A World at Arms (231 page)

79
Montgomery order M 563, copy to CIGS, Liddell Hart Centre, Alanbrooke Papers, 14/7/30. The Field Marshal was right on the mark; I recall seeing in the records of German forces fighting on the Eastern Front in the spring of 1945 a letter from the “Plenipotentiary of the Reichsftihrer SS for All Military Dog and Pigeon Matters,” offering some companies of dog handlers without dogs for the next offensive operation in a wooded area. General Gotthard Heinrici, the Army Group Vistula Commander-in-Chief, had scrawled across the document: “Suitable for publication in a humor magazine” (Zur Veroffentlichung in einem Witzblatt geeignet).

80
Lamb,
Montgomery,
chap. 14.

81
See Stephen E. Ambrose,
Eisenhower and Berlin
1945:
The Decision to Halt at the Elbe
(New York: Norton, 1967). it should be noted that Montgomery’s order of Mar. 28 quoted above specified the line of the Elbe as the goal for 21 st Army Group.

82
On Apr. 2 Montgolnery wrote to Brooke that he had instructed 9th Army to cross the Weser by the following night, “and I do not think the Army will go much further than that.” He planned to urge 12th Army Group to move forward but doubted that they would (Liddell Hart Centre, Alanbrooke Papers, 14/11/2). On April 16 Montgomery told Simpson, the Director of Military Operations in the War Department, on the phone that his troops were getting exhausted, that operations toward Lubeck and Kiel “would probably go very slowly,” and that he needed and was getting some American divisions to help him get there (Simpson for Brooke and Nye, 17 Apr. 1945, Alanbrooke Papers, 14/9/21). On Apr. 21 Montgomery wrote Brooke about his plans for a set piece crossing of the Elbe (Alanbrooke Papers, 14/11/26). See also Eisenhower,
Eisenhower at War,
pp.756–57.

83
Churchill personal minute D 9515, 3 Apr. 1945, Liddell Hart Centre, Alanbrooke Papers, 14/9/7.

84
See Pogue,
Supreme Command,
chap. 22; Gunther W. Gellermann,
Die Armee Wenck: Hitlers letzte Hoffnung
(Koblenz: Bernard & Graefe, 1984), pp. 20–26.

85
Pogue,
Supreme Command,
p. 452; Gruchmann,
Die Zweite Weltkrieg,
pp. 430–3 I; Ziemke,
Stalingrad to Berlin,
p. 479 n 50; Erickson,
Road to Berlin,
pp. 552–53; Gellermann,
Annee Wenck,
chap. 4.

86
Pogue,
Supreme Command,
pp. 461–69.

87
Rodney G. Minott,
The Fortress that Never Was: The Myth of Hitler’s Bavarian Stronghold
(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964); Joachim Bruckner,
Kriegsende in Bayers
1945 (Freiburg: Rombach, 1987).

88
This is the thrust of David Eisenhower’s analysis.

89
The best account is Bradley F. Smith and Elena Agarossi,
Operation Sunrise: The Secret Surrender
(New York: Basic Books, 1979). The British code–namewas “Crossword;” not all the files on it are as yet open; note C 1575/45/18, PRO, FO 371/46783 (Vol. 2 retained in the Foreign Office).

90
Smith and Agarossi,
Operation Sunrise,
pp. 50–51.

91
Ibid., p. 203 n 23. The whole “Sunrise” episode reflects very badly on the judgement of Allen Dulles who allowed himself to be carried away–and over JCS orders–by prospects of a great coup.

92
A very good account, which also covers parts of the fighting in Italy, is Geoffrey Cox,
The Race for Trieste
(London: Kimber, 1977). For the push from the north, see also Wyant,

93
See
FDR Letters,
2: 1577–78.

94
Smith and Agaross
(Operation Sunrise)
allege that the Soviet Union had every reason to be concerned, but I find their logic entirely unconvincing. They deprecate Roosevelt’s reference to the isolated German garrisons in the Baltic but overlook that the largest of these, that in Courland, surrendered even later than that in Italy. The President’s view, in spite of the confused situation at the time, was clearer than theirs decades later.

95
See C 1549/45/18, PRO, FO 371/46784.

96
Note Smith and Agarossi, pp. 55–56, 85ff, 170.

97
Eisenhower,
Eisenhower at War,
p. 792. The Red Army operations in East Prussia are covered in Duffy,
Red Stonn,
chaps. 15–16; the various sieges in chaps. 19–23.

98
Erickson,
Road to Berlin,
pp. 509–17; Glantz,
Soviet Military Deception,
pp. 514–20, 522–23.

99
On the Berlin operation, see Erickson,
Road to Berlin,
pp. 528ff; Ziemke,
Stalingrad to Berlin,
chap. 21; Glantz, pp. 521, 524–44; Tony Le Tissier,
The Battle for Berlin
1945
(New York: St. Martin’s, 1988).

100
Marshall to Roosevelt, 2 Apr. 1945, FDRL, Map Room Box 171, Naval Aide, Probable Developments in the German Reich.

101
See Abe and Kojima “N” Serial 315 to Tokyo of 10 Apr. 1945 on a tea given by Ribbentrop on 4 Apr., NA, RG 457, SRNA 4624–26.

102
Muller, “Gaskriegsvorbereitungen,” pp. 47–48; Pacific Strategic Intelligence Section, “Japanese Reaction to German Defeat,” 21 May 1945, NA, RG 457, SRH-075; Rudolf Semmler,
Goebbels-The Man Next to Hitler,
intro. by D. Mc Lachlan and notes by G. S. Wagner (London: Westhouse, 1947), 13 Apr. 1945, pp. 190–92. A new edition of the Semmler Diary would be most welcome.

103
The death of Roosevelt was considered similar to the death of the Empress Elizabeth of Russia, which led to the breakup of the coalition against the Prussia of Frederick the Great in the Seven Years War of 1756–63. When Kawahara Syun-itiro, counsellor of the Japanese embassy in Berlin, asked whether the Allies might not simply declare the war over when they had seized Berlin, he was told that this could not be done legally and was referred to the experience of the Kingdom of Hanover in 1866! (Oshima to Tokyo No. 427 of 18 Apr. 1945, NA, RG 457, SRDJ 98241–42.)

104
Ziemke, Stalingrad to Berlin, P.488. See also his The Battle for Berlin: End ofthe Third Reich (New York: Ballantine, 1968); Igor N. Venkov, “How the Berlin Garrison Surrendered 2 May 1945,” Anny History, PB-20–91-1 (Winter 1990/91), 20–25.

105
The texts have been repeatedly published; see
TMWC,
41: 548–54, for both the political and the private wills; Goebbels
Tagebücher,
1945, pp. 550–55, has the political will only. A set of the originals is in the U.S. National Archives together with the marriage license.

106
Why the Soviet government kept its knowledge secret, at times pretended to believe Hitler was still alive, and finally changed its policy by authorizing the publication of an autopsy and related materials in 1968 remain open questions. A revised edition of Lev Bezymenski’s book,
Der Tod des Adolf Hitler: der sowjetische Beitrag über das Ende des Dritten
of the autopsy was distorted is also hard to explain. and related materials in 1968 remain open questions. A revised edition of Lev Bezymenski’s book,
Der Tod des Adolf Hitler: der sowjetische Beitrag über das Ende des Dritten Reiches und seines Diktators
(Munich: Herbig, 1982) still contains the subsequently corrected assertion that there was only one testicle visible. To what purpose this portion of the autopsy was distorted is also hard to explain.

107
British intelligence had Hugh R. Trevor-Roper check into the issue; his report, expanded into a book,
The Last Days of Hitler
(New York: Macmillan, 1947), remains important for its insights into the subject.

108
Fisk,
In Time of War,
pp. 461–62. The incident may be related to Irish permission for the German Legation in Dublin to fly the swastika flag while the British mission was not allowed to fly the Union Jack (ibid., p. 135).

109
The German military Attaché in Madrid radioed to Berlin No. 585 on 30 Apr. 1945: “Press news here of Himmler’s surrender and severe illness of the Fuehrer. Request instructions” (NA, RG 457, SRIB 2653).

110
Krebs had been appointed to replace Guderian. He had been assistant military Attaché in Moscow and spoke Russian; he committed suicide.

111
Erickson,
Road to Berlin,
p. 622. The figure includes both sides and also civilian losses.

112
Vlasov himself was captured by the Americans, turned over to the Russians, and shot in 1946.

113
This issue has been referred to repeatedly in connection with the holding of Courland; as Salewski
(Seekriegsleitung)
has shown, it was also true in regard to the holding of Tunisia and the Crimea. The subject is developed in detail in the Grier, “Hitler’s Baltic Strategy”.

114
Speer,
Spandauer Tagebücher,
pp. 334–35. Dönitz was then probably the only person on earth who thought Hitler’s testament legally binding on Germany. See also Speer’s comments on the Donitz memoirs in ibid., pp. 506–8; Bodo Herzog, “Der Kriegsverbrecher Karl Donitz,”
Jahrbuch des Instituts für Deutsche Geschichte
15 (1986),

115
The best work on the Donitz regime is Marlis Steinert,
Die
23
Tage der Regierung Dijnitz
(Vienna: Econ-Verlag, 1967).

116
See President Truman’s account to Mrs. Roosevelt in Robert H. Ferrell (ed.),
Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman
(New York: Harper & Row, Penguin ed., 1980), pp. 20–22.

117
Ziemke,
Stalingrad to Berlin,
pp. 498–99.

118
Note Eisenhower,
Eisenhower at War,
pp. 793ff.

119
Those Germans in East Asia who continued fighting alongside the Japanese long after the official German surrender were tried in Shanghai after the war by the Americans. The relevant materials are in the National Records Center in Suitland, Maryland, in RG 338, U.S. v. Büro Ehrhardt.

120
Marlis Steinert, “The Allied Decision to Arrest the Dönitz Government,”
Historical Journal
31 (1988), 651–63. The British Foreign Office memorandum of 17 May 1945 urging the arrest is in C 2316, 2436/2308/18, PRO, FO 361/46914.

121
Montgomery to Brooke, M 578 of 6 May 1945, Liddell Hart Centre, Alanbrooke Papers, 14/11/45.

122
On Roosevelt’s reasonably good health at Yalta, see James M. Burns,
Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom
1940—
1
945
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970), pp. 573–74; cf. Kimball,
The Juggler,
pp. 205–6 n 24. Churchill had said that in ten years of research
they could not have found a worse place to meet than Yalta (Sherwood,
Roosevelt and Hopkins,
p. 847).

123
Halifax No. 2104 to the Foreign Office for Oliver Lyttleton, 30 Mar. 1945, PRO, PREM 4/27/9.

124
Burns,
Roosevelt,
p. 599.

125
The relevant papers are in FDRL, PSF Box 82, Navy, Wilson Brown folder. See also William L. Langer,
Our Vichy Gamble’
(New York: Knopf, 1947), p. viii.

126
Roosevelt had stressed this point in his foreign policy speech of the 1944 campaign.

127
Note the very positive report by the British ambassador, Lord Halifax, No. 2504 of 13 Apr. 1945, PRO, PREM 4/27/9’ See also the report in H.G. Nichols (ed.),
Washington Dispatches
1941–1945 (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1981 ), pp. 539–41.

128
The question is reviewed from Churchill’s perspective in Gilbert,
Churchill,
7: chap 67, and 8. The relevant documents have been published in
FRUS
and the Smith edition of Clay papers (see n 32 above).

129
Brooke Diary, 23 May 1945, Bryant, 2: 357.

130
See Kettenacker, “Alliance,” pp. 451453–54.

131
Brooke Diary, 31 May 1945, Liddell Hart Centre, Alanbrooke Papers.

132
Ibid., 24 May 1945, Bryant, 2: 357–58.

133
Churchill,
Second World War,
6: chap. 16.

134
A.A. Gunson,
The Anglo-French Collision in Lebanon and Syria,
1940–1945
(London: Macmillan, 1986), chaps. 8–9.

135
Sebald (Pacific Strategic Intelligence Section) to Rochefort, 28 June 1945, NA, RG 457, SRMN 39, f. 126. Other documents on this are in PRO, WO 106/5176. See also Hinsley,
British Intelligence
, 3/2: Appendix 28.

136
Herring,
Aid to Russia,
pp. 187–90.

137
Ibid., pp. 193ff; Beaumont,
Comrades in Arms,
pp. 196–99.

138
See Beaumont, pp. 199–201, for the troubled end of aid to Britain in 1945.

139
Truman note of 19 May 1945, Ferrell,
Off the Record,
p. 32.

140
Eisenhower,
Eisenhower at War,
pp. 761–63, 770. Robert H. Abzug,
Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps
(New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1985), and Jon Bridgman,
The End of the Holocaust: The Liberation of the Camps
(Portland, Oreg.: Timber Press/Areopagitica Press, 1990), are helpful. On Ohrdruf, see Feig,
Hitler’s Death Camps,
pp. 231–32.

141
For the terms and fate of the relevant section of the Treaty of Versailles, see
FRUS, The Paris Peace Conference
1919, 13: 327–80; Johann W. Brtigel, “Das Schicksal der Strafbestimmungen des Versailler Vertrags,”
VjZ
6 (1958), 263–70.

142
The Allies had warned the neutral countries against allowing war criminals to take refuge in them and were to have endless troubles–which continue after decades–in obtaining extradition of identified criminals who had settled there. Argentina decided to open its files on the matter in early 1992; Spain has not done so as yet.

143
Robert H. Jackson,
International Conference on Military Trials, London,
1945 (Washington: GPO, 1949); U.N. War Crimes Commission,
History of the United Nations War Crimes Commission
(London: HMSO, 1948).