Konigsberg, 1945, London, 2007, pp. 201–2. In early February, Koch moved his staff to Heiligenbeil to help organize the evacuation of refugees over the ice of the Haff.—Meindl, p. 447.
19. Heinrich Schwendemann, ‘Endkampf und Zusammenbruch im deutschen Osten’, Freiburger Universitatsblatter, 130 (1995), p. 19; Hans Graf von Lehndorff, Ostpreu?isches Tagebuch: Aufzeichnungen eines Arztes aus den Jahren 1945–1947, pb. edn., Munich, 1967, pp. 18 (23.1.45), 40 (7.2.45).
20. Some of many examples in Edgar Gunther Lass, Die Flucht: Ostpreu?en 1944/45, Bad Nauheim, 1964, pp. 85–7.
21. Lehndorff, pp. 24–5 (28.1.45).
22. Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, p. 28 (testimony from 1951).
23. Christian Tilitzki, Alltag in Ostpreu?en 1940–1945: Die geheimen Lageberichte der Konigsberger Justiz 1940–1945, Leer, 1991, pp. 300–304 (report of the Generalstaatsanwalt, 18.1.45). See also Heinrich Schwendemann, ‘Tod zwischen den Fronten’, Spiegel Special 2, Hamburg, 2002, p. 46. Gauleiter Koch encouraged the judicial authorities to take a pragmatic view of the looting in the circumstances. Lehndorff, p. 27 (29.1.45), in his field hospital in Konigsberg after a bombing raid, recorded his despair at the looting; also pp. 28–9 (30.1.45). Later accounts have at times minimized the looting of apartments in Konigsberg, emphasizing the severe punishment for ‘plunderers’.—Hans-Burkhard Sumowski, ‘Jetzt war ich ganz allein auf der Welt’: Erinnerungen an eine Kindheit in Konigsberg 1944–1947, Munich, 2009, p. 61.
24. Schwendemann, ‘Tod zwischen den Fronten’, pp. 44–5.
25. Denny, p. 199.
26. Lehndorff, p. 18 (23.1.45).
27. Beevor, p. 49.
28. Dieckert and Grossmann, p. 129; Lehndorff, p. 39 (7.2.45).
29. Lehndorff, pp. 19, 21 (24, 26.1.45).
30. Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, pp. 144–6.
31. Lehndorff, p. 23 (27.1.45).
32. DRZW, 10/1 (Rahn), p. 272; Schwendemann, ‘Endkampf’, p. 20.
33. Lass, pp. 246ff.
34. Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, p. 79 (testimony from 1952).
35. Schwendemann, ‘Endkampf’, p. 20.
36. Franz W. Seidler and Alfred M. de Zayas (eds.), Kriegsverbrechen in Europa und im Nahen Osten im 20. Jahrhundert, Hamburg, 2002, p. 220. Vivid descriptions of the mass flight from East Prussia and conditions in the province are provided in the account compiled only a few years after the events by Jurgen Thorwald, Es begann an der Weichsel: Flucht und Vertreibung der Deutschen aus dem Osten, pb. edn., Munich, 1995 (1st edn., 1949), pp. 123–99; and in Guido Knopp, Die gro?e Flucht: Das Schicksal der Vertriebenen, Munich, 2001, pp. 57–85. A good description of the horrific treks is provided by Richard Bessel, Germany 1945: From War to Peace, London, 2009, ch. 4.
37. Manfred Zeidler, Kriegsende im Osten: Die Rote Armee und die Besetzung Deutschlands ostlich von Oder und Nei?e 1944/1945, Munich, 1996, pp. 135–8.
38. Zeidler, pp. 140–41.
39. Schwendemann, ‘Endkampf’, p. 22.
40. A few of many examples in Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, pp. 194, 297; vol. 2, pp. 159–64, 224–34; Lass, pp. 87, 121.
41. Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, p. 266.
42. Barbara Johr, ‘Die Ereignisse in Zahlen’, in Helke Sander and Barbara Johr (eds.), Befreier und Befreite: Krieg, Vergewaltigungen, Kinder, Munich, 1992, pp. 47–8, 58–9.
43. The above account of the plight of the East Prussian refugees, where not otherwise indicated, is based on Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, pp. 33E–41E, 60Eff., 79Eff., and the reports, pp. 21–154. Figures on Germans deported are in Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, p. 83E, and Schwendemann, ‘Endkampf’, p. 24 (estimating up to as many as 400,000). A number of later graphic oral accounts are given by Hastings, pp. 319ff.
44. Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, pp. 26E–32E, 345–404. See also Noble, p. 204 for the refusal of the Gauleiter, Emil Sturtz, to allow precautionary evacuation.
45. BfZ, Sammlung Sterz, Pfarrer Heinrich M., 28.1.45, giving the example of the Blechhammer and Heydebreck synthetic fuel plant in Upper Silesia. The enormous industrial complex at Blechhammer, near Cosel, about 75 kilometres from Auschwitz, had in its heyday nearly 30,000 workers, nearly 4,000 of whom were, shortly before the evacuation in January 1945, prisoners in an outlying camp attached to Auschwitz III (Monowitz). On Blechhammer, see Ernest Koenig, ‘Auschwitz III—Blechhammer. Erinnerungen’, Dachauer Hefte, 15 (1999), pp. 134–52; and Andrea Rudorff, ‘Blechhammer (Blachownia)’, in Wolfgang Benz and Barbara Distel (eds.), Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager, vol. 5, Munich, 2007, pp. 186–91. A week earlier, Speer had reported to Hitler on the importance of the plant’s production of aircraft fuel, urging concentration of the entire Luftwaffe ‘in this decisive struggle’ for its defence, and seeking the Fuhrer’s opinion. He had told the works the same day that he and Colonel-General Schorner would decide when the factory should be put out of action, though only in such a way that would render deployment by the Soviets impossible for two to three weeks.—BAB, R3/1545, fos. 3–7, Speer to von Below, for immediate presentation to the Fuhrer; Speer to the Werke Blechhammer und Heydebreck, both 21.1.45.
46. Schwendemann, ‘Tod zwischen den Fronten’, p. 44.
47. Paul Peikert, ‘Festung Breslau’ in den Berichten eines Pfarrers 22. Januar bis 6. Mai 1945, ed. Karol Jonca and Alfred Konieczny, Wroclaw, 1993, p. 29; BfZ, Sammlung Sterz, Pfarrer Heinrich M., 28.1.45; Knopp, Die gro?e Flucht, p. 158. Those who managed to find a place on a train then faced a long and grim journey through the bitter cold. Some refugees arrived in Dresden with children who had frozen to death on the way and had to ask railway personnel for cardboard boxes to serve as coffins.—Reinhold Maier, Ende und Wende: Das schwabische Schicksal 1944–1946. Briefe und Tagebuchaufzeichnungen, Stuttgart and Tubingen, 1948, p. 172 (5.3.45).
48. Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, pp. 51E–59E, 405–77; Friedrich Grieger, Wie Breslau fiel…, Metzingen, 1948, pp. 7–8; Ernst Hornig, Breslau 1945: Erlebnisse in der eingeschlossenen Stadt, Munich, 1975, pp. 18–19; Peikert, pp. 29–31; Knopp, Die gro?e Flucht, pp. 158–62; Noble, p. 202; Sebastian Siebel-Achenbach, Lower Silesia from Nazi Germany to Communist Poland, 1942–49, London, 1994, pp. 60– 61, 72–4 (where the number of those forced to march off in the direction of Kanth, 25 kilometres south-west of Breslau, is given as 60,000, of whom 18,000 were estimated to have perished, and the numbers of civilians in the city when it was cut off at 150,000–180,000).
49. Hastings, pp. 328–32. Unclarity about the numbers actually on board means the death toll is uncertain. Estimates vary widely. Dieckert and Grossmann, pp. 130–31, have 904 from 5,000 surviving; Seidler and de Zayas, p. 222, indicate a complement of 6,600 on board, of whom 1,200 were saved and 5,400 drowned. Guido Knopp, Der Untergang der Gustloff, 2nd edn., pb., Munich, 2008, pp. 9, 156, reckons the losses to have been as high as 9,000, and (p. 12) that as many as 40,000 refugees lost their lives in this and other sinkings in the last months of the war. Michael Schwartz in DRZW, 10/2, p. 591, also accepts a figure of 9,000 dead, but halves the number of refugee victims in sea disasters to 20,000. One of the officers responsible for checking the passengers on board the Gustloff claimed to have noted the last figure for registrations as 7,956. This was twenty hours before the Gustloff set sail, and one estimate suggests that a further 2,000 people were allowed on board before departure, making the total number, including crew, more than 10,000.—Knopp, Die gro?e Flucht, p. 104. Denny, pp. 202–3, has 996 from 9,000 saved. Bessel, p. 75, has 1, 239 rescued from over 10,000 on board. Beevor, p. 51, places the number of deaths between 6,600 and 9,000. Two of the subsequent worst disasters occurred almost at the end of the war, with the sinking off Lubeck through British air attack of the Thielbek
