Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis полностью

Snow still lay on the ground at the Wolf’s Lair. An icy wind gave no respite from the cold. But, at the end of February 1942, there were the first signs that spring was not far away.¹ Hitler could not wait for the awful winter to pass.² He felt he had been let down by his military leaders, his logistical planners, his transport organizers; that his army commanders had been faint-hearts, not tough enough when faced with crisis; that his own strength of will and determination had alone staved off catastrophe. Every crisis in his own mind amounted to a contest of will. The winter crisis had been no different. Coming through it had been yet another ‘triumph of the will’, comparable as he saw it with winning power against the odds in 1933. That the gamble of knocking out the Soviet Union within a few months had been absurd, or that the overall strategy of ‘Barbarossa’ had been flawed from the outset, never entered his head; nor that his own constant interference had compounded the problems of military command. The winter crisis had sharpened his sense, never far from the surface, that he had to struggle not just against external enemies, but against those who were inadequate, incapable, or even disloyal, in his own ranks. But the crisis had been surmounted. His leadership, he believed, had saved his army from the fate of Napoleon’s troops. They had survived the Russian winter. This in itself was a psychological blow to the enemy, which had also suffered grievously. It was necessary now to attack again as soon as possible; to destroy this mortally weakened enemy in one final great heave. This was how his thoughts ran. In the insomniac nights in his bunker, he was not just wanting to erase the memories of the crisis-ridden cold, dark months. He could hardly wait for the new offensive in the east to start — the push to the Caucasus, Leningrad, and Moscow, which would wrestle back the initiative once more.³ It would be a colossal gamble. Should it fail, the consequences would be unthinkable.

For those in the Führer Headquarters not preoccupied with military planning, life was dull and monotonous. Hitler’s secretaries would go for a daily walk to the next village and back. Otherwise, they whiled away the hours. Chatting, a film in the evenings, and the obligatory gathering each afternoon in the Tea House and late at night again for tea made up the day. ‘Since the tea-party always consists of the same people, there is no stimulation from outside, and nobody experiences anything on a personal level,’ Christa Schroeder wrote to a friend in February 1942, ‘the conversation is often apathetic and tedious, wearying, and irksome. Talk always runs along the same lines.’ Hitler’s monologues — outlining his expansive vision of the world — were reserved for lunch or the twilight hours. At the afternoon tea-gatherings, politics were never discussed. Anything connected with the war was taboo. There was nothing but small-talk. Those present either had no independent views, or kept them to themselves. Hitler’s presence dominated. But it seldom now did much to animate. He was invariably tired, but found it hard to sleep. His insomnia made him reluctant to go to bed. His entourage often wished he would do so. The tedium for those around him seemed at times incessant. Occasionally, it was relieved in the evenings by listening to records — Beethoven symphonies, selections from Wagner, or Hugo Wolf’s Lieder. Hitler would listen with closed eyes. But he always wanted the same records. His entourage knew the numbers off by heart. He would call out: ‘Aida, last act,’ and someone would shout to one of the manservants: ‘Number hundred-and-something.’⁴