Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis полностью

318. Even reports from the Reich Propaganda Offices throughout Germany, invariably hesitant about conveying anything other than the rosiest-coloured views, mentioned disappointment about the speech (BA, R55/612, ‘Echo zur Führerrede’, Fols.20–21). Goebbels, in evident irritation, scored through the offending passages of the summary report drawn up for him. Newspaper reports of the speech struck Jewish readers in Dresden by the absence of any mention whatsoever of the western offensive (Klemperer, ii.637 (5 January 1945)).

319. Domarus, 2180.

320. Domarus, 2180, 2182.

321. Domarus, 2184.

322. IWM, ‘Aus deutschen Urkunden’, 277, report of SD-Leitabschnitt Stuttgart, 9 January 1945: ‘Der Führer habe also von allem Anfang an auf den Krieg hingearbeitet.’

323. IWM, ‘Aus deutschen Urkunden’, 67, report of the SD-Leitabschnitt Stuttgart, 12 January 1945: ‘… er hätte bewuβt diesen Weltbrand entfacht, um als groβer “Verwandler der Menschheit” proklamiert zu werden.’

324. KTB OKW, iv/2, 1345; Warlimont, 494.

325. KTB OKW, iv/2, 1346–7; also 1352–4.

326. Warlimont, 494; KTB OKW, iv/2, 1353 (heading of the section dealing with military events between 14 and 28 January 1945).

327. Weinberg III, 769.

328. Below, 398.

1. Breloer, 359–60.

2. Breloer, 359 (entry for 22 January 1945).

3. Hitler was reported to have stated this explicitly, in addressing Colonel-General Carl Hilpert, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Courland, on 18 April 1945: ‘If the German people loses the war, it will have shown itself as not worthy of me.’ (‘Wenn das deutsche Volk den Krieg verliert, hat es sich meiner als nicht würdig erwiesen.’) (KTB OKW, iv/1, 68 (introduction by Percy Ernst Schramm, citing a written account of Hitler’s meeting with Hilpert by Dr W. Heinemeyer, then responsible for compiling the War Diary of Army Group Courland).)

4. Below, 340, with reference to the visit to the Berghof on 24 June 1943 of Baldur and Henriette von Schirach, which ended in their premature departure after angering Hitler.

5. Guderian, 382; and see Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 414; Parker, Struggle for Survival, 217; DZW, vi.502–3. At the beginning of 1945, the German army had some 7.5 million men at its disposal. Of its 260 divisions, seventy-five were placed on the eastern front between the Carpathians and the Baltic, where the Soviet offensive was forecast. Apart from the seventy-six divisions in the west, a further twenty-four were deployed in Italy, seventeen were located in Norway and Denmark protecting U-boat bases and Swedish iron-ore supplies, ten were in Yugoslavia, twenty-eight defended oil and bauxite supplies from Hungary, and thirty were cut off in Memel and the Courland (Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 414).

6. Guderian, 383.

7. Guderian, 385.

8. Guderian, 386–8. Speaking privately to Goebbels a few days after the Soviet breakthrough, Hitler did not blame it primarily on a failure of the military leadership. He pointed to the unavoidable thinness of the defences around the Baranov bridgehead because of the need to take troops to the west for the Ardennes offensive, and to Hungary to secure oil supplies (ΤΒJG, II/15, 193 (23 January 1945)).

9. Guderian, 393–4, 417. Göring, who found the weakness of German defences at the Baranov bridgehead incomprehensible, given the prior intelligence that the offensive could be expected there, was critical, in discussion with Goebbels, about Hitler’s decision to attempt a counter-attack on Hungary. Goebbels thought Hitler’s approach was correct because of the urgent need of fuel (TBJG, II/15, 251 (28 January 1945)).

10. Guderian, 394–5, 412–13; Gerhard Boldt, Hitler’s Last Days. An Eye-Witness Account, (1947), Sphere Books edn, London, 1973, 50–53; Michael Salewski, Die deutsche Seekriegsleitung 1933–1945, Bd.II: 1942–1945, Munich, 1975, 493, 496, 520–35; Weinberg III, 721, 782; and Gerhard L. Weinberg, ‘German Plans for Victory, 1944–1945’, in Gerhard L. Weinberg (ed.), Germany, Hitler, and World War II, Cambridge, 1995, 274–86, here 284–5.

11. DZW, vi.525.

12. Guderian, 396–8.

13. DZW, vi.529–36.

14. Guderian, 398.

15. DZW, vi.510–12; Guderian, 400–401; Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 416.

16. Guderian, 400.

17. Goebbels underlined Himmler’s difficulties, since his ‘army group exists in practice only on paper’. He thought Hitler’s optimism about holding the line in the east misplaced (TBJG, II/15, 231 (26 January 1945)).

18. Guderian, 415.