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

23. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 367/28, deposition of Bosch (11.6.45).

24. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 367/34, deposition of Kehrl (26.7.45).

25. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 367/34, deposition of Röchling (10.8.45).

26. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 367/35, suppl. I, deposition of Rohland (22.10.45).

27. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 367/34, and Box 368/93, depositions of Schulze-Fielitz (10.8.45 and undated, summer 1945).

28. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 368/84, part II, deposition of Fiebig (25.5.46).

29. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 367/26, deposition of Speer (13.8.45).

30. IWM, FD 3063/49, Box 368/67, depositions of Saur (2–8.10.45, 7.6.45). Hans Kehrl, Krisenmanager im Dritten Reich, Düsseldorf, 1973, p. 407, also pointed to the fact that despite all the mounting difficulties, armaments production was higher in 1944 than in each of the years 1940 to 1943, when Germany was in full command of its economic basis. Even in January 1945, the index of armaments production was higher than that of any war year apart from 1944.—Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, London, 2006, pp. 687–8, table A6.

31. IWM, Box 367/27, deposition by Saur (11–13.6.45).

32. See, for these decisions in November and December, Deutschlands Rüstung im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Hitlers Konferenzen mit Albert Speer 1942–1945, ed. Willi A. Boelcke, Frankfurt am Main, 1969, pp. 444–58; and for Speer’s strenuous efforts to sustain production at this time, Alfred C. Mierzejewski, ‘When Did Albert Speer Give up?’, Historical Journal, 31 (1988), p. 394.

33. Heavy raids had repeatedly hit the big industrial cities and attacked the transport network. Over 50 per cent of American bombs at this time were aimed at destroying transport installations. The British, who dropped more bombs in the last three months of 1944 than in the entire year 1943, concentrated more on the cities, with big attacks on Dortmund, Duisburg, Essen, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Bochum and Gelsenkirchen, but also inflicted severe damage on transport, dropping 102,796 tons, mainly on railway marshalling yards, between November and January 1945. See DZW, 6, pp. 163, 166–7; Tooze, p. 650; Jörg Friedrich, Der Brand: Deutschland im Bombenkrieg 1940–1945, pb. edn., Berlin, 2004, p. 150. Alfred C. Mierzejewski, The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944–1945: Allied Air Power and the German National Railway, Chapel Hill, NC, 1988, chs. 6–7, provides a detailed account of the crippling impact of the bombing on transport in autumn 1944. Speer informed the naval leadership in mid-November of the seriousness of the air attacks. The Reichsbahn had been badly hit. Five major railway stations were out of action. There had been huge drops in coal and steel production (with four-fifths of steel mills damaged or destroyed), and gas supplies had been reduced by 40 per cent.—KTB/SKL, vol. 63/II, p. 188 (17.11.44).

34. BAB, R3/1528, fos. 1–48, Speer’s report on the Ruhrgebiet, 11.11.44.

35. BAB, R3/1542, fos. 1–21, Speer’s report on his trip to Rhine and Ruhr, 23.11.44.

36. Deutschlands Rüstung, p. 444 (28.11.44).

37. TBJG, II/14, pp. 368–9 (7.12.44).

38. BAB, R3/1543, fos. 3–15.

39. Speer, p. 425.

40. BAB, R3/1544, fos. 56–73 (quoted words, fo. 71).

41. DRZW, 5/2 (Müller), p. 771, sees this as, in effect, Speer’s ‘survival programme’ for the last phase of the war.

42. Speer, p. 423. After his trip to the Ruhr in November, Speer engineered Vögler’s appointment by Hitler as Plenipotentiary for Armaments and War Production in the Ruhr in order to take decisions on the spot in his name in order to sustain Ruhr production.—Deutschlands Rüstung, p. 445 (28.11.44).

43. BAB, R3/1623, fos. 3, 4, 8–10, 22 (26.7.44, 2.8.44), on retreat from the east; fos. 24–7, 46, 50–52, 66–8, 77 (10, 13, 16, 18, 19, 22.9.44), on immobilization of industry in western areas.

44. BAB, R3/1623, fo. 123, Keitel to Speer (6.12.44).

45. BAB, R3/1623, fos. 125–6, Speer to head of Armaments Commission XIIb Kelchner, 6.12.44; Keitel Fernschreiben, 10.12.44. Even now, Speer felt it necessary (fo. 127, 12.12.44) to intervene again, this time with Grand-Admiral Dönitz, to prevent the destruction of wharves and their installations which had been scheduled for destruction by an order of Coastal Command East (Marinekommando Ost) on 17 November.

46. A point made by Müller in DRZW, 5/2, p. 771.

47. BAB, NS19/1862, fos. 1–5, Bormann to Himmler, 23.10.44.

48. BAB, NS19/4017, fos. 43–56, meeting at Klein-Berkel, 3.11.44.

49. TBJG, II/14, pp. 157–8 (5.11.44).