Ian Kershaw - The End

98. Andrzej Strzelecki, ‘Der Todesmarsch der Häftlinge aus dem KL Auschwitz’, in Herbert, Orth and Dieckmann, p. 1103; Danuta Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager-Auschwitz-Birkenau 1939–1945 , Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1989, pp. 966–7.

99. Kommandant in Auschwitz , p. 146 (where Höss also used the term ‘columns of misery’).

100. ITS, Tote 80, fo. 00030a, Häftlingstransport von Birkenau nach Gablonz, 2.4.46. See also Kommandant in Auschwitz , p. 146; and Czech, p. 968.

101. Monika Richarz, Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland: Selbstzeugnisse zur Sozialgeschichte 1918–1945 , Stuttgart, 1982, pp. 443–6 (account by Paul Heller based on diary jottings kept at the time).

102. Richarz, pp. 448, 450–51.

103. Strzelecki, p. 1102; Blatman, Les Marches de la mort , pp. 112, 140.

104. Richarz, p. 452.

105. ITS, Tote 80, fo. 60282a, Marches de la Mort, Groß-Rosen—Leitmeritz, 4.4.46.

106. Isabell Sprenger, ‘Das KZ Groß-Rosen in der letzten Kriegsphase’, in Herbert, Orth and Dieckmann, pp. 1113–24. On one march alone (p. 1122), 500 out of 3,500 died.

107. Orth, pp. 282–7; Blatman, Les Marches de la mort , pp. 126–32; Blatman, ‘The Death Marches’, pp. 174–9. See also Olga M. Pickholz-Barnitsch, ‘The Evacuation of the Stutthof Concentration Camp’, Yad Vashem Bulletin , 16 (1965), pp. 37–9. According to the SS’s figures, the prisoners in Stutthof had numbered 18,436 men and 30,199 women (48,635 persons in all) on 15 January 1945.—IWM, F.2, AL 1753, SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungs-hauptamt List of Concentration Camps with numbers of guards and prisoners 1. & 15.1.45. When the evacuations began, this number had fallen to 46,331 prisoners.—Blatman, ‘The Death Marches’, p. 175, based (cf. n. 43) on the last roll-call of 24.1.45.

108. Blatman, Les Marches de la mort , p. 140.

109. Hammermann, pp. 140–41; Sprenger, pp. 120–21; Katharina Elliger, Und tief in der Seele das Ferne: Die Geschichte einer Vertreibung aus Schlesien , Reinbek bei Hamburg, 2006, pp. 71–4 (where she mentions seeing as a girl the column of misery of Auschwitz prisoners passing through her village, near Ratibor in Silesia, and throwing bread down before hastily closing her window as the guard reacted negatively).

110. See Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won , London, 1995, pp. 112–33, for an assessment of Harris and Allied bombing strategy, concluding (p. 133) that ‘the air offensive was one of the decisive elements in Allied victory’. The policy of ‘area bombing’ of cities had already been decided—following a change in tactics suggested by Churchill’s scientific adviser Lord Cherwell (earlier known as Professor Frederick Lindemann) on account of the failure of precision bombing—just before Harris took over Bomber Command on 22 February 1942. Harris, who had an excellent rapport with Churchill at this time, was the inspirational driving force behind the implementation of the policy, dedicating himself ‘to the vital necessity of striking at Germany in her homeland, where it would really hurt’.—Henry Probert, Bomber Harris: His Life and Times , London, 2001, pp. 122, 126–46; Max Hastings, Finest Years: Churchill as Warlord 1940–45 , London, 2009, pp. 246–9.

111. Frederick Taylor, Dresden: Tuesday 13 February 1945 , pb. edn., London, 2005, p. 216.

112. Lothar Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg , pb. edn., Munich, 1975, pp. 197–8, 280–81, 414.

113. Taylor, p. 427.

114. Jörg Friedrich, Der Brand: Deutschland im Bombenkrieg 1940–1945 , pb. edn., Berlin, 2004, pp. 108–9, 312–16; Taylor, p. 428.

115. Rüdiger Overmans, ‘Die Toten des Zweiten Weltkriegs in Deutschland’, in Wolfgang Michalka (ed.), Der Zweite Weltkrieg: Analysen, Grundzüge, Forschungsbilanz , Munich and Zurich, 1989, p. 860; Friedrich, p. 63; DRZW , 10/1 (Boog), p. 868; United States Strategic Bombing Survey , New York and London, 1976, vol. 4, pp. 7–10.

116. Müller and Ueberschär, p. 160 (report from 1955 by Theodor Ellgering, who in 1945 was Geschäftsführer des Interministeriellen Luftkriegsausschusses der Reichsregierung in Berlin, on his impressions on entering Dresden immediately after the raid to organize the grim salvage operations).

117. Based on Taylor, chs. 21–4. See also Götz Bergander, Dresden im Luftkrieg , Weimar, Cologne and Vienna, 1994, esp. chs. 9–12; Friedrich, pp. 358–63; DRZW , 10/1 (Boog), pp. 777–98; Olaf Groehler, Bombenkrieg gegen Deutschland , Berlin, 1990, pp. 400–12; Rolf-Dieter Müller, Der Bombenkrieg 1939–1945 , Berlin, 2004, pp. 212–20; Paul Addison and Jeremy A. Crang (eds.), Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945 , London, 2006, esp. pp. 18–77 (contributions by Sebastian Cox and Sönke Neitzel) and pp. 123–42 (Richard Overy’s discussion of the post-war debate); and Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944–45 (London, 2004), pp. 382–7.

118. Victor Klemperer, Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten , vol. 2: Tagebücher 1942–1945 , ed. Walter Nowojski and Hadwig Klemperer, Darmstadt, 1998, pp. 661, 669, 675–6 (13–14.2.45, 19.2.45). Discrimination against Jews even went so far as to refuse them entry to ‘aryan’ shelters during air raids.—Klemperer, p. 644 (20.1.45).

119. This paragraph is based on Taylor, pp. 397–402, 508. An eighteen-year-old soldier, shocked to the core by what he saw in Dresden, noted in his diary that there was talk of over 200,000 dead.—Klaus Granzow, Tagebuch eines Hitlerjungen 1943–1945 , Bremen, 1965, p. 159 (18.2.45).The propaganda claims of up to a quarter of a million victims are judiciously assessed and dismissed by Rolf-Dieter Müller, ‘Der Feuersturm und die unbekannten Toten von Dresden’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht , 59 (2008), pp. 169–75. An evaluation of all available evidence, and of the wildly differing figures given for the numbers of dead (with some claims of half a million dead), by a specially nominated Historians’ Commission which reported in 2010, arrived at the figure of 25,000—the estimate already made in the official investigations of 1945–6.—www.dresden.de/de/02/035/01/2010/03/pm_060.php, ‘Pressemitteilungen. 17.03.2010. Dresdner Historikerkommission veröffentlicht ihren Abschlussbericht’.

120. Taylor, p. 463.

121. Friedrich, pp. 331–3, 533–6.

122. Friedrich, pp. 312–16.

123. Taylor, pp. 413–14; DRZW , 10/1 (Boog), p. 798.

124. Taylor, ch. 15.

125. Taylor, pp. 412–24, 506. Goebbels’ aide, Wilfred von Oven, estimated in his diary entry for 15 February a total of 200,000–300,000 victims, and went on to write of a historically unprecedented killing of ‘300,000 women, children and defenceless civilians within a few hours’.—Von Oven, Finale Furioso , pp. 580–82 (15.2.45).

126. Das Reich , 4.3.45, p. 3, with the headline: ‘The Death of Dresden. A Beacon of Resistance’. The bombing, the article claimed, was an attempt to compel capitulation through mass murder so that the ‘death sentence’ could be carried out on what was left. ‘Against this threat’, it concluded, ‘there is no other way out than through fighting resistance.’ See also Bergander, pp. 184–5; and Taylor, p. 425.

127. Klemperer, p. 676.

128. BfZ, Sterz-Sammlung, letters of DRK-Schwester Ursel C., 16.2.45, 20.2.45; O’Gefr. Rudolf L., 16.2.45, 18.2.45; O’Gefr. Ottmar M., 26.2.45. Only a single letter in Jörg Echternkamp (ed.), Kriegsschauplatz Deutschland 1945: Leben in Angst—Hoffnung auf Frieden. Feldpost aus der Heimat und von der Front , Paderborn, 2006, p. 152, mentions the bombing of Dresden, but then only to indicate worry about the population and relatives in the area. One letter that came into the hands of the British army, dated 20 February, though sent from Unna in Westphalia and with no direct reference to the attack on Dresden, did speak of bitterness and sense of impotence at the ‘terror-flights’ heading for Germany, but determination to fight on and conviction of victory.—LHC, Dempsey Papers, no. 288 Pt. II, p. 8 (18.3.45). The Berlin population seems to have been understandably concerned about the raids on the capital but, to go from reports covering February 1945, no comments about Dresden were registered by the Wehrmacht agents gathering information on popular opinion in the city, though some general feeling was expressed (e.g. p. 252) that the war was almost over and it was pointless to continue.— Das letzte halbe Jahr , pp. 248 – 93. The Government Presidents of Bavarian provinces gave no indication, in their reports for March 1945, of reactions of the population, preoccupied with its own concerns, to the Dresden bombing .