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The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1944-1945 PDF

607 Pages·2011·5.77 MB·English
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The End IAN KERSHAW The End The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1944 – 45 THE PENGUIN PRESS New York 2011 THE PENGUIN PRESS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England First published in 2011 by The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright © Ian Kershaw, 2011 All rights reserved Illustration credits appear on pages vii–ix. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA Kershaw, Ian. The end : the defiance and destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1944–1945 / Ian Kershaw. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-59420-314-5 (hardback) 1. World War, 1939–1945—Germany. 2. Sociology, Military—Germany—History—20th century. 3. Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945—Military leadership. 4. Hitler, Adolf, 1889–1945—Public opinion. I. Title. D757.K38 2011 940.5343—dc23 2011020135 Printed in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Contents List of Illustrations List of Maps Acknowledgements Preface Dramatis Personae Introduction: Going Down in Flames 1. Shock to the System 2. Collapse in the West 3. Foretaste of Horror 4. Hopes Raised – and Dashed 5. Calamity in the East 6. Terror Comes Home 7. Crumbling Foundations 8. Implosion 9. Liquidation Conclusion: Anatomy of Self-Destruction Notes List of Archival Sources Cited List of Works Cited Index List of Illustrations 1. Martin Bormann, c. 1942 (photograph: akg-images) 2. Heinrich Himmler, c. 1943 (photograph: Scala, Florence/Walter Frentz Collection) 3. Joseph Goebbels, 1942 (photograph: Scala, Florence/Walter Frentz Collection) 4. Albert Speer, 1942 (photograph: Scala, Florence/Walter Frentz Collection) 5. Captured German prisoners near Falaise, September 1944 (photograph: Topfoto) 6. German civilians evacuate Aachen, October 1944 (photograph: Bettmann/Corbis) 7. Wilhelm Keitel (undated) (photograph: Scala, Florence/Walter Frentz Collection) 8. Alfred Jodl, 1944 (photograph: Ullsteinbild/Topfoto) 9. Heinz Guderian, 1944 (photograph: Ullsteinbild/Topfoto) 10. Karl Dönitz, c. 1943 (photograph: Scala, Florence/Walter Frentz Collection) 11. Digging a trench near Tilsit, September 1944 (photograph: Scala, Florence/BPK) 12. Erich Koch on inspection in East Prussia, August 1944 (photograph: Ullsteinbild/Topfoto) 13. German soldiers viewing corpses, Nemmersdorf, October 1944 (photograph: akg-images) 14. The Ardennes offensive, December 1944 (photograph: Heinz Rutkowski (Scherl)/Bundesarchiv, Koblenz) 15. Walter Model, 1941 (photograph: akg-images/Ullsteinbild) 16. Georg- Hans Reinhardt, 1939 (photograph: Scala, Florence/BPK) 17. Ferdinand Schörner, 1942 (photograph: Scala, Florence/BPK) 18. Gotthard Heinrici, 1943 (photograph: Scala, Florence/Walter Frentz Collection) 19. Volkssturm men on the eastern front, October 1944 (photograph: Ullsteinbild/Topfoto) 20. Volkssturm men march past Goebbels, November 1944 (photograph: Bundesarchiv, Koblenz) 21. Arthur Greiser, 1939 (photograph: Scala, Florence/BPK) 22. Josef Grohé, 1944 (photograph: Scala, Florence/BPK) 23. Karl Hanke, c. 1942 (photograph: Ullsteinbild/Topfoto) 24. Karl Holz (undated) (photograph: Bundesarchiv, Koblenz) 25. Refugees crossing the Frisches Haff, February 1945 (photograph: Vinzenz Engel/ Scala, Florence/BPK) 26. Abandoned wagon in East Prussia, January 1945 (photograph: Mary Evans/ Suddeutscher Verlag) 27. Flying court-martial, location unknown, probably 1944/5 (photograph: Ullsteinbild/Topfoto) 28. Hanged German officer, Vienna, April 1945 (photograph: akg-images/Interfoto/AWKZ) 29. Overcrowded boat from Pillau crossing the Baltic Sea, March 1945 (photograph: akg-images) 30. Dresden, February 1945 (photograph: Scala, Florence/BPK/Walter Hahn) 31. Nuremberg, March 1945 (photograph: Scala, Florence/Walter Frentz Collection) 32. Young Germans cycling to the front, February 1945 (photograph: Scala, Florence/BPK) 33. Berlin, April 1944 (photograph: Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin (Inv.-Nr.: F 66/911)) 34. Photograph from a series taken by the US Army immediately after the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp, Weimar, April 1945 (photograph: ITS Archives, Bad Arolsen (Exhibit B-1, Numbers 1-28, Set No 5, Picture No. 2)) 35. Prisoners on a death march from Dachau, April 1945 (photograph: private collection, courtesy KZ Gedenkstätte Dachau) 36. Germans surrender to the Red Army, Königsberg, April 1945 (photograph: Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin (Inv.-Nr.: F 61/1661)) 37. Houses display white flags in Worms, March 1945 (photograph: Scala, Florence/BPK) 38. Heinrich von Vietinghoff, 1944 (photograph Scala, Florence/BPK) 39. Karl Wolff, 1942 (photograph: Scala, Florence/Walter Frentz Collection) 40. Keitel signs the complete German capitulation, 8 May 1945 (photograph: Bundesarchiv, Koblenz) 41. An angel on the spire of Freiburg minster, 1946 (photograph: Scala, Florence/Walter Frentz Collection) List of Maps 1. The European fronts, July 1944 2. The Allied breakthrough in the West, June to September 1944 3. The Red Army’s advance, June to August 1944 4. East Prussia 5. The Ardennes offensive 6. The Red Army’s January 1945 offensive 7. The Collapse of the Third Reich, March 1945 8. Dönitz’s Reich, 1 May 1945 9. Europe at the final surrender Acknowledgements One of the most pleasant parts of finishing a book is to thank those who, in different ways, have contributed to the making of it. My thanks first of all to the British Academy for a grant which helped me to undertake the initial, exploratory research. I am also grateful to the archivists and staff of the various record repositories where I have worked: the Bundesarchiv in Berlin/Lichterfelde, the Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv in Freiburg, the Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte in Stuttgart, the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv and Staatsarchiv München, the Staatsarchiv Augsburg, the International Tracing Service, Bad Arolsen, the National Archives in London, the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, and the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives in King’s College, London. At the Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte in Stuttgart, part of the Württembergische Landesbibliothek, I had every reason to be most grateful for the help and advice of the library’s director and good friend of mine, Professor Gerhard Hirschfeld, and the head of its archival collections, Dr Irina Renz. Dr Susanne Urban was most helpful in guiding me through the extensive sources related to the death marches – only recently opened to researchers – at the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, where I would also like to express my thanks to the director, M. Jean-Luc Blondel. At Duxford, I benefited greatly from Dr Stephen Walton’s expert assistance in consulting the valuable holdings of German documents. I started, and finished, the research for the book in the incomparable Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich, where I have had the good fortune to be a welcome guest for many years, and I would like to express my warmest thanks to the director, Professor Horst Möller, and his colleagues, especially the library and archives staff, who as always dealt with my many requests with unfailing courtesy and friendliness. Professor Otto Dov Kulka (Jerusalem), a highly esteemed colleague and friend with whom I have shared a lengthy and fruitful correspondence over many years, first pointed me in the direction of the records at Bad Arolsen. Beyond that, as ever I have been extremely grateful for his interest in my work, and for his valuable suggestions. Laurence Rees, good friend and brilliant producer of television documentaries, was kind enough to make available to me relevant transcripts of interviews, kept in the BBC Archives in London, from one of the series on which we collaborated, offered excellent advice, and was as always stimulating company, cheerfully helpful and most encouraging.

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From the preeminent Hitler biographer, a fascinating and original exploration of how the Third Reich was willing and able to fight to the bitter end of World War II.Countless books have been written about why Nazi Germany lost World War II, yet remarkably little attention has been paid to the equall
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