The End

contrast in severity, both with the sentencing in the German army in the First World War and with that of the Allies in the Second, is striking. For a variety of perceived serious offences, a total of 150 German soldiers had been sentenced to death in the First World War, 48 of whom were actually executed. German military courts passed, in all, some 30,000 death sentences against German soldiers during the Second World War, with 20,000 carried out. During the Second World War the British executed 40, the French 103, the Americans 146.⁵⁰

The higher the rank, the less likely it was that perceived military failings would incur severe sanction. Generals might be dismissed, as Harpe, Reinhardt and Ho?bach had been on the eastern front in January. But they were not disgraced, let alone sentenced to death or subjected to other forms of severe punishment (though not a few voices in the public could be heard still talking darkly, in tones reminiscent of the aftermath of the July plot in 1944, of ‘traitors and saboteurs’ in high places⁵¹). Still, as the military situation worsened and the regime became increasingly ready in its mounting desperation to resort to violence within, even high officers needed to tread warily. Colonel Thilo von Trotha, in the Army General Staff, would have recognized the warning shot across the bows from a personal acquaintance, none other than Colonel-General Schorner, in late February. ‘Among ourselves, a frank word,’ wrote Schorner. ‘I received a hint yesterday, most confidentially, of course, that your attitude to the Party and its representatives is occasionally somewhat reserved. One could have the impression that you don’t place sufficient value in certain things such as the National Socialist leadership of the army….’ ‘Dear Trotha,’ he continued, ‘I trust you have understood me. Either we succeed in having fanatical supporters and unconditional loyalists of the Fuhrer at the top, or things will go wrong again.’⁵²

A few days later, in a lengthy and secret missive to the commanders-in-chief and generals in command, Schorner amplified this message in a broad attack on the failure of leadership in the staffs of some parts of the army. He praised the soldiers who had learnt to be brutal and fanatical in ‘almost four years of an Asiatic war’, and had recently in fighting on the river Nei?e taken no prisoners. In contrast, he scourged the indifference, bourgeois lifestyles, lack of ‘soldier personalities’ and ‘defeatist tiredness of spirit’ of officers who were unable to stir the troops through fanaticism. ‘I am in agreement with the commanders-in-chief and generals in command and with every front soldier,’ he wrote, ‘that in the Asiatic war we need revolutionary and dynamic officers.’ Stalin, he added, would have got nowhere if he had waged war with bourgeois methods. Schorner demanded ‘clear and unambigous fanaticism, nothing else’.⁵³

The scarcely veiled threat in Schorner’s letter to Trotha and his exhortation to leading generals is a further pointer to the lack of unity in the higher ranks of the army. Though many high-ranking officers had long since inwardly turned against the Nazi regime, the spectrum of attitudes reached at the opposite extreme as far as fanatics like Schorner. In such a climate of division, distrust and fear, any prospect of a common front against Hitler could be completely ruled out.

The divisions ran throughout society. Far from the united ‘community of fate’ trumpeted by Nazi propaganda, this was a riven society where individuals looked more and more to their own narrow interests—acquisition of the necessities of life and, above all else, survival. ‘Never have the German people lived in such inner division,’ was the verdict of one colonel in February 1945.⁵⁴

Despite the flood of reports telling them they were fighting a losing battle, Goebbels’ propaganda chiefs intensified rather than lessened their efforts as Germany’s plight worsened. Newspapers were distributed in Ruhr cities even after the worst bombing raids (though a suggestion that they be dropped by aeroplane was rejected as absurdly impractical).⁵⁵ But even Goebbels himself was sick of the empty pathos of repeated exhortations to ‘Believe and Fight’, or to stay ‘With the Fuhrer to Final Victory’.⁵⁶ In the absence of reliable information and in often frank disbelief of official reports, rumour inevitably spread like wildfire and was difficult to control, most of all when it related to evacuation of the population in areas close to the front.⁵⁷ One suggestion (later adopted) was to dispatch special units of, in all, around 1,500 Political Leaders of the Party to key points on the eastern and western fronts to stiffen morale, notably in the west, given the expected hostilities there, to prevent ‘signs of crisis’ arising as had been the case in the east as areas had been evacuated and then fallen to the Red Army. The special propaganda units would not come under Wehrmacht command, but be directed by Bormann and Himmler, with the task of ‘organizing and mobilizing the entire strength of the people of the areas in question for total deployment and the war effort’.⁵⁸

Directives for verbal propaganda issued in mid-February tried to do the near impossible in emphasizing the positives for Germany in the current war situation. The Soviet advance into German eastern territories had been at such a cost of men and materiel that the Bolshevik fighting strength was decisively weakened, it was claimed, opening ‘an extraordinary chance’ for German counter-attacks. The German leadership knew that attack was the best form of defence, and would act accordingly. In the west, the length of Allied supply lines was a weakness, whereas German lines were short, units more easily manoeuvrable and, through the addition of the People’s Grenadier divisions, the Wehrmacht was stronger than the previous summer in Normandy. Not least, the deep-echelon fortifications system, it was claimed, allowed reserves to be directed at the right moment to positions under pressure and at the same time force the enemy into a damaging war of attrition.⁵⁹

Little of this sounded convincing. And rallying-cries such as Himmler’s to his divisional commanders in Army Group Vistula, passed on for wider circulation, that ‘strong hearts triumph over mass and materiel’, accompanied by examples of heroic action at the front, must have sounded empty to most people.⁶⁰ Other than in reinforcing defiance among the already committed regime loyalists, propaganda was for the most part by now visibly failing in its objectives.

There was, however, one notable exception. Fear, all the more so after the traumatic events in January, was the prime motivator to hold out and fight on in the east. It formed a bond—even in a negative way forging a kind of integration as all else was falling apart. And in embellishing the already existing—and well-justified—anxieties of the consequences of Soviet conquest, propaganda still had a significant role to play, both among civilians and in the Wehrmacht. Troops were drilled with the need to combat the ‘Asiatic storm from the east’, and reminded through examples from distant history—such as the defeat of the Hungarians near Augsburg in 955 and of Ottoman forces besieging Vienna in 1683—that such attacks had always been repelled by fanatical defence when the enemy reached German soil.⁶¹ Even for some leading Nazis, playing on the fears of a population whose nerves were so stretched through the emphasis on Soviet atrocities went too far.⁶² But there could be no question of playing down one of the last effective propaganda weapons to hand. Already in mid-February propaganda preparations were being laid for the defence of Berlin. Leaflets were drafted, addressed to ‘The Defenders of Berlin’, urging ‘fanatical hatred’ in the fight to repel the Bolsheviks. ‘It’s about countless German women and children who place their trust in you,’ the draft proclamation ran. ‘Every house a fortress, every street passage a mass grave for the Red hordes.’ ‘Hatred against hatred! Fight to the last! Bloody revenge and thousandfold retaliation for the Bolshevik atrocities in our homeland!’⁶³

Fear of Bolshevism was undoubtedly an important factor in sustaining the readiness to fight on, particularly in those parts of Germany most obviously exposed to advances by the Red Army. The further the population was removed from the immediate threat of Soviet occupation, and the more probable it was that the area would fall to the western Allies, the less direct resonance, however, the shrill anti-Bolshevik hate-propaganda was likely to have. And in the western parts of the Reich, there was little outright fear of Anglo-American occupation, other than among diehard Nazis and funtionaries of the regime. Reports filtering back from areas already occupied even led to claims that the behaviour of the Americans was better ‘than our German troops’.⁶⁴ The reality was that, however much the propaganda machine went into overdrive, only a dwindling minority of Germans remained fully committed to the regime. These did, however, include among their number those who still had power of life and death in their hands. A word out of place could bring a denunciation and the direst of consequences. As the hold of the regime slipped and propaganda was widely disbelieved, repression was increasingly all that was left.

A major reflection of the enhanced emphasis on repression and terror within was the decree issued on Hitler’s orders on 15 February by the Reich Justice Minister, Otto Georg Thierack (and impatiently awaited by Gauleiter in threatened areas⁶⁵), introducing the establishment of summary courts martial (Standgerichte) in areas threatened by the enemy. Each court was to be chaired by a judge and to comprise in addition a Political Leader of the NSDAP or one of its affiliates and an officer of the Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS or police. The members of the court were to be nominated by the Gauleiter, as Reich Defence Commissar for the region. The court was to deal with all offences that could endanger fighting morale and could issue only three verdicts: death penalty, exoneration or transfer to a regular court. The Reich Defence