Hitler

usual long-winded resort to the lessons of history, emphasis on ‘struggle’ as a natural law, and description of his own political awakening and build-up of the party) than an exhortation to hold out. For this, indoctrination in the spirit of National Socialism was vital. Of one thing, he told them, they could be certain: ‘that there could never be even the slightest thought of capitulation, whatever might happen’. Hitler spoke of his right to demand of his generals not simplyloyalty, but fanatical support. Full of pathos, he declared: ‘In the last instance, if I should ever be deserted as supreme Leader, I must have as the last defence around me the entire officer corps who must stand with drawn swords rallied round me.’ A minor sensation then occurred: Hitler was interrupted – something which had never happened since the beerhalls of Munich – as Field-Marshal von Manstein exclaimed: ‘And so it will be, my Führer.’ Hitler was visibly taken aback, and lost the thread of what he was saying. He stared icily, uttered ‘That’s good. If that’s the case, we can never lose this war, never, come what may. For the nation will then go into the war with the strength that is necessary. I note that very gladly, Field-Marshal von Manstein!’ He quickly recovered, emphasizing the need, even so, for greater advances in the ‘education’ of the officer corps. In a literal sense, Manstein’s words could be seen to be not only harmless, but encouraging. But, as Manstein himself indicated after the war, the implied meaning was more critical of Hitler. The interruption, the field-marshal later recalled, arose from a rush of blood as he sensed that Hitler had impugned the honour of himself and his fellow officers by implying that their loyalty might be in question.
    Hitler, for his part, saw in the interruption a reproach for his mistrust of his generals. The meeting with Manstein three weeks earlier still rankled with him, as did a frank letter which the field-marshal had subsequently sent. Within minutes of the interruption, Hitler had summoned Manstein to his presence. With Keitel in attendance, Hitler forbade Manstein to interrupt in future. ‘You yourself would not tolerate such behaviour from your own subordinates,’ he stated, adding, in a gratuitous insult, that Manstein’s letter to him a few days earlier had presumably been to justify himself to posterity in his war diary. Needled at this, Manstein retorted: ‘You must excuse me if I use an English expression in this connection, but all I can say to your interpretation of my motives is that I am a gentleman.’ On this discordant note, the audience came to a close. Manstein’s days were plainly numbered.
    At noon three days later, the eleventh anniversary of the takeover of power, Hitler addressed the German people, confining himself to a relatively short radio address from his headquarters. As his voice crackled through the ether from the Wolf ’s Lair in East Prussia, the wailing sirens in Berlin announced the onset of another massive air-attack on the city. Symbolically – it might seem in retrospect – the Sportpalast, scene of many Nazi triumphs in the ‘time of struggle’ before1933, and where so often since then tens of thousands of the party faithful had gathered to hear Hitler’s big speeches, was gutted that night in a hail of incendiaries.
    Hitler’s radio broadcast could offer listeners nothing of what they yearned to hear: when the war would be over, when the devastation from the air would be ended. Instead, what they heard was no more than a rant (along the usual lines, accompanied by the normal savage vocabulary of ‘Jewish bacteria’) about the threat of Bolshevism. Not a word was said in consolation to those who had lost loved ones at the front, or about the human misery caused by the bomb-raids. Even Goebbels acknowledged that, in bypassing practically all the issues that preoccupied ordinary people, the speech had failed to make an impact. It was a remarkable contrast with earlier years. His propaganda slogans were now falling on deaf ears. Indirectly, judgement on the speech could be read into reported remarks such as the comment of a Berlin worker, that only ‘an idiot can tell me the war will be won’.
    III
    Scepticism both about the capabilities of German air-defence to protect cities against the menace from the skies, and about the potential for launching retaliatory attacks on Britain, was well justified.