Army Group Centre that had been made in Party meetings.—BAB, NS6/167, fos. 69–71, Party Chancellery, Bekanntgabe 254/44, Stellungnahme zu den Vorgangen im Mittelabschnitt der Ostfront und zu den Ereignissen des 20.7.1944, 20.9.44; also in BAB, NS19/2606, fos. 25–7.
38. BAB, R55/603, fo. 508, Party Chancellery, Abt. II B4, Vertrauliche Informationen, 13.9.44.
39. BAB, R55/603, fo. 380, Hauptreferat Pro.Pol, Dr Schaffer to Abteilung Rfk. Dr Scharping, 18.8.44.
40. BfZ, Sammlung Sterz, Gefr. Gunter H., 2.8.44.
41. Heinrich Breloer (ed.), Mein Tagebuch: Geschichten vom Uberleben 1939– 1947, Cologne, 1984, p. 334.
42. Steinert, p. 479.
43. Ortwin Buchbender and Reinhold Sterz (eds.), Das andere Gesicht des Krieges: Deutsche Feldpostbriefe 1939–1945, Munich, 1982, pp. 21–2.
44. LHC, Dempsey Papers, no. 72, appendix B, letter (in English translation) to Hfw. Ludwig E., 21.7.44.
45. BA/MA, MSg2/5284, fo. 603, diary of Major Max Rohwerder, entries for 20–21.7.44.
46. BA/MA, MSg2/2697, diary of Lieutenant Julius Dufner, vol. 2, fo. 20, entries for 20–21.7.44. Biographical details about Dr Julius Dufner, born on 25 January 1902, whose diary entries will find reference in the following chapters, are sparse. The first entry in ‘Mein Kriegstagebuch’, MSg2/2696, fo. 1, for 12.11.40, says he was called up to 3.Inf.Ers.Batl.14 in Konstanz. Later in the war, on 11.3.44, he is mentioned (fo. 190) as a participant in a meeting on that date as Lieutenant ‘O.Zahlm.d.R. [Oberzahlungsmeister (head of payments section) in the Reserve] Dr. Dufner, 1.Fest.Pi.Stab. 15, Stabsgruppe [pioneer corps]’. I am grateful to Jurgen Forster for his help in tracing Dufner in the Kartei of the BA/MA in Freiburg. His diary entries (MSg2/2697, fo. 182) were typed up in 1971, ‘according to his continuously kept diary’.
47. Manfred Messerschmidt, ‘Die Wehrmacht: Vom Realitatsverlust zum Selbstbetrug’, in Hans-Erich Volkmann (ed.), Ende des Dritten Reiches—Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges: Ein perspektivische Ruchschau, Munich and Zurich, 1995, pp. 240–41.
48. Forster, p. 136.
49. DRZW, vol. 8 (Frieser), pp. 539 ff. for the disaster of the 3rd Panzer Army at Vitebsk in late June.
50. BA/MA, N245/3, NL Reinhardt, Personliches Kriegstagebuch, fo. 75, 20–21.7.44.
51. BA/MA, N245/2, NL Reinhardt, Auszugsweise Abschriften von Briefen an seine Frau, letter to his wife, fo. 39, 17.8.44.
52. BA/MA, N647/12, NL Balck, Kriegstagebuch, Bd. 11, fos. 77–8, 83–4, entries for 21.7.44, 5.8.44. Balck later described Hitler as ‘the cement that bound people and Wehrmacht insolubly together’.—Quoted in John Zimmermann, Pflicht zum Untergang: Die deutsche Kriegfuhrung im Westen des Reiches 1944/45, Paderborn, 2009, p. 2.
53. BA/MA, N24/39, NL Ho?bach, typescript, 19.5.45 (four-page interpolation following p. 5).
54. ‘Fuhrer-Erlasse’, p. 433.
55. Kroener, pp. 710–11, 730.
56. Forster, p. 134, and pp. 138–45 for the significance of Himmler’s new powers within the army; also Longerich, Himmler, pp. 717, 719–21. There was, understandably, little initial enthusiasm among the higher ranks of the Wehrmacht for Himmler’s takeover (though they were said to have been won over by a speech he made to generals and other officers at a training course in Sonthofen).—BAB, NS19/3271, fo. 31, Auszug aus der Meldung des SD-Leitabschnittes Danzig, SD report from Danzig, 14.9.44.
57. Kroener, p. 714; Longerich, Himmler, p. 722. There was, in fact, a dispute within the high ranks of the SS over responsibilities in recruitment for the Replacement Army. The head of the SS Central Office (responsible for recruitment to the Waffen-SS), Gottlob Berger, successfully extended his own powers in this area not only towards the army, but also towards Juttner, who in practice was more conciliatory towards the interests of the Replacement Army than his rival within the SS leadership.—Kroener, pp. 714–15. Berger’s ambitions to take over all matters concerning recruitment and training for the Replacement Army are evident in his letter to Himmler of 1.8.44 in BAB, NS19/2409, fo. 6.
58. BAB, NS19/4015, fos. 13–32, Himmler speech to officers of Chief of Army Armaments, 21.7.44.
59. BAB, NS19/4015, fos. 42–7, Himmler speech at Grafenwohr, 25.7.44; IWM, EDS, F.2, AL2708, Himmler speech at Bitsch, 26.7.44 (printed in Heinrich Himmler: Geheimreden 1933 bis 1945 und andere Aussprachen, ed. Bradley F. Smith and Agnes F. Peterson, Frankfurt am Main, 1974, pp. 215–37). Himmler did not conceal his contempt when, this time addressing Party leaders in early August, he castigated the air of defeatism which the officers of the General Staff had spread in the army since the beginning of the war in the east.—Theodor Eschenburg, ‘Die Rede Himmlers vor den Gauleitern am 3. August 1944’, Vf Z, 1 (1953), pp. 362–78.
60. BAB, NS19/3910, fo. 89, Himmler to Fegelein, 26.7.44.
61. ‘Fuhrer-Erlasse’, p. 438.
62. BAB, R3/1522, fos. 48–9, Speer to Himmler, 28.7.44.
63. Hancock, p. 139.
64. Rebentisch, p. 515.
65. BAB, R43II/664a, ‘Totaler Kriegseinsatz’, fos. 81–91, fos. 117, 154 for the exemption for the Reich Chancellery, agreed by Hitler. Goebbels’ summary of the meeting is in TBJG, II/13, pp. 134–7 (23.7.44). And see Rebentisch, pp. 515–16; Hancock, pp. 137–8; and Elke Frohlich, ‘Hitler und Goebbels im Krisenjahr 1944: Aus den Tagebuchern des Reichspropagandaministers’, Vf Z, 39 (1990), pp. 205–7.
66. TBJG, II/13, pp. 136–7 (23.7.44).
67. TBJG, II/13, pp. 153–5 (24.7.44).
68. BAB, R43II/664a, fos. 119–21 (and fos. 92–118 for drafts and preparatory material).
69. Wilfred von Oven, Mit Goebbels bis zum Ende, vol. 2, Buenos Aires, 1950, p. 94 (25.7.44).
70. TBJG, II/13, pp. 135, 137 (23.7.44).
71. BAB, R43II/664a, fos. 153–4; Rebentisch, pp. 516ff.; Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter, pp. 195ff.
72. Von Oven, Mit Goebbels, pp. 120–21 (16.8.44).
73. Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter, p. 197.
74. Hancock, pp. 157, 287 n. 27.
75. Hans Mommsen, ‘The Indian Summer and the Collapse of the Third Reich: The Last Act’, in Hans Mommsen (ed.), The Third Reich between Vision and Reality, Oxford and New York, 2001, p. 114.
76. BAB, NS6/167, fo. 95–95v, Bormann to the Gauleiter on the ‘new combing out action’, 19.7.44; TBJG, II/13, pp. 134 (23.7.44); Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter, p. 196.
77. ‘Fuhrer-Erlasse’, pp. 428–9. The role of the RVKs would be widened with the second decree (pp. 455–6) on ‘Collaboration of Party and Wehrmacht in an Operational Area within the Reich’ of 19 September. Bormann passed on to the Gauleiter Keitel’s guidelines for cooperation of 27 July (BAB, NS6/792, fo. 1–1v, Rundschreiben 163/44 gRs., Zusammenarbeit zwischen militarischen und zivilen Dienststellen, 1.8.44, also in NS19/3911, fos. 30–32). See also Forster, p. 133 and n. 9; Kroener, p. 668.
78. Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter, p. 196. One, among many, examples of the extended power of the Party was in the takeover of control by the Party Chancellery (delegated by Bormann to the Reich Defence Commissars) of air-raid protection and the necessary instruction of the population. See BAB, R43II/1648, fo. 54 Lammers to the Highest Authorities of the Reich, 27.7.44, passing on the Fuhrer decree of two days earlier.
79. See Karl Teppe, ‘Der Reichsverteidigungskommissar: Organisation und Praxis in Westfalen’, in Dieter Rebentisch and Karl Teppe (eds.), Verwaltung contra Menschenfuhrung im Staat Hitlers, Gottingen, 1986, p. 299 for the extended power the RVKs gained after Goebbels’ appointment as Total War Plenipotentiary.
80. The somewhat clumsy term was the invention of Dietrich Orlow, The History of the Nazi
