How many people were executed in the wake of the Putsch is something I have never been able to find out either during my earthly life or here in Hell. One source speaks of 5,000. But that figure seems to include every kind of political prisoner who lost his life between 20 July and the end of the war, not just those connected with the events of that day; the real one was much smaller, perhaps as low as 200. It is true that we also arrested some family members of the condemned men. However, the Gestapo opposed such measures. Can you believe that? As a result, few were executed, and most survived the war. That even applies to Nina von Stauffenberg, who lived for another sixty-two years. Both Freya von Moltke and Erika von Tresckow, though subjected to interrogation, were let off the hangman’s hook. The latter’s two sons continued to serve in the Wehrmacht as if nothing had happened. The war having ended and National Socialism abolished, some of the survivors went on to make a profit from their dead relatives. Had the man in charge of the Gestapo been Stalin’s dear friend Vyshinsky, with whom Freisler was sometimes compared, then no doubt the outcome would have been different.
In the whole of German history, there was no precedent to a situation in which officers, violating their oath and throwing their much-touted “honor” to the wind, tried to kill the Commander in Chief. That was why, when Stauffenberg’s name came up as the perpetrator, I at first refused to believe the news. Had he used a gun, or blown himself up as so many Islamic terrorists and even some women have done, I could have respected him. But no, hoping to live another day, he planted his bomb and slunk away. It was no wonder that almost all his colleagues turned against him! Many letters, both ones addressed to various government offices and private ones intercepted by the Sicherheitsdienst, showed that civilians also reacted with rage and horror. Some, convinced that only a miracle had saved me, actually felt closer to me than they previously had. As Stauffenberg himself had expressly foreseen, many of these attitudes were carried over into the 1950s. It was only in the next decade that (West) German government propaganda finally started making some headway in convincing people that the criminals were really heroes and deserved to be remembered as such.
The armed forces also continued to fight with undiminished vigor. Even General von Blaskowitz, who back in 1939 had protested against our “atrocities” in Poland, now expressed his abhorrence of the “dastardly” crime and swore to stay with me to the end. Conversely, in November General Eisenhower called a crisis meeting to ask why the Werhmacht’s will to resist remained intact. To make sure it did, we increased the number of NSFOs, National-Sozialistische Führungs Offiziere (National Socialist Leadership Officers), whom we had started appointing at the end of 1943. These were not the cowardly Jewish types whom the Red Army appointed commissars. Far from it. We selected them from among decorated frontline officers, some of them invalids. Many were volunteers. Their tasks were to answer the troops’ questions, to spur them to further efforts, and to deal with such things as Zersetzung der Wehrkraft (the kind of treasonable talk that undermines morale). Among them was a 29-year-old first lieutenant by the name of Franz-Josef Strauss. After 1945, he embarked on a spectacular political career; today Munich Airport is named after him.
Much later many historians, both German and foreign, had the gall to write that, by carrying on with the war, I deliberately sacrificed my troops’ lives so as to prolong my own. In other words, they said that, by putting on a show of confidence, I betrayed them. Once again, I can only say, what hogwash. It’s also an insult to their intelligence. First, they understood perfectly well the meaning of “unconditional surrender” on the one hand and Stalin’s tender mercy on the other. For many of them, their fears turned out to be fully justified. Second, never in the entire war did I demand anything of my troops that I had not done many times over. That is something not many other heads of state can say. It is certainly not true of “democratic” American presidents who, from at least 1965 on, have been sending their uniformed men and, by now, their uniformed women, into one foolish war after another.
Field-Marshal Foch, whom I have mentioned before, once said that a battle won is a battle one refuses to acknowledge has been lost. That is why, starting in 1919, everything I ever said and did was designed to ensure that the kind of surrender that had lost us World War I would not be repeated. Again, the troops, my troops, understood all this very well. In 1944-45 the Americans, so typical of them, conducted a survey among German prisoners of war they were holding. It showed that most of the men cared about nothing but their personal affairs and that they had their doubts about everything else in the world. But there was one important exception: they still retained their trust in me. After the Putsch, they trusted me even more. German civilians listening to my new-year address also drew confidence from my voice. And they were not prepared to throw in the towel. As so often in my life, I found myself standing like a lighthouse in a stormy sea. Should I, could I, have abandoned them to their fate?
Meanwhile, the war was not going well. In the spring of 1944 both Hungary and Slovakia tried to defect from their alliance with us. We were able to prevent that from happening, but we were not so fortunate with regard to Romania. The culprit was the young king, Michael I. He organized a Putsch, had Antonescu arrested, set up a new government, and promptly switched sides. For this Stalin—Stalin, who had murdered as many bluebloods as anyone in history—awarded him the Soviet Order of Victory. It was given, the citation explained, in recognition of “the courageous act of the radical change in Romania’s politics toward a breakup from Hitler’s Germany and an alliance with the United Nations, at the moment when there was no clear sign yet of Germany’s defeat.” But history has its own way of dealing with people such as him. The medal did not save him from having to flee the country when the Communists took over three years later. Only in 1997 was he allowed to return.
The defection was a heavy blow. Militarily it didn’t hurt us much, because the Romanians were and are lousy soldiers more interested in graft than in fighting. Economically, though, it left us even more short of oil than we had been. That compelled us to continue the demotorization of our forces, which had begun as early as 1942. Next the fighting spread to Hungary itself, thereby threatening the neighboring Ostmark. In June 1944 the Allies finally succeeded in occupying Monte Casino, with the result that we had to give up Rome. As the coming months were to show, its loss did not mean much either in terms of geography or the resources at our disposal. The worst our troops suffered was that they no longer had access to the women of the city. At that time, it was serving as the largest brothel in the world.
At the end of July the Americans and the English broke out from their Normandy bridgehead. Our troops in the area fought like lions. However, in the end they were brought down by the enemy’s enormous numerical and material superiority, especially in the air. By the end of August we had lost Paris which, contrary to my explicit orders, our commander on the spot did not burn down. The Allied invasion of southern France, which we simply did not have the forces to resist, did the rest. By mid-September we were well on the way toward losing not just all of France but Belgium, too. Fortunately, our troops succeeded in first blocking and then thoroughly demolishing the Port of Antwerp, delaying its use by the enemy. But the invasion had been coordinated with the Reds, who chose this moment to open their summer offensive. It hit our Army Group Center like a sledgehammer, costing us a million men between those who were killed, wounded, captured, and went missing. Fortunately, the offensive came to a halt in front of Warsaw. Whether that happened because they had run out of supplies, as they claimed, or because they wanted us to put down the Polish uprising that had broken out in the city first, as some historians have written, remains moot to the present day.
Once again, what should I have done? Resigned? Left the scene just as my country and people were going through the worst crisis in their entire history? Put a bullet through my head? That would have been easy. The more so because, following the failed Putsch, I no longer felt I could
trust my collaborators as I used to. And the more so because, as a result, I was growing more and more lonely. Besides, my health was breaking down. Starting in 1914, for thirty years I had known nothing but combat and struggle. I continually bore a growing burden, often against what appeared to be overwhelming odds. Now crisis followed crisis. They were like the hurricanes which, I am told, keep hitting America’s shores between June and November each year. Scarcely had I finished repairing the damage of one, more or less, than another even more dangerous one appeared on the horizon.
To be sure, I kept “functioning,” as people say. Only in October 1944 did I have to spend a few days in bed. Once that episode passed, I resumed my duties, working day and night to defend the Reich. How I longed for the carefree days on the Berghof! Not only would Fräulein Braun have taken care of me, as she always did, but the mountain air would have done me a lot of good, particularly by helping me fall asleep at night. Instead, I was forced to spend most of the time at my Wolfschanze Headquarters in East Prussia. The army engineers had—so typically of them—selected the worst possible place they could find. It was swampy, with nothing but endless forests all around, stifling hot and infested with mosquitoes during the summer, and windy and ice cold in winter. And, for me to sleep in, there were a cell-like bunker and a narrow bed more suitable for a monk than for a Commander in Chief! Yet simply abandoning the damn place was not possible either. With the Russians about to attack, doing so would have been perceived as defeatism.
Briefly, there were enough problems to break anyone’s will. But not mine. Only from time to time was a lighter note injected. For instance, once Speer’s fellow architect and rival Hermann Giesler paid us a visit. He used to do excellent imitations of Ley, making me roar with laughter; together, we studied the reconstruction of our shattered cities after the war. How I loved drawing up plans for them! That is why, wherever I was, color pencils and similar supplies always had to be at hand.
The military situation, difficult though it was, also provided me with some reason to remain cautiously optimistic. With the exception of George Patton, a real go-getter whom my generals respected, normally, the American and English commanders were the epitome of caution itself. From Eisenhower and Montgomery down, they behaved as if they had never heard of operational maneuvers. Instead, relying on numbers, logistics, and the sheer firepower American industry kept providing them with, they preferred to advance on a “broad front.” Almost to the end our men, provided only that they were reasonably supplied, were able to make mincemeat of them.
Proof of that fact came in September when, in sharp contrast to his usual method, Eisenhower launched a daring offensive. First 35,000 airborne troops of many nationalities were lifted and dropped deep into Dutch territory near Arnhem. Next, a ground offensive was launched with the intention of linking up with them. Had the offensive succeeded, many of our troops in the Netherlands would have been cut off and the country itself lost to us eight or so months earlier than it eventually was. Fortunately, Allied intelligence had failed to notice two Waffen SS armored divisions sent to the area to recuperate. Much to the disappointment of the Dutch population, which had already started celebrating, our brave Panzer grenadiers, ably commanded by Model, easily overcame the lightly armed paratroopers. Thousands were killed, and many others were rounded up and taken prisoner. The rest escaped. My own conclusion from the affair was that it confirmed the lesson of Crete in 1941: the days of large-scale airborne assault operations were drawing to an end.
This, however, was merely a local success. We Germans were holding the short end of the stick, especially because our production of war material, having peaked in July, started declining. The reasons for this were, first, the loss of France, and second, the unceasing Allied bombardment of our cities, which, at this point, was leaving many of our factories in ruins. At one point I had orders drafted for their prisoners of war, pilots in particular, to be executed in retaliation. But Keitel and Dönitz, fearing the enemy would respond in kind, talked me out of it.
To be sure, Speer had foreseen our difficulties. He and his deputy, Saur, took some measures to disperse our industry. But that only created another problem. Once the Allies had overrun France, they started using it to base their short-range fighter-bombers and light bombers. Unlike the heavy-four engine bombers, these aircraft had the precision needed to demolish not just railways stations but bridges, viaducts, and even moving trains. They particularly liked to attack locomotives. The boilers having been hit, they exploded in a most spectacular manner.
Throughout the autumn the Reichsbahn struggled on manfully, actually building or repairing more locomotives than were being destroyed or damaged. Still, in the end it was overwhelmed by the sheer number of interruptions. As a result, we could no longer provide our factories with fuel or move the components of weapon systems to the plants where they were being assembled. So short was fuel that the Luftwaffe was unable to train its pilots properly. The brave young men went into action nevertheless, sacrificing themselves. But again there was only so much they could do.
A strong power can afford to wage a battle of attrition while staying on the tactical defense. The weaker one, though, must attack. If not, it will be worn down. That is why, soon after the Battle of Arnhem, I started thinking about seizing the initiative. Like Schlieffen in 1893-1905, I was faced with the question on which front to attack: the east or the west. Like him, I let my choice fell on the west. Both militarily and politically the Western Allies seemed to be the easier nut to crack. Nor did they have the vast Russian spaces to retreat to. I also hoped that, once they had been defeated, Stalin would be easier to reason with. Should that not be the case, then hopefully we would still have the military means to deal with him and his hordes.
Preparations began in October. The man I put in charge was Rundstedt, the veteran commander who had proven himself in 1940 by attacking France and Belgium over the same terrain. He was, however, no longer the man he had been. At that time he had been eager to go. Now he did nothing but raise objections. Later he complained that I had not even given him the authority to move the guard in front of his headquarters from one position to another! Yet I did give him thirty-five well-trained German divisions and fifteen hundred fighter-bombers. All we had and, since we had to denude our remaining fronts, more. The huge concentration of forces notwithstanding, secrecy was preserved. Perhaps the fact that we had thoroughly cleansed the Abwehr had something to do with this fact. In any case, when the offensive started on Christmas Day the Allies were taken totally by surprise.
As our objective, I selected Antwerp, the Belgian city that served the Allies as their main port through which their armies were supplied. Its loss would have resulted in the collapse of their front. The first days of our advance were a great success. In part, that happened because our troops, encouraged by their victory at Arnhem, were eager to go. And in part because the weather, which was cloudy, favored them by preventing the Allies from bringing their superiority in the air to bear. My poor opinion of the American troops was also confirmed. How they ran! Our men almost got to the Meuse. However, at that point the weather cleared, and their luck ran out. Another reason for that was that they were short of fuel. If their intelligence missed our preparations, our intelligence missed the existence in the area of a huge fuel dump. Had we known about it and captured it, things might have ended differently.
By the third week of January we were more or less back to our starting lines. I myself returned to Berlin, where people were joking that, if things went on as they were, one would soon be able to travel from the western to the eastern front by metro! I was still able to appreciate an occasional joke, but the remaining months were sheer torture. The German people also suffered horribly. During the winter the Russian hordes invaded East Prussia and Silesia. They could only be halted, temporarily as it turned out, on the Oder, about a hundred kilometers from Berlin. Countless civilians were killed and countless women raped. Some were even nailed to the doors of th
eir houses! In response, whoever could packed his few belongings and fled. This was before global warming made its effects felt. The temperatures were normally well below zero, and the roads were covered by snow, with icy winds howling day and night. Many perished on the way. Some tried to escape by sea, where our navy did what it could. If anyone got away, then it was no thanks to Stalin. One of his submarines sank a ship, the Wilhelm Gutsloff, which was packed to the gunwales with refugees.
Meanwhile, the Allied bombing of our cities was reaching a murderous crescendo. As contemporary photographs show, in Berlin every single house within kilometers of the government quarter was left without a roof. In Dresden alone, anywhere between 30,000 and 70,000 people were killed. As the American author Kurt Vonnegut, who survived the bombardment as a prisoner of war, later noted, it was more beautiful than any his fellow soldiers had ever seen or could imagine. It was also packed with refugees. However, there were no important industries in the district. Its military value was exactly zero.
Once our large and medium cities had been flattened, the Allies turned their attention to the smaller ones. A good example was Potsdam, another town with no military targets worth mentioning. Perhaps what caused it to be selected was its symbolic value as “the stronghold of Prussian/German militarism.” On the night of 14-15 April no fewer than 500 English heavy Lancaster bombers gave it the usual treatment. As they did so often, the English aimed for the railway station, or so they said. As they did so often, they ended up destroying the entire city center instead. Among the wrecked buildings was the Garnisonkirche, where Hindenburg and I had met back in 1933. Thirteen years later, in 1968, Walter Ulbricht had the remains blown up. Its place was taken by ugly office buildings complete with some mosaics that showed the delights of life under socialism. Not even smaller towns were spared. During the last weeks of the war, so little was there left for the enemy fighter-bombers to attack that they sometimes went after individual people in whatever remained of our streets.
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