PRZYKLENK: It is obvious that we have retreated in RUSSIA. Even if we retake that strip of territory, about 100 kms, RUSSIA is still there. It is ten times the size of GERMANY. The Russians may have lost their crack troops, but we must reckon that we, too, have lost our crack troops. It doesn’t do to think about it. If I am asked whether we shall conquer RUSSIA, I say, “Yes,” but when I think it over, then it’s a very different matter. In October of last year ADOLF declared that the final battle against the Russians was beginning. That was absolute rubbish.434
It’s interesting here that Przyklenk admits to telling British interrogators something different from what he actually believes. This is another example of dissonance between what soldiers were supposed to and wanted to think and reality. Przyklenk’s response to the dilemma is simply not to think too hard about the situation.
Yet even when German navy men willfully avoided thinking about larger strategic questions, focusing instead on their own concrete experiences of naval warfare, some came to negative conclusions. Karl Wedekind was one of the few survivors when his vessel was sunk during a battle with an Allied convoy. In December 1941, he concluded: “The U-boat warfare is in the cart, the U-boats can do nothing.”435 And even in March 1942, a comparatively good month for German forces, Heinz Weszling expressed unmistakable frustration: “Submarine warfare is a damnable business, U-boat men could tell you some stories! As far as I’m concerned they can scrap the whole lot of U-boats.”436
Most army soldiers lost their confidence in final victory after the massive German defeats during the winter of 1942–43.437 Still, the majority believed that the war would now drag on and end in stalemate. Private Faust concluded: “That was a terrific blow! It’s impossible to estimate the proportions of this fiasco.”438 And First Sergeant Schreiber predicted: “If we don’t finish the Russians off next year, then we shall be done for. I’m convinced of that. Just think of all the Americans are producing.”439
In the months that followed, news of victories and defeats caused the mood among POWs to rise and fall, but the general tendency remained the same. Thoughts of defeat began to crop up more often and led to impassioned discussions among the inmates. On March 22, 1943, two bomber pilots, both first lieutenants, debated Germany’s prospects in the war:
FRIED: It’s ridiculous to believe in final victory.
HOLZAPFEL: It’s sheer sedition to talk like that.
FRIED: No, it’s not sedition—just look at the U-boats, they’re no longer doing so well; and ships are being built for the Allies all over the world.
HOLZAPFEL: I can’t think the Government is so stupid as all that.440
Holzapfel and Fried had been detained for two weeks together in Latimer House and got along well. Both were experienced pilots who swapped detailed stories about the sorties they had flown over England, and Holzapfel put up with a lot of skeptical remarks from Fried. But Fried crossed the line for him when he cast doubt upon the possibility of ultimate German victory. In Holzapfel’s world, that was unthinkable. The consequences of defeat were all too apparent and gruesome to contemplate.
Aside from some hopeless optimists, who still talked about Germany invading England in summer 1943,441 most of the soldiers simply considered total defeat impossible. German euphoria at early Blitzkrieg successes and conviction in their own innate superiority blocked acknowledgment of the course the war was actually taking. Expectations and reality were diverging ever more from one another, creating cognitive dissonance. For that reason, soldiers’ estimations of the situation were increasingly colored by wishful thinking, for example, the hope that the German “leadership” would put things right.
