The End

77. TBJG, II/13, p. 388 (2.9.44).

78. BAB, R3/1526, fos. 3–19, Speer to Hitler, 20.9.44. See also Hancock, p. 167.

79. Albert Speer, Erinnerungen, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, 1969, p. 407.

80. See DZW, 6, p. 228, Speer’s Posen speech, 3.8.44; BAB, R3/1527, fo. 13, Speer to Hitler, 3.10.44.

81. BAB, R3/1527, fos. 8–9, Stellungnahme zur Fuhrerinformation v. Dr. Goebbels, 26.9.44; fo. 10– 10^v, Speer to Bormann, 2.10.44; fos. 12–15, Speer to Hitler, 3.10.44 (quotation, fo. 12).

82. TBJG, II/14, pp. 329–30 (2.12.44).

83. See TBJG, II/14, p. 383 (9.12.44).

84. DRZW, 5/2 (Muller), p. 754.

85. DRZW, 5/2 (Muller), pp. 755–61; DZW, 6, pp. 364– 5.

86. BAB, R3/1740, fo. 111, Speer-Chronik, mentions some of these aims.

87. Speer’s suggestion in his Erinnerungen, p. 411, that this emphasis was a tactical device, in case Hitler should hear that installations close to the front had not been destroyed sounds like a later rationalization of something that at the time he genuinely advocated.

88. Speer, p. 410. See also Gregor Janssen, Das Ministerium Speer: Deutschlands Rustung im Krieg, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main and Vienna, 1968, pp. 304–7; Matthias Schmidt, Albert Speer: Das Ende eines Mythos, Berne and Munich, 1982, pp. 146–7; and Hans Kehrl, Krisenmanager im Dritten Reich, Dusseldorf, 1973, pp. 412–13. Hitler had agreed in August, during the retreat from France, that industrial plant in danger of falling into enemy hands should be temporarily immobilized, not destroyed.—BAB, R3/1512, fo. 57, notes from armaments conferences 18–20.8.44; printed in Deutschlands Rustung im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Hitlers Konferenzen mit Albert Speer 1942– 1945, ed. Willi A. Boelcke, Frankfurt am Main, 1969, p. 402. Speer (pp. 411–12) had, however, then been alarmed at signs in early September that Hitler intended a ‘scorched earth’ policy in Germany. This was from a leading article in the Volkischer Beobachter on 7 September, written by Helmut Sundermann, deputy Reich Press Chief, on Hitler’s direct instructions, Speer said (p. 577 n. 13). Goebbels was displeased with the article, written without his agreement, which had been badly received by the public.— TBJG, II/13, p. 493 (16.9.44). See also von Oven, p. 137 (18.9.44), who described the article as ‘idiotic’.

89. BAB, R3/1539, fos. 7–14, 17–31, reports on visit to the west, 14.9.44, 16.9.44 (quotation, fo. 28); R3/1740, fos. 106–7, Speer-Chronik; BAB, R3/1623, fos. 22, 24–7, 50–52, 66–8, 77–77^v, directives on disabling industry in the west.

90. BAB, R3/1540, fos. 6–23, report on the visit to the western areas, 26.9.–1.10.44 (5.10.44); description of the visit in R3/1740, fos. 112–25, Speer-Chronik. See also Speer, p. 408.

91. BAB, R3/1583, fos. 110–11, Speer to Himmler, Bewachungs-Mannschaften fur KZ-Haftlinge, 29.10.44.

92. Speer, p. 409; Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth, London, 1995, p. 460. And see the critical assessment of Speer’s claim to have accepted at an early stage that the war was lost, by Alfred C. Mierzejewski, ‘When Did Albert Speer Give up?’, Historical Journal, 31 (1988), pp. 391–7.

93. A point he makes in Erinnerungen, p. 411. For the industrialists’ preparations for peace, see Ludolf Herbst, Der Totale Krieg und die Ordnung der Wirtschaft, Stuttgart, 1982, pp. 345–7 and part V generally.

94. DRZW, 5/2 (Muller), p. 302.

95. IWM, Box 367/27, Speer Interrogations, Karl Saur, 11–13.6.45; Box 368/77, Kurt Weissenborn, December 1945–March 1946. And see, for Saur’s brutal mode of operation, Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, London, 2006, pp. 628–9.

96. DZW, 6, p. 266.

97. Around 2.5 million additional foreign workers and prisoners of war were put to work in Germany between the beginning of 1943 and autumn 1944, two-thirds of these from the east. Nearly a third of the labour force in the mining, metal, chemical and building industries in August 1944 consisted of foreign workers.—Ulrich Herbert, Fremdarbeiter: Politik und Praxis des ‘Auslander-Einsatzes’ in der Kriegswirtschaft des Dritten Reiches, Bonn, 1985, pp. 258, 270.

98. DZW, 6, pp. 261–3. See Herbert, pp. 327–31, for increasingly arbitrary and violent persecution of foreign workers as fears of a breakdown of order grew in the last months of the war.

99. DZW, 6, pp. 257–9; Peter Hoffmann, Widerstand, Staatsstreich, Attentat: Der Kampf der Opposition gegen Hitler, 4th edn., Munich, 1985, p. 635.

100. BAB, NS19/3911, fos. 66–7, Der Hohere SS- und Polizeifuhrer Spree an den Gauen Berlin, Mark Brandenburg und im Wehrkreis III to Reichsfuhrer-SS Personlicher Stab and others, conveying Himmler’s decree of 20.8.44. Himmler later reinforced the full backing he had given to his HSSPFs as solely responsible for combating internal unrest, when commanders of Defence Districts sought to exert their own authority in this realm.—BAB, NS19/3912, fos. 17–26, correspondence relating to the competence dispute, 14.9.44 to 5.10.44.

101. DZW, 6, p. 233.

102. TBJG, II/13, pp. 389–90, 398, 408 (2, 3, 4.9.44).

103. BAB, NS19/751, fo. 3, Party Chancellery Rundschreiben 224/44, Erfassung von zuruckfuhrenden und versprengten einzelnen Wehrmachtsangehorigen, 4.9.44; NS6/792, fo. 16–16^v, Himmler to the western Gauleiter, 4.9.44. A repeated order to pick up individuals or units returning over the Reich border following the events in the west was issued on 22 September (NS19/751, fos. 10–12, Party Chancellery circular 258/44). Increased fears of enemy agents, saboteurs and spies led to the police being given the sole right to check papers of members of the Wehrmacht as well as the Waffen-SS and, where necessary, to make arrests.—BAB, R43II/692, fos. 1–2, directive by Keitel and Himmler, 20.9.44.

104. Peter Longerich, Heinrich Himmler: Biographie, Munich, 2008, p. 732.

105. DZW, 6, p. 108.

106. BAB, NS19/3912, fo. 96, Einsatz von Alarmeinheiten im Kampf um Ortschaften, Guderian’s directive, 27.8.44.

107. TBJG, II/13, p. 438 (8.9.44); David K. Yelton, Hitler’s Volkssturm: The Nazi Militia and the Fall of Germany, 1944–1945, Lawrence, Kan., 2002, pp. 39– 40.

108. TBJG, II/13, p. 464 (12.9.44).

109. Yelton, pp. 7–18; Klaus Mammach, Der Volkssturm: Bestandteil des totalen Kriegseinsatzes der deutschen Bevolkerung 1944/45, Berlin, 1981, pp. 31–3; Hans Kissel, Der Deutsche Volkssturm 1944/45, Frankfurt am Main, 1962, pp. 15–23; Franz W. Seidler, ‘Deutscher Volkssturm’: Das letzte Aufgebot 1944/45, Munich and Berlin, 1989; BAB, R43II/692a, fos. 2–7, 14–20.9.44; DRZW, 9/1 (Nolzen), pp. 183–5; DZW, 6, pp. 237–8. Goebbels still spoke of the new organization by this name in his diary entry for 21 September 1944.—TBJG, II/13, pp. 534–5.

110. Mammach, p. 33. Two days earlier, Himmler had received a list of suggestions sent to him by SS- Obergruppenfuhrer and General der Polizei Richard Hildebrandt, Chief of the Race and Settlement Head Office, to mobilize and organize the civilian population for ‘the people’s war’, a ‘German partisan war’, to be carried out as a ‘freedom struggle’ in the homeland.—BAB, NS19/2864, unfoliated, Hildebrandt to Himmler, 19.9.44.

111. BAB, R43II/692a, fos. 8–21; Mammach, pp. 32–3, 55–6 and 168–73 for facsimiles of Hitler’s decree and Bormann’s order for implementation.

112. Yelton, chs. 2–3. Longerich’s claim (Himmler, p. 733) that Himmler and Berger were successful against Bormann seems doubtful. Bormann’s personal success in his demarcation disputes with Himmler is underlined by Jochen von Lang, Der Sekretar: Martin Bormann. Der Mann, der Hitler beherrschte, Frankfurt am Main, 1980, pp. 298–9. For the recruitment and organization of the Volkssturm, undertaken by the Party local leaders (Ortsgruppenleiter), see Carl-Wilhelm Reibel, Das Fundament der Diktatur: