Die NSDAP-Ortsgruppen 1932–1945, Paderborn, 2002, pp. 377–81.
113. Kissel, p. 89; Mammach, p. 58; Yelton, pp. xv, 19–35.
114. TBJG, II/13, p. 535 (21.9.44).
115. Mammach, pp. 57–8. No figure for its actual size (which anyway fluctuated) at any one point appears to exist. Because of manpower shortage, exemptions, deferrals and bureaucratic inefficiency the target was never remotely reached in practice. Even so, the numbers drafted were large. The first levy of the Volkssturm amounted to 1.2 million men, formed into 1,850 battalions.—Alastair Noble, Nazi Rule and the Soviet Offensive in Eastern Germany, 1944–1945: The Darkest Hour, Brighton and Portland, Ore., 2009, p. 149.
116. TBJG, II/13, p. 103 (13.7.44); Noble, pp. 100–101.
117. DZW, 6, pp. 235, 237; BAB, NS6/792, fos. 6–8 (29.8.44), 9–12 (30.8.44); DRZW, 9/1 (Nolzen), pp. 180–82.
118. IfZ, ZS 597, fo. 27, Gauleiter Josef Grohe (1950).
119. TBJG, II/13, p. 465 (12.9.44).
120. BHStA, Reichsstatthalter Epp 681/1–8, unfoliated, copy of Hitler’s Verfugung 12/44 (1.9.44); BAB, R43II/1548, fo. 36, Lammers an die Obersten Reichsbehorden, transmitting Hitler’s order (6.9.44); ‘Fuhrer-Erlasse’ 1939–1945, ed. Martin Moll, Stuttgart, 1997, pp. 446–50; DZW, 6, p. 237.
121. Quoted (in English) in NAL, FO898/187, fo. 598, PWE report for 4–10.9.44.
122. DZW, 6, p. 236. By the end of 1944 the number of conscripts for fortification work on all fronts was over 1.5 million.—DRZW, 9/1 (Nolzen), p. 182.
123. BAB, NS19/3912, fos. 11–12, Bormann to Gauleiter, Rundschreiben 302/44g.Rs., Stellungsbau, 6.10.44.
124. BAB, NS19/3911, fos. 35–8, Party Chancellery Rundschreiben 263/44 g.Rs., Zweiter Erla? des Fuhrers uber die Befehlsgewalt in einem Operationsgebiet innerhalb des Reiches vom 19.9.1944, etc., 23.9.44, transmitting Hitler’s decree of 19.9.44, and providing guidelines for implementation; BAB, NS19/3912, fo. 27, Rundschreiben 312/44g.Rs., Zweiter Erla? des Fuhrers uber die Befehlsgewalt, etc., 11.10.44, amending one clause of the decree to underline Himmler’s overall authority; ‘Fuhrer-Erlasse’, pp. 455–7; Hitlers Weisungen fur die Kriegfuhrung 1939–1945: Dokumente des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht, ed. Walther Hubatsch, pb. edn., Munich, 1965, pp. 337–41.
125. The Bormann Letters, ed. H. R. Trevor-Roper, London, 1954, p. 88 (27.8.44).
126. The Bormann Letters, p. 139 (25.10.44).
127. Patzold and Wei?becker, p. 375.
CHAPTER 3. FORETASTE OF HORROR
1. DZW, 6, pp. 78–9; Andreas Kunz, Wehrmacht und Niederlage: Die bewaffnete Macht in der Endphase der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft 1944 bis 1945, Munich, 2007, pp. 152–3. Those killed on the eastern front numbered 589,425 in the months June to August 1944. In the last six months of 1944, the figure was 740,821 dead. The number of deaths on the eastern front in 1944 as a whole, 1,233,000, amounted to 45 per cent of the mortalities in that theatre since the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941.—Rudiger Overmans, Deutsche militarische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Munich, 1999, pp. 277–9.
2. DRZW, 8 (Frieser), p. 594, who gives the losses for Army Group Centre at around 390,000 men, compared with some 330,000 at Verdun and 60,000 dead and 110,000 captured at Stalingrad. On the four fronts of ‘Bagration’, the Soviets deployed around 2.5 million men, 45,000 artillery pieces, 6,000 tanks and more than 8,000 planes over a front of around 1,100 kilometres with a depth of advance of 550–600 kilometres over a period of 69 days (22 June to 29 August).—DRZW, 8 (Frieser), pp. 526–35, 593, for the size of the Soviet offensive and relative weakness of German forces.
3. DRZW, 8 (Frieser), p. 556. Soviet losses were more than 440,000. Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, Cambridge, 1994, provides a good summary of the developments on the eastern front in this period.
4. DRZW, 8 (Frieser), p. 612; Brian Taylor, Barbarossa to Berlin: A Chronology of the Campaigns on the Eastern Front 1941 to 1945, vol. 2, Stroud, 2008, p. 218.
5. DZW, 6, pp. 52–60; DRZW, 8 (Schonherr), pp. 678– 718.
6. Hitler himself had given the order, passed on by Himmler, for the total destruction of Warsaw.—BA/MA, RH19/II/213, v.d. Bach-Zelewski to 9th Army command, 11.10.44.
7. DZW, 6, p. 410. For a vivid narrative of the horrific events, see Norman Davies, Rising ’44: ‘The Battle for Warsaw’, London, 2004.
8. This figure in DZW, 6, p. 70, deviates from that provided by Weinberg, p. 714 (380,000 men lost) and DRZW, 8 (Schonherr), p. 819 (286,000 men killed or captured in the Romanian theatre). The basis for the discrepancy in figures is not clear.
9. DZW, 6, pp. 62–70; DRZW, 8 (Schonherr), pp. 746– 819.
10. DRZW, 8 (Frieser), pp. 626–7, 668–72; DZW, 6, p. 72; Weinberg, pp. 707– 720–21; and the fine, thorough study by Howard D. Grier, Hitler, Donitz, and the Baltic Sea: The Third Reich’s Last Hope, 1944–1945, Annapolis, Md., 2007.
11. BA/MA, RH19/III/727: for Schorner’s tough orders on taking over command of Army Group North and his demand for fanaticism, mentioning also the fear of being cut off (25.7.44, 28.7.44); his threats regarding discipline and appeal to ruthless fanaticism in the total war ‘for our threatened national existence’ (12.8.44); his demands for ruthless punishment by military courts in accordance with Hitler’s orders (1.10.44); his appeal to fanatical determination after the ‘heroic’ fightback in Riga (5.10.44); further demands for ruthless action and improvised methods, with threats for those found lacking (7.10.44); his exhortation to his generals to educate their men to fight harder than ever, and order for defensive measures to be adopted in line with Hitler’s command to hold the area (18.10.44, 21.10.44); his claim that they were not conducting the war ‘uncompromisingly, radically and asiatically enough’ (2.11.44); his extreme intolerance of perceived absence of fighting spirit (10.11.44). When Schorner was on trial in West Germany after his return in 1955 from Soviet captivity, he received supportive letters from former comrades who praised his leadership of Army Group North and attributed its survival to his leadership. See BA/MA, N60/73, NL Schorner. However, the court found that the level of his brutality could not be justified, even in the conditions of war on the eastern front in 1944.
12. Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader, Da Capo edn., New York, 1996, pp. 376– 7.
13. DZW, 6, pp. 70–76; DRZW, 8 (Frieser), pp. 623–57 (troop numbers, pp. 657–8); Grier, ch. 3.
14. TBJG, II/13, pp. 524–5 (20.9.44), 536–42 (21.9.44).
15. DRZW, 8 (Frieser), pp. 602–3 and map, p. 573.
16. Alastair Noble, Nazi Rule and the Soviet Offensive in Eastern Germany, 1944–1945: The Darkest Hour, Brighton and Portland, Ore., 2009, pp. 20–22.
17. Noble, chs. 1–3, p. 46 for the evacuee figure.
18. See Noble, pp. 85 and 276 n. 81. British intelligence authorities gleaned much about the panic in eastern Germany from reading between the lines of German newspapers and other publications. See NAL, FO898/186, PWE, Summary of and Comments on German Broadcasts to Germany, fos. 18, 35–8 (reports for 24–31.7.44 and 31.7– 6.8.44).
19. MadR, 17, pp. 6698–9 (10.8.44).
20. MadR, 17, pp. 6702 (10.8.44), 6708 (17.8.44).
