Hitler

by Peter Longerich

  According to the SD’s ‘Reports from the Reich’ for the end of May, the population, already burdened by day-to-day worries, was becoming increasingly preoccupied with the question of how the war was going to end.166 It now became clear to what extent the slogan ‘victory or downfall’, which had been part of the Katyn propaganda campaign, had encouraged a climate of fatalism and apathy.167

  Another demonstration in the Sportpalast on 5 June 1943, at which Speer and Goebbels were the main speakers in place of Göring, and the subsequent propaganda campaign were intended to reconcile the population to the regime’s policies. Whereas Speer, who a few weeks earlier had impressed Hitler with a comprehensive ‘report’ on armaments production, now boasted about Germany’s armaments output,168 Goebbels, on the other hand, focused on their success in overcoming the winter crisis and on the situation in the areas affected by air raids.169 Hitler vetted both speeches and cut Goebbels’s in particular.170

  However, the confidential reports on the impact of the event, which had been widely covered in the media, while referring to the alleged increase in people’s confidence in victory, also contained a marked degree of scepticism. Some of Speer’s figures were not believed, and his announcement that production would have increased still further by the spring prompted discussion about how long the war would last. Goebbels’s grandiose statements about Germany’s chances of victory appeared to a section of the public as seriously exaggerated.171 The further reports on morale show that the demonstration in the Sportpalast had not done anything to increase the plausibility of official announcements; on the contrary, more and more people were now trying to evade the flood of propaganda.172

  In view of the heavy blows the Western Allies were inflicting on him in the Mediterranean, in the Atlantic, and in the air war, Hitler was hoping that on the eastern front, at least, he would be able to regain the initiative with a new offensive in one sector of the front and prevent the Red Army from finally acquiring a dominant position. However, he knew that the Wehrmacht was no longer in a position to mount a major offensive like those of 1941 and 1942.173 The core of this new plan, ‘Operation Citadel’, a major attack in the Kursk region, was originally supposed to begin in the middle of May.174 Hitler had then postponed it, however, in order to retain the option of transferring forces from the eastern front to the Mediterranean.175 For the same reason, in the middle of June, the OKW advised aborting it altogether, which Hitler declined to do. After the numerous defeats and increasing loss of public trust, he urgently needed a clear victory. The start of the offensive was fixed for 3 July and then postponed by two days.176

  On 5 July, 1.3 million men with over 3,000 tanks attacked the Soviet salient from the north and the south. However, the Red Army had been informed about the German plans and inflicted severe losses through a multiple layered defence.177

  On 1 July, Hitler had told his generals that their flank in southern Europe was adequately secured.178 But, then, on 10 July, at the climax of the battle for Kursk, the Western Allies carried out Operation Husky, landing in Sicily and rapidly driving out the Italian and German forces.179 When the Red Army began an offensive north of Kursk on 12 July,180 Hitler was forced to call off the battle for Kursk, in order to free up troops for the southern theatre, and, a few days later, withdrew the 2nd SS Panzer Corps from the front for this purpose.181 The German army in the East was now forced to go onto the defensive, with the situation becoming critical when, on 3 August, a further Soviet offensive began, attacking the German forces south of Kursk.182 Thus, Hitler’s attempt, in summer 1943, to regain the initiative by securing a military success in the East had proved a complete failure.

  The dismissal of Mussolini

  On 19 July, Hitler met Mussolini near the town of Feltre in the Veneto. As usual when the two statesmen met, Hitler subjected the exhausted ‘Duce’ to an endless monologue, during which news came in that Rome had been bombed for the first time. Mussolini was so upset that he could barely follow what Hitler was saying.183 The Germans were already aware that dramatic changes in the Italian political leadership were about to take place in Rome. Goebbels, for example, had been informed in November 1942 that there were those within the Italian leadership who were seeking to make contact with the enemy.184 Immediately after the Feltre meeting, Himmler informed Bormann and Ribbentrop that Mussolini was about to be overthrown, and, after a conversation with Roberto Farinelli, a confidant of Mussolini, the German ambassador, Hans von Mackensen, reported to Berlin that the old Fascists were planning to persuade Mussolini to get rid of a number of ministers.185

  In fact, the historic session of the Fascist Grand Council took place on the evening of 24 July. After a long debate, it ended with a resolution in which King Victor Emanuel III was requested to take over command of the armed forces from Mussolini. With this move the king and the military leadership intended to put an end to the Fascist regime. The following day the king received Mussolini, who was still in the dark about the extent of the coup, and dismissed him as head of the government, replacing him with Marshal Pietro Badoglio. Mussolini was arrested and moved to a secret and heavily guarded location.186

  Hitler immediately recognized the significance of these political developments in Italy and, on 25 July, based in his headquarters, began to prepare the first measures to counter this ‘treachery’. He was determined to launch a coup against Rome. Since September 1942, he had ordered his military briefings to be minuted, and so his comments have been recorded in all their vulgarity. A German division was to move into the city; the ‘whole government, the king, the whole bunch of them [must] be immediately put under arrest; above all the crown prince must be arrested at once, together with that rabble of his; Badoglio and his gang [must] be put under lock and key. Then you’ll see, they’ll just bottle it, and in two or three days there’ll be another coup.’187 A few hours later, he decided to use the opportunity to occupy the Vatican: ‘We’ll grab it. What’s more, they’ve got all the diplomatic corps there. I don’t give a damn. They’re scum. We’ll get the whole lot of swine out . . .’188 Based on military plans drawn up in May, Hitler also began preparing comprehensive measures to deal with the possibility of Italy breaking with the Axis. Rommel was now officially given command of a new Army Group B, which was to be responsible for the whole of the Italian theatre, and various divisions were sent to Italy from Germany and France. Meanwhile, in the Balkans and the south of France preparations were made to take over those areas occupied by Italian troops.189

  On the morning of 26 July, Goebbels, Göring, Ribbentrop, Rommel, Dönitz, Speer, Keitel, and Bormann arrived at Führer headquarters to discuss the new situation. Hitler assumed that Badolgio had already been negotiating with the Allies before the coup. Above all, he advocated rapid action before the new government had become firmly installed.190 After conferring with Göring and the military leadership, Hitler decided to send a paratroop division to the Rome area, in order to cut off the city on all sides ready for the planned coup against the Italian government.191 Ribbentrop and Goebbels had great difficulty in persuading him not to use this opportunity to take over the Vatican as well.192 The next day, paratroopers did indeed land near the Italian capital; however, during the following days, the Italians deployed six divisions round Rome, thereby thwarting Hitler’s plan.

  The German leadership adjusted to the new situation, making extensive plans in the event of Italy leaving the Axis. During August, German–Italian relations were in a state of uncertainty. Formally, the alliance between the two states remained intact, and Italian and German forces continued to fight together against the Allies. At a meeting in Tarvisio on 5 August, Ribbentrop and the new Italian foreign minister, Raffaele Guariglia, emphasized their desire to continue cooperating.193 However, shortly afterwards, during an evening conversation with Ribbentrop, Goebbels, and Dönitz, Hitler more or less pronounced Italian Fascism dead. ‘Basically, [it had] not been a proper state; it hadn’t developed an effective method of selecting leaders an
d, in the end, came to grief as a result. Mussolini took over power too quickly and, as a result, was unable to select from the broad mass of the people a minority who were prepared to stand by him when it came to the crunch. He also got to grips with the Jewish question too late, which inevitably seriously corrupted Fascism.’ Mussolini was ‘naturally a huge personality’, but, ‘in the end, he hadn’t been able to prevail against the Italian aristocracy’. The person mainly responsible was Ciano; ‘the catastrophe had begun with his marriage to Mussolini’s daughter.’ On another occasion, Hitler commented that Mussolini’s dismissal by the Fascist Grand Council had shown that his decision many years before not to create a ‘senate’ composed of public figures had been the right one.194

  On 17 August, the Allies completed the occupation of Sicily; the majority of the German troops stationed there had been evacuated over the Straits of Messina a few days before.195 An Allied landing on the Italian mainland was now only a matter of time. As Hitler had suspected,196 the Italians had been engaged in serious negotiations with the Allies since 12 August about ending the war, while the Wehrmacht was gradually increasing the number of its troops in Italy.

  On 28 August, King Boris of Bulgaria, who two weeks earlier had been in Rastenburg, died suddenly. There is no record of what he had been discussing with Hitler. It is possible that the ‘Führer’ had asked his ally to take part in military action, something he had avoided doing hitherto. Since Boris was married to a daughter of the Italian king, Hitler may have feared that the events in Italy might have repercussions for Bulgarian politics. This situation led to speculation that Hitler had had Boris poisoned. Hitler, on the other hand, suspected that Princess Mafalda, the wife of Prince Philipp of Hesse, who had been staying in Sofia at the time, had poisoned her brother-in-law on behalf of the Italian royal family. Such speculations cannot be proved, particularly as the removal of the king did not create a new situation beneficial to German interests.197 The king was succeeded by his six-year-old son, Simeon II; a regency was established composed of Prince Kyrill, prime minister Bogdan Filoff, and the minister of war, Nicolai Michoff, and Bulgaria remained a military ally of Germany without being actively involved in the war.

  The intensification of the air war and ‘retaliation’

  After the ‘Battle of the Ruhr’, the series of major air raids by the RAF between March and July 1943, Bomber Command and the USAF mounted a number of large-scale attacks on Hamburg, Germany’s second largest city, from 24 July to 3 August. The aim of ‘Operation Gomorrah’ was to destroy this port city on the River Elbe. The British used a new technique to neutralize the German air defences: by dropping reflecting metal strips, they prevented German radar from picking up the bombers. As a result, ‘Operation Gomorrah’ became the most devastating attack on any German city throughout the Second World War. It caused fires over a wide area, producing actual firestorms, with many people dying in air raid shelters. There were over 40,000 deaths, far more than in previous city air raids. After the raids the majority of the inhabitants of Hamburg were homeless, and public life in the severely damaged city broke down.198

  The substantial destruction of Hamburg prompted hectic preparations for air defence in the capital, which was expecting the worst. And, indeed, from late summer onwards, the RAF concentrated on Berlin. Bomber Command began its air raid campaign on Berlin with three major raids between 23 August and 4 September, continuing it with full force from November 1943 onwards.199 The German air defences had great difficulty in countering these attacks by the RAF and, increasingly, the USAF.

  Among his entourage Hitler tried to play down the damage caused by these air raids on German cities, which during 1943 had acquired completely new dimensions; indeed, he even tried to portray it as an opportunity for a large-scale rebuilding project. At the end of June, he told Goebbels à propos the raids on the Ruhr that ‘the loss of people’, however regrettable, unfortunately had to be accepted in the greater interest of fighting the war’. The loss of works of art was ‘terrible, but even that is not of decisive importance compared with the possibility that, by being weak, we would lose the war’. The fact that ‘churches are being destroyed in the process is not even such a bad thing. In so far as they have cultural value they can be rebuilt, and, if not, then we shall have to do without them.’ ‘Looked at from a broader perspective’, the fact that the industrial cities of the Ruhr had been so badly hit ‘was not such a bad thing’. Most of the industrial cities had been ‘badly planned, boringly and poorly built’; the British air raids would ‘create space’ for a generous rebuilding programme and transport projects.200

  Above all, however, Hitler was relying on ‘retaliation attacks’ stopping the Allied bombing war. In addition to the (illusory) notion of still being able to construct an offensive air force, during 1943 his hopes became more and more focused on new kinds of offensive weapons, some of which had been a long time in development. Since 1936, the army had been working on constructing a large rocket for military purposes, the so-called Aggregat 4. A large-scale base for its development had been established in Peenemünde, on the northern point of the Baltic island of Usedom. Hitler had been initially sceptical about the project.201 After a lecture by Walter Dornberger, the head of the project, on 20 August 1941, Hitler had declared the rocket was of ‘revolutionary importance for the conduct of war throughout the world’,202 but he had not abandoned his doubts about the project.203 It was only the Luftwaffe’s inadequate performance in the air war against Britain that prompted him, at the end of 1942, to order the serial production of the A4, which at this point was still in the testing phase and showing mixed results.204 Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe had begun to develop its own ‘long-range weapon’,205 the unmanned jet-propelled flying bomb, Fi 103. At the end of May 1943, there was a ‘comparison launch’ in the presence of Speer, Milch, Keitel, and senior military figures at Peenemünde, with the result that both projects were given the go-ahead.206

  Faced with the heavy air raids on the Ruhr, at the beginning of July, Hitler set a completely unrealistic production target of 2,000 A4 rockets per month. On 25 July, he signed a Führer edict concerning the ‘largest possible output’ of rockets, giving Speer a special mandate to achieve it.207 At the same time, and equally precipitately, the mass production of the Fi 103 was started, although it was not yet ready for service.208

  The British air raid on the top-secret facility in Peenemünde, on the night of 17/18 August, aborted the plan to construct a factory to produce the A4 rockets next to the development base. Exploiting the assumption that there must have been a treasonous leak of information, Himmler became involved in the project, persuading Hitler to move production to protected sites under the aegis of the SS and to use concentration camp labour. This order led to the construction of the ‘Mittelwerk Dora’ near Nordhausen in Thuringia, in which both A4 and Fi 103 rockets were assembled by tens of thousands of concentration camp prisoners under appalling living and working conditions.209 However, although Hitler invariably appeared optimistic about soon being able to inflict terrible blows on London with rockets and flying bombs, the deployment of the new weapons had to be repeatedly postponed.210

  In the meantime, Hitler focused increasingly on another long-range weapon project, with which he hoped to terrorize the population of London: the so-called High Pressure Pump, also called the Millipede, a gun with a range of 160 kilometres that had been in development since 1942. Because of the exceptional length of the barrel, of up to 140 metres, the immobile gun installation had to be set up on a slope.211 At an armaments meeting in the middle of August 1943, Hitler ordered the production of the gun, although the results of the test firing had not yet come through.212 When these finally indicated that the project was unviable, he nevertheless let it continue in a pared down form.213 However, during the summer of 1944, the site in Calais intended for the supergun was overrun, with London now out of its range.214

  On 6 July 1943, Goebbels, who was aware of the risk that the repeated postpo
nement of ‘retaliation’, let alone its possible cancellation, could lead to a propaganda disaster, issued a directive to the press instructing it no longer to refer to retaliation.215 However, the fact that there were numerous rumours about ‘retaliation’ in circulation throughout the Reich indicates that the regime had been conducting word of mouth propaganda, in order to maintain at least a faint belief that a counter-blow could bring about a turning point in the war.216

  Hitler did not, however, adhere to the directive issued by his propaganda minister; instead, during a radio broadcast on 10 September, he responded to the widespread expectations about ‘retaliation’ by hinting at countermeasures against the air raids.217 This announcement by the ‘Führer’ revived the rumours about retaliation. The SD observed that retaliation ‘was for many people the crucial point underpinning their hopes for victory’. However, it was fully aware of the risks this propaganda posed: ‘If retaliation doesn’t happen, or doesn’t happen in the way I think it will’, as the report summed up people’s feelings, ‘then I don’t see any way of winning the war’.218