by Ian Kershaw
II
Readiness for the invasion in the west, certain to come within the next few months, was the overriding preoccupation of Hitler and his military advisers in early 1944. They were sure that the critical phase directly following the invasion would decide the outcome of the war. Hopes were invested in the fortifications swiftly being erected along the Atlantic coast in France, and in the new, powerful weapons of destruction that were under preparation and would help the Wehrmacht to inflict a resounding defeat on the invaders as soon as they set foot on continental soil. Forced back, with Britain reeling under devastating blows from weapons of untold might, against which there was no defence, the western Allies would realize that Germany could not be defeated; the ‘unnatural’ alliance with the Soviet Union would split apart; and, freed of the danger in the west, the German Reich could devote all its energies, perhaps now even with British and American backing following a separate peace agreement, to the task of repelling and defeating Bolshevism. So ran the optimistic currents of thought in Hitler’s headquarters.
Meanwhile, developments on the eastern front – the key theatre of the war – were more than worrying enough to hold Hitler’s attention. A new Soviet offensive in the south of the eastern front had begun on 24 December 1943, making rapid advances, and dampening an already dismal Christmas mood in the Führer Headquarters. Hitler spent New Year’s Eve closeted in his rooms alone with Bormann. He took part in no festivities. At least in the company of Martin Bormann, his loyal right-hand in all party matters, he was ‘among his own’. In his daily military conferences, it was different. The tensions with his generals were palpable. Some loyalists around Hitler, such as Jodl, shared in some measure his optimism. Others were already more sceptical. According to Hitler’s Luftwaffe adjutant, Nicolaus von Below, even the initially starry-eyed Chief of the Army General Staff Kurt Zeitzler by now did not believe a word Hitler said. What Hitler really felt about the war, whether he harboured private doubts that conflicted with the optimism he voiced at all times, was even for those regularly in his close company impossible to deduce.
Whatever his innermost thoughts, his outward stance was predictable. Retreat, whatever the tactical necessity or even advantage to be gained from it, was ruled out. When the retreat then inevitably did eventually take place, it was invariably under less favourable conditions than at the time that it had been initially proposed. ‘Will’ to hold out was, as always, the supreme value for Hitler. What was, in fact, required was greater military skill and tactical flexibility than the Commander-in-Chief of the Army himself could muster. In these circumstances, Hitler’s obstinacy and interference in tactical matters posed ever greater difficulties for his field commanders.
Manstein encountered Hitler’s inflexibility again when he flew on 4 January 1944 to Führer Headquarters to report on the rapidly deteriorating situation of Army Group South. Soviet forces, centred on the Dnieper bend, had made major advances. These now posed an ominous threat to the survival of the 4th Panzer Army (located in the region between Vinnitsa and Berichev). The breach of this position would open up a massive gap between Army Groups South and Centre, putting therefore the entire southern front in mortal peril. It demanded, in Manstein’s view, the urgent transfer of forces northwards to counter the threat. This could only be done by evacuating the Dnieper bend, abandoning Nikopol (with its manganese supplies) and the Crimea, and drastically reducing the front to a length which could more easily be defended. Hitler refused point-blank to countenance such a proposal. Losing the Crimea, he argued, would prompt Turkey’s abandonment of neutrality and the defection of Bulgaria and Romania. Reinforcements for the threatened northern wing could not be drawn from Army Group North, since that could well lead to the defection of Finland, loss of the Baltic, and lack of availability of vital Swedish ore. Forces could not be drawn from the west before the invasion had been repelled. ‘There were so many disagreements on the enemy side,’ Manstein recalled Hitler stating, ‘that the coalition was bound to fall apart one day. To gain time was therefore a matter of paramount importance.’ Manstein would simply have to hold out until reinforcements were available.
When the military conference was over, Manstein asked to see Hitler privately, in the company only of Zeitzler. Reluctantly (as usual when unsure of what was coming), Hitler agreed. Once the room had emptied, Manstein began. Hitler’s demeanour, already cold, soon touched freezing-point. His eyes bored like gimlets into the field-marshal as Manstein stated that enemy superiority alone was not responsible for the plight of the army in the east, but that this was ‘also due to the way in which we are led’. Manstein, persevering undaunted despite the intimidating atmosphere, renewed the request he had put on two earlier occasions, that he himself should be appointed overall Commander-in-Chief for the eastern front with full independence of action within overall strategic objectives, in the way that Rundstedt in the west and Kesselring in Italy enjoyed similar authority. This would have meant the effective surrender by Hitler of his powers of command in the eastern theatre. He was having none of it. But his argument backfired. ‘Even I cannot get the field-marshals to obey me!’ he retorted. ‘Do you imagine, for example, that they would obey you any more readily?’ Manstein replied that his orders were never disobeyed. At this, Hitler, his anger under control though the insubordination plainly registered, closed the discussion. Manstein had had the last word. But he returned to his headquarters empty-handed.
Not only had he no prospect of appointment as Commander-in-Chief in the eastern theatre; Manstein’s outspoken views were by now prompting doubts in Hitler’s mind about his suitability in command of Army Group South. Meanwhile, Hitler’s orders for Manstein’s troops were clear: there was to be no pulling back. Tenacious German defiance in the Dnieper bend and at Nikopol did in fact succeed in holding up the Soviet advance for the time being. But the loss of this territory, and of the Crimea itself, was a foregone conclusion, merely temporarily delayed.
Guderian, another of Hitler’s one-time favourite commanders, fared no better than Manstein when he attempted, at a private audience in January, to persuade Hitler to simplify and unify military command by appointing a trusted general to a new position of Chief of the Wehrmacht General Staff. This, aimed at removing the damaging weakness at the heart of the Wehrmacht High Command, would have meant the dismissal of Keitel. Hitler rejected this out of hand. It would also have signified, as Hitler had no difficulty in recognizing, a diminution of his own powers within the military command. Like Manstein, Guderian had met an immovable obstacle. Like Manstein’s, his recommendations of tactical retreats fell on stony ground.
The level to which relations between Hitler and his senior generals – among them those who had been his most loyal and trusted commanders – had sunk was revealed by a flashpoint at the lengthy speech Hitler gave to 100 or so of his military leaders on 27 January. After a simple lunch, during which the atmosphere was noticeably cool, Hitler offered little more (following the usual long-winded resort to the lessons of history, emphasis on ‘struggle’ as a natural law, and description of his own political awakening and build-up of the party) than an exhortation to hold out. For this, indoctrination in the spirit of National Socialism was vital. Of one thing, he told them, they could be certain: ‘that there could never be even the slightest thought of capitulation, whatever might happen’. Hitler spoke of his right to demand of his generals not simply loyalty, but fanatical support. Full of pathos, he declared: ‘In the last instance, if I should ever be deserted as supreme Leader, I must have as the last defence around me the entire officer corps who must stand with drawn swords rallied round me.’ A minor sensation then occurred: Hitler was interrupted – something which had never happened since the beerhalls of Munich – as Field-Marshal von Manstein exclaimed: ‘And so it will be, my Führer.’ Hitler was visibly taken aback, and lost the thread of what he was saying. He stared icily, uttered ‘That’s good. If that’s the case, we can never lose this war, never, come what may. For the na
tion will then go into the war with the strength that is necessary. I note that very gladly, Field-Marshal von Manstein!’ He quickly recovered, emphasizing the need, even so, for greater advances in the ‘education’ of the officer corps. In a literal sense, Manstein’s words could be seen to be not only harmless, but encouraging. But, as Manstein himself indicated after the war, the implied meaning was more critical of Hitler. The interruption, the field-marshal later recalled, arose from a rush of blood as he sensed that Hitler had impugned the honour of himself and his fellow officers by implying that their loyalty might be in question.
Hitler, for his part, saw in the interruption a reproach for his mistrust of his generals. The meeting with Manstein three weeks earlier still rankled with him, as did a frank letter which the field-marshal had subsequently sent. Within minutes of the interruption, Hitler had summoned Manstein to his presence. With Keitel in attendance, Hitler forbade Manstein to interrupt in future. ‘You yourself would not tolerate such behaviour from your own subordinates,’ he stated, adding, in a gratuitous insult, that Manstein’s letter to him a few days earlier had presumably been to justify himself to posterity in his war diary. Needled at this, Manstein retorted: ‘You must excuse me if I use an English expression in this connection, but all I can say to your interpretation of my motives is that I am a gentleman.’ On this discordant note, the audience came to a close. Manstein’s days were plainly numbered.
At noon three days later, the eleventh anniversary of the takeover of power, Hitler addressed the German people, confining himself to a relatively short radio address from his headquarters. As his voice crackled through the ether from the Wolf ’s Lair in East Prussia, the wailing sirens in Berlin announced the onset of another massive air-attack on the city. Symbolically – it might seem in retrospect – the Sportpalast, scene of many Nazi triumphs in the ‘time of struggle’ before 1933, and where so often since then tens of thousands of the party faithful had gathered to hear Hitler’s big speeches, was gutted that night in a hail of incendiaries.
Hitler’s radio broadcast could offer listeners nothing of what they yearned to hear: when the war would be over, when the devastation from the air would be ended. Instead, what they heard was no more than a rant (along the usual lines, accompanied by the normal savage vocabulary of ‘Jewish bacteria’) about the threat of Bolshevism. Not a word was said in consolation to those who had lost loved ones at the front, or about the human misery caused by the bomb-raids. Even Goebbels acknowledged that, in bypassing practically all the issues that preoccupied ordinary people, the speech had failed to make an impact. It was a remarkable contrast with earlier years. His propaganda slogans were now falling on deaf ears. Indirectly, judgement on the speech could be read into reported remarks such as the comment of a Berlin worker, that only ‘an idiot can tell me the war will be won’.
III
Scepticism both about the capabilities of German air-defence to protect cities against the menace from the skies, and about the potential for launching retaliatory attacks on Britain, was well justified. Göring’s earlier popularity had long since evaporated totally among the mass of the public, as his once much-vaunted Luftwaffe had shown itself utterly incapable of preventing the destruction of German towns and cities. Nor did the latest wave of raids, particularly the severe attack on Berlin, do much to improve the Reich Marshal’s standing at Führer Headquarters. It took little to prompt Hitler to withering tirades against Göring’s competence as Luftwaffe chief. In particular, Goebbels, who both as Gauleiter of Berlin and with new responsibilities for coordinating measures for civil defence in the air-war possibly had more first-hand experience than any other Nazi leader of the impact of the Allied bombing of German cities, lost no opportunity whenever he met Hitler to vent his spleen on Goöring. But however violently he condemned what Goebbels described as ‘Göring’s total fiasco’ in air-defence, Hitler would not consider parting company with one of his longest-serving paladins. Hitler ‘could do nothing about Göring because the authority of the Reich or the party would thereby suffer the greatest damage’. It would remain Hitler’s position throughout the year.
A big hope of making a dent in Allied air superiority rested on the production of the jet-fighter, the Me262, which had been commissioned the previous May. Its speed of up to 800 kilometres per hour meant that it was capable of outflying any enemy aircraft. But when the aircraft designer Professor Willy Messerschmitt had told Hitler of its disproportionately heavy fuel consumption, it had led by September 1943 to its production priority being removed. This was restored only a vital quarter of a year later, on 7 January 1944, when Speer and Milch were summoned to Hitler’s headquarters to be told, on the basis of English press reports, that British testing of jet-planes was almost complete. Hitler now demanded production on the Me262 to be stepped up immediately. But valuable time had been lost. It was plain that the first machines would take months to produce. Whether Hitler was as clearly informed of this as Speer later claimed is questionable.
Hitler’s instincts, as always, veered towards attack as the best form of defence. He looked to the chance to launch devastating weapons of destruction against Great Britain, giving the British a taste of their own medicine and forcing the Allies to rethink their strategy in the air-war. Here, too, his illusions about the speed with which the ‘wonder-weapons’ could be made ready for deployment, and their likely impact on British war strategy, were shored up by the optimistic prognoses of his advisers.
Speer had persuaded Hitler as long ago as October 1942, after witnessing trials at Peenemünde earlier in the year, of the destructive potential of a long-range rocket, the A4 (later better known as the V2), able to enter the stratosphere en route to delivering its unstoppable devastation on England. Hitler had immediately ordered their mass-production on a huge scale. It was, he told Speer, ‘the decisive weapon of the war’, which would lift the burden on Germany when unleashed on the British. Production was to be advanced with all speed – if need be at the expense of tank production. In February 1944, Speer was still indicating to Goebbels that the rocket programme could be ready by the end of April. In the event, it would be September before the rockets were launched.
The alternative project of the Luftwaffe, the ‘Kirschkern’ programme, which produced what came to be known as the V1 flying-bombs, was more advanced. This, too, went back to 1942. And, like the A4 project, hopes of it were high and expectations of its production-rate optimistic. Production began in January 1944. Tests were highly encouraging. Speer told Goebbels in early February it would be ready at the beginning of April. Milch pictured for Hitler, a month later, total devastation in London in a wave of 1,500 flying-bombs over ten days, beginning on Hitler’s birthday, 20 April, with the remainder to be dispatched the following month. Within three weeks of exposure to such bombing, he imagined, Britain would be on its knees. Given the information he was being fed, Hitler’s illusions become rather more explicable. Competition, in this case between the army’s A4 project and the ‘Kirschkern’ programme of the Luftwaffe, played its part. And ‘working towards the Führer’, striving – as the key to retaining power and position – to accomplish what it was known he would favour, to provide the miracle he wanted, and to accommodate his wishes, however unrealistic, still applied. Reluctance to convey bad or depressing news to him was the opposite side of the same coin. Together, the consequence was inbuilt, systemic over-optimism – shoring up unrealizable hopes, inevitably leading to sour disillusionment.
IV
During February, Hitler, perusing the international press summarized for him as usual in the overview provided by his Press Chief Otto Dietrich, had seen a press notice from Stockholm stating that a general staff officer of the army had been designated to shoot him. SS-Standartenführer Johann Rattenhuber, responsible for Hitler’s personal safety, was instructed to tighten security at the Wolf ’s Lair. All visitors were to be carefully screened; not least, briefcases were to be thoroughly searched. Hitler had reservations, howeve
r, about drawing security precautions too tightly. In any case, within days the matter lost its urgency since he decided to leave the Wolf ’s Lair and move to the Berghof. The recent air-raids on Berlin and increasing Allied air-supremacy meant that the prospect of a raid on Führer Headquarters could no longer be ruled out. It was essential, therefore, to strengthen the walls and roofs of the buildings. While workers from the Organisation Todt were carrying out the extensive work, headquarters would be transferred to Berchtesgaden. On the evening of 22 February, having announced that he would be speaking to the ‘Old Guard’ in Munich on the 24th at the annual celebration of the announcement of the Party Programme in 1920, he left the Wolf ’s Lair in his special train and headed south. He would not return from the Berghof until mid-July.