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

117. BA/MA, NL Schörner, N60/18, unfoliated, proclamation by Schörner to soldiers of Army Group Centre, 5.5.45; printed in Roland Kaltenegger, Schörner: Feldmarschall der letzten Stunde, Munich and Berlin, 1994, pp. 297–8.

118. In a case that raised great public interest, with much support for Schörner as well as heated criticism of his actions, the former field-marshal was found guilty in October 1957 of condemning to death without a court, then the hanging, of a corporal said to have fallen asleep, drunk, at the wheel of his lorry in March 1945. He was sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment, of which he served two before being released on health grounds. The Federal Republic refused him a pension. He lived a secluded existence in Munich supported by friends and former military comrades, until his death in 1973 at the age of eighty-one.—Peter Steinkamp, ‘Generalfeldmarschall Ferdinand Schörner’, in Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.), Hitlers militärische Elite, vol. 2: Von Kriegsbeginn bis zum Weltkriegsende, Darmstadt, 1998, pp. 240–42; Klaus Schönherr, ‘Ferdinand Schörner—Der idealtypische Nazi-General’, in Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring (eds.), Die Militärelite des Dritten Reiches, Berlin, 1995, pp. 506–7. See also, for the controversy around Schörner’s trial, Kaltenegger, Schörner, pp. 330–54.

119. DZW, 6, p. 767; DRZW, 10/1 (Lakowski), p. 673; Schwendemann, p. 31; Sebastian Siebel-Achenbach, Lower Silesia from Nazi Germany to Communist Poland, 1942–49, London, 1994, pp. 77–8.

120. BA/MA, NL Schörner, N60/74, ‘Mein Verhalten bei der Kapitulation im Mai 1945’ and ‘Zur Vorgeschichte der Kapitulation’, both 10.3.58.

121. Steinkamp, p. 238. Kaltenegger, Schörner, pp. 306–7, 315, supports Schörner’s own account. See also Roland Kaltenegger, Operation ‘Alpenfestung’: Das letzte Geheimnis des ‘Dritten Reiches’, Munich, 2005, pp. 336–46.

122. One ordinary soldier in Schörner’s army noted in his diary how he and a few comrades were ordered out of the lorry in which they were leaving, desperately trying to reach the Americans after the dissolution of his unit had been determined. The staff officers of his company then climbed in and drove off. ‘We are the cheated ones,’ the soldier concluded.—Granzow, p. 179 (9.5.45).

123. Schwendemann, p. 27.

124. DRZW, 10/1 (Lakowski), p. 677. According to a report for the navy leadership, ships shuttling backwards and forwards across the Baltic ferried out between 11 and 17 May 109,205 soldiers, 6,887 wounded and 5,379 civilian refugees.—BA/MA, RM7/854, fo. 333, Lage Ostsee, 18.5.45.

125. Müller and Ueberschär, pp. 107–8.

126. DRZW, 10/2 (Overmans), pp. 502–3.

127. See Schwendemann, p. 27.

128. Neitzel, Abgehört, p. 49.

129. KTB/OKW, vol. 4/2, pp. 1281–2 (9.5.45); repr. in Müller and Ueberschär, p. 181; Die Wehrmachtberichte 1939–1945, vol. 3: 1. Januar 1944 bis 9. Mai 1945, Munich, 1989, p. 569 (9.5.45).

130. Dönitz, p. 471.

131. Die Niederlage 1945, pp. 440, 445 (12.5.45, 15.5.45). Dönitz was still insisting on 18 May that there should be no concession to Allied demands to remove ‘emblems of sovereignty’ from German military uniforms.—1945: Das Jahr der endgültigen Niederlage der faschistischen Wehrmacht, pp. 411–13.

132. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 439 (11.5.45).

133. Speer, pp. 499–500, for a description of the continued Dönitz administration; Die Niederlage 1945, pp. 433–49, for the entries in Dönitz’s diary on the workings of his administration between 8.5.45 and 17.5.45.

134. Die Niederlage 1945, p. 446 (16.5.45). For the continuity in Dönitz’s political ideas, see Steinert, pp. 283–6, and also Lüdde-Neurath, p. 81.

135. BAB, R3/1624, fos. 10–13, Speer to Krosigk, 15.5.45; Dönitz, p. 471; and see Matthias Schmidt, Albert Speer: Das Ende eines Mythos, Berne and Munich, 1982, pp. 167–71.

136. Speer, p. 500.

137. IWM, EDS, F.3., M.I. 14/950, memorandum of Stuckart, 22.5.45; Die Niederlage 1945, pp. 433–5, 441–2 (8.5.45, 12.5.45) for discussions of Dönitz’s resignation. See also Dönitz, p. 472.