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

7. The course of military events is based upon: DRZW, 7 (Vogel), pp. 550–80, 606–14; DZW, 6, pp. 105–19; Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, Cambridge, 1994, pp. 688–702; Lothar Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, pb. edn., Munich, 1975, pp. 295–306; R. A. C. Parker, Struggle for Survival: The History of the Second World War, Oxford, 1990, pp. 200–208; Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944–45, London, 2004, pp. 1–83; John Man, The Penguin Atlas of D-Day and the Normandy Campaign, London, 1994, chs. 6–7; The Oxford Companion to the Second World War, ed. I. C. B. Dear and M. R. D. Foot, Oxford, 1995, pp. 809–12; Antony Beevor, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy, London, 2009, chs. 19, 21–2, 24, 27.

8. The Luftwaffe, and its Commander-in-Chief, Hermann Göring, were widely blamed by the Nazi leadership, as well as much of the population, for Germany’s plight. A letter to Himmler from Gauleiter Joachim Albrecht Eggeling of Halle-Merseburg on 1 September pointed out the image of total impotence in air defences left by the repeated attacks on the hydrogenation plants in his Gau, and the popular view that the collapse of the front in France was solely attributable to the failure of the Luftwaffe.—BAB, NS19/3911, fos. 71–2, 1.9.44. Hitler himself attributed the crisis of the Luftwaffe to Göring’s ‘own absolute failure’.—TBJG, II/12, p. 520 (22.6.44). Speer and Himmler corresponded in September 1944 about the ‘lack of leadership in the Luftwaffe and air industry’. Himmler criticized poor planning, production mistakes, long delays in availability of new aircraft and weapons, and the attempt to deploy the prototype jet-fighter, the Me262, as a bomber (an absurd decision, however one that Hitler himself had insisted upon, against Speer’s advice).—BAB, NS19/3652, fos. 1–8, 26–8, Himmler to Speer, 5.9.44, and Speer’s reply, 8.10.44.

9. Even without access to secret reports, the regular monitoring of the German press and that of correspondents from neutral countries, such as Sweden, based in Germany, gave the British a clear enough indication of the demoralized condition of the retreating Wehrmacht and the chaotic disorganization of the evacuation of western regions.—NAL, FO898/187, fos. 489–90, 522–3, 540–42, 559–61, 577 (reports from 11.9–22.10.44).

10. BAB, R55/601, fos. 73–4, Tätigkeitsbericht, weekly report of propaganda offices, 14.8.44.

11. MadR, 17, pp. 6705–8, ‘Reports on Developments in Public Opinion’, 17.8.44. This was the last report of its kind. Martin Bormann stopped the regular digest of SD reports on account of their defeatist tone.

12. BAB, R55/601, fos. 102–6, Tätigkeitsbericht, weekly propaganda report 4.9.44. Goebbels noted the ‘rather dark picture’ of morale that emanated from the propaganda reports in his diary entry for 15.9.44 (TBJG, II/13, pp. 484–5).

13. BAB, R55/603, fos. 411, 413, Stimmung durch Ereignisse im Westen, 5.9.44.

14. BAB, R19/751, fo. 4, Gebhardt to Himmler, 5.9.44; copy in IfZ, Fa-93.

15. This follows the excellent, detailed account in Christoph Rass, René Rohrkamp and Peter M. Quadflieg, General Graf von Schwerin und das Kriegsende in Aachen: Ereignis, Mythos, Analyse, Aachen, 2007, pp. 29–64. This solid research supplants the earlier versions of the dramatic events that emphasize Schwerin’s role in defying the evacuation orders in Bernhard Poll (ed.), Das Schicksal Aachens im Herbst 1944: Authentische Berichte, Aachen, 1955, pp. 213–56; Bernhard Poll (ed.), Das Schicksal Aachens im Herbst 1944: Authentische Berichte II, Aachen, 1962, pp. 65–77, 80–97; Walter Görlitz, Model: Strategie der Defensive, Wiesbaden, 1975, pp. 211–12; DZW, 6, p. 113.

16. TBJG, II/13, pp. 462–3 (12.9.44).

17. TBJG, II/13, pp. 491–2 (16.9.44).

18. TBJG, II/13, p. 498 (17.9.44). See also Wilfred von Oven, Mit Goebbels bis zum Ende, vol. 2, Buenos Aires, 1950, p. 137 (18.9.44); and Olaf Groehler, ‘Die Schlacht um Aachen (September/Oktober 1944)’, Militärgeschichte (1979), p. 326.

19. TBJG, II/13, pp. 500–501 (17.9.44).

20. BAB, R3/1539, fos. 12–14, summary report, dated 14.9.44, of Speer’s visit to the west, 10–14.9.44.

21. BAB, R3/1539, fos. 17–31, report of 16.9.44 for Hitler on his visit to the western area, 10–14.9.44.

22. BAB, R3/1539, fos. 7–9, draft report by Dorsch on his ministerial trip to the western front, 13.9.44.