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

99. Kommandant in Auschwitz, p. 146 (where Höss also used the term ‘columns of misery’).

100. ITS, Tote 80, fo. 00030a, Häftlingstransport von Birkenau nach Gablonz, 2.4.46. See also Kommandant in Auschwitz, p. 146; and Czech, p. 968.

101. Monika Richarz, Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland: Selbstzeugnisse zur Sozialgeschichte 1918–1945, Stuttgart, 1982, pp. 443–6 (account by Paul Heller based on diary jottings kept at the time).

102. Richarz, pp. 448, 450–51.

103. Strzelecki, p. 1102; Blatman, Les Marches de la mort, pp. 112, 140.

104. Richarz, p. 452.

105. ITS, Tote 80, fo. 60282a, Marches de la Mort, Groß-Rosen—Leitmeritz, 4.4.46.

106. Isabell Sprenger, ‘Das KZ Groß-Rosen in der letzten Kriegsphase’, in Herbert, Orth and Dieckmann, pp. 1113–24. On one march alone (p. 1122), 500 out of 3,500 died.

107. Orth, pp. 282–7; Blatman, Les Marches de la mort, pp. 126–32; Blatman, ‘The Death Marches’, pp. 174–9. See also Olga M. Pickholz-Barnitsch, ‘The Evacuation of the Stutthof Concentration Camp’, Yad Vashem Bulletin, 16 (1965), pp. 37–9. According to the SS’s figures, the prisoners in Stutthof had numbered 18,436 men and 30,199 women (48,635 persons in all) on 15 January 1945.—IWM, F.2, AL 1753, SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungs-hauptamt List of Concentration Camps with numbers of guards and prisoners 1. & 15.1.45. When the evacuations began, this number had fallen to 46,331 prisoners.—Blatman, ‘The Death Marches’, p. 175, based (cf. n. 43) on the last roll-call of 24.1.45.

108. Blatman, Les Marches de la mort, p. 140.

109. Hammermann, pp. 140–41; Sprenger, pp. 120–21; Katharina Elliger, Und tief in der Seele das Ferne: Die Geschichte einer Vertreibung aus Schlesien, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 2006, pp. 71–4 (where she mentions seeing as a girl the column of misery of Auschwitz prisoners passing through her village, near Ratibor in Silesia, and throwing bread down before hastily closing her window as the guard reacted negatively).

110. See Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won, London, 1995, pp. 112–33, for an assessment of Harris and Allied bombing strategy, concluding (p. 133) that ‘the air offensive was one of the decisive elements in Allied victory’. The policy of ‘area bombing’ of cities had already been decided—following a change in tactics suggested by Churchill’s scientific adviser Lord Cherwell (earlier known as Professor Frederick Lindemann) on account of the failure of precision bombing—just before Harris took over Bomber Command on 22 February 1942. Harris, who had an excellent rapport with Churchill at this time, was the inspirational driving force behind the implementation of the policy, dedicating himself ‘to the vital necessity of striking at Germany in her homeland, where it would really hurt’.—Henry Probert, Bomber Harris: His Life and Times, London, 2001, pp. 122, 126–46; Max Hastings, Finest Years: Churchill as Warlord 1940–45, London, 2009, pp. 246–9.

111. Frederick Taylor, Dresden: Tuesday 13 February 1945, pb. edn., London, 2005, p. 216.

112. Lothar Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, pb. edn., Munich, 1975, pp. 197–8, 280–81, 414.

113. Taylor, p. 427.

114. Jörg Friedrich, Der Brand: Deutschland im Bombenkrieg 1940–1945, pb. edn., Berlin, 2004, pp. 108–9, 312–16; Taylor, p. 428.

115. Rüdiger Overmans, ‘Die Toten des Zweiten Weltkriegs in Deutschland’, in Wolfgang Michalka (ed.), Der Zweite Weltkrieg: Analysen, Grundzüge, Forschungsbilanz, Munich and Zurich, 1989, p. 860; Friedrich, p. 63; DRZW, 10/1 (Boog), p. 868; United States Strategic Bombing Survey, New York and London, 1976, vol. 4, pp. 7–10.

116. Müller and Ueberschär, p. 160 (report from 1955 by Theodor Ellgering, who in 1945 was Geschäftsführer des Interministeriellen Luftkriegsausschusses der Reichsregierung in Berlin, on his impressions on entering Dresden immediately after the raid to organize the grim salvage operations).