Hitler

by Brendan Simms

  328. See the account of the meeting in SS-Obergruppenführer Rauter to Himmler, The Hague, 9.12.1943, Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 19 1556, fol. 191.

  329. Motadel, Islam and Nazi Germany’s War, p. 319.

  330. Directive 51, 3.11.1943, HW, pp. 233–8.

  331. Thus Bernd Wegner, ‘Die Aporie des Krieges’, in Frieser et al., Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 8, pp. 246–74, especially pp. 247 and 250.

  332. FK, 8.7.1943, p. 278.

  333. John Erickson, The Road to Berlin (London, 1983), p. 122.

  334. FK, 19–22.8.1943, p. 288. See also FK, 28.6.1943, p. 274.

  335. FE, 22.10.1943, p. 365.

  336. FK, 6/7.12.1943, p. 314. See also Puttkamer, Die unheimliche See, pp. 58–9.

  337. FK, 16/17.12.1943, p. 322.

  338. Quoted in Hölsken, V-Waffen, p. 90.

  339. Quoted in Hölsken, V-Waffen, p. 90.

  340. FK, 17/18.7.1943, p. 280.

  341. Quoted in Historisch-Technisches Museum Peenemünde, Wunder mit Kalkül, p. 42.

  342. FK, 17/18.7.1943, p. 280. See also FK, 19–22.8.1943, p. 291.

  343. FE, 25.7.1943, p. 348. This is a retranslation from the English back into German. The original German document has been lost.

  344. Quoted in Hölsken, V-Waffen, p. 90.

  345. FE, 1.12.1943, p. 377.

  346. Stenographic notes of observations by Hitler, 13.10.1943, in Hürter and Uhl, ‘Hitler in Vinnica’, pp. 600–601. The text appears to be made up of direct quotations and paraphrases. I have indicated the direct quotations, and paraphrased the paraphrases.

  347. LB, 20.12.1943, p. 450.

  348. LB, 20.12.1943, p. 444.

  349. Martin Middlebrook, The Berlin Raids: RAF Bomber Command Winter 1943–1944 (London, 1988).

  350. Speech, 8.11.1943, Domarus, IV, p. 2,055. See also Süss, Tod aus der Luft, pp. 146, 241.

  351. Quoted in Phillips P. O’Brien, ‘East versus west in the defeat of Nazi Germany’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 23 (2000), pp. 89–113, here p. 98.

  352. For Hitler’s focus on the western powers at this time see Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 350 and 352.

  353. O’Brien, How the War Was Won.

  354. See Cristiano Andrea Ristuccia and Adam Tooze, ‘Machine tools and mass production in the armaments boom: Germany and the United States, 1929–44’, Economic History Review, 66 (2013), p. 965.

  355. FK, 16/17.12.1943, p. 326.

  356. FK, 6/7.12.1943, p. 229.

  357. Rüdiger Overmans, Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Munich, 1999), pp. 318–19.

  358. See O’Brien, ‘East versus west’.

  359. See the appointments diary in Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde, R43II 1609b, fols. 12, 59, 137, 200–202, which shows most of Lammers’s meetings with the Führer to have taken place with Bormann (or others) present.

  360. RT, 7.8.1943, p. 484. See also Andreas Zellhuber, ‘Unsere Verwaltung treibt einer Katastrophe zu…’ Das Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete und die deutsche Besatzungsherrschaft in der Sowjetunion, 1941–1945 (Stamsried, 2006), pp. 334–46.

  361. To the best of the author’s knowledge, the only time Hitler seems to have rambled aimlessly this year was at LB, 25.7.1943, pp. 306–7, when he repeated his faith in Göring over and over in a somewhat disturbed fashion.

  362. Gibbels, ‘Hitlers Nervenkrankheit’, p. 171.

  363. Ernst Günther Schenck, Patient Hitler. Eine medizinische Biographie (Augsburg, 2000).

  364. Matlok (ed.), Dänemark in Hitlers Hand, p. 129.

  Chapter 18: The Fall of ‘Fortress Europe’

  1. Proclamation, 1.1.1944, Domarus, IV, p. 2,073.

  2. For a critical view see Madrusree Mukerjee, Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II (New York, 2010).

  3. Proclamation, 1.1.1944, Domarus, IV, p. 2,071.

  4. Order of the Day, 1.1.1944, Domarus, IV, p. 2,075.

  5. Proclamation, 1.1.1944, Domarus, IV, p. 2,071; Order of the Day, 1.1.1944, Domarus, IV, p. 2,075; Proclamation, 1.1.1944, Domarus, IV, p. 2,073.

  6. Hitler’s instructions are summarized in KTB, OKW, IV/2, Nachtrag, pp. 24–7. For his fear of Allied air superiority in Italy in January 1944, KTB, OKW, IV/2, Nachtrag, pp. 20 and 22.

  7. Thus Walter S. Dunn, Jr, Soviet Blitzkrieg: The Battle for White Russia, 1944 (London, 2000), pp. 76–7.

  8. Schmidt, Statist, p. 589.

  9. Jeffrey L. Ethell and Alfred Price, Target Berlin: Mission 250, 6 March 1944 (London, 1981).

  10. See Demps, Luftangriffe, pp. 38–9.

  11. In A. J. P. Taylor, The War Lords (London, 1976), p. 67.

  12. FK, 5.3.1944, p. 337.

  13. FK, 30.4.1944, p. 355.

  14. FK, 30.4.1944, p. 357.

  15. FK, 22/23.5.1944, pp. 370, 382.

  16. See Klaus Schmider, ‘The last of the first: veterans of the Jagdwaffe tell their story’, Journal of Military History, 73 (2009), pp. 231–49, especially pp. 235, 239.

  17. Roger Beaumont, ‘The bomber offensive as a second front’, Journal of Contemporary History, 22 (January 1987), p. 15.

  18. Speech, 30.1.1944, Domarus, IV, p. 2,083.

  19. FE, 20.2.1944, p. 395 (with quotation); FE, 20.2.1944, p. 395; FE, 1.4.1944, p. 407 (with quotation).

  20. A point made by Gerhard Schmitt-Rink, Hitlers Bild der Weltwirtschaft. Ein Rückblick auf seine ökonomischen Denkfehler und Wissenslücken (Berlin, 2010), p. 51.

  21. Mark M. Boatner, The Biographical Dictionary of World War II (Novato, Calif., 1996), pp. 518–19.

  22. See appendix in Ethell and Price, Target Berlin, pp. 179–93. This is a list of pilots only and does not include other aircrew.

  23. See the exchange between Kenneth P. Werrell, Klaus Schmider and Jeremy Black, ‘The air war over Germany: claims and counter-claims’, Journal of Military History, 73 (2009), pp. 925–32.

  24. Ethell and Price, Target Berlin, pp. 121–2.

  25. Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower, vol. 1: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952 (New York, 1983), pp. 13–14; Carlo D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life (New York, 2002), p. 58; Dwight D. Eisenhower, At Ease (Garden City, NY, 1967), p. 306.

  26. Himmler to Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, Chef des Hauptamtes Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the Chef des SS-Hauptamtes, 30.1.194, Feldkommandostelle, Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 19 3097.

  27. Niall Ferguson, Kissinger, 1923–1968: The Idealist (London, 2015).

  28. ‘Ansprache des Führers an die Feldmarschälle und Generale am 27.1.1944 in der Wolfsschanze’, IfZ, F19/3.

  29. Gerhard L. Weinberg, ‘German plans for victory, 1944–1945’, in Weinberg, Germany, Hitler and World War II, pp. 274–86.

  30. Hitler’s remarks are reported in indirect speech in FK, 5.3.1944, p. 338.

  31. Thus Wegner, ‘Aporie des Krieges’, pp. 496–9.

  32. Quoted in Pyta, Hitler, p. 473.

  33. Rommel memorandum for Hitler, 16.3.1944, in ‘Erwin Rommel, Private Chefsachen, Frühjahr 1944’, IfZ, ED 100, Sammlung Irving, no. 180 (unfoliated). See also Hans Wegmüller, Die Abwehr der Invasion. Die Konzeption des Oberbefehlshabers West, 1940–1944 (Freiburg, 1979).

  34. Rommel, ‘Bericht über den Lagevortrag des Führers’, 20.3.1944, in IfZ, ED 100, Sammlung Irving, unfoliated.

  35. Rommel, ‘Bericht über den Lagevortrag des Führers’.

  36. Hitler meeting with Tiso, 12.5.1944, SD, II, p. 446.

  37. Rommel, ‘Bericht über den Lagevortrag des Führers’; Michael Salewski, ‘Die Abwehr der Invasion als Schlüssel zum “Endsieg”?’, in Rolf-Dieter Müller and Hans-Erich Volkmann (eds.), Die Wehrmacht. Mythos und Realität (Munich, 1999), pp. 210–23.

  38. Thus Howard D. Grier, Hitler, Dönitz and the Baltic Sea: The Third Reich’s Last Hope, 1944–1945 (Annapolis, 2007), pp. 12–13.

  39. Grier, Hitler, Dönitz, p. 13.

 
; 40. Grier, Hitler, Dönitz, p. 19.

  41. FE, 12.3.1944, pp. 399–401 (quotations on pp. 399–400).

  42. Krisztiän Ungväry, ‘Hitler, Horthy und der ungarische Holocaust’, Europäische Rundschau, 42, 1 (2014), pp. 11–19.

  43. Quoted in Jay Winik, ‘Darkness at noon’, World Affairs (Winter 2016), http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/darkness-noon-fdr-and-holocaust.

  44. Gerlach, The Extermination of the European Jews, p. 114.

  45. FK, 9.5.1944, p. 359.

  46. Here I disagree with the premise of Norman Davies, No Simple Victory: World War II in Europe, 1939–1945 (London, 2006), pp. 22–5 (the table on ‘man-months’ is on p. 23).

  47. Thus Peter Lieb, Konventioneller Krieg oder NS-Weltanschauungskrieg? Kriegführung und Partisanenbekämpfung in Frankreich 1943/44 (Munich, 2007), p. 513.

  48. Circular by Fritz Darges, Persönlicher Adjutant des Führers, 1.1.1944, FHQ, IFZ ED9

  49. Speech, 30.1.1944, Domarus, IV, p. 2,083.

  50. Lieb, Konventioneller Krieg, pp. 136–7 and 140. For the more general cultural challenge posed by the west see Moltmann, ‘Nationalklischees und Demagogie’, pp. 231–32.

  51. Thus Gerhard Kock, ‘Der Führer sorgt für unsere Kinder…’ Die Kinderlandverschickung im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Paderborn, 1997), p. 218.

  52. Quoted in Stoltzfus, Hitler’s Compromises, p. 240.

  53. Hans-Adolf Jacobsen and Werner Jochmann (eds.), Ausgewählte Dokumente zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus, vol. 2 (Bielefeld, 1964), document H (no pagination).

  54. ‘Besprechung beim Führer im Berghof am 25.4.1944 mit Lammers, M.B., Ley, Sauckel, Fischböck, Abetz, Leibel, Speer’, in IfZ, F19/3. This document was only released in 2011 and is not in FK.

  55. KTB, OKW, IV/1, p. 314. See also Carl Boyd, Hitler’s Japanese Confidant: General Ōshima Hiroshi and MAGIC Intelligence, 1941–1945 (Lawrence, Kans., 1993), pp. 127–8, which quotes Oshima’s reports on conversations with Hitler and the German High Command.

  56. KTB, OKW, IV/1, pp. 311–35.

  57. KTB, OKW, IV/1, p. 315.

  58. Keitel Circular, ‘Betr. Urlaubssperre’, 13.6.1944, in Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 19 3910, fol. 23.

  59. 29.6.1944, Berghof, OKW, KTB, IV/2, p. 1,594. These remarks on Allied mobility were repeated at LB, 31.7.1944, pp. 585–6.

  60. Thus Max Hastings, Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy (London, 1984).

  61. Adam Tooze, ‘Blitzkrieg manqué or a new kind of war? Interpreting the Allied victory in the Normandy campaign’, adamtooze.com, 27 August 2017; John Buckley (ed.), The Normandy Campaign 1944: Sixty Years On (Abingdon, 2006).

  62. Karl-Heinz Frieser, ‘Der Zusammenbruch der Heeresgruppe Mitte im Sommer 1944’, in Frieser et al., Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 8, pp. 526–603.

  63. Grier, Hitler, Dönitz, p. 24.

  64. Wolfschanze, 9.7.1944, in KTB, OKW, IV/2, p. 1,595.

  65. Discussion, 9.7.1944, Wolfschanze, in KTB, OKW, IV/2, p. 1,595.

  66. Tooze, Wages of Destruction, p. 649.

  67. FE, 2.6.1944, p. 416.

  68. FK, 19–22.6.1944, p. 382.

  69. FE, 2.6.1944, p. 418.

  70. ‘Ansprache des Führers vor Generälen und Offizieren am 22.6.1944 im Platterhof’, in IfZ, F19/3.

  71. ‘Ansprache des Führers vor Generälen und Offizieren’. The distinction between ‘race’ and ‘people’ is also made in ES, early July 1944, p. 339.

  72. ES, early July 1944, pp. 335–68.

  73. Quoted in Tooze, Wages of Destruction, p. 635.

  74. ES, early July 1944, p. 351.

  75. ES, early July 1944, p. 365.

  76. Ulrich Schlie, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg Biographie (Freiburg, Basel and Vienna, 2018), pp. 26–53: Peter Hoffmann, German Resistance to Hitler (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1988).

  77. Adjutantur der Wehrmacht beim Führer, Konteradmiral von Puttkamer, 14.9.1944 (copy), IfZ, ED 9.

  78. E.g. Otto Lasch, So fiel Königsberg. Kampf und Untergang von Ostpreussens Hauptsstadt (Munich, 1958), p. 22.

  79. Discussion, 31.7.1944, LB, p. 609.

  80. Rundfunkansprache Hitlers vom 21. Juli 1944 anlässlich des ‘Stauffenberg-Attentates’, http://www.1000dokumente.de/pdf/dok_0083_ahr_de.pdf, accessed 28 January 2019.

  81. Speech, 4.8.1944, Domarus, IV, p. 2,138.

  82. Quoted by Schmidt, Statist, p. 594.

  83. Helmut Ortner, Der Hinrichter. Roland Freisler. Mörder im Dienste Hitlers (Vienna, 1993), p. 235.

  84. FE, 2.8.1944, p. 439. See also Winfried Heinemann, ‘Selbstreinigung der Wehrmacht? Der Ehrenhof des Heeres und seine Tätigkeit’, in Manuel Becker and Christoph Studt (eds.), Der Umgang des Dritten Reiches mit den Feinden des Regimes. XXII. Königswinterer Tagung (Februar 2009) (Berlin, 2010), pp. 117–29.

  85. Thus Bernd Sösemann, ‘Verräter vor dem Volksgericht–die denkwürdige Geschichte eines Filmprojekts’, in Becker and Studt (eds.), Der Umgang des Dritten Reiches, pp. 147–63 (especially p. 157), and Magnus Brechtken, ‘Joachim Fest und der 20. Juli 1944. Geschichtsbilder, Vergangenheitskonstruktionen, Narrative’, in Brechtken et al. (eds.), Verräter? Vorbilder? Verbrecher?, pp. 161–82 (especially pp. 172 and 179).

  86. KTB, OKW, IV/1, pp. 338–9; Dieter Ose, Entscheidung im Westen 1944. Der Oberbefehlshaber West und die Abwehr der alliierten Invasion (Stuttgart, 1982), pp. 207–59.

  87. For the colossal German manpower losses that month see Rüdiger Overmans, Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Munich, 1998).

  88. Christoph Rass, René Rohrkamp and Peter M. Quadflieg, General Graf von Schwerin und das Kriegsende in Aachen. Ereignis, Mythos, Analyse (Aachen, 2007).

  89. FK, 21–23.9.1944, p. 410.

  90. FK, 21–23.9.1944, pp. 412–13. See also FK, 12.10.1944, p. 425.

  91. For Speer’s briefing to Hitler on the damage to the transport and communications network in the Ruhr see FK, 1–4.11.1944, p. 431; Alfred C. Mierzejewski, Bomben auf die Reichsbahn. Der Zusammenbruch der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft 1944–1945 (Freiburg, 1993).

  92. Tooze, Wages of Destruction, pp. 648 and 650–51.

  93. For example, when Hermann Esser went to see Hitler at Berchtesgaden on 13 July 1944, he was immediately asked to report on the most recent air raid: Esser Interrogation, IfZ, F135 Dokumentation Adolf Hitler, fol. 490.

  94. See doctor’s reports, ‘Daily treatment of Adolf Hitler [1944]’, IfZ, F135/3 Dokumentation Adolf Hitler, fol. 519, 1–9.

  95. FE, 20.9.1944, p. 458.

  96. ‘Erlass des Führers über die Bildung des deutschen Volkssturmes, 18.10.1944’, in Gerd R. Ueberschär and Rolf-Dieter Müller, 1945. Das Ende des Krieges (Darmstadt, 2005), pp. 160–61 (quotations on p. 160).

  97. Ribbentrop, Zwischen London und Moskau, p. 265; Boyd, Hitler’s Japanese Confidant, pp. 158–9.

  98. LB, 31.8.1944, pp. 611–12.

  99. Meeting, 13.8.1944, quoted Domarus, IV, p. 2,141. See also Möckelmann, Franz von Papen.

  100. Quoted in Ribbentrop, Zwischen London und Moskau, p. 266.

  101. Proclamation, 12.11.1944, Domarus, IV, p. 2,161.

  102. Speech, 22.6.1944, in IfZ, F19/3.

  103. LB, 31.8.1944, p. 615.

  104. Grier, Hitler, Dönitz, p. 61.

  105. KTB, OKW, IV/1, p. 346.

  106. Joachim Ludewig, Rückzug: The German Retreat from France, 1944 (Lexington, Ky., 2012).

  107. See Hitler’s remarks quoted in ‘Anordnung des Reichsministers für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft’, 8.9.1944, in Schumann (ed.), Griff nach Südosteuropa, p. 249.

  108. Willi A. Boelcke, ‘Hitlers Befehle zur Zerstörung oder Lähmung des deutschen Industriepotentials 1944/45’, Tradition. Zeitschrift für Firmengeschichte und Unternehmerbiographie, 13, 6 (1968), pp. 301–16.

  109. Lars Hellwinkel, Hitlers Tor zum Atlantik. Die deutschen Kriegsmarinestützpunkte in Frankreich, 1940–1945 (Berlin, 2012), p. 175. For a contemporary Wehrmacht assessment of the port capacit
ies in France in August 1944 see KTB, OKW, IV/1, p. 374.

  110. FE, 20.8.1944, pp. 442–3. See also KTB, OKW, IV/1, p. 379; and Directives, 27.7.1944, 29.7.1944, 3.8.1944, 24.8.1944, 29.8.1944, 1.9.1944, 3.9.1944, 12.9.1944, HW, pp. 267–92.

  111. See Henrik O. Lunde, Hitler’s Wave-breaker Concept: An Analysis of the German End Game in the Baltic (Philadelphia and Oxford, 2013). Hitler instructed that the High Command be informed of the economic importance of holding Hungary: FK, 1–4.11.1944, p. 427.

  112. For the stablization of the eastern front see Karl-Heinz Frieser, ‘Die erfolgreichen Abwehrkämpfe der Heeresgruppe Mitte im Herbst 1944’, in Friesser et al., Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 8, pp. 604–19.

  113. Thus Alastair Noble, ‘The phantom barrier: Ostwallbau, 1944–1945’, War in History, 8 (2001), p. 464 et passim.

  114. LB, 12.12.1944, p. 721.

  115. FK, 24.9.1944, p. 411.

  116. Report 3.12.1944, KTB, OKW, IV/2, p. 1,596.

  117. Hermann Jung, Die Ardennenoffensive 1944/45. Ein Beispiel für die Kriegführung Hitlers (Göttingen, 1971), p. 101.

  118. Hitler’s words as related by Oshima and translated by the US Magic intercepts, in Boyd, Hitler’s Japanese Confidant, pp. 134–5.

  119. Grier, Hitler, Dönitz, p. 148.

  120. ‘Die Vorbereitung einer eigenen Offensive zwischen Monschau und Echternach (bis 16. Dezember)’, KTB, OKW, IV/1, pp. 430–40.

  121. Hitler’s words as related by Oshima and translated by the US Magic intercepts, in Boyd, Hitler’s Japanese Confidant, p. 134.

  122. KTB, OKW, IV/1, p. 367.

  123. Richard Lakowski, Ostpreussen 1944/45. Krieg im Nordosten des Deutschen Reiches (Paderborn, 2016), pp. 69–79.

  124. KTB, OKW, IV/1, p. 441.

  125. LB, 31.7.1944, p. 587.

  126. Thus Rebentisch, Führerstaat, p. 518.

  127. FK, 6–8.7.1944, p. 391.

  128. Thus Felix Moeller, Der Filmminister. Goebbels und der Film im Dritten Reich (Berlin, 1998), p. 389. For the close attention Hitler paid to the content of the newsreels, even at this stage of the war, see Ulrike Bartels, Die Wochenschau im Dritten Reich. Entwicklung und Funktion eines Massenmediums unter besonderer Berücksichtigung völkisch-nationaler Inhalte (Frankfurt, 2004), pp. 147–8.