shapelessness of the structures of Nazi rule yet the indispensability of Hitler’s authority to every facet of that rule, and, not least, the fact that the regime’s leaders had burnt their boats with the Dictator in the regime’s genocide and other untold acts of inhumanity, ruled out any further possibility of overthrow. With that, the regime had only its own collective suicide in an inexorably lost war to contemplate. But like a mortally wounded wild beast at bay, it fought with the ferocity and ruthlessness that came from desperation. And its Leader, losing touch ever more with reality, hoping for miracles, kept tilting at windmills — ready in Wagnerian style in the event of ultimate apocalyptic catastrophe, and in line with his undiluted social-Darwinistic beliefs, to take his people down in flames with him if it proved incapable of producing the victory he had demanded.
II
Readiness for the invasion in the West, certain to come within the next few months, was the overriding preoccupation of Hitler and his military advisers in early 1944. They were sure that the critical phase directly following the invasion would decide the outcome of the war.18 Hopes were invested in the fortifications swiftly being erected along the Atlantic coast in France, and in the new, powerful weapons of destruction that were under preparation and would help the Wehrmacht to inflict a resounding defeat on the invaders as soon as they set foot on continental soil. Forced back, with Britain reeling under devastating blows from weapons of untold might, against which there was no defence, the western Allies would realize that Germany could not be defeated; the ‘unnatural’ alliance with the Soviet Union would split apart; and, freed of the danger in the west, the German Reich could devote all its energies, perhaps now even with British and American backing following a separate peace agreement, to the task of repelling and defeating Bolshevism. So ran the optimistic currents of thought in Hitler’s headquarters.
Meanwhile, developments on the eastern front — the key theatre of the war — were more than worrying enough to hold Hitler’s attention. A new Soviet offensive in the south of the eastern front had begun on 24 December 1943, making rapid advances, and dampening an already dismal Christmas mood in the Fuhrer Headquarters. Hitler spent New Year’s Eve closeted in his rooms alone with Bormann.19 He took part in no festivities. At least in the company of Martin Bormann, his loyal right hand in all Party matters, he was ‘among his own’. In his daily military conferences, it was different. The tensions with his generals were palpable. Some loyalists around Hitler, such as Jodl, shared in some measure his optimism. Others were already more sceptical. According to Hitler’s Luftwaffe adjutant, Nicolaus von Below, even the initially starry-eyed Chief of Staff Zeitzler by now did not believe a word Hitler said.20 What Hitler really felt about the war, whether he harboured private doubts that conflicted with the optimism he voiced at all times, was even for those regularly in his close company impossible to deduce.21
Whatever his innermost thoughts, his outward stance was predictable. Retreat, whatever the tactical necessity or even advantage to be gained from it, was ruled out. When the retreat then inevitably did eventually take place, it was invariably under less favourable conditions than at the time that it had been initially proposed. ‘Will’ to hold out was, as always, the supreme value for Hitler. In the winter crisis of 1941, his refusal to sanction retreat had probably prevented headlong collapse. But since then the relentless Soviet advance, backed by superiority in weaponry and manpower, had forced the need for a defensive strategy which was foreign to Hitler’s nature, and which required more than repeated emphasis on ‘will’ and fighting spirit. In late December, prompted by concern that the subversive propaganda put out in Moscow by the Soviet-backed ‘
Manstein encountered Hitler’s inflexibility again when he flew on 4 January 1944 to Fuhrer Headquarters to report on the rapidly deteriorating situation of Army Group South. Soviet forces, centred on the Dnieper bend, had made major advances. These now posed an ominous threat to the survival of the 4th Panzer Army (located in the region between Vinnitsa and Berichev). The breach of this position would open up a massive gap between Army Groups South and Centre, putting therefore the entire southern front in mortal peril. This demanded, in Manstein’s view, the urgent transfer of forces northwards to counter the threat. This could only be done by evacuating the Dnieper bend, abandoning Nikopol (with its manganese supplies) and the Crimea, and drastically reducing the front to a length which could more easily be defended. Hitler refused point-blank to countenance such a proposal. Losing the Crimea, he argued, would prompt a change of allegiance in Turkey, together with the defection of Bulgaria and Romania. Reinforcements for the threatened northern wing could not be drawn from Army Group North, since that could well lead to the defection of Finland, loss of the Baltic, and lack of availability of vital Swedish ore. Forces could not be drawn from the west before the invasion had been repelled. ‘There were so many disagreements on the enemy side,’ Manstein recalled Hitler stating, ‘that the coalition was bound to fall apart one day. To gain time was therefore a matter of paramount importance.’ Manstein would simply have to hold out until reinforcements were available.24
When the military conference was over, Manstein asked to see Hitler privately, in the company only of Zeitzler, the Chief of the Army General Staff. Reluctantly (as usual when unsure of what was coming), Hitler agreed. Once the room had emptied, Manstein began. Hitler’s demeanour, already cold, soon touched freezing- point. His eyes bored like gimlets into the field-marshal as Manstein stated that enemy superiority alone was not responsible for the plight of the army in the east, but that this was ‘also due to the way in which we are led’.25 Manstein, persevering undaunted despite the intimidating atmosphere, renewed the request he had put on two earlier occasions, that he himself should be appointed overall Commander-in-Chief for the eastern front with full independence of action within overall strategic objectives, in the way that Rundstedt in the west and Kesselring in Italy enjoyed similar authority. This would have meant the effective surrender by Hitler of his powers of command in the eastern theatre. He was having none of it. But his argument backfired. ‘Even I cannot get the field-marshals to obey me!’ he retorted. ‘Do you imagine, for example, that they would obey you any more readily?’ Manstein replied that his orders were never disobeyed. At this, Hitler, his anger under control though the insubordination plainly registered, closed the discussion.26 Manstein had had the last word. But he returned to his headquarters empty-handed.
Not only had he no prospect of appointment as Commander-in-Chief in the eastern theatre; Manstein’s outspoken views were by now prompting doubts in Hitler’s mind about his suitability in command of Army Group South. Meanwhile, Hitler’s orders for Manstein’s troops were clear: there was to be no pulling back. Tenacious German defiance in the Dnieper bend and at Nikopol did in fact succeed in holding up the Soviet advance for the time being. But the loss of this territory, and of the Crimea itself, was a foregone conclusion, merely temporarily delayed.
Guderian, another of Hitler’s one-time favourite commanders, fared no better than Manstein when he attempted, at a private audience in January, to persuade Hitler to simplify and unify military command by appointing a trusted general to a new position of Chief of the Wehrmacht General Staff. This, aimed at removing the damaging weakness at the heart of the Wehrmacht High Command, would have meant the dismissal of Keitel. Hitler rejected this out of hand. It would also have signified, as Hitler had no difficulty in recognizing, a diminution of his own powers within the military command. Like Manstein, Guderian had met an immovable obstacle. Like Manstein’s, his recommendations of tactical retreats fell on stony ground. As he later summarized: ‘So nothing was altered. Every square yard of ground continued to be fought for. Never once was a situation which had become hopeless put right by a timely withdrawal.’27
The level to which relations between Hitler and his senior generals — among them those who had been his most loyal and trusted commanders — had sunk was revealed by a flashpoint at the lengthy speech Hitler gave to 100 or so of his military leaders on 27 January.28 After a simple lunch, during which the atmosphere was noticeably cool, Hitler offered little more (following the usual long-winded resort to the lessons of history, emphasis on ‘struggle’ as a natural law, and description of his own political awakening and build-up of the Party) than an exhortation to hold out. For this, indoctrination in the spirit of National Socialism was vital. Of one thing, he
