Hitler in Hell

by Martin van Creveld

  Watching events from my headquarters, I could see the way all these developments were linked. The troops we sent to the Mediterranean were missing from our spearheads in the Ukraine. Focusing on fighters and home defense, the Luftwaffe had barely enough aircraft left to support our ground forces. That did not matter so much in Russia and Italy. As for the former, that was because air power had never been the Red Army’s strongest suit. As for the latter, it was because the mountainous terrain prevented the Allied air forces from making their full impact felt. Try as they might, they never succeeded in cutting our lines of communication for any length of time. But in the open plains of the West the inability of our air force to keep the air over our troops clear of enemy fighter-bombers was to assume critical proportions. Its contribution to our eventual defeat was immense.

  I want to put it on the record that it is not true, as so many of my generals wrote after the war, that I opposed any withdrawal on principle. Nor, by doing so, did I prevent them from “maneuvering” and staving off defeat. In fact, in a directive of September 1943, I authorized them to evacuate all of the Ukraine right back to the Dnieper. The objective was to gain breathing space as well as to transfer troops to the west where, as we knew, the English and Americans were preparing an invasion. However, whichever way we pulled the blanket, some limbs were left sticking out.

  For me personally, the worst of it was the realization that we were unable to bomb the Allies’ cities in retaliation for what they were doing to our own. Day by day the enemy, caring nothing for the laws of war, killed and injured thousands of German men, women, and children, rendering many more homeless and forcing the rest to live underground like rats. Hard as our civil defense organization worked, irreplaceable works of art were being destroyed. Photographs I received from my Gauleiters all over the Reich testified to these facts. I must have seen thousands of them. Except, perhaps, during the last weeks of the war, the bombing did not make people question its basic legitimacy. But it certainly made them grumble at the government and Party, which they accused of not doing enough to help them. There were places where uniformed Party officials risked being assaulted.

  In fact the responsibility rested squarely with Göring and the Luftwaffe. First, it was slow to develop radar. Though that shortcoming was later corrected, the Allies, using a device named Windows, managed to paralyze our apparatus, thus opening the way to the murderous attacks on Hamburg and other cities. Last, but not least, it failed to develop anything like the heavy bombers our enemies built by the thousand. In fact two of its most senior officers, the head of the Technical Office General Ernst Udet and Chief of Staff General Hans Jeschonek, committed suicide against precisely this background in 1941 and 1943 respectively.

  And that was how Vergeltung, revenge, became the order of the day.

  27. Holding On

  It cannot be denied that after Stalingrad, Tunisia, Sicily, Kursk, and Hamburg, things became hard for us Germans. As the saying goes, though, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. No one more so than me, I assure you! And I still had the German people squarely behind me. To be sure, our setbacks, which were accompanied by the loss of as many as 300,000 men who were killed or captured, had shaken them. But not in the sense that they were now prepared to give up. To the contrary, they only became more determined to fight on until final victory. Goebbels’ declaration of “total war” in February 1943, though essentially symbolic by nature, helped.

  Our political position in Europe, built with so much effort on my part in 1938-41, was also holding up well. True, Italy fell by the wayside, more or less. But many of its resources, including the concentration of heavy industry in the north, remained in our hands and continued to work for us. Finland remained our faithful ally. We retained our grip on Slovakia, Romania, Croatia, and Bulgaria with their vital raw materials, oil, and transportation systems. Sweden, Switzerland, and Spain, though coming under Allied political and economic pressure and growing increasingly wary, were still doing very much business with us. In the spring of 1944 the Hungarians made an attempt to break away. However, we had expected this and were ready. Assisted by some local movements, we were able to organize a Putsch, set up a new government in Budapest, and get the situation under control.

  Another important beam of light in the darkness was our growing production of war material of every sort. In January 1942 Todt was killed in an air crash. He had always been open with me, and his death affected me so deeply that I did not want to speak about it. That is the way I am made: with my historical task always in mind, I suppress my personal feelings as necessity dictates. That, of course, does not mean that, deep down, they do not continue to manifest themselves. In Todt’s place I put my former architect in chief, Albert Speer. Speer was a first class organizer; there was none better. But he did not have any experience in the field. His knowledge of weapons, the way they are produced, and the way they are used, was practically zero. My intuition did not desert me; before long, he proved to be an excellent choice. Until then, seeking to spare the German people the kind of hardship that they had suffered in 1914-18 and that had contributed to the Kaiser’s fall, I had refrained from mobilizing all our resources for the war effort. Now Speer started doing so, with results that can only be called spectacular.

  In his memoirs, published long after the war, Speer has some interesting things to say. First, he estimated that, had the reforms he pushed through been initiated earlier, we might have produced the wherewithal to arm a million more soldiers than we actually did. Second, he noted that Allied bombing cost us about fifteen percent of our total war production. That figure included both direct damage to every kind of property and the resources, primarily anti-aircraft defenses, shelters, and the like, which we had to divert so as to deal with the Allied bombers. All the more remarkable was the fact that, the bombing notwithstanding, throughout 1943 and the first half of 1944, our output of everything rose and rose. It was not just our production of fighter aircraft that increased but also of tanks, Sturmgeschütze (assault guns, essentially turretless tanks that were almost as useful as, but cheaper and easier to produce, than the real thing), armored personnel carriers, artillery barrels, submarines, you name it. Periodically, Speer would report to me in writing, over the phone, or in person. Each time he did so he made me smile.

  Several factors made the increase possible. First, as I have already said, we brought in masses of foreign labor to take the place of the men at the front. We even improved the conditions under which some of our Russian prisoners of war were held in order that, instead of expiring, they could work in our factories. Other workers were brought from the concentration camps. The SS used to rent them out to our industrialists at so and so many pfennig a man per day. Second, we stopped producing many inessential items and switched the factories that made them to war work. Third, Speer was able to rationalize production and standardize many products. An outstanding example were submarines. Previously, each one had taken forty-two weeks to build. After he took over, the figure went down to a mere sixteen.

  Last, but not least, by 1942-43 our system for exploiting the occupied territories had overcome its teething problems and was functioning as smoothly as could be expected under the circumstances. In this field, too, Speer proved invaluable. He was a very hard worker, exceptionally handsome, highly cultured, a good listener, soft spoken, and incorruptible to boot. Briefly, he was the very opposite of some of the military blockheads with whom it was my fate to deal with for so long. Of course, he knew much more about our so-called “war crimes” than he was later prepared to admit. That included not just the use of slave labor, for which he was later imprisoned, but also the extermination of the Jews. Not only did he use their vacated apartments to house bombed-out refugees, but he also helped provide the rolling stock that transported them to the death camps. Here in Hell, watching him turn somersaults while trying to justify himself was quite amusing. On one occasion he denied being present when Himmler, on 6 October 1943, delivered a s
peech in which he described the fate of the Jews in some detail. Having been reminded that Himmler had addressed him by name as a member of the audience, he still persisted with his lies! But it is true that, typical technocrat that he was, he only took a very limited interest in ideology, our own National Socialist ideology included. If there was anyone foreign industrialists were willing to work with, it was him.

  Some of the weapons we produced were old and trusty. A good example was the excellent M-1898 bolt action rile, which I myself had carried throughout my military service and which many of our troops went on using right down to the end of World War II. Many others were new, even revolutionary. Among the most important were jet aircraft. The reason behind our emphasis on jets was that we were unable to match the vast number of aircraft, both bombers and fighters, the Allies were producing and throwing at us. The jets used a propulsion system based on principles different from anything that had been tried before. The outcome was the Me-262, a fighter whose speed and climbing ability no Allied, let alone Russian, aircraft could match. Our pilots said that, the first time they flew it, it felt like magic.

  With an eye toward Vergeltung, I initially wanted to have it configured as a bomber. In the end, though, I allowed Galland to persuade me over this question. By the time the war ended, it was in serial production. But it was just one of several new and revolutionary aircraft. Another was the Ju-287, a bomber with forward-swept wings which only reached the prototype stage. Yet another was a hypersonic, manned transcontinental bomber with a range of 5,000 kilometers. It was decades ahead of its time; had it been built, it would have been able to reach New York and repay the Americans for what they did to us.

  We also had radio-guided flying bombs. In September 1943 we used them to sink the Italian battleship Roma. Just three small pilotless planes were needed for a 46,000-ton battleship; you can calculate the cost/benefit ratio for yourself. We developed several kinds of anti-aircraft guided missiles and at least one guided anti-tank missile. Our submarines were the first to be equipped with radar-absorbing paint, snorkels that greatly extended the time they could spend underwater, and acoustic torpedoes capable of following ships as they steered a zigzag course. The so-called Walter submarines, the first of which were just about ready for action when the war ended, used a revolutionary propulsion system which gave them an underwater speed far greater than that of any similar vessel then in existence.

  Nor did our land-based weapons lag behind. The 88-millimeter gun, dating to 1936, was originally meant for anti-aircraft work. Later, though, it was extensively used against tanks. In this role it was widely acknowledged to be the best in the world. Our tanks, the Mark VI Tiger and Mark V Panther, were the best armored and fielded the most powerful guns. Even more powerful was the Königstiger or Royal Tiger, which became operational during the summer of 1944. As a visit to any tank museum will confirm, these massive machines made the English and American ones in particular look like toys! Rejecting my experts’ advice, I also played with the idea of building tanks weighing as much as 100, 200, and even 1,000 tons. Such mobile fortresses would have roamed over the battlefield, making mincemeat of any enemy tanks they encountered. Some work in this direction was done, but it never reached fruition.

  It has often been said that dictatorships, by imposing secrecy and limiting the flow of information people can exchange, are inimical to scientific and technical innovation. If so, then perhaps my regime was not truly a dictatorship! To the contrary, our problem was a surfeit of talented tinkerers, inventors, and engineers. Each and every one of them wanted nothing better than to put his—there were hardly any hers yet—pet project at the disposal of the Reich so as to promote the war effort and to help us achieve the Endsieg. And avoid military service if he could, of course. The outcome was a lack of coordination and a waste of resources, of which I was well aware. Busy as I was with the conduct of military operations, though, I could not prevent it.

  So advanced were many of our projects that, no sooner had the war ended, than the victors started squabbling among themselves in finding, arresting, and putting to work more of our leading scientists. Over the next few decades, many of their newly developed weapon systems testified to those scientists’ involvement. Several of the scientists in question went to Egypt. Their intention was to help Nasser in his attempt to build weapons, especially fighter aircraft, ballistic missiles, and poison gas, with which to counter the Israelis. Whether because the Arabs were too incompetent or the Israelis too clever for them, though, nothing came of it. But that was not the end of the matter. As late as 1964, when America’s first variable sweep aircraft took off, it showed the influence of a similar project of ours.

  I myself always treated technicians and engineers with great respect. Nor did I have any difficulty doing so. Politically speaking, most of them were babes in the wood. If anyone was easily led, it was them. Normally, all they asked for was a pat on the head, as, for example, when I personally signed the decree making the rocket engineer, Wernher von Braun, a professor. How happy it made him! Needless to say, I did not claim to be an expert in their field. But I had spent years as a soldier at the front, and I did have a long-standing interest in technology in general and military technology in particular. The two combined gave me a good understanding of the so-called “interface” between weapons on one hand and the way they could and should be used on the other. That is why I regularly met with engineers and experienced front line officers. I examined new weapon systems in some detail and issued directives as to what should be produced and what should not. At times my proficiency enabled me to make a real contribution. For instance, in 1940-41 I insisted that our Mark IV tanks be equipped with a long, rather than a short, 75-millimeter gun. I also personally designed the fortified positions that made up the Atlantic Wall.

  To avenge the destruction of our cities, we started building a giant cannon. Had it been completed, it would have been able to throw shells at London from its position near Calais. As Saddam Hussein’s attempt to build something similar showed, in this field too we were far ahead of our time. The most spectacular new weapons of all were the V-1 and the V-2. The names we gave them notwithstanding, it was the V-2 which first appeared on the drawing boards. Originally, it was a private venture initiated by a couple of young enthusiasts who dreamed of one day flying to the moon. They did not have the necessary means to go forward, however, and were easily persuaded to start working for the army instead.

  The main reason why the army took an interest in the rocket was that it hoped to outflank the Luftwaffe. But the latter, too, wanted to have some kind of unmanned weapon capable of reaching far behind the enemy front. That is why it started work on the V-1 with the aim of preempting the V-2. It was funny; it was sad; it was foolish. But this did not prevent the tug of war between the services from being replicated, in almost exactly the same form, in the United States during the 1950s. Clearly, then, it had nothing to do with any supposed inability of the National Socialist State, and me personally, to govern as has so often been claimed.

  The V-1 was a comparatively simple, cheap system that could be and was produced in very large numbers. The same was not true of the V-2, a true technological marvel; watching (on film) the spectacle of a blazing, howling rocket taking off, I could see history in the making. However, it required many breakthroughs in the fields of metallurgy, guidance, and others. In the event both missiles proved disappointing. They had neither the accuracy nor the “throw weight”—to use an expression that only came into use during the late 1970s—needed to make a difference. The V-2, whose engine generated enormous heat, was also very expensive to produce in terms of precision-made parts, special steels, and the like. Our extensive use of slave labor notwithstanding, all in all neither program justified the vast efforts that I had been persuaded to put into them.

  There was even a plan for putting a V-2 in a watertight container, to be towed by a submarine. Arriving off target, the rear compartment of the container would be flooded s
o as to point the missile upward and enable it to be launched at, say, New York. Unfortunately, the scheme did not reach fruition; it would have given the Americans exactly what they deserved. But not all our new weapons were high tech. A few were very simple indeed. One was the little Me-163 Comet, a revolutionary design with a rocket engine. It literally took off like a rocket and reached speeds unmatched by any contemporary machine. Once it had taken up a position above the approaching enemy bomber formation it would swoop down on them, shoot up as many of them as its short endurance permitted, and then glide down to earth. So simple, cheap, and capable of being mass-produced was the design that we could even afford to have the pilot abandon it and parachute to earth if necessary. Another was the Panzerfaust, a formidable anti-tank weapon capable of being handled by a single infantryman. Many, many Allied tanks fell victim to it.

  Throughout all this, our main problem was quantity, not quality. Such was the enemy’s material superiority that only our possession of nuclear weapons might have balanced it. After 1945, an entire literature developed as to why we never built the bomb. Let me make one point clear: contrary to what has so often been claimed, it had nothing to do with the expulsion of the Jews. We Germans had the best nuclear physicists in the world—including two Nobel-prize winners, Werner Heisenberg and Otto Hahn. Given the necessary resources, they and their younger colleagues could have built the bomb. As, indeed, our enemies always feared they might.

  After the war, some of our scientists claimed that they had deliberately sabotaged the project to prevent me from having my finger on the trigger. Don’t you believe that! These scientists will do anything to be the first in their field and to have their names engraved in history. The real reasons for our failure were quite different. First, one of the most prominent of the same scientists had erred in his calculations. He thought that far more enriched uranium would be needed to set off a so-called chain reaction than was actually the case. Second, the project was only brought to my attention late, in mid-1942 I think. The person who informed me about it was my dear old comrade in arms, Postmaster-General Wilhelm Ohnesorge. My Postmaster-General! Third and most important, at that point we could no longer afford any research project that would not yield results within a reasonably short time. In other words, the necessary resources were just not available.