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

There was for the most part a sceptical response, to judge from reports on the reception of propaganda. There was a growing feeling that ‘we are being pressed into a hopeless defence’, and the announcement of the Volkssturm was often interpreted as confirmation of the exhaustion of Germany’s forces.⁴¹ Any early enthusiasm swiftly evaporated as doubts were raised about the military value of the Volkssturm and anxieties voiced that those serving would not be covered under the international conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war, but would be viewed as partisans.⁴² There were fears that they would be summarily executed on capture, and the enemy would take reprisals against the civilian population—views betraying knowledge of how the Germans had themselves behaved in the occupied territories.⁴³ The regime sought to allay the anxieties and define the duties of the Volkssturm within the Hague Convention of 1907. The fears were not baseless, however, as the treatment of captured Volkssturm men by the Red Army would highlight.⁴⁴ In any case, the frequent reluctance to serve in the Volkssturm was in vain. Over the next weeks, the Party’s organizational tentacles would reach far into German civilian life to drag into service hundreds of thousands of mainly middle-aged men, badly armed and poorly equipped. Few were fired by the fanaticism demanded by the regime’s leaders. However, they could rarely avoid service. Exemptions were hard to attain. And the Volkssturm’s commanders—many of whom had some background in the military and in the Party or its affiliates—were generally far more committed than the men they led to the ideals of the organization, however limited they were in ability and competence.⁴⁵ So detachment from Nazi ideals and fanaticism was not easy in this mammoth organization in the hands of the Party with a strength of 6 million men by the end of November and potentially embracing twice as many.⁴⁶ If only a fraction of this number was actually involved in combat, the further militarization and regimentation of civilian society was massive.

The military futility and pointless heavy loss of life among Volkssturm men in action would be fully laid bare in the first months of 1945. But in East Prussia, where Koch had proposed local militias as early as July, the Volkssturm would have an earlier baptism of fire. More than a week before Himmler’s announcement of its existence, the Volkssturm had its first taste of action in the outer suburbs of the fortified Baltic port of Memel (north of East Prussia, annexed by Germany in 1939). Two lightly armed companies of Volkssturm men in civilian clothes with only green armbands to distinguish them took heavy casualties as they helped to stave off weak Soviet attempts to break the defensive perimeter until regular troops could arrive to stabilize the position.⁴⁷

Little over a week later, the Volkssturm was in action again. This time it was within the borders of East Prussia. For on 16 October the Red Army crossed the German frontier into its easternmost region. It was the start of eleven days that would leave a searing mark on the mentalities of Germans in the eastern regions of the Reich—and not just there.

III