one merchant ship). The total lost to U-boats in the last months of 1944 amounted to 321,732 tons of shipping, only about 2.3 per cent of the 14 million tons of Allied shipping launched the previous year (Oxford Companion, 69).
153. KTB OKW, iv/2, 1573.
154. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 433–4, 478, 480, 741 n.112, 786 n.155; Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 295.
155. Weinberg III, 692–3; Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 295–6. On the military details: John Prados, ‘Cobra: Patton’s Offensive in France, Summer 1944’, in Albert A. Nofi (ed.), The War against Hitler. Military Strategy in the West, Conshokoken, PA, 1995, 133– 55.
156. In the briefing, Hitler asserted that if he could use another 800 fighters there and then, ‘the entire crisis that we have would be immediately overcome’ (LB Darmstadt, 245). In a subsequent military briefing, on 31 August, Hitler said there would always be moments when the tensions became too great to sustain an alliance. ‘Coalitions in world history have always at some point collapsed. Now we have to wait for the moment, however hard it is’ (LB Darmstadt, 276).
157. Below, 386–7. Hitler eventually gave orders to prepare for a western offensive to take place in November on 19 August, when he told Keitel, Jodl, and Speer to prepare to raise 25 new divisions for the attack. (IfZ, MA 1360, frame 6217521: ‘Notiz Keitels uber Besprechung mit General der Artillerie Buhle vom 24. August 1944’, in which Buhle communicated Hitler’s thoughts; Irving, HW, 689 and 889, n. to 689. See also Guderian, 364, where the aim was registered as defeating the western powers and throwing them back into the Atlantic.)
158. LB Darmstadt, 243, 245, 253.
159. LB Darmstadt, 249.
160. LB Darmstadt, 250.
161. LB Darmstadt, 244, 250, 260.
162. Hitler correctly guessed what would have been Montgomery’s preference — a strike into the Ruhr. Eisenhower prevailed in his judgement that the attack on Germany should follow on a broad front along the Rhine. (See LB Darmstadt, 252, n.331; Weinberg III, 697–700.)
163. LB Darmstadt, 251, 253, 258, 262–3.
164. LB Darmstadt, 253, 255.
165. LB Darmstadt, 251, also 258–9, 264.
166. LB Darmstadt, 244.
167. Weinberg III, 721. Donitz had persuaded Hitler to give priority to building two new U-boat types, Type XXI and the smaller Type XXIII, faster than their predecessors and equipped with schnorkel and radar, allowing them to remain for long periods submerged and to detect enemy aircraft. Shortage of skilled labour and materials, along with disruption caused by bombing, hindered production so that, while the Americans expected 300 new U- boats in service by the end of 1944, only 180 were actually produced by the end of the war. (Parker, Struggle for Survival, 211; see also Thomas, 244–5; Peter Padfield, Donitz: the Last Fuhrer, New York, 1984, 387 (for Donitz’s comments to Hitler on 16 December about the need for the new U-boats); and Doenitz, Memoirs, 424ff., 432–3 for his retrospective views on the U-boat campaign in late 1944 and early 1945.)
168. LB Darmstadt, 244–5.
169. LB, Darmstadt, 254–5, 259, 268. The lack of ports for the landing of men and provisions was indeed a hindrance to the Allies during the autumn. Only Cherbourg, much destroyed, was initially in their hands. The surrender of Dieppe and Ostend, and the capture of Brest, Le Havre, Boulogne and Calais made things somewhat easier by October. But the shortage of big dock cranes remained a serious handicap until Antwerp, taken by the British on 4 September, became fully operational, once the Scheldt estuary had been taken, in late November (LB Darmstadt, 253, n.335; Weinberg III, 693). For Hitler’s exchange of telegrams with the commander of the German garrison at St Malo, taken in mid-August, see Domarus, 2142. Hitler told the commander (Colonel von Aulock) that every day he held out was of profit for the German war effort. The commander promised to fight to the last man. Hitler thanked him and his ‘heroic men’, and said the commander’s name would go down in history.
170. Irving, HW, 683–4; Weinberg III, 693; Parker, Struggle for Survival, 202.
171. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 296–7; Weinberg III, 692–4; Parker, Struggle for Survival, 200–2; Irving, HW, 683–9.
172. LB Darmstadt, 273. Irving, HW, 696 and n.6, 889– 90, notes to 687 and 696, regards Hitler’s suspicions as justified, and is followed in this by Richard Lamb, ‘Kluge’, in Correlli Barnett (ed.), Hitler’s Generals, London, 1990, 394– 409, here 407. The evidence assembled seems, however, tenuous. And it seems doubtful whether Kluge would have had the courage for such a step. Colonel von Gersdorff, who had been deeply involved in the attempts at Army Group Centre to kill Hitler, claimed he had pleaded in vain with Kluge at this time to enter into negotiations with the enemy. Gersdorff had said the decision was the sort which had faced ‘all great men in world history’. Kluge’s answer was: ‘Gersdorff, Field-Marshal v. Kluge is not a great man.’ (Cit. Gersdorff, 151–2. For Hitler’s awareness of Kluge’s connections with the resistance group, see Guderian, 341; TBJG II/13, 208, 210 (3 August 1944).)
173. LB Darmstadt, 273.
174. Gene Mueller, ‘Generalfeldmarschall Gunther von Kluge’, in Ueberschar, Hitlers militarische Elite, 1, 130–57, here 134; Peter Steinbach, ‘Hans Gunther von Kluge — Ein Zauderer im Zwielicht’, in Smelser and Syring, Die Militarelite des Dritten Reiches, 288–324, here 318–19. For Montgomery’s errors, see Weinberg III, 689–90, 693–4, 725.
175. Hitler remarked in a military briefing on 31 August that the suspicions were such that, had he not committed suicide, Kluge would have been immediately arrested (LB Darmstadt, 272).
176. Dieter Ose, Entscheidung im Westen. Der Oberbefehlshaber West und die Abwehr der allierten Invasion, Stuttgart, 2nd edn, 1985, 340, Anlage 18.
177. Despite the doubts of Steinbach, ‘Kluge’, 320, and Mueller, ‘Kluge’, 135, it is clear that Hitler did receive Kluge’s letter. See TBJG, II/13, 372 (31 August 1944), and Irving, HW, 696.
178. LB Darmstadt, 279 and n.383.
179. LB Darmstadt, 280. See also Irving, HW, 696.
180. See Weinberg III, 761; Oxford Companion, 418–22.
181. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 299.
182. Domarus, 2143; DZW, vi.424–5; KTB OKW, iv/1, 358–60.
183. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkreig, 297–9; Weinberg III, 694–5.
184. Ronald Heifermann, World War 11, London, 1973, 229.
185. Weinberg III, 700.
186. The military aspects are assessed in Phil Kosnett and Stephen B. Patrick, ‘Highway to the Reich: Operation Market-Garden, 17–26 September 1944’, in Nofi, 156–77.
187. DZW, vi.112–18; Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 302–5; Weinberg III, 701–2; Parker, Struggle for Survival, 206–8; Heifermann, 229–30. Around 17,000 men were lost by the western Allies in the fighting in the second half of September. German losses were 3,300 troops. British losses alone numbered between 12,000 and 13,000 (DZW, vi.116).
188. Weinberg III, 752.
189. See TBJG, II/13, 204, 209 (3 August 1944). Turkey did not, in fact, declare war on Germany until 1 March 1945 (Domarus, 2136).
190. Guderian, 364–5; Irving, HW, 681.
191. Weinberg III, 713.
