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

85. See, for example, the good local study by Herfried Münkler, Machtzerfall: Die letzten Tage des Dritten Reiches dargestellt am Beispiel der hessischen Kreisstadt Friedberg, Berlin, 1985.

86. Heinz Petzold, ‘Cottbus zwischen Januar und Mai 1945’, in Werner Stang and Kurt Arlt (eds.), Brandenburg im Jahr 1945, Potsdam, 1995, pp. 121–4.

87. Norbert Buske (ed.), Die kampflose Übergabe der Stadt Greifswald im April 1945, Schwerin, 1993, pp. 15–30, 37.

88. Henke, pp. 843–4; Zimmermann, Pflicht, pp. 360, 363.

89. Paul Sauer, Württemberg in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Ulm, 1975, pp. 492–4; Andreas Förschler, Stuttgart 1945: Kriegsende und Neubeginn, Gudensberg-Gleichen, 2004, pp. 8–19; Jill Stephenson, ‘ “Resistance” to “No Surrender”: Popular Disobedience in Württemberg in 1945’, in Francis R. Nicosia and Lawrence D. Stokes (eds.), Germans against Nazism, Oxford and Providence, RI, 1990, pp. 357–8; Jill Stephenson, Hitler’s Home Front: Württemberg under the Nazis, London, 2006, pp. 324–5.

90. Hildebrand Troll, ‘Aktionen zur Kriegsbeendigung im Frühjahr 1945’, in Martin Broszat, Elke Fröhlich and Anton Grossmann (eds.), Bayern in der NS-Zeit, vol. 4, Munich and Vienna, 1981, pp. 650–54; Fritz, pp. 140–49.

91. Serger, Böttcher and Ueberschär, pp. 255–7, diary entry of Gertrud Neumeister, 17.4.45.

92. See Henke, pp. 844–61; Fritz, ch. 5; Elisabeth Kohlhaas, ‘ “Aus einem Haus, aus dem eine weiße Fahnen erscheint, sind alle männlichen Personen zu erschießen”: Durchhalteterror und Gewalt gegen Zivilisten am Kriegsende 1945’, in Cord Arendes, Edgar Wolfrum and Jörg Zedler (eds.), Terror nach Innen: Verbrechen am Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges, Göttingen, 2006, pp. 51–79; Egbert Schwarz, ‘Die letzten Tage des Dritten Reiches: Untersuchung zu Justiz und NS-Verbrechen in der Kriegsendphase März/April 1945’, MA thesis, University of Düsseldorf, 1990, pp. 14–19, 23–7, 35–8 (a regional study of Northern Rhineland-Westphalia); and DZW, 6, pp. 652–4, for numerous examples.

93. Troll, p. 652; Fritz, p. 146.

94. Zeitzeugen berichten… Schwäbisch Gmünd, pp. 43, 49, 77, 83–4; Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 2, ed. Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann and C. F. Rüter, Amsterdam, 1969, pp. 77–101; Albert Deible, Krieg und Kriegsende in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Schwäbisch Gmünd, 1954, pp. 26–8, 34–5, 66–8; Kohlhaas, p. 51.

95. Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 1, ed. Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann and C. F. Rüter, Amsterdam, 1968, pp. 505–29; Henke, pp. 848–9; Kohlhaas, p. 51, has fourteen victims, though this figure must include those shot at but not actually hit. As in so many cases, the Kreisleiter had given the order ‘to defend the town to the last drop of blood’, whereas most people were wholly opposed to such a stance.—Robert Bauer, Heilbronner Tagebuchblätter, Heilbronn, 1949, p. 46. Drauz was executed in 1946, his main accomplice sentenced to fifteen years in a penitentiary. For Drauz, notable for his fanaticism, see also Stephenson, Hitler’s Home Front, pp. 332–3.

96. Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 10, ed. Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann, H. H. Fuchs and C. F. Rüter, Amsterdam, 1973, pp. 205–40; Henke, pp. 851–3.

97. BBC Archives, The Nazis: A Warning from History (1997), written and produced for BBC2 by Laurence Rees, interview of Walter Fernau by Detlef Siebert, n.d., c. 1997, roll 219, pp. 211, 213; roll 221, pp. 352–3. See also the book of the series: Laurence Rees, The Nazis: A Warning from History, London, 1997, pp. 232–4 and 247. Much of the lengthy interview (rolls 217–21, 403pp., in German, with English translation) gives Fernau’s own account of the operation of Helm’s ‘flying court martial’ and the trial and execution of Karl Weiglein. Fernau was sentenced in 1952 to six years in a penitentiary for his part in the affair (and in a further case).

98. Jürgen Zarusky, ‘Von der Sondergerichtsbarkeit zum Endphasenterror: Loyalitätserzwingung und Rache am Widerstand im Zusammenbruch des NS-Regimes’, in Arendes, Wolfrum and Zedler, pp. 116–17; Andreas Heusler, ‘Die Eskalation des Terrors: Gewalt gegen ausländische Zwangsarbeiter in der Endphase des Zweiten Weltkrieges’, in Arendes, Wolfrum and Zedler, p. 180.

99. Zarusky, p. 113.