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

65. The ‘Tagesniederschriften’, taken down by Dönitz’s adjutant, Korvettenkapitän Walter Lüdde-Neurath, exist in BA/MA, N374/8, NL Friedeburg with copies in IWM, EDS, F.3, AL2893. They are quoted here from the printed version in Die Niederlage 1945, p. 421 (2.5.45). Hillmann sees Dönitz’s attempt to work through partial capitulations as continuity rather than ‘a new characteristic of policy’, since most of Hitler’s paladins had at one time or another tried to gain a ‘separate peace’ or partial capitulation. This overlooks the fact that, before Hitler’s death, such actions remained ‘unofficial’, undertaken behind his back, or were blocked at the outset, whereas once Dönitz became head of state they became overnight official policy.—Hillmann, pp. 48–9. Dönitz repeated in a statement soon after the end of the war that he regarded an immediate total capitulation as impossible for Germany. The horror at what the Soviets had done was so strong that an immediate general capitulation, abandoning the soldiers in the east and the refugee civilian population to the Red Army, ‘would have been a crime against my German people’, and the order would not have been followed by German troops, who would have continued to try to fight their way to the west.—IfZ, ZS 1810, Karl Dönitz, Bd. II, ‘Kriegsende 1945’, 22.7.45, fo. 3.

66. DZW, 6, p. 426.

67. NAL, Premier 3/221/12, nos. 3736–7, fos. 413–15, Churchill to Eden, 16.4.45, fos. 392–3, Eisenhower to Combined Chiefs of Staff, 23.4.45, fo. 361, Eisenhower to Combined Chiefs of Staff, 1.5.45. See also Bob Moore, ‘The Western Allies and Food Relief to the Occupied Netherlands, 1944–45’, War and Society, 10 (1992), pp. 106–9. I am grateful to Bob Moore for providing me with these references.

68. Die Niederlage 1945, pp. 421 (2.5.45), 425 (3.5.45); BAB, R3/1625, fos. 4–5, Blaskowitz to Lüdde-Neurath, n.d. (30.4.45; the original telex in BA/MA, RM7/854, fo. 177, has no date, though 30.4 is pencilled in the top right-hand corner); Seyß-Inquart ‘an den Führer’ (i.e. to Dönitz), 2.5.45. For Blaskowitz’s stance in the last days of the war, see John Zimmermann, Pflicht zum Untergang: Die deutsche Kriegführung im Westen des Reiches 1944/45, Paderborn, 2009, pp. 340–41.

69. Keitel pointed out that the news took Dönitz by surprise but that he supported it.—BA/MA, N54/8, NL Keitel, ‘Die letzten Tage unter Adolf Hitler’, fo. 20.

70. BA/MA, N574/19, NL Vietinghoff, ‘Kriegsende in Italien’ (1948), fo. 45; also Förster, p. 56.

71. BA/MA, N574/19, NL Vietinghoff, ‘Kriegsende in Italien’ (1948), fos. 53–4.

72. IWM, EDS, F.3, M.I. 14/284 (A), Kaltenbrunner to Hitler, 1.5.45.

73. DZW, 6, pp. 152–3.

74. BA/MA, N574/19, NL Vietinghoff, ‘Kriegsende in Italien’, fos. 56–9.

75. IWM, EDS, F.3, M.I. 14/284 (A), Kesselring to Dönitz, Keitel and Deputy Chief, Wehrmacht Operations Staff, General Winter, 2.5.45.

76. BA/MA, N574/19, NL Vietinghoff, ‘Kriegsende in Italien’ (1948), fos. 60–62. For Kesselring’s account, see The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring, Greenhill Books edn., London, 1997, pp. 288–9. See also, for the capitulation in Italy, DZW, 6, pp. 749–52; DRZW, 10/1 (Zimmermann), p. 472.

77. BA/MA, RW44II/3, fo. 20, Winter to Jodl, 2.5.45.

78. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 423 (2.5.45); Schwendemann, p. 18.

79. BA/MA, RM7/854, fo. 13, for Dönitz’s order for the capitulation of the city, issued the previous day, 2 May.

80. BA/MA, RM7/854, fos. 33, 36, reports of Kdr. Adm. Deutsche Bucht, 4.5.45. Serious disintegration within the 3rd Panzer Army in Mecklenburg had already been reported on 27 April by General Hasso von Manteuffel, who spoke of scenes which he had not even seen in 1918.—1945: Das Jahr der endgültigen Niederlage der faschistischen Wehrmacht, pp. 343–4; DRZW, 10/1 (Lakowski), p. 655.

81. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 429 (5.5.45); BA/MA, RM7/854, fo. 24, for the earlier confirmation order of 3.5.45 to scuttle ships. A directive had already been issued on 30 April that ‘in the event of an unforeseen development of the situation’ on the codeword ‘Rainbow’, all ships, including U-boats, were immediately to be sunk. The demand to hand over all weapons, including U-boats, was seen by Keitel and Jodl as incompatible with German honour. Dönitz accepted the demand only with extreme reluctance. Some 185 U-boats were, in fact, scuttled by their commanders with the Dönitz administration turning a blind eye, before the order to hand them over could take effect.—KTB/SKL, part A, vol. 68, p. 421A, Funksprüche der Skl., 3.5.45; Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, ‘Persönliche Erinnerungen’, part 2: ‘25 Jahre Berlin 1920 bis 1945’, unpublished typescript, n.d., p. 324; DRZW, 10/1 (Rahn), pp. 166–7.