Hitler

by Ian Kershaw

  In the Atlantic, meanwhile, the battle was in reality lost, even if it took some months for this to become fully apparent. The resignation on 30 January 1943 as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy of Grand-Admiral Raeder, exponent of what Hitler had come to recognize as an outmoded naval strategy based upon a big surface battle fleet, and his replacement by Karl Dönitz, protagonist of the U-boat, had signalled an important shift in priorities. Hitler told his Gauleiter on 7 May that the U-boat was the weapon to cut through the arteries of the enemy. But, in fact, that very month forty-one U-boats carrying 1,336 men had been lost in the Atlantic – the highest losses in any single month during the war – and the number of vessels in operation at any one time had already passed its peak. The deciphering of German codes by British intelligence, using the ‘Ultra’ decoder, was allowing U-boat signals to be read. It was possible to know with some precision where the U-boats were operating. The use of long-range Liberators, equipped with radar, and able to cover ‘the Atlantic Gap’ – the 600-mile-wide stretch of the ocean from Greenland to the Azores, previously out of range of aircraft flying from both British and American shores – was a second strand of the mounting Allied success against the U-boat menace. The crucial supplies between North America and Britain, gravely imperilled over the previous two years, could flow with increasing security. Nothing could hinder the Reich’s increasing disadvantage against the material might of the western Allies.

  Hitler’s greatest worry, once Tunis had fallen, was the condition of his longest-standing ally. By the time he heard a report on the situation in Italy in mid-May from Konstantin Alexander Freiherr von Neurath, son of the former Foreign Minister, and one-time Foreign Office liaison to Rommel’s Afrika Korps, Hitler was deeply gloomy. He thought the monarchists and aristocracy had sabotaged the war-effort in Italy from the beginning, despite the Duce’s personal strength of will. Hitler was sure that the reactionary forces associated with the King, Victor Emmanuel III – whose nominal powers as head of state had nevertheless still left him as the focus of a potential alternative source of loyalty – would triumph over the revolutionary forces of Fascism. A collapse had to be reckoned with. Plans must be made to defend the Mediterranean without Italy. How this was to be done with an offensive imminent in the east and no troops to spare, he did not say.

  Hitler had intended around this time to move back to Vinnitsa. But the postponement of ‘Citadel’, the precarious situation in the Mediterranean, and problems with his own health made him decide suddenly to return from a short stay at the Wolf ’s Lair to the Obersalzberg. He remained there until the end of June. During his weeks in the Bavarian Alps, the Ruhr district, Germany’s industrial heartland, continued to suffer devastation from the skies. In May there had been spectacular attacks on the big dams that supplied the area’s water. Had they been sustained, the damage done would have been incalculable. As it was, the dams could be repaired. Since the ‘dam-buster’ raids, the major cities of Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Bochum, Dortmund, and Wuppertal-Barmen had been laid waste in intensive night bombardment. The inadequacy of the air-defences was all too apparent. Hitler continued to vent his bile on Göring and the Luftwaffe. But his own powerlessness to do anything about it was exposed. Goebbels at least showed his face, touring the bombed-out cities, speaking at a memorial service in his home town of Elberfeld, and at a big rally in Dortmund. Hitler stayed in his alpine idyll. The Propaganda Minister thought a visit by the Führer psychologically important for the population of the Ruhr. Though Goebbels had been impressed by the positive response he had encountered during his staged tour, more realistic impressions of morale provided in SD reports painted a different picture. Anger at the regime’s failure to protect them was widespread. The ‘Heil Hitler’ greeting had almost disappeared. Hostile remarks about the regime, and about Hitler personally, were commonplace.

  Hitler promised Goebbels towards the end of June that he would pay an extended visit to the devastated area. It was to take place ‘the next week, or the week after that’. Hitler knew only too well that this was out of the question. He had by then scheduled the beginning of ‘Citadel’ for the first week in July. And he expected the Allied landing off the Italian coast at any time. The human suffering of the Ruhr population had, ultimately, little meaning for him. ‘As regrettable as the personal losses are,’ he told Goebbels, ‘they have unfortunately to be taken on board in the interest of a superior war-effort.’

  While on the Obersalzberg, Hitler was chiefly preoccupied with the prospect of an imminent invasion by the Allies in the south, and the approaching ‘Citadel’ offensive in the east.

  He thought that the Allied landing would come in Sardinia. Sicily was in his view secure enough, and could be held. He thought the Italians more likely to give in bit by bit in deals with the enemy than to capitulate outright. His confidence in Mussolini had finally evaporated. It would be different, he thought, were the Duce still young and fit. But he was old and worn out. The royal family could not be trusted an inch. And – he added a characteristic last reflection – the Jews had not been done away with in Italy, whereas in Germany (as Goebbels summarized) ‘we can be very glad that we have followed a radical policy. There are no Jews behind us who could inherit from us.’

  As the war had turned remorselessly against Germany, the beleaguered Führer had reverted ever more to his obsession with Jewish responsibility for the conflagration. In his Manichean world-view, the fight to the finish between the forces of good and evil – the aryan race and the Jews – was reaching its climax. There could be no relenting in the struggle to wipe out Jewry.

  Little over a month earlier, Hitler had talked at length, prompted by Goebbels, about the ‘Jewish Question’. The Propaganda Minister thought it one of the most interesting discussions he had ever had with the Führer. Goebbels had being re-reading The Protocols of the Elders of Zion – the crude Russian forgery purporting to outline a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world – with an eye on its use in current propaganda. He raised the matter over lunch. Hitler was certain of the ‘absolute authenticity’ of the Protocols. The Jews, he thought, were not working to a fixed programme; they were following, as always, their ‘racial instinct’. The Jews were the same all over the world, Goebbels noted him as saying, whether in the ghettos of the east ‘or in the bank palaces of the City [of London] or Wall Street’, and would instinctively follow the same aims and use the same methods without the need to work them out together. The question could well be posed, he went on (according to Goebbels’s summary of his comments), as to why there were Jews at all. It was the same question – again the familiar insect analogy – as why there were Colorado beetles. His most basic belief – life as struggle – provided, as always, his answer. ‘Nature is ruled by the law of struggle. There will always be parasitic forms of existence to accelerate the struggle and intensify the process of selection between the strong and the weak … In nature, life always works immediately against parasites; in the existence of peoples that is not exclusively the case. From that results the Jewish danger. So there is nothing else open to modern peoples than to exterminate the Jews.’

  The Jews would use all means to defend themselves against this ‘gradual process of annihilation’. One of its methods was war. It was the same warped vision embodied in Hitler’s ‘prophecy’: Jews unleashing war, but bringing about their own destruction in the process. World Jewry, in Hitler’s view, was on the verge of a historic downfall. This would take time. He was presumably alluding to Jews out of German reach, especially in the USA, when he commented that some decades would be needed ‘to cast them out of their power. That is our historic mission, which can not be held up, but only accelerated, by the war. World Jewry thinks it is on the verge of a world victory. This world victory will not come. Instead there will be a world downfall. The peoples who have earliest recognized and fought the Jew will instead accede to world domination.’

  Four days after this conversation, on 16 May, SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop telexed the
news: ‘The Jewish quarter of Warsaw is no more! The grand operation terminated at 20.15 hours when the Warsaw synagogue was blown up … The total number of Jews apprehended and destroyed, according to record, is 56,065 …’ A force of around 3,000 men, the vast majority from the SS, had used a tank, armoured vehicles, heavy machine-guns, and artillery to blow up and set fire to buildings which the Jews were fiercely defending and to combat the courageous resistance put up by the ghetto’s inhabitants, armed with little more than pistols, grenades, and Molotov cocktails. Hitler’s long-standing readiness to link Jews with subversive or partisan actions made him all the keener to hasten their destruction. After Himmler had discussed the matter with him on 19 June, he noted that ‘the Führer declared, after my report, that the evacuation of the Jews, despite the unrest that would thereby still arise in the next 3 to 4 months, was to be radically carried out and had to be seen through’.

  Such discussions were always private. Hitler still did not speak of the fate of the Jews, except in the most generalized fashion, even among his inner circle. It was a topic which all in his company knew to avoid. To think of criticizing the treatment of the Jews was, of course, anathema. The only time the issue was raised occurred unexpectedly during the two-day visit to the Berghof in late June of Baldur von Schirach, Gauleiter of Vienna, and his wife, Henriette. The daughter of his photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, Henriette had known Hitler since she was a child. She thought she could speak openly to him. Her husband had, however, fallen from favour somewhat, partly following Hitler’s disapproval of the modern paintings on show in an art exhibition which Schirach had staged in Vienna earlier in the year. Henriette told Baldur on the way to Berchtesgaden that she wanted to let Hitler know what she had witnessed recently in Amsterdam, where she had seen a group of Jewish women brutally herded together and deported. An SS man had offered her valuables taken from the Jews at a knock-down price. Her husband told her not to mention it. Hitler’s reactions were unpredictable. And – a typical response at the time – in any case she could not change anything.

  Already during the first day of their visit, 23 June, Schirach had managed to prompt an angry riposte from Hitler with a suggestion that a different policy in the Ukraine might have paid dividends. Next afternoon, Hitler was in an irritable mood during the statutory visit to the Tea House. The atmosphere was icy. It remained tense in the evening when they gathered around the fire in the hall of the Berghof. Henriette was sitting next to Hitler, nervously rubbing her hands, speaking quietly. All at once, Hitler jumped up, marched up and down the room, and fumed: ‘That’s all I need, you coming to me with this sentimental twaddle. What concern are these Jewish women to you?’ The other guests did not know where to look. There was a protracted, embarrassed silence. The logs could be heard crackling in the fireplace.

  When Goebbels arrived, he turned the scene to his advantage by playing on Hitler’s aversion to Vienna. Hitler rounded on the hapless Schirach, praising the achievements of Berlin – Goebbels’s domain, of course – and castigating his Gauleiter’s work in Vienna. Beside himself with anger, Hitler said it was a mistake ever to have sent Schirach to Vienna at all, or to have taken the Viennese into the Reich. Schirach offered to resign. ‘That’s not for you to decide. You are staying where you are,’ was Hitler’s response. By then it was four in the morning. Bormann let it be known to the Schirachs that it would be best if they left. They did so without saying their goodbyes, and in high disgrace.

  The week before the Schirach incident, Hitler had finally decided to press ahead with the ‘Citadel’ offensive. His misgivings can only have been increased by Guderian’s reports that the Panther still had major weaknesses and was not ready for front-line action. And in the middle of the month, he was presented with the OKW’s recommendation that ‘Citadel’ should be cancelled. It was now running so late that there was an increasing chance that it would clash with the expected Allied offensive in the Mediterranean. Jodl, just back from leave, agreed that it was dangerous and foolhardy to commit troops to the east in the interests of, at best, a limited success when the chief danger at that time lay elsewhere. Again, the split between the OKW and army leadership came into play. Zeitzler objected to what he regarded as interference. Guderian suspected that Zeitzler’s influence was decisive in persuading Hitler to go ahead. At any rate, Hitler rejected the advice of the Wehrmacht’s Operations Staff. The opening of the offensive was scheduled for 3 July, then postponed one last time for two more days.

  At the end of June, Hitler returned to the Wolf’s Lair for the beginning of ‘Citadel’. On 1 July, he addressed his commanders. The decision to go ahead was determined, he stated, by the need to forestall a Soviet offensive later in the year. A military success would also have a salutary effect on Axis partners, and on morale at home. Four days later, the last German offensive in the east was finally launched. It was the beginning of a disastrous month.

  IV

  Bombardment from Soviet heavy artillery just before the offensive began gave a clear indication that the Red Army had been alerted to the timing of ‘Citadel’. At least 2,700 Soviet tanks had been brought in to defend Kursk. They faced a similar number of German tanks. The mightiest tank battle in history raged for over a week. At first both Model and Manstein made good inroads, if with heavy losses. The Luftwaffe also had initial successes. But Guderian proved correct in his warnings of the deficiencies of the Panther. Most broke down. Few remained in action after a week. Manstein’s drive was hindered rather than helped by the tank in which such high hopes had been placed. The ninety Porsche Tigers deployed by Model also revealed major battlefield weaknesses. They had no machine-guns, so were ill-equipped for close-range fighting. They were unable, therefore, to neutralize the enemy. In the middle of the month, the Soviets launched their own offensive against the German bulge around Orel to the north of the ‘Citadel’ battlefields, effectively to Model’s rear. Though Manstein was still advancing, the northern part of the pincer was now endangered.

  On 13 July, Hitler summoned Manstein and Kluge, the two Army Group Commanders, to assess the situation. Manstein was for continuing. Kluge stated that Model’s army could not carry on. Reluctantly, Hitler brought ‘Citadel’ to a premature end. The Soviet losses were greater. But ‘Citadel’ had signally failed in its objectives.

  Equally dire events were unfolding in the Mediterranean. Overnight from 9–10 July, reports came in of an armada of ships carrying large Allied assault forces from North Africa to Sicily. A landing had been expected – though in Sardinia, not Sicily. The precise timing caught Hitler unawares. The German troops in Sicily – only two divisions – were too few in number to hold the entire coast. Defence relied heavily upon Italian forces. Allied air superiority was soon all too evident. And alarming news came in of Italian soldiers casting away their weapons and fleeing. Though heavy fighting continued throughout July, within two days it was plain that the Allied landing had been successful. On 19 July, Hitler flew to see Mussolini in Feltre, near Belluno, in northern Italy. It was to prove the last time he set foot on Italian soil.

  The visit was aimed at bolstering the Duce’s faltering morale and preventing Italy agreeing a separate peace. Hitler’s generals thought the visit had been a wasted effort. Hitler himself – convinced still of the power of his own rhetoric – probably thought he had once more succeeded in stirring Mussolini’s fighting spirits. He was soon disabused. On the very evening after the Feltre talks, he was shown an intelligence report sent on by Himmler that a coup d’état was being planned to replace Mussolini by Marshal Pietro Badoglio.

  During the course of Saturday, 24 July, reports started to come in that the Fascist Grand Council had been summoned for the first time since early in the war. The Council’s lengthy deliberations culminated in an astonishing vote to request the King to seek a policy more capable of saving Italy from destruction. Later that morning, the King told Mussolini that, since the war appeared lost and army morale was collapsing, Marshal Badoglio would take ove
r his offices as prime minister. As a stunned Duce left the royal chambers, he was bundled into a waiting ambulance and driven off at speed to house-arrest on the Mediterranean island of Ponza.

  By the time of the evening military briefing in the Führer Headquarters, the sensational news from Italy had broken, though there was still not complete clarity. Almost the entire session was taken up with the implications. Since Italy had not pulled out of the war, plans to occupy the country in such an event – code-named ‘Alarich’ – could not be put into operation. But in a highly agitated mood, Hitler demanded immediate action to occupy Rome and depose the new regime. He denounced what had taken place as ‘naked treachery’, describing Badoglio as ‘our grimmest enemy’. He still had belief in Mussolini – so long as he was propped up by German arms. Presuming the Duce still at liberty, he wanted him brought straight away to Germany. He was confident that in that event the situation could still be remedied. He fumed that he would send troops to Rome the next day to arrest the ‘rabble’ – the entire government, the King, the Crown Prince, Badoglio, the ‘whole bunch’. In two or three days there would then be another coup. He had Göring – ‘ice-cold in the most serious crises’, as he had repeatedly stated at midday, the Reich Marshal’s failings as head of the Luftwaffe temporarily forgotten – telephoned and told him to come as quickly as he could to the Wolf ’s Lair. Rommel was located in Salonika and summoned to present himself without delay. Hitler intended to put him in overall command in Italy. He wanted Himmler contacted. Goebbels, too, was telephoned and told to leave immediately for East Prussia. The situation, Goebbels acknowledged, was ‘extraordinarily critical’. Ribbentrop, still not recovered from a chest infection, was ordered up from Fuschl, his residence in the Salzkammergut near Salzburg. Soon after midnight, Hitler met his military leaders for the third time in little over twelve hours, frantically improvising details for the evacuation from Sicily and the planned occupation of Rome, and for the seizure of the members of the new Italian government.