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

Finally, but far from least, we come to Hitler himself. He never deviated from what had been the leitmotiv of his political existence, that there would never, ever, be a ‘cowardly’ capitulation and internal revolution as there had been in 1918. He consequently and consistently refused all entreaties from his paladins to consider a negotiated settlement. For him, that could only follow a victory, not a defeat. There was never a chance of that, once the vice closed on the Third Reich after the major enemy successes, east and west, from June 1944 onwards. The Allied demand for ‘unconditional surrender’ simply played to his mentality and convictions. ‘Heroic’ total destruction was for him infinitely preferable to what he saw as the coward’s way out of capitulation. The plight of the German people did not concern him. They had proved weak in the war, and deserved to go under. After the failure of the Ardennes offensive, he was clear-sighted enough to see that his last card had been played. But he clutched at one straw after another in desperation and impotence to turn the tide that was about to engulf him. Suicide was the obvious and likely way out. In fact, it became the only way out. It was simply a matter of time, and of timing, so that he could not be captured by the Russians. It was also the easy way out for him, since he knew that whatever happened he had no future after the war. But as long as he lived, his power—if over a rapidly diminishing Reich—could not be challenged, as Göring and Himmler learnt even in the very last days of his life.

Hitler’s personality was self-evidently scarcely insignificant to Germany’s continued fight. Generals and political leaders alike found him absolutely intransigent if they proposed any alternative course of action. Even in the last weeks some went in to see him demoralized and disconsolate and came away with new enthusiasm and determination. Under a different head of state, say Göring (until his ousting on 23 April 1945 Hitler’s designated successor), it seems highly likely that Germany would have sued for peace at some point earlier than May 1945. It is indeed questionable whether in the event of Hitler’s earlier demise Göring (or Himmler, the only other feasible candidate to have succeeded) would have had the internal authority with the generals to continue the prosecution of the war. Such a counter-factual scenario only emphasizes once more how much Hitler’s insistence on the continuation of the war provided the major obstacle to halting it. This cannot, however, be regarded solely as a matter of Hitler’s domineering personality—his intransigence, his detachment from reality, his readiness to take the country and German people down with him to total perdition—however important this was. Beyond this is the question of why the power elite was prepared to allow him to dictate in such disastrous fashion to the end.

Albert Speer ruminated in pseudo self-reproach in his memoirs about why, when it was obvious that Germany was as good as finished economically and militarily, Hitler was not faced with any joint action from those military leaders in regular contact with him to demand an explanation of how he was going to end the war (with the implication that they might have forced him to do so). Speer thought of such a move coming from Göring, Keitel, Jodl, Dönitz, Guderian and himself.¹¹ The proposition, as he well knew, was absurd.¹² Structurally as well as individually, the group he mentioned was divided and (his own and Guderian’s growing estrangement aside) in any case arch-loyalists, three of whom fervently backed Hitler’s ‘hold-out’ orders.

Confronting Hitler in any organized body, political or military, was completely impossible. The dissolution, from early in the Third Reich and ever more pronounced during the war, of all structures of collective government ensured that. Mussolini’s deposition in July 1943 had come from within his own organization, the Fascist Grand Council. And above Mussolini, at least nominally, stood an alternative source of loyalty: the King of Italy. No similar structures existed in Nazi Germany. Hitler was head of state, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, head of government and head of the Party. He had consistently resisted suggestions to reinstate a form of collective government in the Reich cabinet and the creation of a senate of the Nazi Party to determine, among other things, the succession. The Gauleiter were summoned to assemble periodically, but only to hear pep-talks from Hitler. Even in the armed forces, there was a damaging division between the High Command of the Wehrmacht (responsible for operations outside the eastern front) and the High Command of the Army (responsible for only the eastern front).