Hitler

effectively at an end.
    On New Year’s Day 1945, German radios broadcast Hitler’s traditional address to the German people. It held nothing new for them. Hitler offered them not a sentence on the effect of ‘wonder weapons’, steps to counter the terror from the skies, or anything specific on military progress on the fronts. Above all, he gave no hint that the end of the war was near. He spoke only of its continuation in 1945 and until a final victory – which by now only dreamers could imagine – was attained. His audience had heard it all many times before: the reaffirmation that ‘a 9 November in the German Reich will never repeat itself’; that Germany’s enemies, led by ‘the Jewish-international world conspiracy’, intended to ‘eradicate’ its people; that Germany’s plight had been caused by the weakness of its allies; that the combined effort of front and homeland showed the ‘essence of our social community’ and an indomitable spirit, incapable of destruction; and that ‘the Jewish-international world enemy’ would not only fail in its attempt ‘to destroy Europe and eradicate its peoples, but would bring about its own destruction’.
    Few remained convinced. Many, like some observers in the Stuttgart area, were probably ready to acknowledge that ‘the Führer has worked for war from the very beginning’. Far from being the genius of Goebbels’s propaganda, such observers remarked, Hitler had ‘intentionally unleashed this world conflagration in order to be proclaimed as the great “transformer of mankind” ’. It was belated recognition of the catastrophic impact of the leader they had earlier supported, cheered, eulogized. Their backing had helped to put him in the position where his power over the German state was total. By now, in the absence ofeither the ability or the readiness – especially since the events of 20 July – of those with access to the corridors of power to defy his authority, let alone oust him, this man quite simply held the fate of the German people in his own hands. He had again avowed, as he always had done, his adamant refusal to contemplate capitulation in any event. This meant that the suffering of the German people – and of the countless victims of the regime they had at one time so enthusiastically supported – had to go on. It would cease, it was abundantly clear, only when Hitler himself ceased to exist. And that could only mean Germany’s total defeat, ruin, and occupation.
    With the petering out of the Ardennes offensive, all hope of repelling the relentless advance from the west was gone. And in the east, the Red Army was waiting for the moment to launch its winter offensive. Hitler was compelled by 3 January to accept that ‘continuation of the originally planned operation [in the Ardennes] no longer has any prospect of success’. Five days later came the tacit acknowledgement that his last gamble had been a losing throw of the dice with his approval of the withdrawal of the 6th Panzer Army to the north-west of Bastogne, and next day, his order to pull back his SS panzer divisions from the front. On 14 January, the day before Hitler left his headquarters on the western front to return to Berlin, the High Command of the Wehrmacht acknowledged that ‘the initiative in the area of the offensive has passed to the enemy’.
    Hitler had stated categorically in his briefings before the Ardennes and Alsace offensives that Germany could not indefinitely sustain a defensive war. By now, he had used up his last precious reserves of manpower, lost untold quantities of weaponry, and exhausted his remaining divisions in an offensive that had cost the lives of about 80,000 German soldiers (at the same time weakening the eastern front and paving the way for the rapid inroads of the Red Army in the coming weeks). He had also seen the remnants of the Luftwaffe devastated to the point of no return; while rapidly dwindling supplies of fuel and other supplies essential for the war effort held out in any case the prospect of continuing the struggle only for a few more months. The logic was plain: the last faint glimmer of hope had been extinguished, the last exit route cut off. Defeat was inevitable. Hitler had not lost touch with reality. He realized this. Below found him one evening after the failure of the offensive in his bunker after air-raid sirens had sounded, deeply depressed. He spokeof taking his own life since the last chance of success had