Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

59. Admiral Horthy speaks with Ribbentrop, Keitel and Martin Bormann (Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart)

60. A ‘Do 24’ seaplane, Norway (Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart)

61. Train-mounted cannon, Leningrad (Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart)

62. German tanks, Cyrenaica, Libya (Hulton Getty)

63. Hunting partisans, Bosnia (Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart)

64. Exhausted German soldier, the Eastern Front (Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart)

65. Hitler reviewing the Wehrmacht parade, Berlin, 1943 (Ullstein Bilderdienst, Berlin/Walter Frentz)

66. The Party’s ‘Old Guard’ salute Hitler, Munich, 1943 (Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart)

67. Martin Bormann (Hulton Getty)

68. Hitler and Goebbels on the Obsersalzberg, 1943 (Ullstein Bilderdienst, Berlin/Walter Frentz)

69. German soldiers pushing vehicle through mud, the Eastern Front (Corbis)

70. Armoured vehicles lodged in snow, the Eastern Front (Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart)

71. Waffen-SS troops, the Eastern Front (Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart)

72. French Jews being deported, 1942 (Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin)

73. Polish Jews dig their own grave, 1942 (Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin)

74. Incinerators at Majdanek, 1944 (Ullstein Bilderdienst, Berlin)

75. Hitler and Himmler walking on the Obersalzberg, 1944 (Ullstein Bilderdienst, Berlin/Walter Frentz)

76. The ‘White Rose’, 1942 (Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand, Berlin)

77. Heinz Guderian (Hulton Getty)

78. Ludwig Beck (AKG London)

79. Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg (AKG London)

80. Henning von Tresckow (Süddeutscher Verlag, Munich)

81. Hitler just after the assassination attempt, 1944 (Süddeutscher Verlag, Munich)

82. Hitler’s trousers (Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart)

83. Last meeting of Hitler and Mussolini, 1944 (Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart)

84. Karl Dönitz professes the loyalty of the Navy, 1944 (Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart)

85. An ageing Hitler at the Berghof, 1944 (Ullstein Bilderdienst, Berlin/Walter Frentz)

86. V1 flying-bomb (Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart)

87. V2 rocket (Corbis/Hulton-Deutsch Collection)

88. Messerschmidt Me 262 (HultonGetty)

89. The ‘Volkssturm’, 1944 (Hulton Getty)

90. The last ‘Heroes’ Memorial Day’, Berlin, 1945 (Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart)

91. Women and children fleeing Danzig, 1945 (AKG London)

92. Hitler views a model of Linz (National Archives and Records Administration, Washington)

93. Hitler in the ruins of the Reich Chancellery, 1945 (Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart)

LIST OF MAPS

1. The legacy of the First World War

2. Poland under Nazi occupation

3. The Western offensive, 1940: the Sichelschnitt attack

4. The German Reich of 1942: the Nazi Party Gaue

5. Nazi occupied Europe

6. Limits of the German occupation of the USSR

7. The Western and Eastern fronts, 1944“5

8. The Soviet drive to Berlin

PREFACE

The first part of this study, Hitler, 1889–1936: Hubris, tried to show how the people of a highly cultured, economically advanced, modern state could allow into power and entrust their fate to a political outsider with few, if any, special talents beyond undoubted skills as a demagogue and propagandist.

By the time his Chancellorship was devised through the intrigues of influential individuals close to Reich President von Hindenburg, Hitler had been able in free elections to garner the votes of no more than a good third of the German electorate. Another third — on the Left — stood implacably opposed, though internally in disarray. The remainder were often sceptical, expectant, hesitant, and uncertain. By the end of the first volume we had traced the consolidation of Hitler’s power to the point where it had become well-nigh absolute. Internal opposition had been crushed. The doubters had been largely won over by the scale of an internal rebuilding and external reassertion of strength which, almost beyond imagination, had restored much of the lost national pride and sense of humiliation left behind after the First World War. Authoritarianism was seen by most as a blessing; repression of those politically out of step, disliked ethnic minorities, or social misfits approved of as a small price for what appeared to be a national rebirth. While the adulation of Hitler among the masses had grown ever stronger, and opposition had been crushed and rendered inconsequential, powerful forces in the army, the landed aristocracy, industry, and high ranks of the civil service had thrown their weight behind the regime. Whatever its negative aspects, it was seen to offer them much in advancing their own interests.