CHAPTER 1. SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM
1. Rudolf Semmler, Goebbels—the Man Next to Hitler, London, 1947, p. 147 (23.7.44). Semmler (real name Semler) was a press officer in the Reich Propaganda Ministry. The original German text of his diary entries appears to have been lost.
2. Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944–45, London, 2004, pp. xi, 15, 17.
3. MadR, 17, pp. 6645–58, reports for 14 and 22.7.44.
4. This sketch is based upon: Jochen von Lang, Der Sekretar: Martin Bormann. Der Mann, der Hitler beherrschte, Frankfurt am Main, 1980; Joachim C. Fest, The Face of the Third Reich, Harmondsworth, 1972, pp. 191–206; and The Bormann Letters, ed. H. R. Trevor-Roper, London, 1954, pp. vi–xxiii.
5. For a full study of this obnoxious individual, see Ralf Meindl, Ostpreu?ens Gauleiter: Erich Koch—eine politische Biographie, Osnabruck, 2007. See also Ralf Meindl, ‘Erich Koch—Gauleiter von Ostpreu?en’, in Christian Pletzing (ed.), Vorposten des Reichs? Ostpreu?en 1933–1945, Munich, 2006, pp. 29–39.
6. BAB, R43II/684, fo. 61, Kritzinger to Lammers, 13.7.44. And see Alastair Noble, Nazi Rule and the Soviet Offensive in Eastern Germany, 1944–1945: The Darkest Hour, Brighton and Portland, Ore., 2009, pp. 82–3.
7. BAB, R43II/393a, fo. 47, Vermerk for Lammers, 11.6.44.
8. ‘Fuhrer-Erlasse’ 1939–1945, ed. Martin Moll, Stuttgart, 1997, pp. 432–3.
9. Bernhard R. Kroener, ‘Der starke Mann im Heimatkriegsgebiet’: Generaloberst Friedrich Fromm. Eine Biographie, Paderborn, 2005, pp. 670–73; Peter Longerich, Heinrich Himmler: Biographie, Munich, 2008, p. 720 (and now in general the most authoritative account of Himmler’s personality and career).
10. Eleanor Hancock, National Socialist Leadership and Total War 1941–45, New York, 1991, p. 127.
11. TBJG, II/12, p. 522 (22.6.44).
12. DRZW, 5/2 (Muller), p. 754.
13. e.g. MadR, 17, pp. 6657–8 (22.7.44).
14. BAB, R3/1522, fos. 4–16, Memorandum on ‘Total War’, 12.7.44. And see Wolfgang Bleyer, ‘Plane der faschistischen Fuhrung zum totalen Krieg im Sommer 1944’, Zeitschrift fur Geschichtswissenschaft, 17 (1969), pp. 1312–29; also Gregor Janssen, Das Ministerium Speer: Deutschlands Rustung im Krieg, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main and Vienna, 1968, pp. 271–2.
15. Peter Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter: Fuhrung der Partei und Kontrolle des Staatsapparates durch den Stab He? und die Partei-Kanzlei Bormann, Munich, 1992, p. 195. In his Nuremberg testimony, Speer suggested, presumably with his success in instigating the planned meeting in mind, that his letter had prompted Hitler to appoint Goebbels as Plenipotentiary for Total War (IWM, FO645/161, p. 10, 9.10.45).
16. Dieter Rebentisch, Fuhrerstaat und Verwaltung im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Stuttgart, 1989, p. 514.
17. Peter Longerich, ‘Joseph Goebbels und der totale Krieg: Eine unbekannte Denkschrift des Propagandaministers vom 18. Juli 1944’, Vf Z, 35 (1987), pp. 289–314 (text pp. 305–14). And see Hancock, pp. 133–6.
18. BAB, R3/1522, fos.23–45, Memorandum on ‘Total War’, 20.7.44. And see Hancock, pp. 129–33; and Janssen, pp. 272–3.
19. Kroener, p. 705.
20. Speer did not pass the memorandum to Hitler, via the latter’s Luftwaffe adjutant, Nicolaus von Below, until 29 July, the day after he sent a copy to Himmler.—BAB, R3/1522, fo. 48, Speer to Himmler, 28.7.44.
21. BA/MA, N24/39, NL Ho?bach, typescript, ‘Erinnerungen’, May 1945.
22. Lagebesprechungen im Fuhrerhauptquartier: Protokollfragmente aus Hitlers militarischen Konferenzen 1942–1945, ed. Helmut Heiber, Berlin, Darmstadt and Vienna, 1963, p. 219 (20.12.43) (Eng. edn., Hitler and his Generals: Military Conferences 1942–1945, ed. Helmut Heiber and David M. Glantz, London, 2002, p. 314).
23. Quoted in Andreas Kunz, Wehrmacht und Niederlage: Die bewaffnete Macht in der Endphase der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft 1944 bis 1945, Munich, 2007, p. 61.
24. Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader, Da Capo edn., New York, 1996, p. 336.
25. Friedrich-Christian Stahl, ‘Generaloberst Kurt Zeitzler’, in Gerd R. Ueberschar (ed.), Hitlers militarische Elite, vol. 2: Vom Kriegsbeginn bis zum Weltkriegsende, Darmstadt, 1998, p. 278.
26. General Heusinger had evidently changed tack since spring 1944, when he had followed Hitler’s line of not yielding a metre in the east and intending a later offensive to win back the Ukraine, providing the expected Allied landing in the west could be repulsed.—Jurgen Forster, Die Wehrmacht im NS-Staat: Eine strukturgeschichtliche Analyse, Munich, 2007, p. 189. After the war Heusinger was a strong critic of Hitler’s military leadership.
27. IWM, EDS, F.5, AL1671, 1.8.44; printed in ‘Spiegelbild einer Verschworung’: Die Opposition gegen Hitler und der Staatsstreich vom 20. Juli 1944 in der SD-Berichterstattung, ed. Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1984, vol. 2, pp. 654–8 (and see also vol. 1, pp. 125–6, 515).
28. A point made by Forster, pp. 131ff., and in his contribution to DRZW, 9/1, p. 621 as well as by Heinemann in the same volume, p. 883. See also Kunz, pp. 105ff.
29. Ardsley Microfilms, Irving Collection, D1/Goring/1.
30. BA/MA, N24/39, NL Ho?bach, typescript, 19.5.45.
31. Hans Mommsen, ‘Social Views and Constitutional Plans of the Resistance’, in Hermann Graml et al., The German Resistance to Hitler, London, 1970, p. 59.
32. Joachim Kramarz, Stauffenberg: The Life and Death of an Officer, November 15th 1907–July 20th 1944, London, 1967, p. 185.
33. Marlis Steinert, Hitlers Krieg und die Deutschen, Dusseldorf and Vienna, 1970, pp. 476ff.
34. Spiegelbild einer Verschworung: Die Kaltenbrunner-Berichte an Bormann und Hitler uber das Attentat vom 20. Juli 1944. Geheime Dokumente aus dem ehemaligen Reichssicherheitshauptamt, ed. Archiv Peter, Stuttgart, 1961, pp. 1–11 (reports from 21, 22 and 24.7.44).
35. BAB, R55/601, fos. 54–63, Tatigkeitsbericht, weekly report of the head of the Propaganda Staff, 24.7.44.
36. BAB, R55/601, fos. 69–70, Tatigkeitsbericht, weekly report of the head of the Propaganda Staff, 7.8.44. Guderian, speaking to General Balck, blamed Field-Marshal Kluge’s involvement with the conspiracy for the collapse in the west.—BA/MA, N647/12, NL Balck, Kriegstagebuch, Bd. 11, fo. 89, entry for 10.9.44.
37. The plot immediately gave Hitler his explanation of the disaster on the eastern front. See the comments he made to Jodl at the end of July.—Lagebesprechungen im Fuhrerhauptquartier, pp. 246–8 (31.7.44); Hitler and his Generals, pp. 446–7. Those close to Hitler passed on the interpretation. Writing to Gauleiter Eggeling in Halle, Bormann claimed that the collapse of Army Group Centre had been connected with the conspiracy, and pointed to the role of Major-General Henning von Tresckow.—BAB, NS6/153, fos. 3–5, Bormann to Eggeling, 8.9.44. Bormann eventually felt compelled to rein in the generalized attacks on the officer corps, particularly some higher officers, in connection with the bomb plot and the collapse of
