The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

by William Shirer

  11. The above excerpts from Goebbels’ diary are from The Goebbels Diaries, pp. 428–42, 468, 477–78. Hitler’s talk with Doenitz in August 1943 was noted by the Admiral in FCNA, 1943, pp. 85–86.

  CHAPTER 29

  1. Dorothy Thompson, Listen, Hans, pp. 137–38, 283.

  2. Hassell, op. cit., p. 283.

  3. Zwischen Hitler und Stalin. Ribbentrop’s testimony, TMWC, X, p. 299.

  4. George Bell, The Church and Humanity, pp. 165–76. Also Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis, pp. 553–57.

  5. Allen Dulles, op. cit., pp. 125–46. Dulles gives the text of a memorandum written for him by Jakob Wallenberg on his meetings with Goerdeler.

  6. The account of this whole episode is based largely on the report of Schlabrendorff, op. cit., pp. 51–61.

  7. To Rudolf Pechel, who quotes him at length in his book, Deutscher Widerstand.

  8. There are a number of accounts, some of them firsthand, of the students’ revolt: Inge Scholl, Die weisse Rose (Frankfurt, 1952); Karl Vossler, Gedenkrede fuer die Opfer an der Universitaet Muenchen (Munich, 1947); Ricarda Huch, “Die Aktion der Muenchner Studenten gegen Hitler,” Neue Schweizer Rundschau, Zurich, September-October 1948; “Der 18 Februar: Umriss einer deutschen Widerstandsbewegung,” Die Gegenwart, October 30,1940; Pechel, op. cit., pp. 96–104; Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis, pp. 539–41; Dulles, op. cit., pp. 120–22.

  9. Dulles, op. cit., pp. 144–45.

  10. Quoted by Constantine FitzGibbon in 20 July, p. 39.

  11. Desmond Young, Rommel, pp. 223–24. Stroelin gave Young a personal account of the meeting. See also Stroelin’s Nuremberg testimony, TMWC, X, p. 56, and his book, Stuttgart in Endstadium des Krieges.

  12. Speidel emphasizes the point in his book Invasion 1944, pp. 68, 73.

  13. Ibid., p. 65.

  14. lbid., p. 71.

  15. Ibid., pp. 72–74.

  16. Dulles, op. cit., p. 139.

  17. Schlabrendorff, op. cit., p. 97.

  18. The telephone log of the Seventh Army headquarters. This revealing document was captured intact in August 1944 and provides an invaluable source for the German version of what happened to Hitler’s armies on D Day and during the subsequent Battle of Normandy.

  19. Speidel, op. cit., p. 93.

  20. Ibid., on which this account is largely based. Gen. Blumentritt, Rundstedt’s chief of staff, has also left an account, and there is additional material in The Rommel Papers, ed. by Liddell Hart, p. 479.

  21. The text of the letter is given in Speidel, op. cit., pp. 115–17. A slightly different version is in The Rommel Papers, pp. 486–87.

  22. Speidel, op. cit., p. 117.

  23. Ibid.,

  24. Ibid.,

  25. Schlabrendorff, op. cit., p. 103. He was still attached to Tresckow’s staff.

  26. The sources for these meetings of the conspirators on July 16 are the stenographic account of the trial of Witzleben, Hoepner et al.; Kaltenbrunner’s reports on the July 20 uprising; Eberhard Zeller, Geist der Freiheit, pp. 213–14; Gerhard Ritter, Carl Goerdeler und die deutsche Widerstandsbewegung, pp. 401–3.

  27. Heusinger, Befehl im Widerstreit, p. 352, tells of his last words that day.

  28. Zeller, op. cit., p. 221.

  29. Schmidt, op. cit., pp. 275–77.

  30. A number of guests at the tea party, Italian and German, have given eyewitness accounts of it Eugen Dollmann, an S.S. liaison officer with Mussolini, has rendered the fullest description both in his book, Roma Nazista, pp. 393–400, and in his interrogation by Allied investigators, which is summed up by Dulles, op. cit., pp. 9–11. Zeller, op. cit., p. 367, n.69, and Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis, pp. 644–46, have written graphic accounts, based mostly on Dollmann.

  31. The transcript of this telephone conversation was put in evidence before the People’s Court. Schlabrendorff, op. cit., quotes it on p. 113.

  32. Zeller, op. cit., p. 363n., cites two eyewitnesses to the executions, an Army chauffeur who observed them from a nearby window, and a woman secretary of Fromm.

  33. This account of what went on in the Bendlerstrasse that evening is taken largely from General Hoepner’s frank testimony before the People’s Court during his trial and that of Witzleben and six other officers on Aug. 6–7, 1944. The records of the People’s Court were destroyed in an American bombing on Feb. 3, 1945, but one of the stenographers at this trial—at the risk of his life, he says—purloined the shorthand records before the bombing and after the war turned them over to the Nuremberg tribunal. They are published verbatim in German in TMWC, XXX-III, pp. 299–530.

  There is a great deal of material on the July 20 plot, much of it conflicting and some quite confusing. The best reconstruction of it is by Zeller, op. cit., who gives a lengthy list of his sources on pp. 381–88. Gerhard Ritter’s book on Goerdeler, op. cit., is an invaluable contribution, though it naturally concentrates on its subject. Wheeler-Bennett’s Nemesis gives the best account available in English and uses, as does Zeller, Otto John’s unpublished memorandum. John, who after the war got into difficulties with the Bonn government and was imprisoned by it, was present at the Bendlerstrasse that day and recorded a great deal of what he saw and what Stauffenberg told him. Constantine FitzGibbon, op. cit., gives a lively account, based mostly on German sources, especially Zeller.

  Also invaluable, though they must be read with caution, are the daily reports on the investigation of the plot carried out by the S.D. Gestapo, which date from July 21 to Dec. 15, 1944. They were signed by Kaltenbrunner and sent to Hitler, being drawn up in extra-large type so that the Fuehrer could read them without his spectacles. They represent the labors of the “Special Commission for July 20, 1944,” which numbered some 400 S.D.-Gestapo officials divided into eleven investigation groups. The Kaltenbrunner reports are among the captured documents. Microfilm copies are available at the National Archives in Washington—No. T–84, Serial No. 39, Rolls 19–21. See also Serial No. 40, Roll 22.

  34. Zeller, op. cit., p. 372, n.10, quotes an officer who was present.

  35. The account of the executions was later related by the prison warder, Hans Hoffmann, a second warden and the photographer, and is given in Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis, pp. 683–84, among others.

  36. Wilfred von Oven, Mit Goebbels bis zum Ende, II, p. 118.

  37. Ritter, op. cit., pp. 419–29, gives the details of this interesting sidelight.

  38. This figure is given in a commentary in the records of the Fuehrer’s conferences on naval affairs (FCNA, 1944, p. 46) and is accepted by Zeller, op. cit., p. 283. Pechel, op. cit., who found the official “Execution Register,” says, p. 327, there were 3,427 executions recorded in 1944, though a few of these probably were not connected with the July 20 plot.

  39. Schlabrendorff, op. cit., pp. 119–20. I have altered the English text here given to make it conform more to the original German.

  40. Gen. Blumentritt gave this account to Liddell Hart (The German Generals Talk, pp. 217–23).

  41. Ibid., There is considerable source material on the Paris end of the plot, including the account given by Speidel in his book and numerous articles in German magazines by eyewitnesses. The best over-all account has been rendered by Wilhelm von Schramm, an Army archivist stationed in the West: Der 20 Juli in Paris.

  42. Felix Gilbert, op. cit., p. 101.

  43. Speidel, op. cit., p. 152. My account of the death of Rommel is based on, besides Speidel, who questioned Frau Rommel and other witnesses, the following sources: two reports written by the Field Marshal’s son, Manfred, the first for British intelligence, quoted by Shulman, op. cit., pp. 138–39, the second for The Rommel Papers, ed. by Liddell Hart, pp. 495505; and Gen. Keitel’s interrogation by Col. John H. Amen on Sept. 28, 1945, at Nuremberg (NCA, Suppl. B, pp. 1256–71). Desmond Young, op. cit., has also given a full account, based on talks with the Rommel family and friends and on Gen. Maisel’s denazification trial after the war.

  44. TMWC, XXI, p. 47.

  45. Speidel, op. cit., pp. 155,1
72.

  46. Goerlitz, History of the German General Staff, p. 477.

  47. Guderian, op. cit., p. 273.

  48. Ibid., p. 276.

  49. Liddell Hart, The German Generals Talk, pp. 222–23.

  CHAPTER 30

  1. Speidel, op. cit., p. 147.

  2. British War Office interrogation, cited by Shulman, op. cit., p. 206.

  3. Fuehrer conference, Aug. 31,1944. Felix Gilbert, op. cit., p. 106.

  4. Fuehrer conference, March 13, 1943.

  5. United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Economic Report, Appendix, Table 15.

  6. From U.S. First Army G-2 reports, quoted by Shulman, op. cit., pp. 215–19.

  7. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, p. 312.

  8. Rundstedt to Liddell Hart, The German Generals Talk, p. 229.

  9. Guderian, op. cit., pp. 305–6, 310.

  10. Manteuffel, in Freidin and Richardson (eds.), op. cit., p. 266.

  11. Fuehrer conference, Dec. 12,1944.

  12. Guderian, op. cit., p. 315.

  13. Ibid., p. 334.

  14. Albert Speer to Hitler, Jan. 30, 1945, TMWC, XLI.

  15. Guderian, op. cit., p. 336.

  16. Fuehrer conference, Jan. 27, 1945. This is included in Felix Gilbert, op. cit., pp. 111–32. I have slightly altered the sequence of the text.

  17. Fuehrer conference, undated, but probably on Feb. 19, 1945, since Adm. Doenitz notes the discussion in his record of that date. See FCNA, 1945, p. 49. Gilbert, op. cit., gives the Hitler quotation, p. 179.

  18. FCNA, 1945, pp. 50–51.

  19. Fuehrer conference, March 23, 1945. This is the last transcript preserved. Gilbert, op. cit., gives it in full, pp. 141–74.

  20. Testimony of Albert Speer at Nuremberg, TMWC, XVI, p. 492.

  21. Guderian, op. cit., pp. 341, 43.

  22. Text of Hitler’s order, FCNA, 1945, p. 90.

  23. Speer, TMWC, XVI, pp. 497–98. This section, including the quotations from Hitler and Speer, is taken from the letter’s testimony on the stand at Nuremberg on June 20, 1946, the text of which is given in TMWC, XVI; and from the documents which he presented in his defense, which are given in Vol. XLI.

  24. SHAEF intelligence summary, March 11, 1945. Quoted by Wilmot, op. cit., p. 690.

  CHAPTER 31

  1. Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk’s unpublished diary. I have given the essential extracts in End of a Berlin Diary, pp. 190–205.

  Trevor-Roper, in The Last Days of Hitler, also quotes from it. Trevor-Roper, the historian, who was a British intelligence officer during the war, was assigned the task of investigating the circumstances of Hitler’s end. The results are given in his brilliant book, to which all who attempt to write this final chapter of the Third Reich are indebted. I have availed myself of a number of other sources, especially the firsthand accounts of eyewitnesses such as Speer, Keitel, Jodl, Gen. Karl Koller, Doenitz, Krosigk, Hanna Reitsch, Capt. Gerhardt Boldt and Capt. Joachim Schultz, as well as one of Hitler’s women secretaries and his chauffeur.

  2. Gerhardt Boldt, In the Shelter with Hitler, Ch. 1. Capt. Boldt was A.D.C. to Guderian and then to Gen. Krebs, the last Chief of the Army General Staff, and spent the final days in the bunker.

  3. Albert Zoller, Hitler Privat, pp. 203–5. According to the French edition (Douze Ans auprès d’Hitler) Zoller was a captain in the French Army attached as interrogation officer to the U.S. Seventh Army and in this capacity questioned one of Hitler’s four women secretaries; later, in 1947, he collaborated with her in the writing of this book of recollections of the Fuehrer. She is probably Christa Schroeder, who served Hitler as stenographer from 1933 to a week before his end.

  4. Krosigk’s diary.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Quoted by Wilmot, op. cit., p. 699.

  7. Trevor-Roper, op. cit., p. 100. The account was given by one of Goebbels’ secretaries, Frau Inge Haberzettel.

  8. Michael A. Musmanno, Ten Days to Die, p. 92. Judge Musmanno, a U.S. Navy intelligence officer during the war, personally interrogated the survivors who had been with Hitler during his last days.

  9. Keitel interrogation, NCA, Suppl. B, p. 1294.

  10. NCA, VI, p. 561 (N.D. 3734–PS). This is a lengthy summary of a U.S. Army interrogation of Hanna Reitsch on the last days of Hitler in the bunker. She later repudiated parts of her statement, but Army authorities have confirmed its substantial accuracy as containing what she said during the interrogation on Oct. 8, 1945. Though Frl. Reitsch is a highly hysterical person, or was during the months that followed her harrowing experience in the bunker, her account, when checked against the evidence of the others, is a valuable record of Hitler’s very last days.

  11. Gen. Karl Koller, Der letzte Monat, p. 23. This is Roller’s diary covering the period from April 14 to May 27, 1945, and is an invaluable source for the last days of the Third Reich.

  12. Keitel in his interrogation at Nuremberg, NCA, Suppl. B, pp. 1275–79. Jodl’s account was given to Gen. Koller the same night and recorded in the latter’s diary of April 22–23. See Koller, op. cit., pp. 30–32.

  13. Trevor-Roper, op. cit., pp. 124, 126–27. The author gives Berger’s account, he says, “with some reservations.”

  14. Keitel recalled the remark in his interrogation, loc. cit., p. 1277. Jodl’s version is in Koller’s diary, op. cit., p. 31.

  15. Bernadotte, The Curtain Falls, p. 114; Schellenberg, op. cit., pp. 399–400. They agree substantially in their versions of the meeting.

  16. Speer on the stand at Nuremberg, TMWC, XVI, pp. 554–55.

  17. Hanna Reitsch interrogation, loc. cit., pp. 554–55.

  18. Ibid., All the subsequent quotations and the events described by Hanna Reitsch are taken from this interrogation and are found in NCA, VI, pp. 551–71 (N.D. 3734–PS). They will not therefore be cited in each case.

  19. Keitel, in his interrogation, loc. cit., pp. 1281–82, quoted the message from memory. The German naval records give a similarly worded radio message from Hitler to Jodl dated 7:52 P.M., April 29 (FCNA, 1945, p. 120), and Schultz’s OKW Diary (p. 51), which gives the same text, records it as received by Jodl at 11 P.M. on April 29. This is probably an error, since by that hour of that evening Hitler, judging by his actions, no longer cared where any army was.

  20. Trevor-Roper, op. cit., p. 163, gives the first message. The second I have found in the Navy’s records, FCNA, 1945, p. 120. The further message from the naval liaison officer in the bunker, Adm. Voss, is also given in FCNA, p. 120.

  21. The text of Hitler’s Political Testament and personal will is given in N.D. 3569–PS. A copy of his marriage certificate was also presented at Nuremberg. I have given the texts of all three in End of a Berlin Diary, pp. 177–83, n. A rather hastily written English translation of the will and testament is published in NCA; VI, pp. 259–63. The original German is in TMWC, XLI, under the Speer documents.

  22. Gen. Koller, op. cit., p. 79, gives the text of Bormann’s radiogram.

  23. The text of Goebbels’ appendix was presented at the Nuremberg trial. I have given it in End of a Berlin Diary, p. 183n.

  24. Kempka’s account of the death of Hitler and his bride is given in two sworn statements published in NCA, VI, pp. 571–86 (N.D. 3735–PS).

  25. Juergen Thorwald, Das Ende an der Elbe, p. 224.

  26. This account of the death of the Goebbels family is given by Trevor-Roper, op. cit., pp. 212–14, and is based largely on the later testimony of Schwaegermann, Axmann and Kempka.

  27. Joachim Schultz, Die letzten 30 Tage, pp. 81–85. These notes are based on the OKW diaries for the last month of the war and I have used them to bolster a good many pages of this chapter. The book is one of several published under the direction of Thorwald under the general title Dokumente zur Zeitgeschichte.

  28. Eisenhower, op. cit., p. 426.

  29. End of a Berlin Diary.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Though for this book, as for all others that I have written, I have done my own research
and planning, I owe a great deal to a number of persons and institutions for their generous help during the five years that this work was in the making.

  The late Jack Goodman, of Simon and Schuster, and Joseph Barnes, my editor at this publishing house, got me started and Barnes, an old friend from our days as correspondents in Europe, stuck it out over many ups and downs, offering helpful criticism at every turn. Dr. Fritz T. Epstein, of the Library of Congress, a fine scholar and an authority on the captured German documents, guided me through the mountains of German papers. A good many others also came to my aid in this. Among them were Telford Taylor, chief counsel for the prosecution at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, who already has published two volumes of a military history of the Third Reich. He loaned me documents and books from his private collection and proferred much good advice.