Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

160. Longerich, Politik, 470–71.

161. Longerich, Ermordung, 91.

162. Longerich, Politik, 514–15.

163. Dienstkalender, 73.

164. Domarus, 1829. Hitler had also issued a threat to those seeking through ‘Jewish hatred’ to bring about destruction through the war in his ‘New Year’s Appeal’ (Domarus, 1821). Two weeks later, Hitler spoke to Goebbels of the Jews deserving the catastrophe that was befalling them. ‘With the destruction of our enemies they will also experience their own destruction,’ Goebbels reported Hitler as saying {TBJG, II/3, 320 (15 February 1942)).

165. MadR, 3235.

166. Martin Broszat and Norbert Frei (eds.), Das Dritte Reich im uberblick. Chronik– Ereignisse–Zusammenhange, Munich/Zurich, 1989, 270, give the date of 17 March for the beginning of the mass killing in Belzec. The decision to exterminate most of the Jews of the districts of Lublin and Galicia had probably been taken at the beginning of March (Longerich, Politik, 513).

167. TBJG, II/3, 513 (20 March 1942).

168. TBJG, II/3, 561 (27 March 1942).

CHAPTER 11: LAST BIG THROW OF THE DICE

1. Schroeder, 129.

2. TBJG, II/3, 501–2 (20 March 1942).

3. TBJG, II/3, 511 (20 March 1942).

4. Schroeder, 129–30.

5. TBJG, II/3, 513 (20 March 1942). The absence of any genuinely personal contact with Hitler was underlined by Gerda Daranowski, one of his secretaries, who nevertheless still thought well of him many years after the war. (Library of Congress, Washington, Adolf Hitler Collection, tape C–63A (interview with John Toland, 26 July 1971).)

6. Koeppen, Fol. 67 (24 October 1941).

7. Guderian, 266.

8. Breloer, 100 (29 January 1942).

9. Adolf Gortz, Stichwort: Front. Tagebuch eines jungen Deutschen 1938–1942, 2nd edn, Leipzig, 1987, 139.

10. MadR, ix.3225, 29 January 1942).

11. Ernest K. Bramsted, Goebbels and National Socialist Propaganda 1925–1945, Michigan, 1965, 222–3; Kershaw, ‘Hitler Myth’, 180–81 and n.40; Robert Edward Herzstein, The War that Hitler Won. The Most Infamous Propaganda Campaign in History, London, 1979, 429, for the success of the film.

12. For the plainly intended parallels indicated by Goebbels himself, Hitler’s pleasure at the film, and the impact upon him of the characterization of Frederick the Great, see TBJG, II/3, 499, 506 (20 March 1942).

13. Seidler, chs.3–4.

14. Seidler, 239; Alan S. Milward, ‘Fritz Todt als Minister fur Bewaffnung und Munition’, VfZ, 1966, 46; Alan S. Milward, Die deutsche Kriegswirtschaft 1939– 1945, Stuttgart, 1966, 56.

15. Seidler, 273.

16. Seidler, 262–3; Mommsen, Volkswagenwerk, 544–5.

17. Seidler, 352ff.

18. Overy, War and Economy, 354–5; Seidler, 256.

19. Overy, War and Economy, ch.11, especially 352ff.; Hans–Ulrich Thamer, Verfuhrung und Gewalt. Deutschland 1933–1945, Berlin, 1986, 716; Ludolf Herbst, Das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945, Frankfurt am Main, 1996, 410.

20. Seidler, 256–60.

21. Seidler, 258, 265.

22. Seidler, 260, 365–6.

23. Jurgen Thorwald, Die ungeklarten Falle, Stuttgart, 1950, 144–5.

24. Seidler, 367–9; Max Muller, ‘Der Tod des Reichsministers Dr Fritz Todt’, and Reimer Hansen, ‘Der ungeklarte Fall Todt’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 18 (1967), 602–5.

25. Seidler, 375ft., Thorwald, 133–54. I am grateful to Steven Sage for a summary preview of the research he is undertaking on Fritz Todt. He sees the air-crash as arranged at Hitler’s behest.

26. Below, 305–6; Hans Baur, Ich flog Machtige der Erde, Kempten, 1956, 216; see also TBJG, II/3, 299, 306 (13 February 1941).

27. Seidel, 377ft; Speer, 209; Fest, Speer, 181–2. Speer’s own account is unreliable and, in the published version of his memoirs (Erinnerungen, 205ft), greatly touched-up. (See Sereny, Speer, 274–83; Seidler, 366–7.) In the Speer Papers (pen- pictures of Nazi leaders, drawn up in 1946, and kindly made available to me by Gitta Sereny) AH/I/Bl.4, Albert Speer claimed that he was by chance in FHQ at the time of Todt’s crash. Speer initially asked Todt whether he could make use of the free seat in the plane to fly to Munich, backing out of the flight, scheduled for 8a.m., after talking to Hitler until the early hours. (Matthias Schmidt, Albert Speer: Das Ende eines Mythos. Speers wabre Rolle im Dritten Reich, Bern/Munich, 1982, 75.)

28. Schroeder, 132.

29. Sereny, Speer, 10 4ff.

30. Speer, 210; Seidler, 832.

31. Seidler, 403–4; Speer, 210; Speer Papers, AH/I/Bl.4.

32. Speer, 210; Sereny, Speer, 276–7; Seidler, 382.

33. Speer, 211,215,217; Overy, War and Economy, 355; Herbst, Das nationalsozialistische Deutsch-land, 410.

34. Domarus, 1836–40; Thorwald, 148.

35. Speer, 217.

36. Dietrich Eichholtz, Kriegswirtschaft 1939–1945, Bd.II 1941–1943, East Berlin, 1985, 265, 308ff.; Overy, War and Economy, 366–7.

37. TBJG, II.3, 299 (13 February 1942), 303, 308 (14 February 1942), 311–12, 318 (15 February 1942). See also Irving, HW, 367–8, 371–2; Domarus, 1841 n.73. The German delight was soon tempered by the news that the Scbarnhorst and Gneisenau had run on to mines laid by the RAF. The Scbarnborst was out of action for months; the Gneisenau was bombed while under repair and incapable of further deployment (Weinberg III, 358).

38. TBJG, II.3, 321 (15 February 1941); Below, 307.

39. Staatsmanner II, 48 (11 February 1942). Hitler had said on 18 December in the Wolfsschanze: ‘I didn’t want that in East Asia. For years I said to every Englishman: “You’ll lose East Asia if you begin a conflict in Europe”’ (Monologe, 156). He was rumoured to be unenthusiastic about the Japanese successes and have remarked that he would most like to send twenty divisions to the English to repel ‘the Yellows’ (Hassell, 305 (22 March 1942)). Over a year later he would ruminate wistfully on ‘whether the white man can sustain his superiority at all in the long run in the face of the enormous human reservoirs in the east’ (TBJG, II/6, 236 (8 May 1943)).

40. Schroeder, 132.

41. TBJG, II/3, 514 (20 March 1942).

42. Schroeder, 131.