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

57. Kroener, p. 714; Longerich, Himmler, p. 722. There was, in fact, a dispute within the high ranks of the SS over responsibilities in recruitment for the Replacement Army. The head of the SS Central Office (responsible for recruitment to the Waffen-SS), Gottlob Berger, successfully extended his own powers in this area not only towards the army, but also towards Jüttner, who in practice was more conciliatory towards the interests of the Replacement Army than his rival within the SS leadership.—Kroener, pp. 714–15. Berger’s ambitions to take over all matters concerning recruitment and training for the Replacement Army are evident in his letter to Himmler of 1.8.44 in BAB, NS19/2409, fo. 6.

58. BAB, NS19/4015, fos. 13–32, Himmler speech to officers of Chief of Army Armaments, 21.7.44.

59. BAB, NS19/4015, fos. 42–7, Himmler speech at Grafenwöhr, 25.7.44; IWM, EDS, F.2, AL2708, Himmler speech at Bitsch, 26.7.44 (printed in Heinrich Himmler: Geheimreden 1933 bis 1945 und andere Aussprachen, ed. Bradley F. Smith and Agnes F. Peterson, Frankfurt am Main, 1974, pp. 215–37). Himmler did not conceal his contempt when, this time addressing Party leaders in early August, he castigated the air of defeatism which the officers of the General Staff had spread in the army since the beginning of the war in the east.—Theodor Eschenburg, ‘Die Rede Himmlers vor den Gauleitern am 3. August 1944’, Vf Z, 1 (1953), pp. 362–78.

60. BAB, NS19/3910, fo. 89, Himmler to Fegelein, 26.7.44.

61. ‘Führer-Erlasse’, p. 438.

62. BAB, R3/1522, fos. 48–9, Speer to Himmler, 28.7.44.

63. Hancock, p. 139.

64. Rebentisch, p. 515.

65. BAB, R43II/664a, ‘Totaler Kriegseinsatz’, fos. 81–91, fos. 117, 154 for the exemption for the Reich Chancellery, agreed by Hitler. Goebbels’ summary of the meeting is in TBJG, II/13, pp. 134–7 (23.7.44). And see Rebentisch, pp. 515–16; Hancock, pp. 137–8; and Elke Fröhlich, ‘Hitler und Goebbels im Krisenjahr 1944: Aus den Tagebüchern des Reichspropagandaministers’, Vf Z, 39 (1990), pp. 205–7.

66. TBJG, II/13, pp. 136–7 (23.7.44).

67. TBJG, II/13, pp. 153–5 (24.7.44).

68. BAB, R43II/664a, fos. 119–21 (and fos. 92–118 for drafts and preparatory material).

69. Wilfred von Oven, Mit Goebbels bis zum Ende, vol. 2, Buenos Aires, 1950, p. 94 (25.7.44).

70. TBJG, II/13, pp. 135, 137 (23.7.44).

71. BAB, R43II/664a, fos. 153–4; Rebentisch, pp. 516ff.; Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter, pp. 195ff.

72. Von Oven, Mit Goebbels, pp. 120–21 (16.8.44).

73. Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter, p. 197.

74. Hancock, pp. 157, 287 n. 27.

75. Hans Mommsen, ‘The Indian Summer and the Collapse of the Third Reich: The Last Act’, in Hans Mommsen (ed.), The Third Reich between Vision and Reality, Oxford and New York, 2001, p. 114.

76. BAB, NS6/167, fo. 95–95^v, Bormann to the Gauleiter on the ‘new combing out action’, 19.7.44; TBJG, II/13, pp. 134 (23.7.44); Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter, p. 196.

77. ‘Führer-Erlasse’, pp. 428–9. The role of the RVKs would be widened with the second decree (pp. 455–6) on ‘Collaboration of Party and Wehrmacht in an Operational Area within the Reich’ of 19 September. Bormann passed on to the Gauleiter Keitel’s guidelines for cooperation of 27 July (BAB, NS6/792, fo. 1–1^v, Rundschreiben 163/44 gRs., Zusammenarbeit zwischen militärischen und zivilen Dienststellen, 1.8.44, also in NS19/3911, fos. 30–32). See also Förster, p. 133 and n. 9; Kroener, p. 668.

78. Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter, p. 196. One, among many, examples of the extended power of the Party was in the takeover of control by the Party Chancellery (delegated by Bormann to the Reich Defence Commissars) of air-raid protection and the necessary instruction of the population. See BAB, R43II/1648, fo. 54 Lammers to the Highest Authorities of the Reich, 27.7.44, passing on the Führer decree of two days earlier.

79. See Karl Teppe, ‘Der Reichsverteidigungskommissar: Organisation und Praxis in Westfalen’, in Dieter Rebentisch and Karl Teppe (eds.), Verwaltung contra Menschenführung im Staat Hitlers, Göttingen, 1986, p. 299 for the extended power the RVKs gained after Goebbels’ appointment as Total War Plenipotentiary.

80. The somewhat clumsy term was the invention of Dietrich Orlow, The History of the Nazi Party, vol. 2: 1933–1945, Newton Abbot, 1973, p. 474.

81. For Bormann’s centralization of Party control, see Orlow, pp. 465–8.

82. IfZ, ZS 988, Interrogation of Wilhelm Kritzinger, State Secretary in the Reich Chancellery, 5.3.47.