The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1944–1945

Nevertheless, continuity was the hallmark of the new government. What was later claimed to have been an ‘unpolitical’ cabinet included several high-ranking SS officers and a Party Gauleiter (Paul Wegener of Gau Weser-Ems). The Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Stuckart, an SS-Obergruppenführer, who had in effect run the ministry as Himmler’s State Secretary during the last months of the war, had been a participant in the notorious Wannsee Conference that in January 1942 had determined policy on the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Question’. Herbert Backe, the Minister for Agriculture, had the rank of an SS-Gruppenführer and had helped shape policies imposing starvation on occupied Soviet territories. Otto Ohlendorf, deputy State Secretary in the Reich Economics Ministry, was an SS-Gruppenführer who had formerly headed the SD-Inland in the Reich Security Head Office and had led Einsatzgruppe D in the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews. As late as 16 May Ohlendorf was in discussion with Dönitz about reconstructing the security service, also for possible use by the occupying powers.⁵³ (In all, 230 of the 350 or so members of Dönitz’s administrative personnel in Flensburg had belonged to the security services.⁵⁴)

There was no place for Himmler, viewed as an obvious liability in any prospective dealings with the western Allies. But it was easy to see why he thought he might have a part to play and sought after 2 May to enter the Dönitz government. He offered his services to Dönitz in any capacity, but, enquiring how the Wehrmacht regarded him, perhaps had his eye on taking over as War Minister.⁵⁵ Himmler argued that he would be crucial in the struggle against Bolshevism and required only a brief audience with General Eisenhower or Field-Marshal Montgomery to gain recognition of this. He was told in no uncertain terms, however, that ‘every Englishman or American who thought for half a second of speaking to him would in the next half a second be swept away by public opinion in England and the USA’.⁵⁶ His ‘treason’ against Hitler in the last days was reportedly also a reason why Dönitz rejected any involvement in his administration by Himmler.⁵⁷ Dönitz finally broke off relations with him on 6 May, after which the once mighty and greatly feared police chief, as one prominent member of the Dönitz administration later put it, ‘turned himself into a poor petitioner and disappeared without trace’.⁵⁸ He fled in disguise before being captured by the British in north Germany, escaping trial and a certain death sentence by swallowing a poison capsule in custody.

Old survivors from pre-Hitler governments who had served throughout the Third Reich were the Labour Minister, Dr Franz Seldte, the Transport Minister and Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, the former Finance Minister, now elevated to chief minister (Leitender Minister) and also placed in charge of foreign affairs. Dr Julius Dorpmüller, Reich Transport Minister since 1937, also continued in office. Speer was brought in to oversee what was optimistically termed ‘reconstruction’. Not least, there was continuity in the military leadership. Dönitz’s own replacement as head of the navy was Admiral-General Hans-Georg von Friedeburg. But the crucial positions as chief of the High Command of the Wehrmacht and head of the Wehrmacht Operations Staff were held, as before, by Field-Marshal Keitel and Colonel-General Jodl, who had made their way north to join Dönitz shortly after Hitler’s death.⁵⁹ In the days that followed, Keitel and Jodl, alongside Dönitz and Krosigk, were the key players.⁶⁰ The remainder had largely bit-parts.

Forming a cabinet had not been Dönitz’s first priority on taking over the government, though he had been keen to appoint a Foreign Minister. He had wanted Hitler’s first Foreign Minister, Konstantin von Neurath, but was unable to reach him. Instead, he gave the post to Krosigk, whom he barely knew but had found impressive at a meeting in Plön at the end of April.⁶¹ Krosigk had no obvious qualifications other than the interest he had shown in previous weeks in bombarding Goebbels in particular with wholly unrealistic propositions for seeking a negotiated settlement to the war. He was practically the only choice available to Dönitz and carried no especially harmful baggage from the Hitler years.