Wehrmacht’s soldiers had experienced some ‘socialization’ in the Nazi Party or its affiliates (often greatly enhanced by wartime experience itself). Anyone born after 1913 and serving in the armed forces had been exposed to a degree of Nazified ‘education’, if only in the Reich Labour Service or compulsory military service (introduced in 1935).43 It was not surprising, therefore, to find that Nazi mentalities still found expression.
An Allied report from 4 September on morale, based on the questioning of captured soldiers, painted a varied picture of attitudes. It found unmistakable signs of low morale among infantrymen. It nevertheless pointed to high morale among paratroopers, junior officers and SS men. Some representative comments were cited. ‘Victory must be ours…. One does one’s duty and it would be cowardice not to fight to the end.’ ‘We don’t give up hope. It is all up to the leaders. Something quite different will happen from what everybody expects.’ ‘If we don’t win, Germany ceases. Therefore we shall win.’ ‘Spirit against material. It has never yet happened that mere technology has conquered spirit.’ ‘I have done my part and have given my Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, that which can only be given once,’ ran one soldier’s last letter to his wife. ‘The Fuhrer will do it, that I know…. I have fallen as a soldier of Adolf Hitler.’ Faith in German victory, the report concluded, was most strongly correlated with ‘devotion to Hitler personally, identification with National Socialist doctrine, [and] exoneration of Germany from war guilt’.44
Another report, a week later, drew conclusions on the ideological sources of continued Wehrmacht fighting morale from observations during about a thousand interrogations carried out during August. Most prominent were: fear of return to a Germany dominated by Russia; conviction in the rightness of the German cause and belief that the Allies had attacked Germany rather than grant her just and necessary concessions; devotion to Hitler, who had only the welfare of Germany at heart; and feeling that the ‘unconditional surrender’ policy of the Allies meant that the German people could not expect the western powers to help in post-war reconstruction. About 15 per cent of captured soldiers, it was said, held such beliefs ‘with fanatical conviction’, and had an influence on doubters, while up to 50 per cent were ‘still devoted to Hitler’. There was a good deal of admiration among combat soldiers for the fighting capacity of the Waffen-SS.45
As with soldiers at the front, the stance of ordinary citizens towards the war and the regime varied widely. Germany, despite more than a decade of Nazi rule, had remained, beneath the veneer of uniformity, in some senses a pluralistic society. Beliefs that were a deeply ingrained product of earlier socialist and communist subcultures could find no expression. But they were suppressed, not eradicated. Fervent Christian beliefs and traditions, institutionally underpinned within the Protestant and, especially, the Catholic Church, persisted despite relentless Nazi ideological pressure. On the other hand, the years of indoctrination and compulsion to conform had not failed to leave a mark. And the ever more pressing external threat to the country affected, in one way or another, all Germans and provided its own impulse to conformity. The panic at the approach of the Americans had been confined to the regions in the vicinity of the front. Even there, some had endeavoured, Canute-like, to hold back the rising tide of alienation from the regime. Away from the border provinces, there was no indication of collapse. Nothing suggested that the widespread pessimism about the war was likely to result in a popular uprising. Despite the gathering gloom it had described, the weekly propaganda report on 4 September concluded that the people were ready for any sacrifice to avoid destruction or enslavement. They would not ‘throw in the towel’.46 The Nazi leadership itself distinguished between ‘mood’ and ‘attitude’, accepting that people were hardly likely to be of sunny disposition if their houses were being blown to bits and their lives upturned by the war, but praising the forbearance and readiness to fight which marked their underlying determination to overcome the hardships and attain victory.47 This was, of course, a useful internal rationalization of the population’s reaction to incessant bad news, and a way of shaping the propaganda of total war. But it was not altogether misleading. For among the pessimists were still many, if a minority impossible to estimate in size with anything approaching precision and certainly diminishing sharply, who—outwardly at least—upheld the positive lines of propaganda, were loyally supportive of the regime, and expressed sentiments redolent of years of exposure to Nazi doctrine.
Some, without question, still thought that Hitler would find a way out of the crisis, and wanted him to speak to the people to provide reassurance.48 Goebbels was in receipt of a hefty postbag of letters exuding, among ‘genuine National Socialists’, deep confidence that the crisis would be mastered.49 There was still hope, if rapidly dwindling, in parts of the population that the promised new ‘wonder weapons’ would reverse war fortunes.50 Attitudes towards those not seen to be sharing the burdens and wholly committed to the war effort, and especially to anyone perceived in some way to be ‘subversive’, were uncompromisingly hostile and often aggressive in demanding recrimination. The ferocious reprisals against the ‘traitors’ of 20 July were reportedly greeted with satisfaction by many.51 Despite the widespread worry and anxiety about the war, the slightest hint of opposition still invited terrible retribution, which the police could enforce only through help from ordinary citizens. Listening to foreign broadcasts, increasingly common despite the dangers, frequently led to trouble. Anyone bold enough to make openly defeatist remarks or criticize Hitler’s leadership outright was still likely to be denounced to the authorities by zealous loyalists.52 And the more radical Goebbels’ total-war measures appeared to be, especially if targeted at the better-off and privileged, the more approval they apparently found. More than 50,000 letters had been received by the Propaganda Ministry by the end of August, most of them from workers, the middle classes and soldiers, approving in strong terms the total-war measures adopted, but often wanting to go further in their radicalism.53 Whatever the growing popular fears, anxieties and depression about the state of the war, the SD adjudged, with some reason, that the will to resist was still there, though people were doubting whether resistance would be worthwhile.54
That extensive reserves of loyalist backing continued to exist in the face of increasingly extreme adversity is no surprise. The Nazi Party, making strenuous efforts to counter the losses in its ranks of those killed during service in the Wehrmacht, had around 8 million members—about a tenth of the population (a significantly higher proportion of adults)—in 1944.55 Not all members, of course, were fervent activists or devoted followers. Increased pressure, for example on Hitler Youth groups, to join the Party as war fortunes went into steep descent was not guaranteed to produce fanatics for the cause. Even so, members, however they had come to join, had at least superficially shown some commitment to Hitler and the regime and, once in the Party, were more exposed than the rest of the population to demands to conform. The Party’s organizational tentacles stretched far into community life. The 42 regions (‘Gaue’), 808 districts, 28,376 local groups, 89,378 ‘cells’ and 397,040 ‘blocks’ into which Germany was divided by the Party’s administration ensured that not only members were subjected to invasive controls and routine surveillance. Besides the passive membership, there were the functionaries, who, even if they wanted to, could barely escape regular doses of indoctrination during their work for the Party. In July 1944, functionaries in full-time employment by the Party and its affiliates numbered 37,192 men and as many as 140,000 women, around 60,000 of those in the Nazi welfare organization, the NSV (
This army of apparatchiks constituted a major instrument of social and political control, usually working in close cooperation with the police and other forces of repression, so that for ordinary citizens the space to organize any form of oppositional behaviour was simply not available. Beyond that, however, the Party functionaries formed a still significant basis of the ‘charismatic community’ attached to Hitler’s leadership. Though Hitler’s popular appeal was in steep decline, the functionaries, who had in better times provided the core of Fuhrer worshippers, were still less likely than most to break all allegiance. Beyond any lingering, if by now often diluted, devotion, the functionaries had long since pinned their colours to the mast. The Party had given them careers, social standing, privileges, financial advantages, and often—in varying degrees—some kind of power, if only at the local level, over their fellow citizens. Not a few felt they had no option but to stand or fall with the Party, and with Hitler, on account of their actions in earlier years. Some undoubtedly had bad consciences or at least qualms at possible post-war ‘revenge’ for their involvement in past events. Many had justified fears for a future without Hitler, for what might happen to them when their Party positions dissolved and what fate might hold for them should the enemy succeed in defeating and occuping the country. The higher the position, the greater the zealotry they had shown, the dirtier their hands, the more cause they had to worry. This meant in turn that they had little or nothing to lose as the end approached.
For the present, however, other than in the perimeter regions touching on the fighting zone, the Party showed no outward signs of crumbling. In fact, its revitalization by Martin Bormann in the second half of 1944 meant that it played a significant role in bolstering the home front. Its activities formed part of an increasingly frenzied effort by the regime to overcome huge and mounting difficulties. And, for the time being, the effort had some success in staving off complete military catastrophe and keeping Germany fighting—at enormous cost in
