Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

contradiction, ‘he would be seen with the last division.’²⁵⁴ To ensure the morale of the population, he placed his entire trust in the Party and his Reichsleiter and Gauleiter, ‘who must now place themselves around him as a solemnly sworn body (festverschworenes Korps)’.²⁵⁵ The Soviet Union he saw as already defeated, though it was impossible to predict how long resistance would last. He hoped to reach the goals intended before winter within four weeks. Then the troops could take up their winter quarters.

He ended with an appeal to have confidence, and to rejoice in the opportunity to take part in a struggle to shape Europe’s future. Germany was in a position to counter the greatest efforts of the United States. And what the overthrow of the Soviet Union signified could still not be fully grasped. It would give Germany land of limitless horizons. ‘This land, which we have conquered with the blood of German sons, will never be surrendered. Some time later millions of German peasant families will be settled here in order to carry the thrust of the Reich far to the east.’²⁵⁶

Shortly after his speech, Hitler was again on his way back to East Prussia, arriving back in the Wolf’s Lair on the evening of the next day.²⁵⁷ In the east, by this time, the snow was falling. Torrential rain had given way to ice and temperatures well below zero Fahrenheit. Even tanks were often unable to cope with ice- covered slopes. For the men, conditions were worsening by the day. There was already an acute shortage of warm clothing to protect them. Severe cases of frostbite were becoming widespread. The combat-strength of the infantry had sunk drastically.²⁵⁸ Army Group Centre alone had lost by this time approaching 300,000 men, with replacements of little more than half that number available.²⁵⁹

It was at this point, on 13 November, that, at a top-level conference of Army Group Centre, in a temperature of –8 degrees Fahrenheit, Guderian’s panzer army, as part of the orders for the renewed offensive, was assigned the objective of cutting off Moscow from its eastward communications by taking Gorki, 250 miles to the east of the Soviet capital.²⁶⁰ The astonishing lack of realism in the army’s orders derived from the perverse obstinacy with which the General Staff continued to persist in the view that the Red Army was on the point of collapse, and was greatly inferior to the Wehrmacht in fighting-power and leadership. Such views, despite all the evidence to the contrary, still prevailing with Halder (and, indeed, largely shared by the Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Centre, Bock), underlay the memorandum, presented by the General Staff on 7 November, for the second offensive.²⁶¹ The hopelessly optimistic goals laid down — the occupation of Maykop (a main source of oil from the Caucasus), Stalingrad, and Gorki were on the wish-list — were the work of Halder and his staff. There was no pressure by Hitler on Halder. In fact, quite the reverse: Halder pressed for acceptance of his operational goals. These corresponded in good measure with goals Hitler had foreseen as attainable only in the following year.²⁶² Had Hitler been more assertive at this stage in rejecting Halder’s proposals, the disasters of the coming weeks might have been avoided. As it was, Hitler’s uncertainty, hesitancy, and lack of clarity allowed Army High Command the scope for catastrophic errors of judgement.²⁶³

The opposition which Halder’s plans encountered at the conference on 13 November then resulted in a restriction of the goals to a direct assault on Moscow. This was pushed through in full recognition of the insoluble logistical problems and immense dangers of an advance in near-arctic conditions without any possibility of securing supplies. Even the goal was not clear. The breach of Soviet communications to the east could not possibly be attained. Forward positions in the vicinity of Moscow were utterly exposed. Only the capture of the city itself, bringing — it was presumed — the collapse and capitulation of the Soviet regime and the end of the war, could justify the risk.²⁶⁴ But with insufficient air-power to bomb the city into submission before the ground-troops arrived, entry into Moscow would have meant street-by-street fighting. With the forces available, and in the prevailing conditions, it is difficult to see how the German army could have proved victorious.

Nevertheless, in mid-November the drive on Moscow recommenced. Hitler was by now distinctly uneasy about the new offensive. On the evening of 25 November he expressed, according to the recollection of his Army Adjutant, Major Gerhard Engel, his ‘great concern about the Russian winter and weather’. ‘We started a month too late,’ he went on, returning once more to the strategy he had always favoured. ‘The ideal solution would be the fall of Leningrad, capture of the southern area, and then, in that event, a pincer attack on Moscow from south and north together with frontal assault. Then there would be the prospect of an eastern wall with military bases.’ Hitler ended, characteristically, by remarking that time was ‘his greatest nightmare’.²⁶⁵

A few days earlier, Hitler had been more outwardly optimistic in a three-hour conversation with Goebbels. The Propaganda Minister remarked on how well Hitler was looking — almost unscathed from the pressures of the war, he thought. At first the discussion ranged over the situation in North Africa, where Hitler was more pessimistic than Army High Command about holding the position, given the inability to transport sufficient troops and material to that front. He foresaw setbacks there, and advised Goebbels not to raise expectations of military success. But his eyes were so fixed on the east, Goebbels recorded, that he regarded events in North Africa as no more than ‘peripheral’, and unable to affect events on the Continent itself.²⁶⁶ Hitler then turned to the eastern campaign. Once more he repeated his intention of destroying Leningrad and Moscow. ‘If the weather stays favourable, he still wants to make the attempt to encircle Moscow and thereby abandon it to hunger and devastation.’²⁶⁷

Whether an advance to the Caucasus would prove successful depended on the weather. But the improvement in weather and road conditions — on the frozen surfaces, instead of mud — had at least allowed motorized units to operate again. The supplies problems were serious. But he remained confident that the troops would master the situation. Goebbels asked him if he still believed in victory. Typically, he answered that ‘if he had believed in victory in 1918 when he lay without help as a half-blinded corporal in a Pomeranian military hospital, why should he not now believe in our victory when he controlled the strongest armed forces in the world and almost the whole of Europe was prostrate at his feet?’ He played down the difficulties; they occurred in every war. ‘World history was not made by weather,’ he added.²⁶⁸

Three days later, Goebbels was telephoned from FHQ and told to be cautious in his propaganda about the exhibition of winter clothing for the troops. It was proving scarcely possible to transport the provisions to the front. In these circumstances, such an exhibition at home could stir up ‘bad blood’.²⁶⁹ The caution was justified. Within weeks, the start of an emergency winter-clothing collection in Germany would give the most obvious sign that propaganda reassurance about provisions for the troops had been misplaced. It pointed unmistakably to a serious failure in planning.²⁷⁰

On 29 November, with Hitler once again briefly in Berlin, Goebbels had a further chance to speak with him at length. Hitler appeared full of optimism and confidence, brimming with energy, in excellent health.²⁷¹ He professed still to be positive, despite the reversal in Rostov, where General Ewald von Kleist’s panzer army had been forced back the previous day after initially taking the city.²⁷² Hitler now intended to withdraw sufficiently far from the city to allow massive air-raids which would bomb it to oblivion as a ‘bloody example’. The Fuhrer had never favoured, wrote Goebbels, taking any of the Soviet major cities. There were no practical advantages in it, and it simply left the problem of feeding the women and children. There was no doubt, Hitler went on, that the enemy had lost most of their great armaments centres. That, he claimed, had been the aim of the war, and had been largely achieved. He hoped to advance further on Moscow. But he acknowledged that a great encirclement was impossible at present. The weather uncertainty meant any attempt to advance a further 200 kilometres to the east, without secure supplies, would be madness. The front-line troops would be cut off and would have to be withdrawn with a great loss of prestige which, at the current time, could not be afforded. So the offensive had to take place on a smaller scale.²⁷³ Hitler still expected Moscow to fall. When it did, there would be little left of it but ruins. In the following year, there would be an expansion of the offensive to the Caucasus to gain possession of Soviet oil supplies — or at least deny them to the Bolsheviks. The Crimea would be turned into a huge German settlement area for the best ethnic types, to be incorporated into the Reich territory as a Gau — named the ‘Ostrogoth Gau’ (Ostgotengau) as a reminder of the oldest Germanic traditions and the very origins of Germandom.²⁷⁴

Hitler was evidently by this time in his element, and allowing Goebbels a sight of the vision of German prosperity based on colonization and exploitation of the east that he had expounded many times to his entourage in the Wolf’s Lair. He returned, as always, to the threat from the west. It was only a matter of when London would recognize the ‘hopeless position of the plutocracies’.²⁷⁵ He expressed confidence — in contrast to some of his comments only a few days later — that the troops were being provided with winter equipment. Once that was the case, the weather would determine how far the advance would go. ‘What cannot be achieved now, will be achieved in the coming summer,’ were Hitler’s sentiments, according to Goebbels’s notes. ‘In any event, the