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

2. For destruction in the Tiergarten and Grunewald and the nightly activity in the city (‘eine hektische Genußsucht’), see the diary entries of the Danish correspondent Jacob Kronika, Der Untergang Berlins, Flensburg, 1946, pp. 79, 91, 98–9, 149 (30.3.45, 7.4.45, 10.4.45, 23.4.45). A description—though perhaps drawing in part on distorted memory—of Berlin, shortly before the Soviet attack, can be found in IWM, ‘Second World War Memoirs of P. E. v. Stemann’, Berlin correspondent between 1942 and 1945 of the Danish newspaper Berlinske Tidende, fos. 236–7. Vivid depictions of the city in April 1945 are provided by David Clay Large, Berlin, New York, 2000, pp. 358–9, and Roger Moorhouse, Berlin at War: Life and Death in Hitler’s Capital 1939–45, London, 2010, pp. 365–9.

3. Goebbels remarked in his diary on the emptiness of Berlin’s streets at Easter 1945 (TBJG, II/15, p. 668, 5.4.45).

4. Quoted in Moorhouse, p. 367.

5. TBJG, II/15, p. 692.

6. A fitting term, used by Hans Mommsen, ‘The Dissolution of the Third Reich: Crisis Management and Collapse, 1943–1945’, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, Washington DC, 27 (2000), p. 20, and Stephen G. Fritz, Endkampf: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Death of the Third Reich, Lexington, Ky., 2004, ch. 5.

7. DZW, 6, p. 561; and NAL, WO219/1651, fo. 145, SHAEF digests of post-war interrogations of Jodl and Kesselring, 23.5.45.

8. American losses in the battle for the Ruhr totalled around 10,000 men.—DZW, 6, p. 564.

9. For the behaviour of French troops, see Heinrich Schwendemann, ‘Das Kriegsende in Ostpreußen und in Südbaden im Vergleich’, in Bernd Martin (ed.), Der Zweite Weltkrieg und seine Folgen: Ereignisse—Auswirkungen—Reflexionen, Freiburg, 2006, pp. 101, 104; and Richard Bessel, Germany 1945: From War to Peace, London, 2009, pp. 116–17, 158–9. Evidently, the very skin colour of the North African soldiers in the French army gave rise to great anxiety among the population which had often never before seen other than white people. This may have led to exaggeration of the numbers of rapes said to have been perpetrated by ‘colonial’ troops. Numerous parish reports indicating rape and looting—though there were many cases where none were reported—are contained in Josef F. Göhri, Die Franzosen kommen! Kriegsereignisse im Breisgau und in der Ortenau, Horb am Neckar, 2005, pp. 17, 24–5, 43, 46, 50, 53, 60, 82, 88, 91, 94, 98, 119, 124–5; and Hermann Riedel, Halt! Schweizer Grenze!, Konstanz, 1983, pp. 233, 237–8, 263, 305 (where more than 200 cases were mentioned). See also Bernd Serger, Karin-Anne Böttcher and Gerd R. Ueberschär (eds.), Südbaden unter Hakenkreuz und Trikolore: Zeitzeugen berichten über das Kriegsende und die französische Besetzung 1945, Freiburg in Breisgau, Berlin and Vienna, 2006, pp. 253, 257, 269, 311–25; Manfred Bosch, Der Neubeginn: Aus deutscher Nachkriegszeit. Südbaden 1945–1950, Konstanz, 1988, p. 34; Der deutsche Südwesten zur Stunde Null, ed. Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, 1975, pp. 102–3; Paul Sauer, Demokratischer Neubeginn in Not und Elend: Das Land Württemberg-Baden von 1945 bis 1952, Ulm, 1979, pp. 18–20; Von der Diktatur zur Besatzung: Das Kriegsende 1945 im Gebiet des heutigen Landkreises Sigmaringen, ed. Landkreis Sigmaringen, Sigmaringen, 1995, pp. 92–3.

10. The above, where not otherwise indicated, is based on DZW, 6, pp. 561–71; DRZW, 10/1 (Zimmermann), pp. 443–60; Fritz, chs. 3–6; Lothar Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, pb. edn., Munich, 1975, pp. 425–32; The Oxford Companion to the Second World War, ed. I. C. B. Dear and M. R. D. Foot, Oxford, 1995, pp. 481–5; Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944–45, London, 2004, pp. 481–502.