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

Goebbels noted ‘extraordinary difficulties’ in the evacuation of the territories close to the Westwall and the population of the border districts being ‘thrown here and there’, but saw this as unavoidable at such a time of crisis.¹⁶ A few days later, acknowledging that the situation in Aachen had become ‘critical’, he advocated the principle of ‘scorched earth’ in the question of evacuation. With the future of the nation at stake, little consideration could be given to the people of the area.¹⁷ Goebbels was put fully in the picture—if in a scarcely unbiased account—about the ‘desolate situation’ and the evacuation of Aachen by the Gauleiter of Cologne-Aachen, Josef Grohé (whose authority had been badly damaged by the flight of his subordinates). Party and Wehrmacht had stood at loggerheads. The Party had left the city. A general chaos had ensued. ‘Unprecedented scenes’ had taken place on the roads eastwards from Aachen. The situation there and in Trier—whose centre (including the great hall of Emperor Constantine dating from the early fourth century) had been badly damaged by bombs in mid-August, and which in the night of 13/14 September was under sustained artillery attack—had to be regarded as ‘extremely serious’.¹⁸

Speer, returning from a visit to the region, where he had been driven through the masses streaming away, echoed the accounts of the ‘debacle’.¹⁹ The troops he had seen were exhausted. The newly established Volksgrenadier divisions contained many older recruits who could not cope with the physical demands. There was a big drop in the effective strength of the fighting forces and a growing crisis of confidence. Party functionaries labelled officers in general ‘criminals of 20 July’ and blamed them for the military setbacks in both east and west; soldiers themselves dubbed officers ‘saboteurs of the war’ and accused them of lack of fighting spirit. The troops had been badly affected by the mishandling of the evacuation of Aachen. The trains had been stopped without any notice and women, children and old people had been forced to leave on foot. Columns of refugees were to be seen everywhere, sleeping in the open air and blocking roads. There was a chronic shortage of munitions, weapons and fuel.²⁰ In the report he sent to Hitler, Speer noted the contrast between soldiers in shabby and tattered uniforms and Party functionaries in their gold-braided peacetime uniforms, the sarcastically dubbed ‘Golden Pheasants’ (Goldfasane), who had not been visible in organizing the evacuation of Aachen’s inhabitants or helping to reduce the misery of the refugees.²¹

Xaver Dorsch, one of Speer’s leading subordinates, in charge of fortifications, and offering his own impressions of a visit to the area on 12–13 September, commented on the damaging impression left by the botched evacuation, and how striking it had been that so few Party functionaries had bothered about the refugees. The unnecessary evacuation could, he thought, lead to a catastrophe if the Allied advance continued during subsequent days. He feared disintegration in the army through the anger stirred up by Party officials blaming Wehrmacht officers for the retreat in France.²²

Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of the Security Police, left Himmler in no doubt about the disastrous situation when he wrote at length in mid-September about the mood of the population during the evacuation and occupation of the western border regions. The evacuation in Luxemburg—annexed to the Reich in August 1942 and attached to the domain of the Gauleiter of Koblenz-Trier, Gustav Simon—had been carried out in an atmosphere of total panic. The Gauleiter’s measures had been overhasty, and the civilian administration had broken down. Following Simon’s order to evacuate, fortification work on the Westwall had ceased and the workers had left. The mood of these workers had in any case been poor. They had been badly organized by the Party officials, who had then set the worst kind of example by merely supervising but not working themselves. The failings of the Gau administration were evident in the evacuation of 14,500 citizens in the Saarburg district, where there was panic and chaos. The transport laid on was hopelessly insufficient. The lucky ones left by special train, some of the women, children and sick by bus. But most trudged away by foot, in long, wretched columns who occupied the roads for days, their possessions trailing along in horse-drawn wagons. Clothing, shoes and blankets for the evacuees were in short supply.