The End

mounting adversity in the last months of the year, the population, as we have seen in earlier chapters, was increasingly forced into line in the total-war drive. Incautious remarks or any signs of what were deemed defeatism or subversion were ruthlessly punished. It was becoming an ever more dangerous regime for its own citizens.

Even so, from February 1945 onwards the terror within Germany moved to a new plane. The regime’s leaders, Hitler at the forefront, could now plainly see that, short of a miracle, defeat was staring them in the face. Propaganda parroted slogans aimed at boosting the readiness to hold out and fight on. But for most people now this was obviously whistling in the wind. As propaganda failed, violence intensified. The regime’s reflex to outright violence marked a combination of fear, desperation, defiance and revenge. Fear of another 1918; increasing wariness of the explosive potential of the millions of foreign workers in the country; desperation at the impending total defeat and the collapse of the regime; defiance of all forces—internal as well as external—seen to be dragging Germany to perdition; and revenge against all those who had stood against Nazism and would rejoice at its downfall: the combination created a new level of violence arbitrarily directed against anyone seen to block or oppose the fight to the finish.

The worst of the retribution was, as ever, reserved for the regime’s designated enemies. The last months would prove murderous for Jews, foreign workers, prisoners of war and concentration camp internees as the vestiges of control over increasingly untrammelled violence dissolved. But the majority German population was now also subjected in increasing measure to wild reprisals for perceived defeatism. The slightest ill-judged remark or perceived minor opposition to the self-destructive course of the regime could prove disastrous for any individual. As the military fronts closed in on the Reich, the terror, once exported, was rebounding in the death-throes of the regime on the population of Germany itself. It was a mark of increasing desperation. Just as with the vain efforts of propaganda, terror could do nothing to halt the continued slide of morale. But it was more than sufficient to prevent any prospect of the misery, suffering and, by now, detestation of the Nazi regime in wide swathes of the population being converted into the type of revolutionary mood that had characterized the last stages of the First World War in 1917–18.

II

By the end of January, the regime was becoming seriously concerned at the signs of collapsing morale, both at home and—even more worryingly—at the front. Even from within the SS—however difficult it was, there above all, to admit it—there were voices prepared to acknowledge a deepening crisis.

On 26 January SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Rolf d’Alquen, staff officer in the propaganda department of Army Group Upper Rhine, wired a panicky message to his brother in Berlin, Standartenfuhrer Gunter d’Alquen, editor of the SS newspaper Das Schwarze Korps. ‘The mood among the fighting troops has become more nervous and serious by the day on account of the events on the eastern front,’ he stated. Many who came from the eastern regions had their personal anxieties. ‘If the situation gets worse in the next days,’ he continued, ‘it can be reckoned that the fighting spirit of the troops will be paralysed by worries that can no longer be borne.’ The mood among the civilian population of the area was similar, he indicated. He wanted ‘a redeeming word from Fuhrer Headquarters’ and asked, cautiously but pointedly, if it was possible to ascertain whether Hitler had told his entourage what he had in mind to master the crisis. Both among the troops and in the civilian population, it was clear that the front could only be held for a short time with existing weapons, he remarked. What hopes remained were invested in a weapon ‘that could nullify all that has been endured and all setbacks, and produce the decisive change on the fronts’.

He requested that the state of morale at the front should be brought to the Fuhrer’s attention. This, almost certainly, did not happen. But his account did reach Himmler. D’Alquen’s message was relayed to Rudolf Brandt, Himmler’s personal adjutant, with a covering note that it was ‘typical for the psychological situation of the troops, but also for those there responsible for propaganda’. Himmler lost no time in replying. Though the troops had suffered setbacks, he declared, it was d’Alquen himself who was most depressed. His suggestion was ‘absolutely impossible’. The troops must be told to do their duty, however hard it was. When the west was protected, the Wehrmacht in the east would be ready to absorb the assault before ‘becoming active again’. ‘From you yourself’, Himmler closed, ‘I expect the inner bearing of an SS man.’³

A few days later, Himmler’s own newly created Army Group Vistula was reporting that the officers ‘no longer had the troops firmly in hand’ and ‘signs of dissolution of the worst kind’ were occurring as soldiers—and not just in occasional instances—‘pulled off their uniforms and tried in every way to obtain civilian clothing in order to get away’.⁴ The western Allies did not, however, for their part, based on their interrogations of captured soldiers, expect large-scale desertions. ‘The strongest deterrent against desertion continues to be fear of retaliation against one’s family,’ was their assessment. The feeling that the end of the war was close was a further reason not to take the high risk of deserting. Around 65 per cent of those interrogated in mid-February thought the war would be over in weeks. They fought on, it was adjudged, through desire for self-preservation, apathy (about all but their own immediate military situation) and an automatic sense of obedience.⁵ In the mayhem of the evacuations from the east, soldiers were said to be mingling with the evacuees, ‘marking time’ and trying to avoid further fighting, ‘in expectation of the coming end’, since the military police had either disappeared themselves or were helpless to control the massively overcrowded trains.⁶

Martin Bormann, in the Party Chancellery, was in no doubt, from reports he was receiving, of soldiers affecting civilian morale through their defeatist attitude. ‘What? You’re still listening to Hitler?’ one soldier who had returned to the Magdeburg area was heard to remark. He was off home, he said, and by the time the authorities had found him the war would be over anyway. Luckily for him, no one took his details and he got away with it. In the Sudetenland, soldiers pouring back in flight from the east were said to present a depressing sight. Often, they would enter shops to demand goods even though they had no ration coupons. When challenged, they retorted that the war was over anyway and there would be no need for ration cards. Their view was that the consequences of defeat would not be as bad as they were painted.⁷ From the Cologne-Aachen area in early February, Bormann heard of a ‘gathering inner uncertainty’ and belief in ‘a certain leadership crisis’ in the Wehrmacht, though the Waffen-SS was seen to stand out in distinction.⁸

These impressions of low morale among soldiers within Germany were reinforced by a report of an NSFO— couched, naturally, in Nazi language—of his impressions gathered during a journey through several parts of the country. He registered ‘symptoms of threatening developments for the future’. Deserters often found support among the civilian population, he claimed, also for their allegations that sabotage by officers—echoes of the Stauffenberg plot still reverberated here—had caused Germany’s defeat. Discipline was undermined and officers themselves apathetic, the report noted. People in central Germany, naturally worried by events in the east, were telling soldiers on the western front that they should let in the Americans so that the Bolsheviks would not get to them, a view he regarded as an obvious danger to morale. Stories that armaments factories had been closed down because of coal and transport difficulties were also affecting morale. Soldiers hearing that the armaments industry was no longer working saw the war then as unquestionably lost. Predictably, the report concluded that drastic measures needed to be taken to counter such worrying signs, advocating ‘flying courts martial’, ‘merciless’ implementation of orders and ‘radical measures carried out with all force’ as a necessary response.⁹

Reports from the eastern regions of Germany in mid-February could only have made depressing reading for Himmler. He heard that recognition of German military impotence was ‘the root of almost all signs of demoralization among the troops’, who generally accepted that the war was lost. Looting of property by the Wehrmacht in places where the civilian population had fled, also seen as a sign of collapsing morale, was commonplace. Many soldiers, officers and Volkssturm men were to be found detached from their units and wandering in the woods on the eastern banks of the Oder, trying to cross into Germany. Their morale was suitably poor. In despairing mood, they often blamed National Socialism for all their suffering, viewed the war as lost and wanted peace at any price. Himmler and the SS, it was acknowledged, were also openly criticized. And leaders among the groups of stragglers were telling them not to resort to arms if they encountered Soviet troops, but to surrender without a fight.¹⁰

Among the civilian population, morale had dipped to an equally low ebb. Propaganda reports in mid-February indicated ‘a profound lethargy’ as an attitude said to be prevalent among the middle class and peasantry. Their resigned view—‘a creeping poison’—was that all was lost anyway, and the war would be over within a few