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

23. Christian Tilitzki, Alltag in Ostpreußen 1940–1945: Die geheimen Lageberichte der Königsberger Justiz 1940–1945, Leer, 1991, pp. 300–304 (report of the Generalstaatsanwalt, 18.1.45). See also Heinrich Schwendemann, ‘Tod zwischen den Fronten’, Spiegel Special 2, Hamburg, 2002, p. 46. Gauleiter Koch encouraged the judicial authorities to take a pragmatic view of the looting in the circumstances. Lehndorff, p. 27 (29.1.45), in his field hospital in Königsberg after a bombing raid, recorded his despair at the looting; also pp. 28–9 (30.1.45). Later accounts have at times minimized the looting of apartments in Königsberg, emphasizing the severe punishment for ‘plunderers’.—Hans-Burkhard Sumowski, ‘Jetzt war ich ganz allein auf der Welt’: Erinnerungen an eine Kindheit in Königsberg 1944–1947, Munich, 2009, p. 61.

24. Schwendemann, ‘Tod zwischen den Fronten’, pp. 44–5.

25. Denny, p. 199.

26. Lehndorff, p. 18 (23.1.45).

27. Beevor, p. 49.

28. Dieckert and Grossmann, p. 129; Lehndorff, p. 39 (7.2.45).

29. Lehndorff, pp. 19, 21 (24, 26.1.45).

30. Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, pp. 144–6.

31. Lehndorff, p. 23 (27.1.45).

32. DRZW, 10/1 (Rahn), p. 272; Schwendemann, ‘Endkampf’, p. 20.

33. Lass, pp. 246ff.

34. Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, p. 79 (testimony from 1952).

35. Schwendemann, ‘Endkampf’, p. 20.

36. Franz W. Seidler and Alfred M. de Zayas (eds.), Kriegsverbrechen in Europa und im Nahen Osten im 20. Jahrhundert, Hamburg, 2002, p. 220. Vivid descriptions of the mass flight from East Prussia and conditions in the province are provided in the account compiled only a few years after the events by Jürgen Thorwald, Es begann an der Weichsel: Flucht und Vertreibung der Deutschen aus dem Osten, pb. edn., Munich, 1995 (1st edn., 1949), pp. 123–99; and in Guido Knopp, Die große Flucht: Das Schicksal der Vertriebenen, Munich, 2001, pp. 57–85. A good description of the horrific treks is provided by Richard Bessel, Germany 1945: From War to Peace, London, 2009, ch. 4.

37. Manfred Zeidler, Kriegsende im Osten: Die Rote Armee und die Besetzung Deutschlands östlich von Oder und Neiße 1944/1945, Munich, 1996, pp. 135–8.

38. Zeidler, pp. 140–41.

39. Schwendemann, ‘Endkampf’, p. 22.

40. A few of many examples in Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, pp. 194, 297; vol. 2, pp. 159–64, 224–34; Lass, pp. 87, 121.

41. Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, p. 266.

42. Barbara Johr, ‘Die Ereignisse in Zahlen’, in Helke Sander and Barbara Johr (eds.), Befreier und Befreite: Krieg, Vergewaltigungen, Kinder, Munich, 1992, pp. 47–8, 58–9.

43. The above account of the plight of the East Prussian refugees, where not otherwise indicated, is based on Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, pp. 33E–41E, 60Eff., 79Eff., and the reports, pp. 21–154. Figures on Germans deported are in Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, p. 83E, and Schwendemann, ‘Endkampf’, p. 24 (estimating up to as many as 400,000). A number of later graphic oral accounts are given by Hastings, pp. 319ff.

44. Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, pp. 26E–32E, 345–404. See also Noble, p. 204 for the refusal of the Gauleiter, Emil Stürtz, to allow precautionary evacuation.