No
surrender
Soviet soldiers raise a red victory flag over the Reichstag in Berlin after the German capital's capture in May 1945
Photograph: Yevgeny Khaldei  |
By the winter of 1941, it was obvious that Hitler's gamble on
a quick victory over Russia had not paid off. By the following winter
the winter of Stalingrad the consequences were already seen
to be catastrophic. There was no longer any possibility of repeating
the incisive, lightning campaigns that had brought the astonishing
triumphs between 1939 and 1941. Instead, a bitter and attritional
defensive war, which Hitler was both temperamentally and in terms
of military skill singularly ill-equipped to direct, had to be fought
and with increasingly stretched manpower and resources.
Meanwhile, relentless bombing was reducing Germany's cities to
ashes. And once the western Allies had established a firm hold on
continental soil in the summer of 1944, the writing was well and
truly on the wall at least for all who applied conventional military
logic to the increasingly uneven contest.
At one point or another, almost all the Nazi leaders below Hitler
Goebbels, Gφring, Ribbentrop, and Himmler among them entertained
notions of exploring avenues for a separate peace with either the
Russians or with the western Allies. Hitler dismissed all such ideas
out of hand. He would only negotiate from a position of strength,
following a military success, he repeatedly stated. The chances
of such an option being open to him were, however, as good as non-existent.
So, instead, he spoke tirelessly and incessantly of will overcoming
adversity; of refusal to capitulate, of holding out until 'five
minutes past midnight'. Meanwhile, Germany burned.
By 17 January 1945, the Soviet armies had steamrollered over the
troops in their path. The way to the German frontier now lay open
before them. Overhead, Soviet planes controlled the skies, strafing
and bombing at will. Some German divisions were surrounded; others
retreated westward as fast as they could go. Warsaw was evacuated
by the remaining German forces on 17 January, driving Hitler into
a paroxysm of rage.
While this disaster of colossal proportions was unfolding on the
eastern front, the allies in the west were swiftly reasserting themselves
after staving off the Ardennes offensive. By early February, some
two million American, British, Canadian and French soldiers were
ready for the assault on Germany.
As German defences were collapsing on both eastern and western
fronts and enemy forces prepared to strike at the very heart of
the Reich, German cities as well as military instalments and fuel
plants were being subjected to the most ferocious bombing of the
entire war. The aim was to intensify the mounting chaos in the big
urban centres in the east of the Reich, as thousands of refugees
fled westwards from the path of the Red Army. The result was to
magnify massively the terror from the skies as the bombs rained
down on near-defenceless citizens.
Berlin was hit on 3 February by the most damaging raid it had
suffered so far during the war, killing three thousand. Ten days
later, on the night of 13-14 February, the beautiful city of Dresden,
the glittering cultural capital of Saxony, renowned for its fine
china but scarcely a major industrial centre, and now teeming with
refugees, was turned into a towering inferno as thousands of incendiaries
and explosive bombs were dropped by waves of RAF Lancaster bombers.
At least 35,000 citizens lost their lives in the most ruthless display
experienced of Allied air superiority and strength. In the last
four and a half months of the war, 471,000 tons of bombs were dropped
on Germany, double the amount during the entire year of 1943. In
March alone, almost three times as many bombs were dispatched as
during the whole of the year 1942.
By that time, Germany militarily and economically was on its
knees. But as long as Hitler lived, there could be no prospect of
surrender.
