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

Of the reasons why Germany was able and willing to fight on to the end, these structures of rule and underlying mentalities behind them are the most fundamental. All the other factors—lingering popular backing for Hitler, the ferocious terror apparatus, the increased dominance of the Party, the prominent roles of the Bormann–Goebbels–Himmler–Speer quadrumvirate, the negative integration produced by the fear of Bolshevik occupation, and the continued readiness of high-ranking civil servants and military leaders to continue doing their duty when all was obviously lost—were ultimately subordinate to the way the charismatic Führer regime was structured, and how it functioned, in its dying phase. Paradoxically, it was by this time charismatic rule without charisma. Hitler’s mass charismatic appeal had long since dissolved, but the structures and mentalities of his charismatic rule lasted until his death in the bunker. The dominant elites, divided as they were, possessed neither the collective will nor the mechanisms of power to prevent Hitler taking Germany to total destruction.

That was decisive.

Notes

ABBREVIATIONS

BAB

Bundesarchiv Berlin/Lichterfelde

BA/MA

Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv, Freiburg

BDC

Berlin Document Center

BfZ

Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Württembergische

Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart

BHStA

Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Munich

DNB

Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro (German News Agency)

DRZW

Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg

DZW

Deutschland im Zweiten Weltkrieg

HSSPF

Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer (Higher SS and Police Leader(s))

IfZ

Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich

IMT

International Military Tribunal

ITS

International Tracing Service, Bad Arolsen

IWM

Imperial War Museum, Duxford

KTB/OKW

Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommando der Wehrmacht

KTB/SKL

Kriegstagebuch der Seekriegsleitung

LHC

Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, London

MadR

Meldungen aus dem Reich

NAL

National Archives London (formerly Public Record Office)

Nbg.-Dok.

Nürnberg-Dokument (unpublished trial document(s))

NCO

non-commissioned officer

NL

Nachlaß (personal papers)

NSDAP

Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (Nazi Party)

NSFO

Nationalsozialistischer Führungsoffizier (National Socialist Leadership Officer)

NSV

Nationalsozialistiche Volkswohlfahrt (National Socialist People’s Welfare Organization)

OKH

Oberkommando des Heeres (High Command of the Army)

OKW

Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces)

OT

Organisation Todt

PWE

Political Warfare Executive

RPÄ

Reichspropagandaämter

RPvNB/OP

Regierungspräsident von Niederbayern und der Oberpfalz (Government President (Head of the Regional Administration) of Lower Bavaria and the Upper Palatinate)

RPvOB

Regierungspräsident von Oberbayern (Government President of Upper Bavaria)

RPvOF/MF

Regierungspräsident von Oberfranken und Mittelfranken (Government President of Upper Franconia and Central Franconia)

RVK

Reichsverteidigungskommissar(e) (Reich Defence Commissar(s))

SD

Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service)

SHAEF

Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force

StAA

Staatsarchiv Augsburg

StAM

Staatsarchiv München

TBJG

Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels

VB

Völkischer Beobachter

Vf Z

Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte

YVS

Yad Vashem Studies

For the full book titles, see List of Works Cited, pp. 511–32; for details of archives, see List of Archival Sources Cited, pp. 509–10. Contributions in DRZW are cited by author only in the Notes; titles are given in List of Works Cited.

PREFACE

1. See, for example, Ralf Meindl, Ostpreußens Gauleiter: Erich Koch—eine politische Biographie, Osnabrück, 2007.

2. A good, critical study of Dönitz, long overdue, appeared only after this work had been completed: Dieter Hartwig, Großadmiral Karl Dönitz: Legende und Wirklichkeit, Paderborn, 2010.

3. Exemplary, in different ways, are Herfried Münkler, Machtzerfall: Die letzten Tage des Dritten Reiches dargestellt am Beispiel der hessischen Kreisstadt Friedberg, Berlin, 1985, and Stephen G. Fritz, Endkampf: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Death of the Third Reich, Lexington, Ky., 2004.

4. None better than Antony Beevor’s brilliant narrative depiction of the Red Army’s assault on the Reich capital, Berlin: The Downfall 1945, pb. edn., London, 2007.