Year Zero: Berlin 1945 Read online

  Kersten, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the years in which you have given me the benefit of your medical skill. My last thoughts are for my poor family. Farewell!

  The parting with Kersten betrayed the extent to which Himmler was fatigued by his own intrigues. With his enthusiasm visibly waning, he set off for the delayed meeting at Hohenlychen.

  Himmler arrived at the sanatorium at 06.00hrs in time for breakfast with Bernadotte. His fatigue must have been evident as he explained to Bernadotte that he had hardly slept at all for the past few nights. Following breakfast they proceeded to discuss the proposed humanitarian measures, including Bernadotte's suggestion that released Scandinavian prisoners be allowed to continue their journey from Denmark to Sweden. Himmler refused this reasonable request. Bernadotte however continued to press the issue, later recalling :

  ...I again put forward the request that the Scandinavian prisoners, who were at the time being transported to Denmark, should be allowed to continue the journey to Sweden, but Himmler once more refused. Schellenberg subsequently told me that Hitler had again forbidden any concession on this point.

  Himmler, however agreed to some of my other requests. He agreed that if Denmark should become a battle-ground, the Scandinavian prisoners of war were to be transported to Sweden through the help of the Swedish Red Cross. He also showed genuine interest in my proposal that the Swedish Red Cross be allowed to fetch all French women interned at Ravensbruck concentration camp, and said that he not only agreed to this, but that he wished us to remove women of all nationalities from there, as the camp in question was shortly to be evacuated. I promised him that I would immediately give our detachments orders to this effect.

  A few hours earlier in his meeting with Masur, Himmler had limited the number of prisoner releases at Ravensbruck to 1000, now after this remarkable volte-face, he retired to his bed, utterly exhausted.

  Himmler slept fitfully. A few hours later, he complained of feeling ill to Schellenberg. His right hand man could only state in exasperation, 'There's nothing more I can do for you'. Later, after discussing the deteriorating military situation, Schellenberg accompanied Himmler to their headquarters located near Wustrow. After being delayed by marauding enemy aircraft, Himmler said, 'Schellenberg, I dread what is to come'. That evening, they discussed the war situation again, Schellenberg was highly critical of policy regarding the remaining concentration camp prisoners :

  After dinner, when we were alone again, we spoke of various problems of food supplies, the danger of epidemics, reconstruction, prisoner-of-war administration, and so on, I told him of Kaltenbrunner's blind and unrealistic attitude in insisting on the evacuation of all the concentration camps...

  Schellenberg went on to say that he considered the evacuation of the camps to be a crime. He argued that it would be better to leave the prisoners in situ, where in due course they would be relieved by the advancing Allies. Himmler retorted, 'Schellenberg, don't you start too! Hitler has been raging for days because Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen were not completely evacuated'. Notwithstanding, Himmler's vacillations, he had in effect finally crossed the Rubicon. His contacts with Masur and Bernadotte initiating a process which within a matter of days would lead to a complete break with Hitler.

  Chapter Eight

  'Are the Russians already so near?'

  The civilian population of Berlin had long since become accustomed to Allied bombing raids. They were frequent, noisy and violent, yet they had a certain predictability. However, following the last Allied raid on Berlin, carried out by American bombers on the morning of 21 April, that sense of predictability vanished. The first Soviet artillery strike delivered on the heart of Berlin shortly after the last American B-17 departed was an altogether different experience. That morning, the streets were busier than usual as civilians rushed to secure what would probably be their last supplies before the siege began. There were particularly heavy queues outside the boarded up, but still very much in business, Karstadt department store on Hermannplatz. Many others took the opportunity after the expected lull following the air raid, to fill whatever containers they had with water from pumps or standpipes.

  When it came, the sound of artillery fire momentarily transfixed shoppers who realised too late that the incoming deluge of hot metal was heading straight for them. Seconds later, shells began to plough up the area. Unprotected bodies were hurled into the air, or smashed against the boarded up sides of the department store. The scene was one of utter carnage. Those who could, fled in panic. The dreaded Ivan was at the gates.

  Hitler's realisation that Berlin was now a front line city came shortly afterwards as the intensity of the Soviet barrage increased. By now, shells were landing everywhere across the city. Even Hitler's bunker was not totally immune as vibrations rocked the structure. Being an old infantryman, Hitler was quickly able to discern that this latest attack was shellfire and not aerial bombs. He emerged from his room unshaven, demanding to know from General Burgdorf what exactly was going on. Burgdorf answered that Berlin was under fire from Soviet artillery. Hitler could not quite bring himself to accept the reality of the situation asking, 'Are the Russians already so near?'. The suggestion that the gunfire was directed from long range batteries on the Oder prompted Hitler to telephone the Luftwaffe Chief of Staff for clarification. General Karl Koller was at his headquarters in the Werder Game Park when the call came through :

  Hitler: Do you know that Berlin is under artillery fire?

  Koller: No.

  Hitler: Can't you hear it?

  Koller: No, I am in the Werder Game Park.

  Hitler: There is great agitation in the city over this long-range artillery fire. They tell me the Russians have brought up heavy guns on railway trucks. They are supposed to have built a railway bridge over the Oder. The Luftwaffe must attack and eliminate these bridges at once.

  Koller: The enemy has no railway bridges over the Oder. He may have captured a German heavy battery and turned it around. But he is probably using his own medium guns – he is close enough to hit the city with them.

  Despite his conversation with Koller, Hitler still could not concede that the Red Army was within effective striking range of the city. Angrily, he threatened Koller and the Luftwaffe staff with execution. His anger was perhaps a sign of his recognition that he could no longer influence events, but merely react to them. His mood improved somewhat later in the day, perhaps as a result of Dr Morrell's drugs, perhaps as a result of his self delusion that the so-called 'Army Detachment Steiner' could blunt Zhukov's advance. For ordinary citizens of Berlin, all this would have meant nothing as their thoughts were fixed on survival.

  The bombing of Berlin had been carried out by young men from Britain and the Commonwealth Nations, Americans and men whose countries had been occupied. They had delivered their ordnance from the anonymity of the skies, never actually seeing the enemy. The bombing was impersonal, distant and almost abstract. The shelling however was carried out by a vengeful enemy who would soon be rampaging through the capital. Many people knew of the terrible atrocities that had taken place in Russia. Now they feared that the barbarity that had for so long been practised in their name would rebound on them.

  On 21 April, Goebbels summoned his aides and associates to a meeting held in the private projection room of his Berlin residence. He arrived late, unshaven and anxious. After issuing the instructions for the day, he launched into a vicious denunciation of the German people :

  What can you do with a people whose men don't even fight when their women are raped! All the plans, all the ideas of National Socialism are too high, too noble for such a people... They deserve the fate that will now descend on them. And you – why have you worked with me? Now you'll have your little throats cut! But when we step down, let the whole earth tremble.

  The following day, Goebbels acting as Reichs Commissar for the defence of Berlin spoke to a group of civil servants, reminding them of their oaths and threatening dire consequences for all t
hose contemplating surrender. He let them know in no uncertain terms that he would end his life in Berlin and that he expected them to do the same by stating that, 'My family is now at home. We are staying here. And I demand of you, gentlemen, that you too remain at your posts. If necessary, we shall know how to die here'.

  Goebbels' determination to fight to the last in Berlin was echoed in his last published article which also appeared on the same day in the weekly newspaper Das Reich. The article 'Resistance at any price' was a rallying cry to the defenders of Berlin :

  The war has reached a stage at which only the full efforts of the nation and of each individual can save us. The defence of our freedom no longer depends on the army fighting at the front. Each civilian, each man and woman and boy and girl must fight with unequalled fanaticism. The enemy expects that, once his tanks have broken through, they will find no resistance. He believes that we will be so disconcerted by his material superiority that we will let things take their course, without caring how they turn out. We must prove the enemy's hopes wrong. No village and no city may give in to the enemy. The enemy is strong, but not strong enough to hold all of the territory of the Reich without our help. If he persuades us to capitulate, he will have an easy time with us. The enemy has laid waste to our cities and provinces through the worst and most terrible bombing terror. As long as we are determined to resist at all costs, we cannot be beaten, and for us not being beaten means to be victorious.

  This war of nations demands heavy sacrifice. Still, these sacrifices do not begin to compare with those that we would have to make if we lose... In the midst of a thousand battles, burdens and defeats, our people stand unbroken. Our hearts are proud when we hear from the enemy the wild fanaticism they encounter, how fathers, mothers and even children gather to resist the invaders, how boys and girls throw hand grenades and mines or shoot from cellar windows without regard to danger... The enemy's attacks are riskier than the methods we use to resist... A nation that defended its freedom with all its resources has never yet been defeated...

  Our entire war effort requires revolutionary changes. The old rules of war are outdated, and have no use at all in our present situation... When whole peoples are threatened, whole peoples must defend themselves. The enemy does not wish to take a province from us or push us back to more favourable strategic borders, he wants to cut our very arteries by destroying our mines and factories, destroying our national substance. If he succeeds, Germany will become a cemetery. Our people will starve and perish, aside from the millions who will be deported to Siberia as slave labour...

  Each must start with himself, banishing all weakness and lethargy. He must stand firm and give an example to others, he must be on guard when he hears defeatism... No one can leave it to anyone else. We are all in the same boat that is ploughing through the storm... That is how things are... Raising up the white flag means giving up the war and shamefully losing one's life...

  We still live and breathe, and have mountains of resistance left in us that we only need to draw upon... A fourteen-year-old lad crouching with his bazooka behind a ruined wall on a burned out street is worth more to the nation than ten intellectuals who attempt to prove that our chances are nil... Whether things balance or not depends on us alone... Final victory will be ours. It will come through tears and blood, but it will justify all the sacrifices we have made.

  The tone of Goebbels' appeal to the people was simple. He was basically saying fight on, or die horribly at the hands of victors who would demand their pound of flesh. In truth, this last publication was nothing more than a mass invitation to suicide for what remained of the shrinking German Reich.

  During the course of 22 April, the Soviet stranglehold threatened to cut off Berlin completely as Zhukov and Konev deployed their combined total of five rifle and four tank armies for the final push. At 10.00hrs, 3rd Shock Army attacked, taking the former Communist area of Weissensee quickly. Meanwhile, 5th Shock Army, supported by 12th guards Rifle Corps and 11th Tank Corps smashed their way into Kaulsdorf, Biesdorf and the eastern defences at Karlshorst. To the south, the command headquarters at Zossen had been captured intact. Konev's troops quickly moved on with one column of tanks heading for Potsdam, another for the southern defensive zones along the Teltow Canal. While the Soviet juggernaut ground relentlessly on, Hitler waited nervously for news of Steiner's attack. With each passing hour, Hitler became more irritable as General Krebs was unable to offer him any definite information.

  The military situation conference was held in the bunker at 15.00hrs that afternoon. Overriding Krebs' usual sugar coating of the situation, General Jodl informed Hitler that the Oder Front had all but collapsed, that 9th Army was surrounded and that General Weidling's 56th Panzer Corps could not be located. He went on to say that the city was almost cut off and that within a week the forces of Zhukov and Konev would meet up thus sealing off the Reich capital completely. Irritated by Jodl's gloomy prognosis, Hitler demanded to know when Steiner's forces would come to the relief of the city. Krebs was forced to concede that Steiner had been unable to mobilise enough men and that as a consequence no relief from that source could be expected.

  What followed was one of the most astonishing moments in the history of the Third Reich. Hitler, the man who had brought about the catastrophe completely lost control, hurling accusations against the officer corps who he claimed had failed to carry out his great schemes because of their cowardice, treachery and lies. After this explosion of anger, Hitler collapsed into his chair exhausted. To the astonishment of those present, he then declared that the war was lost. He would remain in the city to meet his death, but those who wished to leave could, because he no longer felt able to lead them. It was left to Jodl to point out that their Fuhrer could not desert the nation in its greatest hour of need, going on to say that there was still hope, in that reserves in the form of General Walther Wenck's 12th Army were still available. Later that day, Hitler's mood improved somewhat as he was persuaded by Keitel, Krebs, Burgdorf and Jodl that Schorner's Army Group was still strong, that Wenck's 12th Army could be turned around from the Elbe, and that given a few days, Steiner would be able to launch an attack from the north.

  Meanwhile, news of Hitler's collapse had reached Goering who had left Berlin for the comfort of his residence at Obersalzberg. General Koller arrived at noon to confirm the reports and to urge the indolent Reich Marshal to take immediate action. Also present was Philipp Bouhler, a senior government official and Chief of the Chancellery of the Fuhrer. Goering was at first cautious, asking if Hitler had appointed Bormann as his successor. Bormann was regarded by Goering as his enemy, and as such he pondered the possibility that the Machiavellian eminence grise of the Nazi court may have laid a trap for him, stating that, 'If I act, he will call me a traitor; if I don't, he will accuse me of having failed at a most critical time'. Goering sent for Hans Lammers, a legal expert and head of the Reich Chancellery to get his opinion. Lammers could only say that as far as he was aware, Goering was still Hitler's nominated successor.

  For Goering, the question of whether Hitler was still able to exercise command remained. Until this question was answered, a legal assumption of power was not possible. Therefore, a carefully worded telegram was sent by Goering to Berlin in order to clarify the position regarding the future leadership of the Reich :

  My Fuhrer: General Koller today gave me a briefing on the basis of communications given to him by Colonel General Jodl and General Christian, according to which you had referred certain decisions to me and emphasised that I, in case negotiations would become necessary, would be in an easier position than you in Berlin. These views were so surprising and serious to me that I felt obligated to assume, in case by 22.00 o'clock no answer is forthcoming, that you have lost your freedom of action. I shall then view the conditions of your decree as fulfilled and take action for the well being of Nation and Fatherland. You know what I feel for you in these most difficult hours of my life and I cannot express this in words. God protect
you and allow you despite everything to come here as soon as possible. Your faithful Hermann Goering.

  Hitler received Goering's telegram calmly, however, Bormann succeeded in changing his perception of Goering's motives by presenting the message as a mutinous ultimatum and lustful grab for power. Within moments, Hitler was denouncing Goering as a lazy, corrupt failure. A radio message, written by Bormann stripped Goering of all his offices. No doubt he would have preferred him executed, but Hitler thought that he might still have some role to play stating, 'Well, all right, let Goering negotiate the surrender. If the war is lost anyhow, it doesn't matter who does it'. Bormann did however manage to ensure that Goering was kept under house arrest, thus effectively eliminating his rival for the succession.

  The day following Hitler's collapse was marked by the emergence of the General destined by a trick of fate to defend Berlin. During the night, Weidling had been forced to relocate his headquarters to Rudow, a borough located between Neukolln and Schonfeld. His unit was now well within the city limits and in close contact with Soviet forces. It therefore came as some relief when he received orders from General Busse to break through the Soviet forces and link up with the northern flank of 9th Army near Konigs Wusterhausen. As his troops were preparing to disengage from the enemy on the morning of 23 April, Weidling was at last able to re-establish contact with Berlin. His telephone call to the bunker was passed on to General Krebs. Guderian's successor greeted him with barely concealed contempt, informing Weidling coldly that he had been sentenced to death for pulling his troops back to the Olympic Village at Doberitz, located to the west of the city. To Weidling, this was utter nonsense, as his troops were attempting to disengage from the Soviet forces on the eastern sector of the city. He then made, what was in the circumstances, a brave decision to put his case personally to Hitler.