Armageddon - Max Hastings [18]
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 commander of Army Group B remained unswervingly loyal to Hitler. For all Model’s competence as a commander, his behaviour, like that of many of his colleagues, reflected a refusal to confront reality. Rational military analysis led inexorably to despair.
Yet an astonishing number of German soldiers remained convinced that the war might be won. A straw poll was conducted among eighty-two prisoners of the Luftwaffe’s 6th Parachute Division. Asked whether they still believed Germany would prevail, even in captivity thirty-two men replied “certainly”; fifteen “possibly”; nine “doubtful”; sixteen “impossible”; and ten refused to express an opinion. Captain Hans-Otto Polluhmer, former signals officer of 10th SS Panzer, nursed feelings of guilt, “a belief that I had let the side down,” even as he languished at Camp Polk, Oklahoma, after being captured at the Falaise Gap. Many of Polluhmer’s fellow prisoners still believed victory attainable, and some of them physically assaulted “weaklings” who revealed doubt. Eugen Ernst, a Wehrmacht reserve colonel captured in Holland, wrote to his family from prison camp in England, asserting boldly that he expected Germany’s new wonder weapons would soon arrive and turn the tide of the war. An American survey of German PoWs showed that more than two-thirds still expressed belief in their Führer as late as November 1944. The Nazis’ assiduous cultivation of the warrior ethos had created some young fanatics of the Waffen SS who simply liked fighting for its own sake, even now that they were losing the war. A captain of 1st SS Panzer said: “We reached a point where we were not concerned for ourselves or even for Germany, but lived entirely for the next clash, the next engagement with the enemy. There was a tremendous sense of ‘being,’ an exhilarating feeling that every nerve in the body was alive to the fight.”
Private Bruno Bochum harboured