A few days earlier, on the very day that the Citadel in Budapest was capitulating to Skorzeny’s men, the enemy had also burst into German territory in the east. On 16 October, the ‘3rd White Russian Front’, led by General Ivan Tscherniakowski, had broken through into East Prussia as far as Nemmersdorf, Goldap — the first sizeable town in the province — and the fringes of Gumbinnen, heading for Königsberg.268 The roads were full of refugees fleeing in panic from the oncoming Russians.269 The Red Army was within striking reach of Führer Headquarters. Bormann told his wife that ‘we would like rather more safety for the Führer — sixty or eighty kilometres are no distance for armoured cars’.270 For the time being, however, Hitler resisted pressure to leave the Wolf’s Lair. A move to the Berghof or to Berlin, he thought, would send the wrong signals to his fighting men at the front.271 He gave strict instructions that there should be no talk of leaving. But the staff was reduced, while Schaub packed all Hitler’s files and possessions, ready to depart at any moment.272 It proved possible to delay the moment. Gumbinnen was recaptured — revealing horrifying scenes of atrocities (including untold cases of women raped and murdered, and houses plundered at will by Soviet troops). The Red Army was forced on the defensive in East Prussia. Goldap, too, was retaken by the Wehrmacht a fortnight or so later. The immediate danger was contained.273
When Nicolaus von Below, Hitler’s Luftwaffe adjutant, returned to the Wolf’s Lair on 24 October, after recuperating for several weeks from the effects of the bomb-blast on 20 July, he found the dictator heavily involved in preparations for the Ardennes offensive, expected to take place in late November or early December.274 The big anxiety, as ever, was whether by then the Luftwaffe would be in any position to provide the necessary air cover. The failure of the Luftwaffe, Below was told by naval adjutant Karl-Jesko von Puttkamer, was still the ‘number one topic’, and there was permanent tension between Hitler and Göring.275
Already in September, Hitler had wanted to put the Luftwaffe in the hands of Colonel-General Robert Ritter von Greim, a First World War flying-ace, romantic nationalist, and fervent admirer of the Nazi leader since the early 1920s, who had later rapidly risen through the ranks and distinguished himself as a Luftwaffe commander, mainly on the eastern front. Though Greim would have had operational control, Hitler, characteristically, wanted to leave Göring, to whom he attached nothing but bitter recrimination for the failure of the Luftwaffe, in post as commander-in-chief.276 Hitler’s criticism of Göring was scathing. But, as Goebbels put it, he still held to the Reich Marshal with a ‘real Nibelung loyalty’.277 Despite Göring’s almost universal loss of prestige and popularity, the removal from office at this point of such a key figure in the regime could for Hitler only have been interpreted as a sign of weakness and desperation.278 There could, therefore, be no question of discarding the Reich Marshal, whatever his failings. Greim was evidently more than aware of the impossible proposition being put to him, and was in no rush to accept. In any case, Göring’s own objections appear to have persuaded Hitler that the idea had little chance of working. By the beginning of November, it had been dropped. As Greim told Below, everything would remain as it was — except for the appointment of General Karl Koller as Luftwaffe Chief of Staff in place of General Werner Kreipe (whom Hitler had refused to see for six weeks).279 Göring had held on to his position. But he appeared listless, resigned, a shadow of his former ebullient self.280
None of this left Hitler deterred from his coming offensive, on which so much hinged. The rise in fighter production now gave him a fleet — at least nominally — of over 3,000 planes at his disposal, and the first Me262s were coming into service (though Hitler continued to place few hopes in them as fighters, instead of the bombers he had for so long demanded).281 In reality, few of the planes could fly at any one time on account of the chronic lack of fuel.282 Though he put the best face on it, Hitler was well aware that air-power was his weakest suit;283 hence the constant tirades against Göring. The odds in the coming offensive were far more heavily stacked against him than he was prepared to acknowledge.
