Berlin: The Downfall 1945

loyalty.’

Such fanaticism was becoming rare, as senior members of the SS recognized with alarm. On 12 February, Obergruppenfuhrer Berger reported to Himmler that the organization was becoming thoroughly disliked both by the civil population and by the army, which strongly resented its ‘marked uncomradely attitude’. The army, he concluded, was ‘no longer on speaking terms with the SS’.

Even SS volunteers felt enthusiasm dissolving when they reached the Oderbruch, a dreary expanse of waterlogged fields and dykes. ‘We’re at the end of the world!’ one of the group earmarked for the 30. Januar announced. They were even more dispirited to find that this new formation had no tanks or assault guns. ‘This is no division,’ the same man remarked, ‘it’s a heap that’s just been scraped together.’ Because of his unhealed wounds, Baumgart was attached as a clerk to divisional headquarters, which was established in a requisitioned farmhouse. The young wife of a farmer, who was serving somewhere else, watched in a daze as their furniture was manhandled out of the parlour and field telephones and typewriters were installed. The new inhabitants soon discovered, however, that the tile-roof of the farmhouse provided a clearly visible target for Soviet artillery.

Baumgart found himself hunched over one of the typewriters, bashing out reports of interviews with three Red Army deserters. They had apparently decided to cross to the German lines after being made to wade through the icy waters of the Oder, carrying their divisional commander on their shoulders to keep him dry. The Volga German interpreters at divisional headquarters later read out articles from captured copies of Pravda. The communique published at the end of the Yalta conference described what the allies intended to do with Germany. The idea of defeat appalled Baumgart and his comrades. ‘We simply have to win in the end!’ they said to themselves.

On 9 February 1945, the anti-Soviet renegade General Andrey Vlasov, with Himmler’s encouragement, threw his headquarters security battalion into the bridgehead battle. This Russian battalion, as part of the Doberitz Division, attacked the Soviet 230th Rifle Division in the bridgehead just north of Kustrin. Vlasov’s guard battalion fought well, even though the attempt was unsuccessful. The German propaganda account described them as fighting with ‘enthusiasm and fanaticism’, proving themselves as close-quarter combat specialists. They were supposedly given the nickname ‘Panzerknacker’ by admiring German units, but this may well have been the touch of a popular journalist turned propagandist. Their commander, Colonel Zakharov, and four men received the Iron Cross second class, and the Reichsfuhrer SS himself sent a message to congratulate Vlasov ‘with comradely greetings’ on the fact that his guard battalion had ‘fought quite outstandingly well’.

Such marks of favour to those who had previously been categorized and treated as Untermenschen was a good indication of Nazi desperation, even if Hitler himself still disapproved. On 12 February, Goebbels received a delegation of Cossacks ‘as the first volunteers on our side in the battle against Bolshevism’. They were even treated to a bottle of ‘Weissbier’ in his offices. Goebbels praised the Cossacks, calling them ‘a freedom-loving people of warrior-farmers’. Unfortunately, their freedom-loving ways in north Italy brought to Berlin bitter complaints about their treatment of the population in the Friuli district from the German adviser for civil affairs. The Cossacks, however, refused to have anything to do with Vlasov and his ideas of old Russian supremacy, as did most of the SS volunteers from national minorities.

The Fuhrer’s response to the onrush of Soviet tank brigades towards Berlin had been to order the establishment of a Panzerjagd Division, but in typical Nazi style, this impressive-sounding organization for destroying tanks failed to live up to its title. It consisted of bicycle companies mainly from the Hitler Youth. Each bicyclist was to carry two panzerfaust anti-tank launchers clamped upright either side of the front wheel and attached to the handlebars. The bicyclist was supposed to be able to dismount in a moment and be ready for action against a T-34 or Stalin tank. Even the Japanese did not expect their kamikazes to ride into battle on a bicycle.

Himmler talked about the panzerfaust as if it were another miracle weapon, akin to the V-2. He enthused about how wonderful it was for close-quarter fighting against tanks, but any sane soldier given the choice would have preferred an 88mm gun to take on Soviet tanks at a distance of half a kilometre. Himmler was almost apoplectic about rumours that the panzerfaust could not penetrate enemy armour. Such a story, he asserted, was ‘ein absoluter Schwindel!’.

With the enemy so close, it appears that the Nazi leadership had started to consider the possibility of suicide. The headquarters of Gau Berlin issued an order that ‘political leaders’ were to receive top priority for firearms certificates. And a senior executive in a pharmaceutical company told Ursula von Kardorff and a friend of hers that a ‘Golden Pheasant’ had appeared in his laboratory demanding a supply of poison for the Reich Chancellery.

Hitler and his associates now finally found themselves closer to the very violence of war which they had unleashed. Revenge for the recent executions of men associated with the July plot arrived in unexpected form less than two weeks after the event. On the morning of 3 February, there were exceptionally heavy US Air Force raids on Berlin. Some 3,000 Berliners died. The newspaper district, as well as other areas, was almost totally destroyed. Allied bombs also found Nazi targets. The Reich Chancellery and the Party Chancellery were hit and both Gestapo headquarters in the Prinz-Albrechtstrasse and the People’s Court were badly damaged. Roland Freisler, the President of the People’s Court, who had screamed at the accused July plotters, was crushed to death sheltering in its cellars. The news briefly cheered dejected resistance circles, but rumours that concentration camps and prisons had been mined made them even more alarmed for relatives and friends in detention. Their only hope was that Himmler might keep them as bargaining counters. Martin Bormann in his diary wrote of the day’s air raid: ‘Suffered from bombing: new Reich Chancellery, the hell of Hitler’s apartments, the dining room, the winter garden and the Party Chancellery.’ He seems to have been concerned only with the monuments of Nazism. No mention was made of civilian casualties.

The most important event on Tuesday 6 February, according to. Bormann’s diary, was Eva Braun’s birthday. Hitler, apparently, was ‘in a radiant mood’, watching her dance with others. As usual, Bormann was conferring privately with Kaltenbrunner. On 7 February, Gauleiter Koch, apparently forgiven for having abandoned Konigsberg after all his orders to shoot those who left their place of duty, had discussions with Hitler. That evening, Bormann dined at the Fegeleins. One of the guests was Heinrich Himmler, whom he, Fegelein and Kaltenbrunner were seeking to undermine. The situation at the front was disastrous, yet Himmler, although commander-in-chief of Army Group Vistula, felt able to relax away from his headquarters. After supper Bormann and Fegelein talked with Eva Braun. The subject was probably her departure from Berlin, for Hitler wanted her out of danger. The next night she held a small farewell party for Hitler, Bormann and the Fegeleins. She left for Berchtesgaden the following evening, Friday 9 February, with her sister Gretl Fegelein. Hitler made sure that Bormann escorted them to the train.

Bormann, the Reichsleiter of the National Socialist Party, whose Gauleiters had in most cases stopped the evacuation of women and children until it was too late, never mentions in his diary those fleeing in panic from the eastern regions. The incompetence with which they handled the refugee crisis was chilling, yet in the case of the Nazi hierarchy it is often hard to tell where irresponsibility ended and inhumanity began. In an ‘Evacuation Situation’ report of 10 February, they suddenly realized that with 800,000 civilians still to be rescued from the Baltic coast, and with trains and ships taking an average of 1,000 people each, ‘There are neither enough vessels, rolling stock nor vehicles at our disposal.’ Yet there was no question of Nazi leaders giving up their luxurious ‘special trains’.

6. East and West

On the morning of 2 February, just as the first German counter-attacks were launched against the Oder bridgeheads, the USS Quincy reached Malta. ‘The cruiser which bore the President,’ wrote Churchill, ‘steamed majestically into the battle-scarred’ Grand Harbour of Valetta. He went on board to greet Roosevelt. Although Churchill did not acknowledge that the President was ill, his colleagues were shaken to see how exhausted he looked.

The reunion between the two men was friendly, if not affectionate, yet Churchill’s foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, was worried. Tension had continued to grow between the Western Allies over the invasion of Germany from