Hitler

to resign, an offer that had been summarily turned down. Schmundt had seen to it that the dismissals of the two field-marshals were carried out with decorum, not with rancour. They were replaced by Walter Model and Ferdinand Schörner, both tough generals and favourites of Hitler, whom he regarded as ideal for rousing the morale of the troops and instilling rigorous National Socialist fighting spirit in them. At the same time, the names of the army groups were altered to Army Group North Ukraine and Army Group South Ukraine. The Ukraine had, in fact, already been lost. The symbolicrenaming was part of the aim of reviving morale by implying that it would soon be retaken.
    It would rapidly become clear yet again, however, that changes in personnel and nomenclature would not suffice. The new commanders were no more able to stop the relentless Soviet advance than Manstein and Kleist had been. On 2 April, Hitler issued an operational order which began: ‘The Russian offensive on the south of the eastern front has passed its high-point. The Russians have used up and split up their forces. The time has come to bring the Russian advance finally to a halt.’ It was a vain hope. A crucial component of the new lines drawn up was the provision for the Crimea, to be held at all cost. It was an impossibility. Odessa, the port on the Black Sea which was vital to supply-lines for the Crimea, had been abandoned on 10 April. By early May, the entire Crimea was lost, with Hitler forced to agree in the night of 8–9 May to the evacuation of Sevastopol by sea. The vain struggle to hold on to the Crimea had cost over 60,000 German and Romanian lives. When the Soviet spring offensive came to a halt, the Germans had been pushed back in some sectors by as much as 600 miles inside a year.
    Goebbels had suggested to Hitler that he might speak to the German people on 1 May. He had not been well enough to speak on ‘Heroes’ Memorial Day’ on 12 March, when Grand-Admiral Dönitz – one of the few military leaders whom Hitler greatly respected, and evidently a coming man – substituted for him. Hitler told Goebbels (who remarked on his nervous strain, particularly about Hungary, over the past weeks) that he was sleeping only about three hours a night – an exaggeration, but the long-standing problems of insomnia had certainly worsened. He did show some apparent inclination to give a radio address on 1 May, but claimed his health was not up to giving a speech in public. He did not know whether he could manage it.
    It was an excuse. When, following his discussion with Goebbels, he gave a fiery pep-talk, unprepared and without notes, to his party leaders, there was no hint of concern about whether he might break down part-way through his speech (in which he declared, among other confidence-boosting claims, that the Soviet advance also had its advantages in bringing home to all nations the seriousness of the threat). But when speaking to the ‘Old Guard’, he was in trusted company. A speech, in the circumstances, to a mass audience when he was wellaware of the slump in mood of the population was a different matter altogether.
    Hitler’s birthday that year, his fifty-fifth, had the usual trappings and ceremonials. Goebbels had Berlin emblazoned with banners and a new slogan of resounding pathos: ‘Our walls broke, but our hearts didn’t.’ The State Opera house on Unter den Linden was festively decorated for the usual celebration, attended by dignitaries from state, party, and Wehrmacht. Goebbels portrayed Hitler’s historic achievements. The Berlin Philharmonia, conducted by Hans Knappertsbusch, played Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Symphony. But the mood among the Nazi faithful at such events was contrived. Goebbels was well aware from reports from the regional Propaganda Offices that the popular mood was ‘very critical and sceptical’, and that ‘the depression in the broad masses’ had reached ‘worrying levels’.
    VI
    A familiar face, not seen for some months, had returned to the Berghof in mid-April. Since being admitted to the Red Cross hospital at Hohenlychen, sixty miles north of Berlin, for a knee operation (accompanied by severe nervous strain), Albert Speer had been out of circulation. Hitler had seen him briefly in March, while Speer was convalescing for a short time at Klessheim, but the armaments minister had then left for Meran, in South Tyrol, to recover in the company of his family.
    An absent minister was an