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

50. See Dieter Rebentisch and Karl Teppe (eds.), Verwaltung contra Menschenführung im Staat Hitlers, Göttingen, 1986, pp. 7–32; Peter Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter: Führung der Partei und Kontrolle des Staatsapparates durch den Stab Heß und die Partei-Kanzlei Bormann, Munich, 1992, pp. 256–64; and Armin Nolzen, ‘Charismatic Legitimation and Bureaucratic Rule: The NSDAP in the Third Reich, 1933–1945’, German History, 23 (2005), pp. 494–518.

51. Kurt Pätzold and Manfred Weißbecker, Geschichte der NSDAP 1920–1945, Cologne, 1981, p. 375; Dieter Rebentisch, Führerstaat und Verwaltung im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Stuttgart, 1989, pp. 528–9.

52. All contained, many from November–December 1944, in BAB, R43II/692b: Deutscher Volkssturm, Bd. 2, fos. 1–28. An impression of the mass of heterogeneous business dealt with by the Party Chancellery in this period can be gleaned from the collection Akten der Partei-Kanzlei der NSDAP, vol. 1, ed. Helmut Heiber, Munich, 1983, Regesten Bd. 1–2, and vol. 2, ed. Peter Longerich, Munich, 1989, Regesten Bd. 4.

53. TBJG, II/14, p. 432 (17.12.44).

54. The Bormann Letters, ed. H. R. Trevor-Roper, London, 1954, p. 148 (11.12.44).

55. See TBJG, II/14, p. 400 (12.12.44) for the paper shortage.

56. BAB, R43II/583a, fo. 64–64^v, Reichspostminister to Highest Reich Authorities, etc. (7.11.44).

57. TBJG, II/14, pp. 146–7 (3.11.44), 191 (10.11.44), 224 (17.11.44), 232 (18.11.44), 268 (24.11.44), 308–9 (1.12.44), 444 (19.12.44); BAB, R3/1529, fos. 3–12, Speer’s memorandum to Hitler (6.12.44).

58. TBJG, II/14, pp. 394 (11.12.44), 398 (12.12.44); von Oven, pp. 519 (5.12.44), 520–23 (11.12.44). Text of the decree in ‘Führer-Erlasse’ 1939–1944, ed. Martin Moll, Stuttgart, 1997, pp. 469–70.

59. TBJG, II/14, p. 305 (1.12.44).

60. Von Oven, p. 517 (29.11.44); TBJG, II/14, p. 276 (25.11.44).

61. TBJG, II/14, pp. 317–34 (2.12.44).

62. TBJG, II/14, pp. 159–60 (5.11.44).

63. TBJG, II/14, pp. 208–9 (13.11.44); von Oven, pp. 511–12 (12.11.44).

64. On the film, see David Welch, Propaganda and the German Cinema 1933–1945, Oxford, 1983, pp. 225–35.

65. TBJG, II/14, pp. 310–11 (1.12.44), 345 (3.12.44); Welch, p. 234.

66. TBJG, II/14, pp. 469–70 (23.12.44). More changes were necessary, but, as he had hoped, the premiere took place on 30 January 1945, the twelfth anniversary of Hitler’s takeover of power.

67. BAB, R55/601, fo. 204, Tätigkeitsbericht, weekly propaganda report, 7.11.44; TBJG, II/14, p. 192 (10.11.44) .

68. TBJG, II/14, p. 147 (3.11.44); also p. 310 (1.12.44). He acknowledged that the failure of the regime to protect its population in the air war was its greatest weakness in the eyes of the public (p. 165 (6.11.44)). Düren, east of Aachen, one of the most heavily bombed towns of the war, provides an example. Only 13 out of 9,322 buildings were left undamaged by the autumn air attacks and over 3,000 people lost their lives (Friedrich, p. 144). In late December Himmler reported that the population there was ‘completely hostile and unfriendly’ and that the ‘Heil Hitler’ greeting was almost unknown, even among local Party functionaries (BAB, NS19/751, fo. 32, Himmler to Bormann, 26.12.44, also in IfZ, Fa-93).

69. TBJG, II/14, pp. 133 (1.11.44), 238 (19.11.44); Robert Grosche, Kölner Tagebuch 1944–46, Cologne, 1969, pp. 52–6 (30.10.–6.11.44); LHC, Dempsey Papers, no. 178, pt. II, pp. 7–8 (27.11.44), ‘Total War Comes to Cologne’ (account of a prisoner of war who witnessed the raid).

70. Widerstand und Verfolgung in Köln, ed. Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln, Cologne, 1974, pp. 395–6; Detlef Peukert, Die Edelweißpiraten: Protestbewegungen jugendlicher Arbeiter im Dritten Reich, Cologne, 1980, pp. 103–15; TBJG, II/14, p. 426 (16.12.44).

71. TBJG, II/14, p. 269 (24.11.44).

72. TBJG, II/14, p. 192 (10.11.44).

73. Margarete Dörr, ‘Wer die Zeit nicht miterlebt hat…’: Frauenerfahrungen im Zweiten Weltkrieg und in den Jahren danach, vol. 3, Frankfurt am Main and New York, 1998, p. 437.

74. TBJG, II/14, p. 192 (10.11.44).

75. TBJG, II/14, p. 269 (24.11.44).

76. IWM, Box 367/35, suppl. I, deposition of Rohland, pp. 3–4 (22.10.45).