Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis полностью

143. TBJG, II/15, 420 (5 March 1945); Irving, Doctor, 212. Hitler, it seems, eventually did allow the pictures to appear in the press and newsreel, though, accommodating the delay, the impression was given that the visit had taken place on ‘Heroes’ Memorial Day’, 11 March 1945. Domarus, 2211 and Hauner, Hitler, 200, give this as the date of Hitler’s last visit to the front, while Irving, HW, 776, has 15 March 1945 (possibly based on Below, 405, who has 15 February, though presumably in error for 15 March). Goebbels was with Hitler for several hours on the evening of 11 March, though there was no mention of a second visit to the Oder front that day. He referred to the new edition of the newsreel, shown that evening, containing scenes of Hitler’s visit to the front, though this presumably refers to the Wriezen visit, not any subsequent one (TBJG, II/15, 479, 487). Among captured soldiers on the western front, trust in Hitler had fallen by March 1945 to 31 per cent, half of what it had been in January (Gurfein and Janowitz, 81).

144. TBJG, II/15, 542 (19 March 1945).

145. TBJG, II/15, 420–21, 423 (5 March 1945), 450 (8 March 1945). Goebbels first noted that Himmler had an infection; then that he had suffered an angina attack. Guderian was told that the Reichsführer had been laid low with influenza, but found him ‘in apparently robust health’ on a visit to the Hohenlychen sanatorium (Guderian, 421). See also Felix Kersten, The Kersten Memoirs 1940–1945, London, 1956, 276–7; Padfield, Himmler, 567.

146. TBJG, II/15, 421–2 (5 March 1945). Sepp Dietrich, in whose leadership in Hungary Hitler was pinning such hopes, had been highly critical of Hitler’s repeated interventions, down to company level, in military matters, leaving his commanders no room for manoeuvre (TBJG, II/15, 404 (3 March 1945)).

147. TBJG, II/15, 421–4 (5 March 1945), quotations 422, 424, 486 (12 March 1945).

148. TBJG, II/15, 426–7 (5 March 1945).

149. TBJG, II/15, 425–6 (5 March 1945).

150. H. R. Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of Hitler, (1947), Pan Books edn, London, 1973, 140.

151. TBJG, II/15, 383–4 (28 February 1935), 419 (5 March 1945), quotation 479 (12 March 1945). See also 557 (21 March 1945), 570 (22 March 1945).

152. Domarus, 2212.

153. Named after the Secretary of the US Treasury, Henry Morgenthau Jr, the plan envisaged dividing Germany into two and ‘pastoralizing’ the country. It was initially adopted both by Roosevelt and Churchill, and, though effectively discarded in the light of strong opposition from their advisers, was finally put to rest only in the post-war settlement at Potsdam in July-August 1945 (Churchill, vi.138–9; Weinberg III, 796–7; Oxford Companion, 758–9).

154. See Herbst, Der Totale Krieg, 345–7 (and Pt.V in general), for post-war planning within German industry in the last months of the regime. See also Neil Gregor, Daimler-Benz in the Third Reich, New Haven/London, 1998, 100–108; and Dietrich Eichholtz and Wolfgang Schumann, Anatomie des Krieges, East Berlin, 1969, 484–6.

155. Speer, 440–42, 581 n.5; Guderian, 422–3.

156. Speer, 443. Speer, 448, refers to his memorandum of 18 March. He suggests elsewhere, however, that he himself handed the memorandum to Hitler, and after midnight on 19 March (Speer, 445). Below, 404, writes of Speer passing the memorandum to him.

157. IMG, xli.420–25 (quotation, 424–5), Beweisstück Speer, Doc.23; IMG, xvi.546–7 (Speer testimony); and see also Speer, 443, 582 n.6; Guderian, 423; Below, 404–5.

158. Speer, 444–5.

159. Speer, 446 and 583 n.8. Domarus, 2214 and n.106 points out that Speer’s recollection probably did not match Hitler’s comment exactly. According to Speer, Hitler had stated that ‘the future belongs exclusively to the stronger people of the east’ — a phrase he is otherwise not known to have used, and which stood in contradiction to his belief in the primitivity of the Soviet population.

160. See Irving, HW, 784.

161. IMG, xli.430–31, Doc. Beweisstück Speer-25; Weisungen, 348–9.

162. Speer, 453; TBJG, II/15, 612–13 (28 March 1945).

163. See IMG, xli.425–37, Docs. Beweisstück Speer-24,–28,–29; Speer, 450–64; Guderian, 424. According to Guderian, 426, Hitler was by this time reluctant to see Speer and hear his pessimistic views about the war. He told Goebbels of his anger at Speer’s comments, and how he had let himself be influenced by industrialists. He intended replacing him with Saur (TBJG, II/15, 619–20 (28 March 1945), 645 (31 March 1945).)

164. TBJG, II/15, 613 (28 March 1945).

165. Schroeder, 209.

166. TBJG, II/15, 369 (12 February 1945).

167. Boldt, 86–7.

168. See, e.g., TBJG, II/15, 425 (5 March 1945), 569–71 (22 March 1945), 618–19 (28 March 1945).