1. Das letzte halbe Jahr: Stimmungsberichte der Wehrmachtpropaganda 1944/45, ed. Wolfram Wette, Ricarda Bremer and Detlef Vogel, Essen, 2001, p. 338 (10.4.45).
2. For destruction in the Tiergarten and Grunewald and the nightly activity in the city (‘eine hektische Genu?sucht’), see the diary entries of the Danish correspondent Jacob Kronika, Der Untergang Berlins, Flensburg, 1946, pp. 79, 91, 98–9, 149 (30.3.45, 7.4.45, 10.4.45, 23.4.45). A description— though perhaps drawing in part on distorted memory—of Berlin, shortly before the Soviet attack, can be found in IWM, ‘Second World War Memoirs of P. E. v. Stemann’, Berlin correspondent between 1942 and 1945 of the Danish newspaper Berlinske Tidende, fos. 236–7. Vivid depictions of the city in April 1945 are provided by David Clay Large, Berlin, New York, 2000, pp. 358–9, and Roger Moorhouse, Berlin at War: Life and Death in Hitler’s Capital 1939–45, London, 2010, pp. 365–9.
3. Goebbels remarked in his diary on the emptiness of Berlin’s streets at Easter 1945 (TBJG, II/15, p. 668, 5.4.45).
4. Quoted in Moorhouse, p. 367.
5. TBJG, II/15, p. 692.
6. A fitting term, used by Hans Mommsen, ‘The Dissolution of the Third Reich: Crisis Management and Collapse, 1943–1945’, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, Washington DC, 27 (2000), p. 20, and Stephen G. Fritz, Endkampf: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Death of the Third Reich, Lexington, Ky., 2004, ch. 5.
7. DZW, 6, p. 561; and NAL, WO219/1651, fo. 145, SHAEF digests of post-war interrogations of Jodl and Kesselring, 23.5.45.
8. American losses in the battle for the Ruhr totalled around 10,000 men.—DZW, 6, p. 564.
9. For the behaviour of French troops, see Heinrich Schwendemann, ‘Das Kriegsende in Ostpreu?en und in Sudbaden im Vergleich’, in Bernd Martin (ed.), Der Zweite Weltkrieg und seine Folgen: Ereignisse— Auswirkungen—Reflexionen, Freiburg, 2006, pp. 101, 104; and Richard Bessel, Germany 1945: From War to Peace, London, 2009, pp. 116–17, 158–9. Evidently, the very skin colour of the North African soldiers in the French army gave rise to great anxiety among the population which had often never before seen other than white people. This may have led to exaggeration of the numbers of rapes said to have been perpetrated by ‘colonial’ troops. Numerous parish reports indicating rape and looting—though there were many cases where none were reported—are contained in Josef F. Gohri, Die Franzosen kommen! Kriegsereignisse im Breisgau und in der Ortenau, Horb am Neckar, 2005, pp. 17, 24–5, 43, 46, 50, 53, 60, 82, 88, 91, 94, 98, 119, 124–5; and Hermann Riedel, Halt! Schweizer Grenze!, Konstanz, 1983, pp. 233, 237–8, 263, 305 (where more than 200 cases were mentioned). See also Bernd Serger, Karin-Anne Bottcher and Gerd R. Ueberschar (eds.), Sudbaden unter Hakenkreuz und Trikolore: Zeitzeugen berichten uber das Kriegsende und die franzosische Besetzung 1945, Freiburg in Breisgau, Berlin and Vienna, 2006, pp. 253, 257, 269, 311–25; Manfred Bosch, Der Neubeginn: Aus deutscher Nachkriegszeit. Sudbaden 1945–1950, Konstanz, 1988, p. 34; Der deutsche Sudwesten zur Stunde Null, ed. Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, 1975, pp. 102–3; Paul Sauer, Demokratischer Neubeginn in Not und Elend: Das Land Wurttemberg-Baden von 1945 bis 1952, Ulm, 1979, pp. 18–20; Von der Diktatur zur Besatzung: Das Kriegsende 1945 im Gebiet des heutigen Landkreises Sigmaringen, ed. Landkreis Sigmaringen, Sigmaringen, 1995, pp. 92– 3.
10. The above, where not otherwise indicated, is based on DZW, 6, pp. 561–71; DRZW, 10/1 (Zimmermann), pp. 443–60; Fritz, chs. 3–6; Lothar Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, pb. edn., Munich, 1975, pp. 425–32; The Oxford Companion to the Second World War, ed. I. C. B. Dear and M. R. D. Foot, Oxford, 1995, pp. 481–5; Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944–45, London, 2004, pp. 481– 502.
11. Hitlers Weisungen fur die Kriegfuhrung 1939–1945: Dokumente des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht, ed. Walther Hubatsch, pb. edn., Munich, 1965, pp. 355–6. Donitz and Kesselring were given full powers over the defence of their own zone only in the event that a break in communications prevented the transmission of Hitler’s orders and decisions. Otherwise Hitler’s own unified operational leadership was to remain unaltered. On 20 April, in line with the expectation that he would leave for the south, Hitler empowered Donitz, in the north, to issue directives on defence to the civilian authorities in his ‘zone’. In the military sphere, Donitz’s remit was confined to the navy, since Hitler finally decided on 25 April to remain in Berlin and to retain his operational direction of the Wehrmacht via the OKW in Rheinsberg.—Herbert Kraus, ‘Karl Donitz und das Ende des “Dritten Reiches”’, in Hans-Erich Volkmann (ed.), Ende des Dritten Reiches—Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs: Eine perspektivische Ruckschau, Munich and Zurich, 1995, pp. 7–8 and p. 20 n. 17. The split of the Reich became reality with the meeting of Soviet and American troops at Torgau on 25 April.
12. DZW, 6, p. 523. A graphic description of the last days in Konigsberg before the capitulation (and criticism of Lasch’s reluctance to capitulate until the last minute, and to save his own skin) is provided by Michael Wieck, Zeugnis vom Untergang Konigsbergs: Ein ‘Geltungsjude’ berichtet, Heidelberg, 1988, pp. 168–222.
13. His wife and daughter were arrested and placed in a military prison. News of their punishment was publicized.—Robert Loeffel, ‘Soldiers and Terror: Re-evaluating the Complicity of the Wehrmacht in Nazi Germany’, German History, 27 (2009), pp. 527–8.
14. Schwendemann, p. 97.
15. In the proclamation, Hitler raised once more the spectre of the extermination of the German people that, he claimed, would follow Bolshevik conquest. ‘While old men and children are murdered,’ he railed, ‘women and children are denigrated to barrack-whores. The rest will march off to Siberia.’ Alerting the troops to any sign of treachery from their own officers, Hitler ordered that any officer not well known to the men giving orders for retreat was to be ‘dispatched on the spot’.—Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945, ed. Max Domarus, Wiesbaden, 1973, pp. 2223–4.
16. Drawing on DZW, 6, pp. 686–705; DRZW, 10/1 (Lakowski), pp. 631–49; DRZW, 8 (Ungvary), pp. 944–55; Gruchmann, pp. 434–6; John Erickson, The Road to Berlin, Cassell edn., 2003, pp. 563–77; Brian Taylor, Barbarossa to Berlin: A Chronology of the Campaigns on the Eastern Front 1941 to 1945, vol. 2, Stroud, 2008, pp. 307–20; The Oxford Companion to the Second World War, pp. 125–7; Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall 1945, pb. edn., London, 2007, chs. 15–16; Karl-Heinz Frieser, ‘Die Schlacht um die Seelower Hohen im April 1945’, in Roland G. Foerster (ed.), Seelower Hohen 1945, Hamburg, 1998, pp. 129–43; Manfried Rauchensteiner, Der Krieg in Osterreich 1945, 2nd edn., Vienna, 1984, ch. 6; Theo Rossiwall, Die letzten Tage: Die militarische Besetzung Osterreichs 1945, Vienna, 1969, pp. 78– 183.
17. For sketches of the man and his career, see: Sam L. Lewis, ‘Albert Kesselring—Der Soldat als Manager’, in Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring (eds.), Die Militarelite des Dritten Reiches, Berlin, 1995, pp. 270–87; Elmar Krautkramer, ‘Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring’, in Gerd. R. Ueberschar (ed.), Hitlers militarische Elite, vol. 1: Von den Anfangen des Regimes bis Kriegsbeginn, Darmstadt, 1998, pp. 121–9; and Shelford Bidwell, ‘Kesselring’, in Correlli Barnett (ed.), Hitler’s Generals, London, 1990, pp. 265–89.
18. BAB, R3/1661, fo. 20, ‘Niederschrift uber die Ereignisse vom 15.3. bis 15.4.1945’, no date, signed by Walther Rohland (entry for 23.4.45); Albert Speer, Erinnerungen, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, 1969, p. 446. Kesselring passed on Hitler’s ‘scorched earth’ order of 19 March next day to his subordinate commanders.—Krautkramer, p. 128 n. 10.
19. Speer, pp. 463–4. General Westphal later pointed out that Kesselring, on taking over from Rundstedt as Commander in Chief West, replied sceptically to the attempt to provide him with a realistic briefing of the situation by stating that the Fuhrer had given him a different account.—Siegfried Westphal, Erinnerungen, Mainz, 1975, p. 327.
