Armageddon by Max Hastings Read Free Book Online Page B

Günther, serving with the ruins of 17th SS Panzergrenadiers on the Moselle, said: “We were amazed that it took the Allies so long to engage us. We were utterly exhausted. Yet we were given the chance to catch our breath and regroup at Metz. It seemed extraordinary.”
    Inside the Third Reich, among informed people with no connection to Hitler’s regime, there was a desperate impatience for the end. Only peace could bring a halt to relentless death. Allied victory would mean a chance of life for millions of captives, not least those who had dared to oppose Nazi tyranny. “For the thousands locked up by the Gestapo and for those who were still waiting to be picked up,” wrote Paul von Stemann, a Danish journalist who spent the war in Berlin, “it seemed to be a race with their lives at stake. ‘If they can only hold on till October,’ somebody said, ‘the Allies will be here and they will be safe.’ Somebody else said: ‘The war cannot last till Christmas—it is only a matter of perseverance.’ ” Von Stemann was startled to hear Germany’s official military spokesman, Major Sommerfeldt, observe casually one day in September that he expected the Allies to break through the Siegfried Line at any time, “and then the war will be over in 14 days.” Off the record or not, Sommerfeldt’s words seemed to the journalist a revelation of despair within the Wehrmacht.
    Throughout Germany, by an order of 24 August Reich Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels closed theatres, cabarets and drama schools, and disbanded all orchestras except those essential for radio broadcasting. Only scientific and technical literature, school books and “certain standard political works” continued to be published. The working week was extended to sixty hours, and a “temporary” ban on holidays was imposed. Frau Keuchel of Betzdorf wrote to her husband: “It is dreadful to read the communiqués and realize that Tommy is progressing further, or rather coming nearer, every hour. Here, people are full of fears . . . No doubt you will have heard of the complete ban on holidays and now, to cap it all, the 60-hour working week. If I was to fulfil this, I would have to leave Betzdorf at four in the morning to get to the office!”
    From Weichselstadt in Poland, Frau Kaiser wrote to her husband, a sergeant-major on the Western Front: “My nerves are bad . . . Your little girl is very sick—food poisoning and high fever. Even the doctor doesn’t know what has caused it. I think it is the war. The food is bad and the bread is terrible. What will become of us? You are so far away and I am so alone. Day and night we hear the rumble in the distance. Everyone has to dig trenches, Poles and Germans alike. Couldn’t you manage to get yourself captured in one of the encirclements?” Frau Strauch, a sergeant’s wife, wrote in similar vein: “Today is Sunday, overcast and cold, and my state of mind matches the weather. I could cry. Yet I still cannot believe that God will permit that we Germans should be ruled by murderers like the Russians.”
    On 3 September, Field-Marshal Walter Model, “the Führer’s fireman” who had succeeded as C-in-C of Army Group B after the suicide of the defeated Günther von Kluge, issued an order of the day to his men: “We have lost a battle, but I tell you—we shall still win this war. I cannot say more now, although I know that there are many questions burning on the lips of every soldier. Despite everything that has happened, do not allow your confident faith in Germany’s future to be shaken . . . This hour will separate the real men from the weaklings.” Model’s enigmatic words reflected only his hopes for Hitler’s new rockets and jet fighters, none of which offered a realistic prospect of averting defeat. The Americans later computed that 24,000 conventional combat aircraft could have been built with the German resources squandered on “wonder weapons.” Yet the short, stocky, frankly uncouth