53. The Eastern Front, July 1942. Motorized troops drive away from a blazing Russian village they have destroyed.54. Hitler’s ‘clients’: entertaining the heads of satellite states. Hitler greets the Croatian head of state, Dr Ante Pavelic, in the Wolf’s Lair on 27 April 194355. Hitler on his way to discussions with the Romanian leader, Marshal Antonescu at Führer Head-quarters on II February 1942. Hitler’s interpreter Paul Schmidt is on the left.56. Hitler greets King Boris III of Bulgaria in the Wolf’s Lair on 24 March 1942. Little over a week after a subsequent tense visit, on 15 August 1943, King Boris died suddenly of a heart attack, giving rise to rumours abroad that Hitler had had him poisoned.57. The turn of the Slovakian President, Monsignor Dr Josef Tiso, to visit Hitler on 22 April 1943 at the restored baroque palace of Klessheim, near Salzburg.58. Hitler greets the Finnish leader Marshal Mannerheim at the Wolf’s Lair on 27 June 1942. Keitel is in the background.59. Admiral Horthy, Hungarian head of state, speaks with Ribbentrop, Keitel, and Martin Bormann during a visit to the Wolf’s Lair on 8–10 September 1941. Later visits, as the fortunes of war deteriorated, proved less harmonious than this one.60. The Over-extended Front. By 1942 demands for men and equipment across a vast range of fronts and conditions had generated just the strategic incoherence Hitler had always feared. Norway: A ‘Do 24’ flying boat is deposited on land by the crane of a salvage vessel, to be towed to a repair hangar.61. The Over-extended Front. Leningrad: A huge cannon, mounted on a train, fires on the besieged city. The gun weighed 145 tons, had a barrel 16.4 metres long, and had a range of 46.6 kilometres.62. The Over-extended Front. Libya: German tanks rolling along the front in Cyrenaica.63. The Over-extended Front. Bosnia: An expedition to hunt down partisans.64. An exhausted German soldier on the Eastern Front.65. Hitler viewing the Wehrmacht parade after laying a wreath at the cenotaph on Unter den Linden on ‘Heroes’ Memorial Day’, 21 March 1943. Behind Hitler are Göring, Keitel, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy Karl Dönitz, and Himmler. Shortly beforehand, a planned attempt to kill Hitler by opponents from within Army Group Centre had had to be aborted when the dictator’s usual timetable on the day was altered without notice.
