Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis полностью

6. This was the opinion, immediately after the war, of Albert Speer, who wrote that Hitler remained inwardly ‘convinced of his mission (von seiner Mission… überzeugt)’, and that the war could not be lost (Speer Papers, AH/II, Bl.14). Below, 361, however, wondered whether Hitler’s over-optimism represented his true feelings. That Hitler had since autumn 1942 harboured no illusions about the outcome of the war is strongly argued in a hitherto unpublished paper, which he kindly made available to me, by Bernd Wegner, ‘Hitler, der Zweite Weltkrieg und die Choreographic des Untergangs’.

7. Speer Papers, AH/II, Bl.I-II.

8. See, among numerous witnesses of this, TBJG, II/13, 142 (23 July 1944). Goebbels himself thought Hitler had become old and gave an impression of frailty.

9. KTB OKW, iv, ed. Percy Ernst Schramm, pt.2, 1701–2. Though Schramm’s description dates from several months later, he points out that the deterioration in Hitler’s appearance had been a steady progression. For a similar description, by Werner Best, referring to 30 December 1943, see Ernst Günther Schenck, Patient Hitler. Eine medizinische Biographie, Düsseldorf, 1989, 390–91.

10. Schenck, 190–215; Irving, Doctor, 66ff., 259–70; Fritz Redlich, Hitler. Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet, New York/Oxford , 1999, 237–54, 358–62.

11. Redlich, 224–5.

12. Ellen Gibbels, ‘Hitlers Nervenkrankheit. Eine neurologisch-psychiatrische Studie’, VfZ, 42 (1994), 155–220; also Redlich, 232–3; Schenk, 426–38.

13. Redlich, 276.

14. Speer Papers, AH/Schl., Bl.2, for Speer’s view of Hitler as a ‘demonic phenomenon (in seiner dämonischen Erscheinung)’, and one of the ‘eternally inexplicable historical natural phenomena (eines dieser immer unerklärlichen geschichtlichen Naturereignisse)’.

15. After the first weeks of the year at the Wolf’s Lair, he repaired to the Berghof, where he stayed, with no more than a day or two’s absence, until he left his alpine retreat for the last time on 14 July 1944. He then returned to the Wolf’s Lair until his final departure from there on 20 November. After staying for three weeks in Berlin, he moved on 10 December to his field headquarters in the West, the Adlerhorst (Eagle’s Nest), which had been constructed in 1939–40 at Ziegenberg, near Bad Nauheim, where he oversaw the Ardennes offensive and remained until January 1945 (Hauner, Hitler, 187–95; Das Große Lexikon des Zweiten Weltkriegs, ed. Christian Zentner and Friedemann Bedürftig, Munich, 1988, 13, 204).

16. Hitler, who had announced his intention of giving the speech only two days earlier, was, according to Goebbels, in good form. The Propaganda Minister thought he would persuade Hitler to allow a broadcast version of the speech, but evidently did not succeed in this (TBJG, II/11, 332, 347–8 (23 February 1944, 25 February 1944)). Nor was there a report, or even an announcement of the speech, in the VB (Tb Reuth, v.1994, n.38). But Domarus, 2088–9, was mistaken in thinking that Hitler had let the entire event drop that year.

17. GStA Munich, MA 106695, report of the Regierungspräsident of Oberbayern, 7 August 1944: ‘Lieber ein Ende mit Schrecken als ein Scbrecken ohne Ende!’

18. These were, for example, Jodl’s sentiments when he addressed a gathering of Gauleiter in February in Munich (TBJG, II/n, 345 — 6 (25 February 1944)). Goebbels followed in like vein at a meeting of Propaganda Leaders in Berlin a few days later (Tb Reuth, v. 1996, n.41).

19. Below, 357.

20. Below, 352.

21. Below, 357.

22. ‘Freies Deutschland’, established in September 1943, blended together the organizations ‘Nationalkomitee “Freies Deutschland”’ (NKFD), which had been set up in July 1943 by the Soviet leadership and comprised largely German Communist emigrés and prisoners-of-war, and the ‘Bund Deutscher Offiziere’ (Federation of German Officers), headed by General Walter von Seydlitz-Kurzbach (one of the Sixth Army’s senior commanders who had been captured with Paulus at Stalingrad). (Benz, Graml, and Weiß, Enzyklopddie, 408, 596–7.)