Hitler’s radio broadcast could offer listeners nothing of what they yearned to hear: when the war would be over, when the devastation from the air would be ended. Instead, what they heard was no more than a rant (along the usual lines, accompanied by the normal savage vocabulary of ‘Jewish bacteria’) about the threat of Bolshevism. In the event of victory, he repeated, Bolshevism would eradicate Germany and overrun the rest of Europe — the aim of international Jewry which could be combated only by the National Socialist state, built up over the previous eleven years.40 Not a word was said in consolation to those who had lost loved ones at the front, or about the human misery caused by the bomb-raids. Even Goebbels acknowledged that, in bypassing practically all the issues that preoccupied ordinary people, the speech had failed to make an impact.41 Indeed, SD reports in the following days — full of references to war-weariness, anxiety over the eastern front and the bombing, and disbelief that the war could still be won — made no mention of reactions to the Führer’s speech. It was a remarkable contrast with earlier years. His propaganda slogans were now falling on deaf ears. And his earlier promises of retaliation for the laying waste of German cities were flatly disbelieved as the mood plummeted following the latest bombing-raid on Berlin. Indirectly, judgement on the speech could be read into reported remarks such as: ‘We don’t want any tranquillizer pills. Tell us instead where Germany really stands’; or the comment of a Berlin worker, that only ‘an idiot can tell me the war will be won’.42
Scepticism both about the capabilities of German air-defence to protect cities against the menace from the skies, and about the potential for launching retaliatory attacks on Britain was well justified. Göring’s earlier popularity had long since evaporated totally among the mass of the public as his once much-vaunted Luftwaffe had shown itself utterly incapable of preventing the destruction of German towns and cities. Nor did the latest wave of raids, particularly the severe attack on Berlin, do much to improve the Reich Marshal’s standing at Führer Headquarters. It took little to prompt Hitler to withering tirades against Göring’s competence as Luftwaffe chief. In particular, Goebbels, who both as Gauleiter of Berlin and with new responsibilities for coordinating measures for civil defence in the air-war possibly had more first-hand experience than any other Nazi leader of the impact of the Allied bombing of German cities, lost no opportunity whenever he met Hitler to vent his spleen on Göring.43 But however violently he condemned what Goebbels described as ‘Göring’s total fiasco’ in air-defence,44 Hitler would not consider parting company with one of his longest-serving paladins. When Goebbels discussed the failure of the Luftwaffe with him at the beginning of March, Hitler even showed sympathy for the Reich Marshal’s position. ‘The Führer completely understands,’ Goebbels recorded, ‘that Göring is somewhat nervous in his present situation. But he thinks that we therefore have to help him all the more. He can for the moment stand no criticism. You have to tread very carefully to tell him this or that.’45 On a subsequent occasion, when blame was attached to the Reich Marshal for the ‘catastrophic inferiority’ in the air, Goebbels reported that Hitler ‘could do nothing about Göring because the authority of the Reich or the Party would thereby suffer the greatest damage.’46 It would remain Hitler’s position throughout the year.
