(50 survivors from 2,800 on board) and the Cap d’Arcona (4,250 dead from 6,400 on board). The victims were almost all prisoners who had been evacuated by their SS guards from Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg on the approach of British forces.—David Stafford, Endgame 1945: Victory, Retribution, Liberation, London, 2007, pp. 291–301.
50. Under Gauleiter Franz Schwede-Coburg, the Pomeranian Party leadership, as elsewhere, had exacerbated the plight of the population by refusing to give timely orders for evacuation.—Noble, pp. 205–8.
51. For the above, where not otherwise indicated, Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, pp. 41E–51E, 155–201.
52. Beevor, pp. 48–9.
53. Andreas Kossert, ‘ “Endlosung on the Amber Shore”: The Massacre in January 1945 on the Baltic Seashore—a Repressed Chapter of East Prussian History’, Leo Baeck Year Book, 40 (2004), pp. 3–21 (quotations, pp. 15–17); and Andreas Kossert, Damals in Ostpreu?en: Der Untergang einer deutschen Provinz, Munich, 2008, pp. 148–53; Schmuel Krakowski, ‘Massacre of Jewish Prisoners on the Samland Peninsula—Documents’, YVS, 24 (1994), pp. 349–87; Reinhard Henkys, ‘Ein Todesmarsch in Ostpreu?en’, Dachauer Hefte, 20 (2004), pp. 3–21; the eyewitness account by a former member of the Hitler Youth who had been involved in the atrocity, Martin Bergau, ‘Tod an der Bernsteinkuste: Ein NS-Verbrechen in Ostpreu?en’, in Elke Frohlich (ed.), Als die Erde brannte: Deutsche Schicksale in den letzten Kriegstagen, Munich, 2005, pp. 99–112; the early account, from 1952, of the former Landrat of the Samland District in Die Vertreibung, vol. 1, p. 136; Martin Bergau, Der Junge von der Bernsteinkuste: Erlebte Zeitgeschichte 1938–1948, Heidelberg, 1994, pp. 108–15, 249–75; and Daniel Blatman, Les Marches de la mort: La derniere etape du genocide nazi, ete 1944–printemps 1945, Paris, 2009, pp. 132–40. This terrible episode was also described in Nicholas Stargardt, Witnesses of War: Children’s Lives under the Nazis, London, 2005, pp. 284–6. Though most eyewitness accounts concur that the mass shooting took place during the night of 31 January–1 February, some imply that it was slightly later.—Henkys, p. 16. Bergau, and, based on his accounts, Kossert, reckon the number of survivors to have been as low as 15, but Blatman, p. 139, citing the conclusions reached by the court which in 1967 tried and convicted one of the perpetrators, gives an estimated figure of around 200.
54. VB, South German edn., 15.1.45; Die Wehrmachtberichte 1939– 1945, vol. 3: 1. Januar 1944 bis 9. Mai 1945, Munich, 1989, p. 402 (15.1.45).
55. This was registered in British monitoring of the German press: NAL, FO 898/187, PWE, fos. 222–4, Summary of and Comments on German Broadcasts to Germany, 14.8.44–7.5.45.
56. BAB, R55/601, fos. 272–6, Tatigkeitsbericht, weekly propaganda report (24.1.45).
57. BStA, MA 106696, report of the RPvNB/OP, 9.2.45.
58. BAB, R55/793, fos. 7–8, ‘Material fur Propagandisten, Nr. 25: Betr. Bolschewistische Greuel’, 16.1.45.
59. TBJG, II/15, p. 190 (23.1.45), p. 216 (25.1.45). By early February Goebbels had changed his mind. He now thought it important to emphasize the Bolshevik atrocities and did not think that publicizing them would produce panic.—TBJG, II/15, pp. 322–3 (6.2.45).
60. BStA, MA 106696, report of the RPvNB/OP, 10.3.45. Colonel Curt Pollex, based in Berlin, noted that Soviet atrocities, exploited by German propaganda, were causing ‘total panic’.—BA/MA, N712/15, NL Pollex, Auszuge aus Briefen, fo. 14, 23.1.45. For the mood of panic spread by refugees and fear of the Russians, see also Victor Klemperer, Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten, vol 2: Tagebucher 1942–1945, ed. Walter Nowojski and Hadwig Klemperer, Darmstadt, 1998, pp. 645–6, 649–60 (25.1.45, 29.1.45).
61. VB, South German edn., 9.2.45.
62. BfZ, Sammlung Sterz, Josef E., 21.1.45.
63. Jorg Echternkamp (ed.), Kriegsschauplatz Deutschland 1945: Leben in Angst—Hoffnung auf Frieden. Feldpost aus der Heimat und von der Front, Paderborn, 2006, pp. 138–9 (28.1.45) and p. 268 nn. 282–6. The letter was returned, marked ‘Wait for New Address’. Whether the soldier survived is not known.
64. BStA, MA 106695, report of the RPvOB, 9.2.45.
65. BStA, MA 106696, report of the RPvOF/MF, 8.2.45.
66. Ursula von Kardorff, Berliner Aufzeichnungen 1942–1945, pb. edn., Munich, 1981, pp. 228 (25.1.45), 229 (30.1.45).
67. Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, Schauplatz Berlin: Ein deutsches Tagebuch, Munich, 1962, p. 124 (22.1.45).
68. LHC, Dempsey Papers, no. 249, pt. II, p. 9 (in English).
69. IWM, Memoirs of P. E. von Stemann, p. 193.
70. Das letzte halbe Jahr: Stimmungsberichte der Wehrmachtpropaganda 1944/45, ed. Wolfram Wette, Ricarda Bremer and Detlef Vogel, Essen, 2001, pp. 219–20, 229 (23.1.45, 1.2.45).
71. Andreas-Friedrich, p. 126 (31.1.45).
72. Das letzte halbe Jahr, p. 219 (23.1.45), pp. 228–9 (1.2.45).
73. IWM, Memoirs of P. E. von Stemann, p. 197.
74. Das letzte halbe Jahr, pp. 235–6 (7.2.45).
75. Echternkamp, p. 129 (20.1.45).
76. IWM, Memoirs of P. E. von Stemann, p. 200.
77. IWM, ‘Aus deutschen Urkunden 1935–1945’, unpub. documentation, n.d. (c. 1945–6), pp. 66–7, 276–8.
78. Das letzte halbe Jahr, pp. 218 (22.1.45), 236 (7.2.45).
79. BfZ, Sammlung Sterz, Gisela K., 3.2.45.
80. BfZ, Sammlung Sterz, Luise G., 3.2.45.
81. Heinrich Breloer (ed.), Mein Tagebuch: Geschichten vom Uberleben 1939– 1947, Cologne, 1984, p. 228 (27.1.45).
82. For a good description in one region, see Jill Stephenson, Hitler’s Home Front: Wurttemberg under the Nazis, London, 2006, pp. 304–12.
83. BfZ, Sammlung Sterz, Gefr. Heinrich R., 23.1.45.
84. BfZ, Sammlung Sterz, Sold. Willy F., 30.1.45.
85. BfZ, Sammlung Sterz, Fw. Hugo B., 2.2.45.
86. BfZ, Sammlung Sterz, Lt. Thomas S., 23.1.45.
87. BfZ, Sammlung Sterz, Hptm. Emerich P., 20.1.45.
88. BfZ, Sammlung Sterz, Uffz. Hans ——, 24.1.45.
89. BfZ, Sammlung Sterz, O’Gefr. Otto L., 24.1.45.
90. BfZ, Sammlung Sterz, Gren. Kurt M., 30.1.45.
91. Quoted Andreas Kunz, Wehrmacht und Niederlage: Die bewaffnete Macht in der Endphase der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft 1944 bis 1945, Munich, 2007, p. 243, and see also, for racial stereotypes, pp. 269–70.
92. BA/MA, MSg2/2697, fo. 88, diary of Lieutenant Julius Dufner, 25.1.45.
93. NAL, WO219/1587, fo. 860, SHAEF, Directorate of Army Psychiatry Research Memorandum 45/03/12, January 1945.
94. Kunz, pp. 299–300.
95. BA/MA, N245/3, NL Reinhardt, ‘Kalenderblatter 1945’, fo. 81 (14.1.45); N245/2, Briefe, fo. 41 (15.1.45); N245/15, Generalleutnant Otto Heidkamper (former Chief of Staff of Army Group Centre), ‘Die Schlacht um Ostpreu?en’ (1953), fo. 32; Guderian, pp. 382–3; DRZW, 10/1 (Lakowski), pp. 536– 7.
96. BA/MA, N245/3, NL Reinhardt, ‘Kalenderblatter 1945’, fo. 82 (16–17.1.45); N245/15, Heidkamper, fos. 40–43.
