‘North Wind’ had commenced. It had finally proved possible to launch a German air-offensive — though with disastrous consequences. Around 800 German fighters and bombers engaged in mass attacks on Allied airfields in Northern France, Belgium, and Holland. They succeeded in destroying or seriously damaging almost 300 planes, limiting Allied air-power for a week or more. But 277 German planes were also lost — a good number to flak from their own batteries around the V2 launch-sites, There was no possibility of the Luftwaffe recovering from such losses. It was effectively at an end.317
On New Year’s Day 1945, German radios broadcast Hitler’s traditional address to the German People. It held nothing new for them.318 Hitler offered them not a sentence on the effect of ‘wonder weapons’, steps to counter the terror from the skies, or anything specific on military progress on the fronts. Above all, he gave no hint that the end of the war was near. He spoke only of its continuation in 1945 and until a final victory — which by now only dreamers could imagine — was attained. His audience had heard it all many times before: the reaffirmation that ‘a 9 November in the German Reich will never repeat itself’;319 that Germany’s enemies, led by ‘the Jewish-international world conspiracy’ intended to ‘eradicate
Few remained convinced. Many, like some observers in the Stuttgart area, were probably ready to acknowledge that ‘the Fuhrer has worked for war from the very beginning’.322 Far from being the genius of Goebbels’s propaganda, such observers remarked, Hitler had ‘intentionally unleashed this world conflagration in order to be proclaimed as the great “transformer of mankind”’.323 It was belated recognition of the catastrophic impact of the leader they had earlier supported, cheered, eulogized. Their backing had helped to put him in the position where his power over the German state was total. By now, in the absence of either the ability or the readiness — especially since the events of 20 July — of those with access to the corridors of power to defy his authority, let alone oust him, this man quite simply held the fate of the German people in his own hands. He had again avowed, as he always had done, his adamant refusal to contemplate capitulation in any event. This meant that the suffering of the German people — and of the countless victims of the regime they had at one time so enthusiastically supported — had to go on. It would cease, it was abundantly clear, only when Hitler himself ceased to exist. And that could only mean Germany’s total defeat, ruin, and occupation.
With the petering out of the Ardennes offensive, all hope of repelling the relentless advance from the west was gone. And in the east, the Red Army was waiting for the moment to launch its winter offensive. Hitler was compelled by 3 January to accept that ‘continuation of the originally planned operation [in the Ardennes] no longer has any prospect of success’.324 Five days later came the tacit acknowledgement that his last gamble had been a losing throw of the dice with his approval of the withdrawal of the 6th Panzer Army to the north-west of Bastogne, and next day, his order to pull back his SS panzer divisions from the front.325 On 14 January, the day before Hitler left his headquarters on the western front to return to Berlin, the High Command of the Wehrmacht acknowledged that ‘the initiative in the area of the offensive has passed to the enemy’.326
Hitler had stated categorically in his briefings before the Ardennes and Alsace offensives that Germany could not indefinitely sustain a defensive war. By now, he had used up his last precious reserves of manpower, lost untold quantities of weaponry, and exhausted his remaining divisions in an offensive that had cost the lives of about 80,000 German soldiers (at the same time weakening the eastern front and paving the way for the rapid inroads of the Red Army in the coming weeks).327 He had also seen the remnants of the Luftwaffe devastated to the point of no return; while rapidly dwindling supplies of fuel and other supplies essential for the war effort held out in any case the prospect of continuing the struggle only for a few more months. The logic was plain: the last faint glimmer of hope had been extinguished, the last exit route cut off. Defeat was inevitable. Hitler had not lost touch with reality. He realized this. Below found him one evening after the failure of the offensive in his bunker after air- raid sirens had sounded, deeply depressed. He spoke of taking his own life since the last chance of success had evaporated. He was savage in his criticism of the failure of the Luftwaffe, and of the ‘traitors’ in the army. According to Below’s later recollection, Hitler said: ‘I know the war is lost. The superior power is too great. I’ve been betrayed. Since 20 July everything has come out that I didn’t think possible. Precisely those were against me who have profited most from National Socialism. I spoilt them all and decorated them. That’s the thanks. I’d like most of all to put a bullet through my head.’ But, as so often, Hitler rapidly pulled himself together, saying: ‘We’ll not capitulate. Never. We can go down. But we’ll take a world with us.’328
This was what kept him going. It had underpinned his political ‘career’ since the beginning. There would be no repeat of 1918: no stab-in-the-back; no capitulation. That — and his place in history as a German hero brought down by weakness and betrayal — was all that was left to him.
16. INTO THE ABYSS
‘Then a man comes by on horseback, shouting in a loud voice. “Save yourselves, you who can. The Russians will be here in half an hour.” We’re overcome by a paralysing fear.’
‘It was as if they were shooting at stray dogs… They didn’t care and shot in every direction, without any consideration. We saw the blood on the white snow and carried on walking.’
‘It must be our ambition also in our times to set an example for later generations to look to in similar crises and anxieties, just as we today have to look to the past heroes of history. The year 1918 will therefore not repeat itself.’
‘For the last time, the Jewish-Bolshevik mortal enemy has set out with its masses on the attack. He is attempting to demolish Germany and to exterminate our people.’
‘I’ve now finally given up hope that the war will be won. What an enormous guilt Hitler bears. If I can’t see my family again, I don’t want to live any longer. Above all, a quick death would be better for them than to be deported or otherwise tortured. I’ve buried one hope after another in this war. But now is the worst time. What will happen?’1
Similar sentiments to these, entrusted to his diary on 28 January 1945 by a young German soldier living in hiding in Hungary in daily fear of being retaken by the Russians from whom he had escaped the previous autumn, were shared by millions of ordinary Germans in the last months of the Third Reich. Without hope of the victory so long promised, often without hope of seeing homes and loved ones again, and in trepidation of a future in the hands of merciless conquerors, they now held Hitler, once their idol, personally to blame for the untold misery which had befallen them. What they had seen as such glorious triumphs of the years 1939–41 were long forgotten. So was the
