in preparations for the Ardennes offensive, expected to take place in late November or early December.274 The big anxiety, as ever, was whether by then the Luftwaffe would be in any position to provide the necessary air cover. The failure of the Luftwaffe, Below was told by naval adjutant Karl-Jesko von Puttkamer, was still the ‘number one topic’, and there was permanent tension between Hitler and Goring.275
Already in September, Hitler had wanted to put the Luftwaffe in the hands of Colonel-General Robert Ritter von Greim, a First World War flying-ace, romantic nationalist, and fervent admirer of the Nazi leader since the early 1920s, who had later rapidly risen through the ranks and distinguished himself as a Luftwaffe commander, mainly on the eastern front. Though Greim would have had operational control, Hitler, characteristically, wanted to leave Goring, to whom he attached nothing but bitter recrimination for the failure of the Luftwaffe, in post as commander-in-chief.276 Hitler’s criticism of Goring was scathing. But, as Goebbels put it, he still held to the Reich Marshal with a ‘real Nibelung loyalty’.277 Despite Goring’s almost universal loss of prestige and popularity, the removal from office at this point of such a key figure in the regime could for Hitler only have been interpreted as a sign of weakness and desperation.278 There could, therefore, be no question of discarding the Reich Marshal, whatever his failings. Greim was evidently more than aware of the impossible proposition being put to him, and was in no rush to accept. In any case, Goring’s own objections appear to have persuaded Hitler that the idea had little chance of working. By the beginning of November, it had been dropped. As Greim told Below, everything would remain as it was — except for the appointment of General Karl Koller as Luftwaffe Chief of Staff in place of General Werner Kreipe (whom Hitler had refused to see for six weeks).279 Goring had held on to his position. But he appeared listless, resigned, a shadow of his former ebullient self.280
None of this left Hitler deterred from his coming offensive, on which so much hinged. The rise in fighter production now gave him a fleet — at least nominally — of over 3,000 planes at his disposal, and the first Me262s were coming into service (though Hitler continued to place few hopes in them as fighters, instead of the bombers he had for so long demanded).281 In reality, few of the planes could fly at any one time on account of the chronic lack of fuel.282 Though he put the best face on it, Hitler was well aware that air-power was his weakest suit;283 hence the constant tirades against Goring. The odds in the coming offensive were far more heavily stacked against him than he was prepared to acknowledge.
Immersed in military matters and facing calamity on all sides, Hitler was in no mood to travel through a war-weary Reich to address the Party’s ‘Old Guard’ as usual on 8 November, the anniversary of the Putsch in 1923 and the most sacred date in the Nazi calendar. Goebbels had tried in September to persuade Hitler to speak to the German people again, at least through a brief radio broadcast. Hitler had agreed in principle, but wanted to await developments in Hungary. This was unintelligible to Goebbels. But the coup under preparation to prevent Hungary’s defection was the only potential success in view for Hitler. And he evidently felt as always that he needed some success to proclaim if speaking to the German people, both to stir up morale at home and for consumption outside Germany.
Goebbels wanted an early broadcast, but, predictably, nothing came of the idea. Then Hitler’s illness intervened and any hopes of a speech disappeared.284 The dangers of a bombing-raid to coincide with a public speech as normal in the Lowenbraukeller in Munich probably also contributed to its cancellation this year. Instead, a pale shadow of the normal event was scheduled to take place for the first time not on the actual anniversary of the Putsch, but on the following Sunday, 12 November, in Munich. Its centrepiece was a proclamation by Hitler to be read out by Himmler. As Goebbels pointed out, this had nothing like the effect of hearing Hitler himself, particularly when read out in Himmler’s cold diction.285
The proclamation itself, despite Goebbels’s praise for its content and style, could only have been a disappointment for those hoping for news of some reversal of war fortunes or — the desire of most people — a hint that the war would soon be over. Hitler did not even refer directly to events at the front. A lengthy preamble reasserted the principles of National Socialism and drew the faintest of parallels between the current struggle and the crises the Party had mastered after 1923 and in gaining power ten years later. The fight for national survival against enemies intent upon the ‘annihilation of our people [and] the eradication and thereby ending of its existence’ was as usual underlined, as was the ‘satanic will to persecution and destruction’ of Jewry.286 The ‘salvation of Europe from the Bolshevik monster’ could only be brought about by the German Reich under National Socialist leadership.287 He went on to berate the ‘betrayal on betrayal’ that had beset Germany over the previous two years, saving his most poisonous bile for the ‘criminals’ within who had tried to stab Germany in the back.288 He praised the bravery of the Wehrmacht and, quite especially, of the home front. He insisted that eventual triumph would come. And he made it clear that as long as he was alive, there would be no capitulation, no end to the fighting. His opponents were right in one thing, he said: ‘As long as I live, Germany will not suffer the fate of the European states inundated by Bolshevism.’289 He was, he said, ‘unshakeable in his will to give the world to follow a no less praiseworthy example in this struggle than great Germans have given in the past’.290 In this struggle, his own life was of no consequence. It was a veiled hint that what now remained for him to fight for was his place in history. The ‘heroic’ struggle he envisaged, one of Wagnerian proportions, ruled out any contemplation of capitulation, the shameful act of 1918. The fight to the last, it seemed clear, was destined to drag down to destruction the German people itself with the ‘heroic’ self-destruction of its warlord.
The warlord came close in the days following his speech, in fact, almost for the first time, even in private, to admitting the war was lost. His own end was now starting to occupy his mind. When Jodl recommended moving Fuhrer Headquarters to Berlin, using the coming Ardennes offensive as an argument, Hitler stated that he would not leave East Prussia again.291 Perhaps a renewed bout of illness, now affecting his throat, prompted his depressed mood.292 It may also have encouraged him to agree with Bormann that the time had indeed finally come to move his headquarters from East Prussia, since it had been established that he needed a minor operation in Berlin to remove a polyp from his vocal cords.293 On the afternoon of 20 November, Hitler and his entourage boarded his special train bound for Berlin and left the Wolf’s Lair for good.
So little was Hitler a real presence for the German people by this time that, as Goebbels had to note, rumours were rife that he was seriously ill, or even dead.294 Goebbels had the opportunity to speak at length with him at the beginning of December. He found him recovered from his stomach troubles, able to eat and drink normally again. He was also over the operation to his vocal cords, and his voice was back to normal.295 Hitler told him he had come to Berlin to prepare for the coming attack in the West. Everything was prepared for a major blow to the Allies which would give him not just a military but also a political success. He said he had worked day and night on the plan for the offensive, also during his illness. Goebbels thought Hitler back to his old form.296 They broke off their discussion in the afternoon, resuming it at midnight and carrying on until 5.30a.m.297
Operational plans for the Ardennes offensive — known at the time as ‘Watch on the Rhine’, it was later changed to ‘Autumn Mist’ — had been worked out by the OKW in September and put to Hitler on 9 October. The objective of the operation — the sweep through the Eifel and Ardennes through Belgium to the Channel coast, taking Antwerp — was finalized at this point. The detailed plans of the offensive were outlined by Jodl to senior western commanders on 3 November. Sixteen divisions, eight of them armoured, would form the focal point of the attack. SS-Oberstgruppenfuhrer Sepp Dietrich would lead the 6th SS-Panzer Army; General Hasso von Manteufel the 5th Panzer Army.300 Without exception, the assembled military commanders thought the objective — the taking of Antwerp, some 125 miles away — quite unrealistic. The forces available to them were simply inadequate, they argued, especially in winter conditions. At best, they claimed, a more limited objective — recovery of Aachen and the adjacent parts of the Westwall, with perhaps the base being laid for a later westward push — might be attained. Jodl ruled out the objections. He made clear to the commanders that limited gains would not suffice. Hitler had to be in a position, as a result of the offensive, to ‘make the western powers ready to negotiate’. On 10 November, Hitler signed the order for the offensive which had been prepared by the OKW. He acknowledged in the preamble that he was prepared ‘to accept the maximum risk in order to proceed with this operation’. The date was set for 27 November, then, in numerous postponements brought about by delays in assembling both equipment and army units engaged in fighting, eventually reset for 10 December.301 Two further delays ensued before the date was finally fixed at
Hitler outlined the grandiose plan of the offensive. Antwerp would be taken within eight to ten days. The intention was to smash the entire enemy force to the north and south, then turn a massive rocket attack on London.
