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

That extensive reserves of loyalist backing continued to exist in the face of increasingly extreme adversity is no surprise. The Nazi Party, making strenuous efforts to counter the losses in its ranks of those killed during service in the Wehrmacht, had around 8 million members—about a tenth of the population (a significantly higher proportion of adults)—in 1944.⁵⁵ Not all members, of course, were fervent activists or devoted followers. Increased pressure, for example on Hitler Youth groups, to join the Party as war fortunes went into steep descent was not guaranteed to produce fanatics for the cause. Even so, members, however they had come to join, had at least superficially shown some commitment to Hitler and the regime and, once in the Party, were more exposed than the rest of the population to demands to conform. The Party’s organizational tentacles stretched far into community life. The 42 regions (‘Gaue’), 808 districts, 28,376 local groups, 89,378 ‘cells’ and 397,040 ‘blocks’ into which Germany was divided by the Party’s administration ensured that not only members were subjected to invasive controls and routine surveillance. Besides the passive membership, there were the functionaries, who, even if they wanted to, could barely escape regular doses of indoctrination during their work for the Party. In July 1944, functionaries in full-time employment by the Party and its affiliates numbered 37,192 men and as many as 140,000 women, around 60,000 of those in the Nazi welfare organization, the NSV (Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt, National Socialist People’s Welfare). An estimated 3 million citizens served the Party in some unpaid capacity.⁵⁶

This army of apparatchiks constituted a major instrument of social and political control, usually working in close cooperation with the police and other forces of repression, so that for ordinary citizens the space to organize any form of oppositional behaviour was simply not available. Beyond that, however, the Party functionaries formed a still significant basis of the ‘charismatic community’ attached to Hitler’s leadership. Though Hitler’s popular appeal was in steep decline, the functionaries, who had in better times provided the core of Führer worshippers, were still less likely than most to break all allegiance. Beyond any lingering, if by now often diluted, devotion, the functionaries had long since pinned their colours to the mast. The Party had given them careers, social standing, privileges, financial advantages, and often—in varying degrees—some kind of power, if only at the local level, over their fellow citizens. Not a few felt they had no option but to stand or fall with the Party, and with Hitler, on account of their actions in earlier years. Some undoubtedly had bad consciences or at least qualms at possible post-war ‘revenge’ for their involvement in past events. Many had justified fears for a future without Hitler, for what might happen to them when their Party positions dissolved and what fate might hold for them should the enemy succeed in defeating and occuping the country. The higher the position, the greater the zealotry they had shown, the dirtier their hands, the more cause they had to worry. This meant in turn that they had little or nothing to lose as the end approached.

For the present, however, other than in the perimeter regions touching on the fighting zone, the Party showed no outward signs of crumbling. In fact, its revitalization by Martin Bormann in the second half of 1944 meant that it played a significant role in bolstering the home front. Its activities formed part of an increasingly frenzied effort by the regime to overcome huge and mounting difficulties. And, for the time being, the effort had some success in staving off complete military catastrophe and keeping Germany fighting—at enormous cost in death and destruction.

IV

The impetus behind the appointment of Goebbels as Plenipotentiary for Total War, triggered by the failed bomb plot, had been the destruction of Army Group Centre in the Red Army’s offensive in late June and July. No sooner had the programme been initiated than the additional grave losses through the collapse of the western front in August added massively to the demands for huge labour savings, already targeted, to provide men for the front. Goebbels had provided 300,000 men by 1 September. But Hitler now wanted another 450,000 men during the following month.⁵⁷ The new circumstances brought the breakdown in the earlier coalition of interests between Goebbels and Speer which had prompted Hitler to agree to the total-war effort. From late August onwards, as the implications of the disaster on the western front became plain, Goebbels and Speer were increasingly at loggerheads.