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

117. DZW, 6, pp. 235, 237; BAB, NS6/792, fos. 6–8 (29.8.44), 9–12 (30.8.44); DRZW, 9/1 (Nolzen), pp. 180–82.

118. IfZ, ZS 597, fo. 27, Gauleiter Josef Grohé (1950).

119. TBJG, II/13, p. 465 (12.9.44).

120. BHStA, Reichsstatthalter Epp 681/1–8, unfoliated, copy of Hitler’s Verfügung 12/44 (1.9.44); BAB, R43II/1548, fo. 36, Lammers an die Obersten Reichsbehörden, transmitting Hitler’s order (6.9.44); ‘Führer-Erlasse’ 1939–1945, ed. Martin Moll, Stuttgart, 1997, pp. 446–50; DZW, 6, p. 237.

121. Quoted (in English) in NAL, FO898/187, fo. 598, PWE report for 4–10.9.44.

122. DZW, 6, p. 236. By the end of 1944 the number of conscripts for fortification work on all fronts was over 1.5 million.—DRZW, 9/1 (Nolzen), p. 182.

123. BAB, NS19/3912, fos. 11–12, Bormann to Gauleiter, Rundschreiben 302/44g.Rs., Stellungsbau, 6.10.44.

124. BAB, NS19/3911, fos. 35–8, Party Chancellery Rundschreiben 263/44 g.Rs., Zweiter Erlaß des Führers über die Befehlsgewalt in einem Operationsgebiet innerhalb des Reiches vom 19.9.1944, etc., 23.9.44, transmitting Hitler’s decree of 19.9.44, and providing guidelines for implementation; BAB, NS19/3912, fo. 27, Rundschreiben 312/44g.Rs., Zweiter Erlaß des Führers über die Befehlsgewalt, etc., 11.10.44, amending one clause of the decree to underline Himmler’s overall authority; ‘Führer-Erlasse’, pp. 455–7; Hitlers Weisungen für die Kriegführung 1939–1945: Dokumente des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht, ed. Walther Hubatsch, pb. edn., Munich, 1965, pp. 337–41.

125. The Bormann Letters, ed. H. R. Trevor-Roper, London, 1954, p. 88 (27.8.44).

126. The Bormann Letters, p. 139 (25.10.44).

127. Pätzold and Weißbecker, p. 375.

CHAPTER 3. FORETASTE OF HORROR

1. DZW, 6, pp. 78–9; Andreas Kunz, Wehrmacht und Niederlage: Die bewaffnete Macht in der Endphase der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft 1944 bis 1945, Munich, 2007, pp. 152–3. Those killed on the eastern front numbered 589,425 in the months June to August 1944. In the last six months of 1944, the figure was 740,821 dead. The number of deaths on the eastern front in 1944 as a whole, 1,233,000, amounted to 45 per cent of the mortalities in that theatre since the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941.—Rüdiger Overmans, Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Munich, 1999, pp. 277–9.

2. DRZW, 8 (Frieser), p. 594, who gives the losses for Army Group Centre at around 390,000 men, compared with some 330,000 at Verdun and 60,000 dead and 110,000 captured at Stalingrad. On the four fronts of ‘Bagration’, the Soviets deployed around 2.5 million men, 45,000 artillery pieces, 6,000 tanks and more than 8,000 planes over a front of around 1,100 kilometres with a depth of advance of 550–600 kilometres over a period of 69 days (22 June to 29 August).—DRZW, 8 (Frieser), pp. 526–35, 593, for the size of the Soviet offensive and relative weakness of German forces.

3. DRZW, 8 (Frieser), p. 556. Soviet losses were more than 440,000. Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, Cambridge, 1994, provides a good summary of the developments on the eastern front in this period.

4. DRZW, 8 (Frieser), p. 612; Brian Taylor, Barbarossa to Berlin: A Chronology of the Campaigns on the Eastern Front 1941 to 1945, vol. 2, Stroud, 2008, p. 218.

5. DZW, 6, pp. 52–60; DRZW, 8 (Schönherr), pp. 678–718.

6. Hitler himself had given the order, passed on by Himmler, for the total destruction of Warsaw.—BA/MA, RH19/II/213, v.d. Bach-Zelewski to 9th Army command, 11.10.44.

7. DZW, 6, p. 410. For a vivid narrative of the horrific events, see Norman Davies, Rising ’44: ‘The Battle for Warsaw’, London, 2004.

8. This figure in DZW, 6, p. 70, deviates from that provided by Weinberg, p. 714 (380,000 men lost) and DRZW, 8 (Schönherr), p. 819 (286,000 men killed or captured in the Romanian theatre). The basis for the discrepancy in figures is not clear.

9. DZW, 6, pp. 62–70; DRZW, 8 (Schönherr), pp. 746–819.

10. DRZW, 8 (Frieser), pp. 626–7, 668–72; DZW, 6, p. 72; Weinberg, pp. 707–720–21; and the fine, thorough study by Howard D. Grier, Hitler, Dönitz, and the Baltic Sea: The Third Reich’s Last Hope, 1944–1945, Annapolis, Md., 2007.