Under the Bombs: The German Home Front, 1942-1945

9. The End Comes—With Death and Terror: January-May 1945

January-May 1945 9. The End ComesWith Death and Terror Germany had suffered grievously in the years before 1945. The hail of bombs had taken a heavy toll on its cities. Buildings, homes, and people had shared the consequences of an unparalleled destruction . Hundreds of thousands of soldiers had lost their lives in Hitler's ill-managed campaigns. Millions of people at home had suffered from privation, homesickness, and unhappiness in unfamiliar places of refuge as well as from the tangible fears of the raids and the vague dread of an uncertain future. But these trials and privations faded into insignificance before the horrors of the closing months of World War II. The bombs continued to fall-every bomb might save the lives of some of the Allied soldiers moving into German territory. The pressure of the Nazi regime upon its civilian population and its soldiers increased as defeat became ever more inevitable. Soldiers, weary of the battle front, and civilians who had lost their confidence in failed leadership became victims of the numerous "special courts" that dispensed death sentences without trial and without mercy. Orders from above directed the destruction of bridges, transportation facilities , and industry in areas about to be occupied by the enemyorders that would have crippled Germany's capacity for existence for years to come. And, above all, the great flight of Germans in from the east brought the death of thousands in the "treks" through snow and The End Comes 173 bitter cold, the death of women, children, and old men seeking to escape the merciless vengeance of the oncoming Soviet troops. The "home front," in this last period of the war, frequently became the battle front as well. As the enemy troops approached from the east and the west, the regime sought to enroll old men, young boys, and even some women into the military, to hold armament makers at their work benches until evacuation was no longer possible, and to dictate the sacrifice of thousands in senseless and futile last-ditch stands against overwhelming enemy forces. More and more in these last days of the war, personal factors dictated the course of events in each of the different parts of Germany. Some party bureaucrats continued to carryon their assigned tasks .as though the tide of events had not turned against them. Others were desperately aware of the coming denouement. In some areas, foolish resistance efforts were made. In others, government agents helped to mitigate the problems of a peaceful transition to enemy authority. There was no longer one home front; there were many. And the relationship between the fading authority of the central government and the local authority of Gauleiters, Kreisleiters, and Ortsgruppenleiters became ever more tenuous. As a consequence, an ordered and systematic accounting of these days is impossible. But some impression of the confusion and uncertainty and of the variations of popular reactions may be attempted. The month of January saw the beginning of major catastrophes on the eastern front. German-occupied territory began to shrink precipitately. Soviet armed forces, with an enormous advantage of men and materiel (infantry 7.7 to 1; artillery 6.9 to 1; mortars 10.2 to 1; tanks 4.7 to 1), drove ruthlessly deep into southern Poland, pierced Hungary all the way to Budapest, and began to place extreme pressure on German armies along the Baltic Sea and in East Prussia. Field Marshal Heinz Guderian sought vainly to warn Hitler of the desperate danger confronting German forces in the east and to obtain Hitler's consent for redisposition of forces to strengthen the defense of German territory. But Hitler maintained his stubborn insistence that every square meter of territory held by Germany had to be defended to the death.1 His attitude was shared by the Gauleiters in the east, such as Arthur Greiser, the Gauleiter in the Warthegau, the extended version of the East Prussian area that had gathered in Polish territory occupied by Germany after the defeat of Poland. Greiser's childlike faith in the Fuhrer's promises that the troops would hold fast against the Russians led him to deny evacuation to 174 Under the Bombs the Germans in his Gau. By January 18, the Germans settled in former Polish territories began to reap the harvest of Soviet revenge as Soviet troops pushed into the eastern boundaries of the Warthegau, burning the villages they overran, killing the male inhabitants...