Wohlgezogen is on the verge of articulating doubts about Germany’s prospects of victory before brushing them aside by reflexively summoning up a mythic image of the Führer: “ADOLF won’t give in!” This excerpt and others manifest the cognitive dissonance that arises when events deviate from expectations. Emotionally, cognitive dissonance produces deep feelings of dread, if events are negative and unchangeable. Since such feelings are hard to bear, and reality itself cannot be altered, the only way to correct the dissonance is to change one’s perception and interpretation of reality.501 This basic need is quite commonplace. People who live near nuclear power plants, for instance, tend to regard atomic energy as less dangerous than people who live at a greater distance. Smokers who are well aware of the health risks they are subjecting themselves to develop theories as to why the personal danger is not so great. They tell themselves that they are really moderate smokers, or that their father lived to the age of eighty-six, or that people die of other things besides lung cancer. These strategies of minimizing dissonance allow people to live with situations that are other than what they would prefer.
Germans’ maintenance of their faith in the Führer was just such a means of reducing dissonance, but it also required a continuous level of emotional investment. The more dubious Germany’s prospects looked, the more intense Germans’ belief in their leader had to be. Conversely, the psychological significance of the Führer figure showed how much Germans had already invested in such belief. Doubting the ability and power of the Führer would have devalued that investment. For this reason, Germans tended to conflate the destiny of their leader and their own fates:
BACH: GERMANY’S last chance is to win this war. If we don’t win it, then there will be no more Adolf HITLER either. If the Allies are able to carry out their plans, then it will be all up with us. You can imagine how the Jews will triumph then! Then, we shall not simply be shot, we shall die in the most brutal way.502
A similar example is a conversation between two Luftwaffe lieutenants in March 1943:
TENNING: There is a great deal at stake. If we win this war, it will be a threefold victory. Firstly it’s the triumph of the National Socialist idea, secondly a triumph for Germans, thirdly a triumph over Versailles.
V. GREIM: My only fear is that we shall become too soft, too languid again.
TENNING: Not if we come over to ENGLAND, we shan’t be then. The air force alone will never win this war. We realised that a long time ago, but the English haven’t done so yet.
V. GREIM: If we were to lose, we should never find another man like the FÜHRER. He was unique.
TENNING: Yes, that’s true.503
Similar sentiments also cropped up among generals in June 1943: “We can’t deny that if HITLER had remained, shall we say, what he was… we could not have helped backing him up wholeheartedly and we would be looking forward to a happy time, there’s no doubt about that.”504
Faith in the Führer was often linked with the idea that Hitler had personally ordered many details of how the war was waged. Many soldiers felt themselves to be personally dependent on his ability to make correct decisions. Luftwaffe First Sergeant Duckstein claimed:
