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

19. Jürgen Förster, ‘Die Wehrmacht und das Ende des “Dritten Reichs”’, in Arnd Bauerkämper, Christoph Kleßmann and Hans Misselwitz (eds.), Der 8. Mai 1945 als historische Zäsur: Strukturen, Erfahrung, Deutungen, Potsdam, 1995, p. 57.

20. Kraus, ‘Karl Dönitz und das Ende des “Dritten Reiches”’, pp. 3–4, 8–11.

21. Heinrich Schwendemann, ‘ “Deutsche Menschen vor der Vernichtung durch den Bolschewismus zu retten”: Das Programm der Regierung Dönitz und der Beginn einer Legendenbildung’, in Hillmann and Zimmermann, p. 16.

22. BA/MA, N648/1, NL Dethleffsen, Erinnerungen, fo. 57.

23. Quoted in DRZW, 10/1 (Rahn), p. 55; see also, for Dönitz’s unquestioning loyalty to Hitler and his fanatical exhortations to fight on, pp. 57–60, 67.

24. IfZ, ZS 145, Schwerin von Krosigk, Bd. III, fo. 62, 7.12.62.

25. KTB/SKL, part A, vol. 68, pp. 333–4-A, Kriegstagebuch des Ob. d. M., 25.4.45. Dönitz had already a week earlier, at the Soviet breakthrough on the Oder front, provided naval forces for the fight on land.—Schwendemann, pp. 14–15.

26. BA/MA, RM7/851, Seekriegsleitung, fo. 169, Hitler to Dönitz, 29.4.45; Schwendemann, p. 15.

27. Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945, ed. Max Domarus, Wiesbaden, 1973, p. 2237.

28. Major-General Dethleffsen recalled shortly after the war his own lack of surprise since he had heard hints earlier in April from the Chief of the General Staff, Hans Krebs, that Dönitz was being viewed by Hitler as his successor. Others, however, according to Dethleffsen, were more taken by surprise at the appointment.—BA/MA, N648/1, NL Dethleffsen, Erinnerungen, fo. 57.

29. IWM, FO645/155, interrogation of Karl Dönitz, 12.9.45, pp. 19–20.

30. Karl Dönitz, Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days, Da Capo edn., New York, 1997, p. 442.

31. See Rolf-Dieter Müller and Gerd R. Ueberschär, Kriegsende 1945: Die Zerstörung des Deutschen Reiches, Frankfurt am Main, 1994, p. 101 and Kraus, ‘Karl Dönitz und das Ende des “Dritten Reiches”’, pp. 9, 11. It has, however, been suggested—if without supporting evidence—that Dönitz’s presumption that Hitler wanted him to pave the way for a capitulation might have been gleaned before the Grand-Admiral left for Plön, or from conversations with Himmler.—Jörg Hillmann, ‘Die “Reichsregierung” in Flensburg’, in Hillmann and Zimmermann, p. 41. Hitler’s desperate comment, during his temporary breakdown on 22 April, that there was no more fighting to be done—a view he swiftly revised—and that should it come to negotiations Göring would be better than he was, can scarcely be regarded as evidence for a mandate to come to terms with the enemy at his death. See Reimer Hansen, Das Ende des Dritten Reiches: Die deutsche Kapitulation 1945, Stuttgart, 1966, pp. 48–50; Walter Lüdde-Neurath, Regierung Dönitz: Die letzten Tage des Dritten Reiches, 5th edn., Leoni am Starnberger See, 1981, p. 46; Marlis Steinert, Die 23 Tage der Regierung Dönitz, Düsseldorf and Vienna, 1967, p. 45.

32. DRZW, 10/1 (Zimmermann), pp. 469–70; DRZW, 9/1 (Förster), p. 626; Schwendemann, p. 15.

33. See Hitler’s Testament: Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen, p. 2237 (not, however, known to Dönitz at the time).

34. Schwendemann, pp. 27–8.

35. IWM, FO645/158, interrogation of Wilhelm Keitel, 10.10.45, p. 27.

36. IfZ, ZS 1810, Großadmiral Karl Dönitz, Bd. II, fo. 55, interview for the Observer, 18.11.74.

37. One woman in Berlin wrote as late as 21 May that ‘there is still no certain news about Adolf’.—Anonyma, p. 221.

38. See Christian Goeschel, ‘Suicide at the End of the Third Reich’, Journal of Contemporary History, 41 (2006), pp. 153–73, and Goeschel’s monograph, Suicide in Nazi Germany, Oxford, 2009, ch. 5, for extensive analysis of the phenomenon. See also Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich at War, London, 2008, pp. 728–33.

39. Goeschel, Suicide in Nazi Germany, pp. 153–4.

40. Joseph Goebbels, Tagebücher 1945: Die letzten Aufzeichnungen, Hamburg, 1977, pp. 549, 556.

41. Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen, p. 2237.

42. Goeschel, ‘Suicide at the End of the Third Reich’, p. 155.

43. MadR, 17, p. 6737.

44. Goeschel, ‘Suicide at the End of the Third Reich’, p. 158; Jacob Kronika, Der Untergang Berlins, Flensburg, 1946, p. 41 (6.3.45): ‘Alle Berliner wissen, daß die Russen in Kürze in Berlin eindringen werden—und nun sehen sie keine andere Möglichkeit, als sich Zyankali zu verschaffen.’