295. TBJG, II/14, 317 (2 December 1944).
296. TBJG, II/14, 318–19 (2 December 1944).
297. TBJG, II/14, 322 (2 December 1944).
298. TBJG, II/14, 323–4 (2 December 1944).
299. TBJG, II/14, 321 (2 December 1944). Linge recalled Hitler’s short-lived revitalization at the beginning of the offensive (Linge, Bis zum Untergang, 250).
300. For Dietrich, see Charles Messenger, Hitler’s Gladiator. The Life and Times of Oberstgruppenfuhrer der Waffen-SS Sepp Dietrich, London, 1988; James T. Weingartner, ‘Josef “Sepp” Dietrich — Hitlers Volksgeneral’, in Smelser and Syring, Die Militarelite des Dritten Reiches, 113–28; William T. Allbritton and Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr, ‘SS-Oberstgruppenfuhrer und Generaloberst der Waffen-SS Joseph (Sepp) Dietrich’, in Ueberschar, Hitlers militarische Elite, ii.37–44. I am grateful to Dr Chris Clarke for letting me see a sketch of Dietrich’s character and career, ‘Josef “Sepp” Dietrich: Landsknecht im Dienste Hitlers’, forthcoming in Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring (eds.), Die SS: Elite unter dem Totenkopf. 30 Lebenslaufe, Paderborn etc., 2000, 119–33. Both Dietrich and Manteuffel are the subjects of a brief pen-picture by Franz Kurowski, ‘Dietrich and Manteufel’, in Barnett, Hitler’s Generals, 411–37.
301. Warlimont, 480–83 (quotations, 482, 482–3; code-names of the operation, 480, 490); KTB OKW, iv/1, 439.
302. Warlimont, 485.
303. Below, 396; Domarus, 2171, n.377.
304. LB Darmstadt, 290–91 (12 December 1944).
305. LB Darmstadt 291.
306. LB Darmstadt 277 (31 August 1944).
307. LB Darmstadt 292.
308. Weinberg III, 766.
309. Stephen B. Patrick, ‘The Ardennes Offensive: An Analysis of the Battle of the Bulge, December 1944’, in Nofi, 206–24, here 217; Oxford Companion, 114.
310. Guderian, 380–81; Warlimont, 490–91; Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 310–12; Weinberg III, 766–8; Heifermann, 232–4.
311. LB Darmstadt, 302–3; Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 313.
312. LB Darmstadt, 295–6 (28 December 1944).
313. LB Darmstadt, 297.
314. LB Darmstadt, 315.
315. LB Darmstadt, 305.
316. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 313–14; LB Darmstadt, 316 n.428
317. Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 312; Weinberg III. 769.
318. Even reports from the Reich Propaganda Offices throughout Germany, invariably hesitant about conveying anything other than the rosiest-coloured views, mentioned disappointment about the speech (BA, R55/612, ‘Echo zur Fuhrerrede’, Fols.20–21). Goebbels, in evident irritation, scored through the offending passages of the summary report drawn up for him. Newspaper reports of the speech struck Jewish readers in Dresden by the absence of any mention whatsoever of the western offensive (Klemperer, ii.637 (5 January 1945)).
319. Domarus, 2180.
320. Domarus, 2180, 2182.
321. Domarus, 2184.
322. IWM, ‘Aus deutschen Urkunden’, 277, report of SD-Leitabschnitt Stuttgart, 9 January 1945: ‘Der Fuhrer habe also von allem Anfang an auf den Krieg hingearbeitet.’
323. IWM, ‘Aus deutschen Urkunden’, 67, report of the SD-Leitabschnitt Stuttgart, 12 January 1945: ‘… er hatte bewu?t diesen Weltbrand entfacht, um als gro?er “Verwandler der Menschheit” proklamiert zu werden.’
324. KTB OKW, iv/2, 1345; Warlimont, 494.
325. KTB OKW, iv/2, 1346–7; also 1352–4.
326. Warlimont, 494; KTB OKW, iv/2, 1353 (heading of the section dealing with military events between 14 and 28 January 1945).
327. Weinberg III, 769.
328. Below, 398.
CHAPTER 16: INTO THE ABYSS
1. Breloer, 359–60.
2. Breloer, 359 (entry for 22 January 1945).
3. Hitler was reported to have stated this explicitly, in addressing Colonel-General Carl Hilpert, Commander- in-Chief of Army Group Courland, on 18 April 1945: ‘If the German people loses the war, it will have shown itself as not worthy of me.’ (‘Wenn das deutsche Volk den Krieg verliert, hat es sich meiner als nicht wurdig erwiesen.’) (KTB OKW, iv/1, 68 (introduction by Percy Ernst Schramm, citing a written account of Hitler’s meeting with Hilpert by Dr W. Heinemeyer, then responsible for compiling the War Diary of Army Group Courland).)
4. Below, 340, with reference to the visit to the Berghof on 24 June 1943 of Baldur and Henriette von Schirach, which ended in their premature departure after angering Hitler.
5. Guderian, 382; and see Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 414; Parker, Struggle for Survival, 217; DZW, vi.502–3. At the beginning of 1945, the German army had some 7.5 million men at its disposal. Of its 260 divisions, seventy-five were placed on the eastern front between the Carpathians and the Baltic, where the Soviet offensive was forecast. Apart from the seventy-six divisions in the west, a further twenty-four were deployed in Italy, seventeen were located in Norway and Denmark protecting U-boat bases and Swedish iron-ore supplies, ten were in Yugoslavia, twenty-eight defended oil and bauxite supplies from Hungary, and thirty were cut off in Memel and the Courland (Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 414).
6. Guderian, 383.
7. Guderian, 385.
8. Guderian, 386–8. Speaking privately to Goebbels a few days after the Soviet breakthrough, Hitler did not blame it primarily on a failure of the military leadership. He pointed to the unavoidable thinness of the defences around the Baranov bridgehead because of the need to take troops to the west for the Ardennes offensive, and to Hungary to secure oil supplies (??JG, II/15, 193 (23 January 1945)).
9. Guderian, 393–4, 417. Goring, who found the weakness of German defences at the Baranov bridgehead incomprehensible, given the prior intelligence that the offensive could be expected there, was critical, in discussion with Goebbels, about Hitler’s decision to attempt a counter-attack on Hungary. Goebbels thought Hitler’s approach was correct because of the urgent need of fuel (TBJG, II/15, 251 (28 January 1945)).
10. Guderian, 394–5, 412–13; Gerhard Boldt, Hitler’s Last Days. An Eye-Witness Account, (1947), Sphere Books edn, London, 1973, 50–53; Michael Salewski, Die deutsche Seekriegsleitung 1933–1945, Bd.II: 1942–1945, Munich, 1975, 493, 496, 520–35; Weinberg III, 721, 782; and Gerhard L. Weinberg, ‘German Plans for Victory, 1944–1945’, in Gerhard L. Weinberg (ed.), Germany, Hitler, and World War II, Cambridge, 1995, 274–86, here 284– 5.
11. DZW, vi.525.
