by David Grier
As Germany’s defeat drew nearer, Hitler increasingly sought out the company of his old Party comrades from the Kampfzeit, the time of struggle before he had gained power.106 Goebbels also harkened back to the Kampfzeit for inspiration, sensing that he must conduct his propaganda campaign as he had in those dark days.107 Both Hitler and Goebbels recalled earlier times when victory had seemed impossible, yet Hitler had refused to give in and had ultimately triumphed. Hitler also repeatedly compared his situation in Berlin to that of Stalin in the winter of 1941 at Moscow. Stalin had been in an even worse situation, and he had recovered.108 Hitler’s insistence on continuing the war arose not so much because he feared defeat but mainly because he could not conceive of defeat. As Eberhard Jäckel has concisely demonstrated, Hitler was one of the few people in history to construct a complete worldview, a new way of looking at the world and explaining human history. If his ideology was correct, the supposedly racially superior Germans simply had to defeat the supposedly subhuman Russians. Jodl summed up this concept well in a speech in November 1943: “We will win, because we must win—because otherwise world history will have lost its meaning.”109
Although people today understandably shake their heads and wonder how Hitler possibly could have thought in 1944 and 1945 that he still could win the war, this was not so irrational. The irreversible turn of the tide against Germany did not occur until the summer of 1944. This was quite late in the war, and although the initiative certainly passed to the Allies between November 1942 and May 1943, it was not necessarily an irreversible shift. The advantage could have shifted yet again—had changes within Nazi Germany been made—but developments from June to mid-October 1944 virtually ensured that this would not occur.
In those months Germany experienced one military and diplomatic disaster after another. The Allied invasion of Normandy succeeded and German troops were driven from virtually all of France, Rome fell, the Eastern Front collapsed, and Germany lost Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, and Hungary as allies. Over one-third of Germany’s total casualties up to October 1944 came in the period from June through September, a number estimated at between one and one and a half million troops killed, wounded, or missing.110 In other words, in those four months the Germans suffered one casualty for every two sustained in the previous fifty-seven months of the war. Along with these human casualties came enormous losses in weapons and materiél.
Hitler, however, believed that he still had a chance to reverse the situation. Nineteen forty-four was the year of the “armaments miracle,” as Speer managed to increase production through August–September of that year.111 Hitler had a whole array of new technologically advanced weapons already coming off the production lines—jet aircraft, unmanned rockets, and new models of submarines. Hitler recognized that technological developments were decisive in warfare, although he overestimated the impact a small number of advanced weapons could have. To his closest associates Hitler repeatedly emphasized the importance of technology in general, calling frequently for realization of technical developments for the U-boat war. Throughout the final year of the war Hitler often spoke of the decisive results he expected from the electro-submarines and jet aircraft.112
In addition to holding out for these new miracle weapons, in the last months of the conflict Hitler and his trusted advisers instituted a variety of measures in a desperate effort to turn the tide of the war. Himmler assumed command of the Replacement Army following the failed assassination attempt of 20 July. In the late summer and fall of 1944 Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler adopted total-war policies designed to mobilize German resources more effectively. Between August and December 1944 this effort released nearly one million men from the home front. Rather than send these troops to replenish existing divisions, Hitler used many to set up new Volksgrenadier (people’s grenadier) divisions. Hitler intended these new divisions to help halt enemy advances and conduct major offensives planned for the summer of 1945.113 The Volkssturm, founded at the end of September 1944 and placed safely under Nazi Party control rather than under the army, would also help stabilize the front and buy time. Hitler believed that this combination of steps would be decisive in permitting Germany to hold on either until the new weapons turned the tide or the enemy coalition fell apart. Although neither the Volksgrenadier divisions nor the Volkssturm proved particularly effective, their creation reflected Hitler’s belief that determination and an infusion of National Socialist ideology could help turn things around.114 With ideologically inspired soldiers fanatically defending every inch of the homeland, enemy casualties would reach politically unacceptable levels, and America and Britain would come to terms. Germany would be saved as it had under Frederick the Great. What Hitler called for, then, was not entirely unprecedented. Seen from Hitler’s perspective the Durchhalt strategy probably offered his best chance to win the war and was not as delusional as it seems at first glance.
Conclusions
AN ANALYSIS OF GERMAN STRATEGY on land and at sea in the final eighteen months of World War II brings to light the decisive importance of the Baltic theater. When the Soviets began to force Army Group North back from Leningrad in January 1944, Hitler repeatedly insisted upon the defense of coastal sectors, first along the Gulf of Finland and then on the Baltic. By forbidding a retreat from the Narva area he permitted the Soviets temporarily to isolate the army group in Estonia and eastern Latvia in the summer of 1944. Hitler’s refusal to withdraw Schörner’s forces from the Riga area then enabled the Russians again to sever the army group’s land contact with the Reich, this time for good, through their attack to the coast near Memel at the beginning of October. This process of isolation was later repeated with Army Group Center/North and Army Group Vistula in East and West Prussia. Of all the bridgeheads German troops defended along the Baltic in the final seven months of the war, only those in Courland, on the Hela Peninsula, and at the mouth of Vistula River held out until Germany’s surrender. Over one million German soldiers fought in the Baltic bridgeheads, and most of these troops therefore could not participate in the defense of areas previously considered to be the most decisive to Nazi Germany’s survival, namely the Ruhr and Silesian industrial areas, and the Reich capital, Berlin.
Several probable reasons for Hitler’s decision to defend these coastal sectors have been examined. The possibility that Hitler ordered these bridgeheads held in order to tie down enemy forces is consistent with his conduct of the war on other fronts. The notion of binding disproportionate numbers of enemy troops played a major role in Hitler’s decision to defend such cities as Thorn, Schneidemühl, and Poznan. Hitler’s racial beliefs led him to underestimate fatally the strength and determination of his enemies, especially the Russians and Americans. The desire to tie down enemy forces probably was a factor in Hitler’s decision to defend the Baltic bridgeheads, but it was not the determining one. The Wellenbrecher doctrine served to buy time, but it could not win the war on its own.
That Hitler might have wished to retain Courland as a springboard for a future offensive against the Soviets is also in line with some of his previous strategic decisions. The example of the Kuban bridgehead and his confidence in the success of the upcoming Ardennes Offensive represent but two examples of his intention to regain the initiative. Hitler had a very definite conception of how to wage war, and he frequently emphasized that the only way to win was by fighting offensively. This too may have been one reason for his decision to defend Courland, and a major one at that, but it does not account for the bridgeheads in eastern Germany. Hitler envisioned the Ardennes Offensive as the decisive blow that would turn the tide of the war, but after it failed he had something else in mind when he ordered additional coastal sectors held to the last man.
Hitler’s claim that only the presence of German armies in Courland prevented Sweden’s entry into the war is more difficult to explain. Throughout the war Hitler demonstrated extraordinary concern for Scandinavia, and by late 1944 he desperately hoped Sweden would remain neutral. Yet it is unlikely that
even Hitler seriously believed a handful of hard-pressed divisions in Latvia posed any real threat to Sweden. Swedish military and political leaders did not feel threatened in the least by German troops in Courland. Instead, the Swedes were relieved that the Soviets had not conquered the Baltic States in their entirety. The most likely explanation is that Hitler played the Swedish card as a diplomatic reason that he realized Guderian and other generals could not effectively oppose. Preventing Swedish belligerence might help him not lose the war, but it could certainly not bring about a German victory.
Dönitz, however, offered a chance to win the war. He assured Hitler that the Type XXI U-boats would regain the initiative in the Battle of the Atlantic and force Britain to its knees. All he required was time to test these new submarines and train their crews in the eastern Baltic; that in turn entailed holding key coastal regions and confining the Soviet Baltic Fleet within the Gulf of Finland. For this reason Dönitz vehemently opposed any proposal that threatened Germany’s complete domination of the Baltic. Dönitz fought desperately to prevent Army Group North’s withdrawal from Leningrad, Narva, and Sworbe, just as he alone convinced Hitler to try to seize Hogland from the Finns. Once Schörner’s forces were cut off in Courland, he urged Hitler to defend that position. The presence of German air and naval bases in Courland, Dönitz assumed, would deter the Soviet Baltic Fleet from venturing into the U-boat training areas. The bridgeheads in East and West Prussia served several purposes. They facilitated Courland’s supply, prevented the Soviets from establishing forward naval bases—as Dönitz learned after the Russians brought motor torpedo boats by land to Memel—and most important, they protected German ports essential as bases for the new submarine fleet and its auxiliary vessels. Dönitz was able to persuade Hitler of this, which probably was not very difficult, because only the navy offered him a means to win the war. The army was quite proficient in advising Hitler how to delay defeat, but it offered few suggestions to guarantee German victory. As in the case of the French Atlantic ports, Hitler made the correct decision. His generals then had opposed the defense of French ports for tactical reasons, yet Hitler was thinking in strategic terms.1 Germany’s retention of French Atlantic ports created logistical nightmares for Allied forces in Western Europe, but even this was a temporary measure to buy time. Once wolf packs of Type XXIs engaged Allied convoys, Hitler believed, enemy possession of French ports would be irrelevant. Dönitz’s U-boats would prevent American and Canadian troops and supplies from reaching Britain in the first place. Hitler’s decision to defend the bridgeheads along the Baltic is evidence of his conviction that the war was not yet lost, that it still could end in victory for Nazi Germany.
In any event, no matter which reason was the determining factor in Hitler’s decision to defend Baltic ports, collectively they provide additional evidence for consistency and continuity in Hitler’s actions. Whether he planned to knock Britain and America out of the war with a fleet of technologically advanced submarines or by seizing the port of Antwerp in the Ardennes offensive, he intended now to bring about precisely what he had attempted to achieve from the beginning. Hitler’s foremost war aim had always been to remove the threat in the West so that he could concentrate his armies in the East and acquire Lebensraum for the sustenance of future generations of National Socialist Germans in an autarkical, blockade-resistant Reich. Furthermore, this had to succeed, because Hitler’s worldview could not allow for supposedly subhuman Russians to defeat supposedly superior Aryans.
Finland and Sweden played pivotal roles in German strategy in 1944 and 1945. These two nations were important to the Nazi war effort not only as sources of nickel and iron ore but also because of their geographic location. The Germans required Finnish cooperation to maintain the mine barrages and antisubmarine nets essential to blockade Russia’s Baltic Fleet within the Gulf of Finland. Sweden’s long border with Norway and its location in the Baltic made it a source of genuine concern, for Dönitz required German domination of both these areas. He needed the Baltic in which to test the Type XXI and XXIII submarines and train their crews, and Norway as the base from which to launch the new U-boat war. Hitler’s refusal to evacuate over 350,000 German troops from Norway has long been a puzzle. In the context of his Baltic strategy, however, Hitler had no choice but to leave a powerful force to defend Norway.
The notion that Hitler could have continued to believe in victory until the very end seems unimaginable today. But Speer, one of the most intelligent and rational members of Hitler’s entourage, was to recall that even in the war’s final weeks the Reich’s collapse “seemed absolutely inconceivable.”2 It is likely that many other top Nazis and ordinary Germans viewed the situation similarly. They had seen Hitler rise from an obscure street-corner rabble-rouser to gain control of Germany, and they had watched him implement his domestic program to end unemployment and pull Germany out of the Depression. Against the advice of his generals he had openly rearmed Germany in violation of the Versailles Treaty and gained control of Austria and Czechoslovakia without firing a shot. Then had followed the years of Nazi military victories, victories on an unprecedented scale. All of this had been accomplished under Hitler’s guidance. He had performed miracles in the past, and his followers believed that he would do so again.
Those in close personal contact with Hitler, and some historians, have maintained that Hitler alone made most important decisions3 and that he rarely imparted to others the full reason for his actions.4 As commander in chief of the army, Hitler controlled OKH’s conduct of the war on the Eastern Front. As supreme commander of Germany’s armed forces, he directed operations in all other theaters through OKW’s operations staff. This also was consistent with his policy to divide power among as many people or organizations as possible, so that he was the only one who had a comprehensive understanding of all fronts—he alone possessed a complete overview of events. Hitler could thus turn down a request from OKH and cite reasons from OKW theaters, and vice versa. Similarly, this was true in his frequent presentation of diplomatic and economic factors to justify his actions. If his generals opposed his military arguments, he could always point to diplomatic and economic reasons that his generals would find difficult to counter. Speer provides several examples of Hitler doing so.5 In the case of Army Group North Hitler used both kinds of arguments. At the beginning of 1944 he refused to permit the army group’s retreat, first from Leningrad and then from Narva, out of concern for relations with Finland and also to ensure supplies of Finnish nickel and Swedish iron ore—even though Speer had assured him sufficient stocks of nickel existed. After Finland surrendered and Sweden closed its ports, Hitler claimed Sweden would join the Allies unless Germany maintained a foothold in the Baltic States. How could his generals argue that this was untrue?
When Hitler ordered the defense of Courland he, of course, had no way of knowing that the Soviets would isolate German armies in East and West Prussia. His reasons for issuing the command to defend Courland were based upon entirely different assumptions. But the need to maintain Courland’s supply set in motion a series of events that neither he nor Dönitz could have anticipated. As the Soviets isolated additional German units along the Baltic coast, Dönitz and Hitler realized that each successive bridgehead had to be held to ensure the supply of those farther to the east. A final point concerning Courland is that Hitler, quite unintentionally, probably saved the lives of tens of thousands of the army group’s soldiers by ordering them to remain in Courland. If he had withdrawn the divisions in Courland to bolster the front in the East, or even to strengthen the assault in the West, a large number of men who as it was survived probably would have fallen in Germany’s final, desperate, and extremely costly battles. Although many German prisoners of war died in Soviet captivity, their chances of survival were greater in labor camps than battling the Russians in the streets of Breslau. This point applies, however, only to the Courland bridgehead. German troops in the coastal pockets in East and West Prussia suffered horrific losses.
This is no question that Schörner was an avid devotee of Hitler who ruthlessly and brutally exacted obedience from his troops, but he was no incompetent toady. On his authority German troops evacuated Estonia, Sworbe, and other areas, and unlike Dönitz he agreed to comply with Speer’s request to halt the senseless scorched-earth policy Hitler ordered at the end of the war. Schörner’s ability to disobey Hitler’s explicit orders and still retain his command resulted from Hitler’s trust in his loyalty, a rarity for army generals at this stage of the war. That Hitler seriously considered Schörner as a possible successor is evidence of the Führer’s trust in him until the very end. There is also ample evidence that Schörner was a talented commander. The retreat from Estonia in the midst of a Soviet offensive was no simple task, and the evacuation of German troops from their tiny bridgehead on the Sworbe Peninsula easily could have resulted in catastrophe. Schörner’s withdrawal to Courland and guidance of the army group during the first three Courland Battles demonstrate considerable skill and tenacity on the defense. Schörner’s tactical skill and his willingness to defy Hitler when he believed the situation warranted it deserve recognition.