The End

he wrote.

But the war is only lost if we surrender. Even should Germany capitulate, would the war be over for us? No, the horror would be only just really beginning and we would not even have weapons to defend ourselves. As long as we have weapons and the firm belief in our good cause, nothing is lost. I believe firmly in a decisive shift in fortunes. Providence, which sent us the Fuhrer, will not allow all the terrible sacrifices to have been in vain and will never abandon the world to the annihilatory terror of Bolshevism.⁴⁴

There were, however, contrasting attitudes, even among soldiers in the east. Reflective diary entries in mid-April from an NCO based in Prague, with obvious anti-Nazi feelings, display critical distance from the regime, a realistic view of the hopelessness of the position, and a sense that the fate now embracing the Reich had been earned by the crimes in the east that Germans had committed. He estimated that about 10 per cent of the soldiers, with reference to statements by Hitler and Goebbels, still believed in ‘a technical miracle’. Remarkably, there was speculation about the splitting of the atom, and that Germany possessed a weapon of such force that it would make England disappear from the face of the earth. Even worse than such talk, the diarist thought, was that a great sector of the German population, while not believing in the existence of such a weapon, regretted that Germany did not have one which it could use to destroy all its enemies in one strike: then ‘we would be the victors’. In such notions he saw the extent of the brutalization and moral decay which Nazi education had produced. ‘This people will have nothing to complain of in its own fate,’ he commented. He had heard in the last days several times from older soldiers who had experienced the first two years of the Russian campaign the saying that all guilt is avenged on earth. They saw reports, he thought partly exaggerated, of Bolshevik atrocities in the occupied eastern parts of Germany as proof of this. ‘Many think consciously of the things that they themselves saw or had to carry out and which have to be set against what is allegedly taking place now. “We are guilty ourselves, we’ve earned it”—that’s the bitter recognition that many struggle through to.’⁴⁵

Two days later the same soldier commented on the fighting in central Germany and the surrender of Konigsberg, with the attendant condemnation to death in absentia of the German commandant and arrest of his family. He saw the demands of the Nazi leadership to defend every town and village to the last as leaving no lingering doubt about ‘the fanatical will and the method to try to counter the imminent threat of collapse. Everyone not involved in the defence or acting against the decreed measures will be threatened with death.’ However, he thought there was growing acceptance of unconditional surrender, and that mass desertion and internal unrest would spread in the following days. The signs of rising anger were evident. People were saying more openly what they had earlier secretly thought, and ‘the insight into the true situation and the intentions of our leadership is growing’. ‘In these days the last arguments are being knocked out of even the most hard-nosed optimist,’ he wrote. ‘Soon nobody and nothing will be able to justify further resistance. The slogan of heroic downfall will then in its naked madness be plain to the entire people.’⁴⁶

However divided they were in their political stance, for soldiers awaiting the Red Army’s Oder offensive, east of Berlin, a prominent motive for continuing to fight was unquestionably defence of the homeland against a hated enemy. More telling in the heat of battle was the group cameraderie of the fighting unit. And most important of all in the last resort was the desire for self-preservation. German soldiers were well aware that they could expect no quarter from the Red Army if they were captured. They often knew, sometimes at first hand, of earlier German atrocities in the east. What awaited them on capture, they were sure, was death or at best indefinite slave labour far away in the Soviet Union.

Propaganda vilifying the enemy and depicting the horrors awaiting them should the Bolsheviks prevail, rammed home to the troops in pep-talks from NSFOs, naturally, then, fell on its most fertile ground in the east. For troops being pushed relentlessly back in north-western, central and southern Germany there was a less clear focus. Fear of the enemy was far less pronounced. At the same time, revulsion at the notion that foreign enemies were occupying German soil doubtless spurred on many. A group of fourteen- and fifteen-year-old boys, evacuated from the Ruhr, who volunteered for service in the SS in Lower Franconia in early April 1945, had themselves mixed motives. Some were ardent Nazis, others sought cameraderie and adventure. But all of them wanted to ‘save the Fatherland’.⁴⁷ There were still, if in a minority, plenty of ardent Nazis present in the armed forces, especially among younger soldiers. In one letter that came into British hands in April, a lieutenant serving in Lower Saxony told his parents in Westphalia: ‘I simply cannot believe that the Fuhrer will sacrifice us senselessly. Nobody will be able to rob me of my faith in “Him”. He is my All…. Who knows what experiences I shall have before we meet again, but I am an officer and will gladly do all I can for my Fatherland, more—much more, even—than duty requires.’⁴⁸ Volunteers were not lacking for service as suicide-pilots, with the aim of ramming their fighters into Allied bombers. More than 2,000 men immediately came forward, motivated by the loss of their homeland in the east, the death of their families through Allied bombing, or Nazi fanaticism. The kamikaze-style tactic proved unsuccessful and the self-sacrifice pointless: only eight bombers were brought down through ramming, at a cost of 133 German planes and the lives of seventy-seven pilots.⁴⁹ Waffen-SS units still showed astonishing levels of morale, fighting-power and commitment to the regime, as well as utter ruthlessness in blowing up houses where white flags were flying and taking reprisals against individuals raising them. In varying degrees, differing from person to person, ideological commitment, fanatical loyalty, a sense of comradely duty, fear of the consequences of non-compliance and sheer lack of alternative drove on the German will to resist.⁵⁰

Perhaps, other than a vague notion that their actions were helping somehow to ‘save’ Germany, many soldiers in the west had no clear rationale for why they were still fighting. For in the west, too, self-preservation was the most prominent motive, according to a survey of 12,000 soldiers’ letters during March. In almost all, the wish was expressed to survive the last phase of the war and rejoin their families.⁵¹

An impression of a disintegrating army can be glimpsed from the diary account, cited on occasion in earlier chapters, of Lieutenant Julius Dufner. By April 1945, Dufner was based in the Bergisches Land south of Remscheid, near Wermelskirchen, then in nearby Solingen as Model’s orders came through for the dissolution of Army Group B. On 13 April he heard rumours that soldiers had thrown away their weapons and that the war in the west was over. As troops retreated, men and women were exhorting them to lay down their arms, offering accommodation and civilian clothing. Two days later there were further rumours, that Hitler, Goring and Goebbels had been shot or committed suicide. Inhabitants were pulling down tank barriers in Solingen. Wehrmacht goods were being distributed to the local population. Children were running round in steel helmets discarded by soldiers. Hatred against the Party was now able to find voice. ‘Everything smelling of the Party was seen as fair game,’ he noted. By 16 April nearly all the soldiers were wearing civilian clothes and acting as if they had been dismissed from army service, though an actual order to that effect had still not come through. Their senior officer, a major, was dressed in an ill-fitting suit and sports cap, giving up any pretence at command. The last munition dump was detonated. The following day, 17 April, in the ruined city centre of Solingen, as German prisoners were loaded onto lorries to be taken into captivity, and American GIs, smoking Camel cigarettes and chewing gum, took over the town, he set out for home in Baden (where he arrived nearly a fortnight later) in civilian clothing, and on the bicycle that he had obtained by offering his motorbike and 100 Reich Marks in exchange. For him, the war was over.⁵² Other soldiers, particularly those tensely awaiting the battle on the Oder, were less lucky.

IV

The regime’s control in western areas was by now in an advanced stage of dissolution. Propaganda reports gave Goebbels an ‘alarming’ picture of demoralization. There was no longer reluctance to voice sharp criticism of Hitler himself, and no fear of the Americans. White flags were put out as they approached, and they were greeted with enthusiasm, regarded as protectors against the Soviets. The population were often directly opposed to their own troops who wanted to continue the fight, with a predictably depressing effect on the soldiers. There was a good deal of looting. Alongside the defeatism and widespread fatalism, many people were now talking of suicide as the best way out. Characteristically Nazified demands were voiced for drastic action against those seen as responsible for Germany’s plight. People pointed to the peremptory punishment of those who had failed to detonate the Remagen bridge and thereby allowed the Americans to cross the Rhine; they wanted similar treatment for those responsible for the ‘catastrophe in the air war’, even demanding the death penalty for Goring. Some believed—as did Hitler himself—that treason was behind the collapse on the western front.⁵³