–501 (17 September 1944). See also Irving, HW, 706.
265. Warlimont, 478. For the varying views of Goebbels, Speer, and Stuckart from the Reich Ministry of the Interior, see TBJG, II/13, 491 (16 September 1944), 501 (17 September 1944). The failure of relations between the Party and the Wehrmacht in the first critical days of the Allied advance on Aachen prompted Hitler’s directives of 19 and 20 September, ordering the continuation of the activities of Party and civil administration in operational areas, also within the Reich itself, and stipulating the duties of the Gauleiter/Reich Defence Commissars. (Weisungen, 337–41; Warlimont, 478–9.)
266. TBJG, ΙΙ/13, 553 (24 September 1944).
267. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 306.
268. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 260; TBJG, II/14, 89 (23 October 1944).
269. Below, 391.
270. Bormann Letters, 139 (25 October 1944).
271. Bormann Letters, 138 (24 October 1944); Schroeder, 150.
272. TBJG, II/14, 93 (24 October 1944). See also TBJG, II/14, 88 (23 October 1944), Schroeder, 150; and Irving, HW, 725.
273. Below, 391; TBJG, II/14, 110 (26 October 1944); Irving, HW, 726, 893 note. Hitler was keen to make use of the atrocities fo
r propaganda purposes. (See Jodl’s note arising from the military briefing on 25 October 1944 in IfZ, Nbg.-Dok., 1787-PS, 496: ‘Russian atrocities in the occupation of East Prussian territory must be spread by Wehrmacht propaganda. Photographs, questioning of witnesses, factual reports etc. for this. Where are the [Wehrmacht] propaganda companies?’ (‘Russische Greueltaten bei der Besetzung ostpreußischen Gebiets müssen durch Wpr verbreitet werden. Dazu Aufnahmen. Zeugenvernehmung, Tatsachenberichte usw. Wo bleiben die Prop.-Kompanien?’)) Whatever the propaganda exploitation, there can be no doubt that horrific atrocities were indeed perpetrated by soldiers of the Red Army. In military terms, the short-lived capture of Gumbinnen and Goldap (at high cost) provided Soviet forces with valuable experience to prepare their later full-scale assault on East Prussia. (Glantz and House, 228–9, 365–6 (n.34).)
274. KTB OKW, iv/1, 439, 442–3; Warlimont, 480; Below, 391–2.
275. Below, 390.
276. See TBJG, II/13, 582 (28 September 1944); Irving, HW, 708; Samuel W. Mitcham Jr, ‘Generalfeldmarschall Robert Ritter von Greim’, in Ueberschär, Hitlers militärische Elite, II, 72–7.
277. TBJG, II/14, 328 (2 December 1944).
278. In discussion with Goebbels, one of the Reich Marshal’s main detractors, Hitler defended Göring and pointed to his earlier services in building up the Luftwaffe (TBJG, II/13, 213 (3 August 1944)). Sentimentality is, however, unlikely to have been the real reason for holding on to Göring. Issues of public image were more weighty.
279. Below, 394; Irving, HW, 708, 714, 728; Mitcham, 76.
280. TBJG II/13, 582 (28 September 1944); Irving, HW 728. See also Irving, Goring, 438–45.
281. TBJG, II/14, 330 (2 December 1944).
282. Speer, 578. n.21; Irving, Goring, 442, 444. Hitler cut Below short when the latter advocated the exclusive use of the Me262s as fighters (Below, 393). Despite his insistence on their production as bombers, the first fifty fighters began operations in mid-October (Irving, Goring, 442).
283. See his comments in his military briefing on 28 December 1944 (LB Darmstadt, 314); also his hints in this direction in the briefing on 12 December (LB Darmstadt, 294). He told Goebbels at the beginning of December that German arms were superior to those of the Allies in all areas except that of the Luftwaffe, and that there was no prospect of overcoming this inferiority in the near future (TBJG, II/14, 330 (2 December 1944)).
284. TBJG, II/13, 503–4 (17 September 1944), 510 (18 September 1944).
285. TBJG, II/14, 193 (10 November 1944), 210 (13 November 1944).
286. Domarus, 2162. The words ‘Ausrottung’ (‘eradication’) and ‘Vernichtung’ (‘annihilation’) were used on numerous occasions during the proclamation.
287. Domarus, 2163.
288. Domarus, 2165–6.
289. Domarus, 2165.
290. Domarus, 2167.
291. Below, 395. For further indications of despondency, see Irving, HW, 893, note to 726, and 894, note to 739.
292. TBJG, II/14, 210 (13 November 1944), 217 (16 November 1944). For Hitler’s general ill-health, throat problems, nervous tension about the coming offensive, and irritability in November 1944, see Schenk, 256–62; Irving, Doctor, 187–97 (from Morell’s diary).
293. Below, 395; Schenck, 320–23; Irving, Doctor, 194–7; Irving, HW, 734. The operation was carried out on 22 November. For a week, he could speak only in a whisper (Below, 396).
294. TBJG II/14, 316 (2 December 1944).
295. TBJG, II/14, 317 (2 December 1944).
296. TBJG, II/14, 318–19 (2 December 1944).
297. TBJG, II/14, 322 (2 December 1944).
298. TBJG, II/14, 323–4 (2 December 1944).
299. TBJG, II/14, 321 (2 December 1944). Linge recalled Hitler’s short-lived revitalization at the beginning of the offensive (Linge, Bis zum Untergang, 250).
300. For Dietrich, see Charles Messenger, Hitler’s Gladiator. The Life and Times of Oberstgruppenführer der Waffen-SS Sepp Dietrich, London, 1988; James T. Weingartner, ‘Josef “Sepp” Dietrich – Hitlers Volksgeneral’, in Smelser and Syring, Die Militärelite des Dritten Reiches, 113–28; William T. Allbritton and Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr, ‘SS-Oberstgruppenführer und Generaloberst der Waffen-SS Joseph (Sepp) Dietrich’, in Ueberschär, Hitlers militärische Elite, ii.37–44. I am grateful to Dr Chris Clarke for letting me see a sketch of Dietrich’s character and career, ‘Josef “Sepp” Dietrich: Landsknecht im Dienste Hitlers’, forthcoming in Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring (eds.), Die SS: Elite unter dem Totenkopf. 30 Lebensläufe, Paderborn etc., 2000, 119–33. Both Dietrich and Manteuffel are the subjects of a brief pen-picture by Franz Kurowski, ‘Dietrich and Manteufel’, in Barnett, Hitler’s Generals, 411–37.
301. Warlimont, 480–83 (quotations, 482, 482–3; code-names of the operation, 480, 490); KTB OKW, iv/1, 439.
302. Warlimont, 485.
303. Below, 396; Domarus, 2171, n.377.
304. LB Darmstadt, 290–91 (12 December 1944).
305. LB Darmstadt 291.
306. LB Darmstadt 277 (31 August 1944).
307. LB Darmstadt 292.
308. Weinberg III, 766.
309. Stephen B. Patrick, ‘The Ardennes Offensive: An Analysis of the Battle of the Bulge, December 1944’, in Nofi, 206–24, here 217; Oxford Companion, 114.
310. Guderian, 380–81; Warlimont, 490–91; Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 310–12; Weinberg III, 766–8; Heifermann, 232–4.
311. LB Darmstadt, 302–3; Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 313.
312. LB Darmstadt, 295–6 (28 December 1944).
313. LB Darmstadt, 297.
314. LB Darmstadt, 315.
315. LB Darmstadt, 305.
316. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 313–14; LB Darmstadt, 316 n.428
317. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 312; Weinberg III. 769.
318. Even reports from the Reich Propaganda Offices throughout Germany, invariably hesitant about conveying anything other than the rosiest-coloured views, mentioned disappointment about the speech (BA, R55/612, ‘Echo zur Führerrede’, Fols.20–21). Goebbels, in evident irritation, scored through the offending passages of the summary report drawn up for him. Newspaper reports of the speech struck Jewish readers in Dresden by the absence of any mention whatsoever of the western offensive (Klemperer, ii.637 (5 January 1945)).
319. Domarus, 2180.
320. Domarus, 2180, 2182.
321. Domarus, 2184.
322. IWM, ‘Aus deutschen Urkunden’, 277, report of SD-Leitabschnitt Stuttgart, 9 January 1945: ‘Der Führer habe also von allem Anfang an auf den Krieg hingearbeitet.’
323. IWM, ‘Aus deutschen Urkunden’, 67, report of the SD-Leitabschnitt Stuttgart, 12 January 1945: ‘… er hätte bewuβt diesen Weltbrand entfacht, um als groβer “Verwandler der Menschheit” proklamiert zu werden.’
324. KTB OKW, iv/2, 1345; Warlimont, 494.
325. KTB OKW, iv/2, 1346–7; also 1352–4.
326. Warlimont, 494; KTB OKW, iv/2, 1353 (heading of the section dealing with military events between 14 and 28 January 1945).
327. Weinberg III, 769.
328. Below, 398.
CHAPTER 16: INTO THE ABYSS
1. Breloer, 359–60.
2. Breloer, 359 (entry for 22 January 1945).
3. Hitler was reported to have stated this explicitly, in addressing Colonel-General Carl Hilpert, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Courland, on 18 April 1945: ‘If the German people loses the war, it will have shown itself as not worthy of me.’ (‘Wenn das deutsche Volk den Krieg verliert, hat es sich meiner als nicht würdig erwiesen.’) (KTB OKW, iv/1, 68 (introduction by Percy Ernst Schramm, citing a written account of Hitler’s meeting with Hilpert by Dr W. Heinemeyer, then responsible for compiling the War Diary of Army Group Courland).)
4. Below, 340, with reference to the visit to the Berghof on 24 June 1943 of Baldur and Henriette von Schirach, which ended in their premature departure after angering Hitler.
5. Guderian, 382; an
d see Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 414; Parker, Struggle for Survival, 217; DZW, vi.502–3. At the beginning of 1945, the German army had some 7.5 million men at its disposal. Of its 260 divisions, seventy-five were placed on the eastern front between the Carpathians and the Baltic, where the Soviet offensive was forecast. Apart from the seventy-six divisions in the west, a further twenty-four were deployed in Italy, seventeen were located in Norway and Denmark protecting U-boat bases and Swedish iron-ore supplies, ten were in Yugoslavia, twenty-eight defended oil and bauxite supplies from Hungary, and thirty were cut off in Memel and the Courland (Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 414).
6. Guderian, 383.
7. Guderian, 385.
8. Guderian, 386–8. Speaking privately to Goebbels a few days after the Soviet breakthrough, Hitler did not blame it primarily on a failure of the military leadership. He pointed to the unavoidable thinness of the defences around the Baranov bridgehead because of the need to take troops to the west for the Ardennes offensive, and to Hungary to secure oil supplies (ΤΒJG, II/15, 193 (23 January 1945)).
9. Guderian, 393–4, 417. Göring, who found the weakness of German defences at the Baranov bridgehead incomprehensible, given the prior intelligence that the offensive could be expected there, was critical, in discussion with Goebbels, about Hitler’s decision to attempt a counter-attack on Hungary. Goebbels thought Hitler’s approach was correct because of the urgent need of fuel (TBJG, II/15, 251 (28 January 1945)).
10. Guderian, 394–5, 412–13; Gerhard Boldt, Hitler’s Last Days. An Eye-Witness Account, (1947), Sphere Books edn, London, 1973, 50–53; Michael Salewski, Die deutsche Seekriegsleitung 1933–1945, Bd.II: 1942–1945, Munich, 1975, 493, 496, 520–35; Weinberg III, 721, 782; and Gerhard L. Weinberg, ‘German Plans for Victory, 1944–1945’, in Gerhard L. Weinberg (ed.), Germany, Hitler, and World War II, Cambridge, 1995, 274–86, here 284–5.
11. DZW, vi.525.
12. Guderian, 396–8.
13. DZW, vi.529–36.
14. Guderian, 398.