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

21. BAB, NS6/169, fos. 115–21, Guderian to Bormann, 26.2.45; Bericht des Dienstleiters der Partei-Kanzlei, Pg. Mauer, undated. The characteristic demeaning of General Staff officers, part of the standard reportage of Party propagandists, is repeated, for example, in NS6/374, fo. 18, report to Dr Gerhard Klopfer, head of Abteilung III (Staatliche Angelegenheitern) in the Party Chancellery, by Oberleutnant Koller, part of the Sondereinsatz team, 16.3.45, and in NS6/140, fos. 44–5, Vorlage for Bormann, signed by Willi Ruder, 6.3.45, offering critical comments on General Staff officers attending an NSFO course in Egerndorf. Even Goebbels rejected the constant attempt to make Wehrmacht officers the scapegoats for the military defeats of the previous two years as a crass oversimplification, with harmful consequences for the authority of officers.—TBJG, II/15, p. 406 (3.3.45). The Party Chancellery itself thought the repeated talk about sabotage and failure of officers (which for long it had promoted) had to be halted if trust between the Party leadership and the Wehrmacht was to be improved.—NS6/137, fo. 27, Vorlage for Bormann, 7.3.45.

22. BAB, NS19/2068, fos. 57, 65, Meldungen aus dem Ostraum, 15.3.45 (includes reports from Danzig, Stettin and Küstrin); in addition, for Küstrin, NS6/135, fos. 190, 192–8, part of a long report for Borman from the Kreisleiter of Küstrin-Königsberg, 5.4.45.

23. BAB, NS6/354, fos. 100–101^v, Bormann: Rundschreiben 156/45g, Plünderungen durch deutsche Soldaten in geräumten Gebieten, to Gauleiter and other Party functionaries, 24.3.45, attaching a copy of Keitel’s order of 8.3.45 threatening punishment by court martial for any soldier suspected of looting. See also NS6/135, fo. 83, Pg. Noack (of Abt. IIF of the Party Chancellery, Arbeitsstab für NS-Führungsfragen) to NS-Führungsstab der Wehrmacht, reporting complaints about plundering of property by soldiers, 14.3.45; and fo. 199, Vermerk für Pg. Stosch, re plundering, 19.3.45.

24. DZW, 6, pp. 549–50; Sönke Neitzel, Abgehört: Deutsche Generäle in britischer Kriegsgefangenschaft 1942–1945, Berlin, 2005, p. 190, 9.3.45 (Eng. edn., Tapping Hitler’s Generals: Transcripts of Secret Conversations, 1942–45, Barnsley, 2007, pp. 141–2).

25. BAB, NS6/135, fos. 79, 97, Erfahrungs- und Stimmungsberichte über die Haltung von Wehrmacht und Bevölkerung, 23.3.45, 29.3.45.

26. BfZ, Sammlung Sterz, O’Wm. Peter B., 9.3.45.

27. Henke, p. 806 and n. 132.

28. BAB, R55/601, fos. 295–7, Tätigkeitsbericht, weekly propaganda reports, 21.3.45.

29. BAB, NS6/169, fos. 4–9, Bericht des Hauptgemeinschaftsleiters Twittenhoff über den Sondereinsatz der Partei-Kanzlei in Hessen-Nassau, for period 24–30.3.45. The consequence of providing a realistic description was the recommendation that Twittenhoff was not suitable for further work in the ‘Special Action’ of the Party Chancellery.

30. BAB, NS6/169, fo. 49, Vorlage an Reichsleiter Bormann, 19.3.45; fo. 51, Sprenger to Bormann, 14.3.45.

31. DZW, 6, pp. 550–51; 1945: Das Jahr der endgültigen Niederlage der faschistischen Wehrmacht. Dokumente, ed. Gerhard Förster and Richard Lakowski, Berlin, 1975, pp. 212–14, Staff of Army Group G to Gauleiter Gustav Simon about signs of a hostile attitude towards German troops and flight, in drunken condition, of the Volkssturm at the attack of the Americans on Trier. For further examples of a negative stance of the civilian population towards the Wehrmacht—even one case, in Göttingen, when civilians were said to have fired on their own tanks—see John Zimmermann, Pflicht zum Untergang: Die deutsche Kriegführung im Westen des Reiches 1944/45, Paderborn, 2009, p. 75.

32. BAB, NS6/51, fos. 1–3, Letter from Hauptmann Heinz Thieme, Pzjäger Abt. 246, SD agent, Abt. Ostland, to Bormann, 15.3.45.

33. Marlis Steinert, Hitlers Krieg und die Deutschen, Düsseldorf and Vienna, 1970, p. 559; Neitzel, Abgehört, p. 190 (9.3.45) (Eng. edn., Tapping Hitler’s Generals, p. 141). See also Saul K. Padover, Psychologist in Germany: The Story of an American Intelligence Officer, London, 1946, pp. 219, 230, 270, for his experiences of defeatist attitudes and Germans welcoming the arrival of the Americans.

34. See John Zimmermann, ‘Die Kämpfe gegen die Westalliierten 1945—ein Kampf bis zum Ende oder die Kreierung einer Legende?’ in Jörg Hillmann and John Zimmermann (eds.), Kriegsende 1945 in Deutschland, Munich, 2002, pp. 130–31.

35. TBJG, II/15, p. 406 (3.3.45).