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

The regime’s unfolding of bureaucratic, controlling energy at all levels was little short of astonishing. Orders poured out. Every official, however minor, groaned under the suffocating load of paperwork on the desk (despite efforts to save paper).⁵⁵ The Reich Post Minister wrote to all the offices of state, at both Reich and regional levels, complaining bitterly that the postal system was greatly overburdened through the increase in bureaucracy. ‘A swelling mass of communications like an avalanche’ was how he described it, at precisely a time when the damage to the rail network and postal installations, together with loss of personnel to the Wehrmacht, had gravely affected the efficiency of the service.⁵⁶ His urgent entreaties to reduce the level of post fell on deaf ears.

More and more was controlled, orchestrated, regulated, ordained, militarized, directed and organized, yet less and less resulted from all the effort—except, crucially, the stifling of all remaining limited levels of personal free space in the system. If ‘total society’ has a meaning in the sense that little or nothing not subjected to regime control existed any longer, and that opinion deviating from the official stance could be openly expressed only at great personal risk, then Germany towards the end of 1944 was approaching such a state.

As living conditions worsened drastically under the pounding from Allied bombs, the pressure on the population intensified. The total-war effort, for instance, far from subsiding after the extreme exertions of the late summer, redoubled its attempt in the autumn to dredge up all possible remaining reserves of manpower for the Wehrmacht. Goebbels pointed out at the beginning of November that by this time 900,000 extra men had been provided for the Wehrmacht. But he admitted it was not enough. The losses in the previous three months had numbered 1.2 million. He wanted Hitler’s support for pressing a reluctant Speer to surrender more men from the armaments sector. Speer eventually agreed to give up 30,000 men, though only temporarily until they could be redeployed once the transport situation had improved. Goebbels could not accept the condition, so the matter was left to be resolved by Hitler. As so often, no decision was forthcoming.⁵⁷

More important for Goebbels, however, was for him to have authority from Hitler to ‘comb out’ the Wehrmacht for additional personnel to be sent to the front, as he had done earlier in the civilian sector. He finally managed to gain Hitler’s signature to a decree to this effect on 10 December. Goebbels felt revitalized, bursting with new energy, and determined to overcome all opposition within the army itself to raise new forces for Hitler. He expected—once more working through a small directing staff and the Gauleiter at the regional level—to attain very positive results in the New Year. He was convinced that only his total-war drive had made the coming western offensive at all possible. He now hoped, he said, to be able to give the Führer the basis of an offensive army in the east, as the ‘combing out’ of the civilian sector had provided one for the west.⁵⁸

It was, of course, wishful thinking. But in these weeks Goebbels veered between an evident sense of realism about Germany’s plight, brought home to him most forcefully through the destruction of one German city after another through Allied bombing (which, unlike Hitler, he saw at first hand in visits to bombed-out localities), and continued hope that willpower, shored up by propaganda, would sustain the fight, whatever the odds, until the shaky enemy coalition cracked. ‘The political crisis in the enemy camp grows daily’ was only one of repeated assertions that the internal divisions, and the losses they were suffering, would split the coalition before long.⁵⁹ Numerous diary entries hint at scepticism about Germany’s position. And when he viewed the impressive new, highly modern U-boats being built in Bremen at the end of November, he sighed despairingly that it was all too late.⁶⁰ Yet he had far from given up hope. Following a long talk with Hitler—lasting deep into the night—a few days later, when the embattled Führer exuded confidence, expounded excitedly on the forthcoming offensive and envisioned a grandiose rebuilding of German cities and revitalization of culture after the war, Goebbels was so excited that he could not sleep.⁶¹ He was still, as he always had been, in thrall to Hitler.