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

46. Klaus Mammach, Der Volkssturm: Bestandteil des totalen Kriegseinsatzes der deutschen Bevölkerung 1944/45, Berlin, 1981; Yelton, p. 75.

47. Yelton, p. 120.

48. BA/MA, RH21/3/730, post–war account written in 1955 by the Chief of Staff of the 3rd Panzer Army, Major-General Mueller-Hillebrand, p. 1.

49. Die Vertreibung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus den Gebieten östlich der Oder-Neiße, ed. Theodor Schieder et al., pb. edn., vol. 1, Munich, 1984, pp. 1–4; and see Noble, pp. 130–32.

50. Guderian, p. 376.

51. DRZW, 8 (Frieser), pp. 612–19; Noble, pp. 132–5.

52. See Noble, pp. 136–8.

53. Noble, p. 130.

54. BA/MA, N245/3, NL Reinhardt, diary entries for 11, 17, 22.10.44 and 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 14.11.44 refer to his continuing hefty disputes with Koch—though not directly on the evacuation issue—as does his letter to his wife of 23.10.44, in N245/2, fo. 40. See also N245/15 for his protest to Himmler at Koch’s misrepresentation of conditions within his Army Group (letters of 26.10.44 and 27.11.44). Part of the conflict related to Koch’s allocation of armaments meant for the army to the Volkssturm (BA/MA, RH19/II/213, fo. 303, Reinhardt to Guderian, 31.10.44).

55. Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, pp. 4–7.

56. Bernhard Fisch, Nemmersdorf, Oktober 1944: Was in Ostpreußen tatsächlich geschah, Berlin, 1997, ch. 5. See also Guido Knopp, Die große Flucht: Das Schicksal der Vertriebenen, Munich, 2001, pp. 37–49.

57. Quoted DRZW, 10/1 (Zeidler), p. 700, and pp. 682ff. for an excellent account of Soviet propaganda aimed at troops about to fight in Germany, including the role of the arch-propagandist Ilya Ehrenburg. See also Guido Pöllmann, ‘Rote Armee in Nemmersdorf am 22.10.1944’, in Franz W. Seidler and Alfred M. de Zayas (eds.), Kriegsverbrechen in Europa und im Nahen Osten im 20. Jahrhundert, Hamburg, 2002, p. 215.

58. Quoted Manfred Nebelin, ‘Nazi Germany: Eastern Front’, in David Wingeate Pike (ed.), The Closing of the Second World War: Twilight of a Totalitarianism, New York, 2001, p. 98.

59. Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, pp. 7–8. Further gruesome reports are presented in Lass, pp. 44–50. The International Commission was a creation of the Propaganda Ministry. It met on 31 October 1944 in Berlin with representatives from Spain, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Italy and Serbia, before an audience of 600 or so, largely drawn from Berlin Party members, and attended by 100 members of German and foreign press and radio. Predictably it concluded that the Soviet Union had been guilty of serious breaches of international law.—BA/MA, RH2/2684, fos. 7–8, report of Major Hinrichs, Abteilung Fremde Heere Ost, 1.11.44.

60. Bernhard Fisch, ‘Nemmersdorf 1944—ein bisher unbekanntes zeitnahes Zeugnis’, Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung, 56 (2007), pp. 105–14. See also Fisch, Nemmersdorf, chs. 6–7.

61. ‘Persönliches Kriegstagebuch des Generals der Flieger [Werner] Kreipe als Chef des Generalstabes der Luftwaffe für die Zeit vom 22.7.–2.11.1944’, entry for 23.10.44, in Hermann Jung, Die Ardennenoffensive 1944/45, Göttingen, 1971, p. 227.

62. Günter K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front, London, 2002, p. 293 (22.10.44).