It was 1944.
And it was more than clear Germany was fighting a lost war.
The Allies had landed in France, Italy had fallen and the Soviets were pushing the Germans
back since the year before.
German cities were flattened by constant aerial bombing.
Yet, the Germans fought till till May 1945.
Why did Germany keep fighting a lost war?
Stay tuned!
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Fighting till total destruction.
That can be said for Germany in the last ten months of WWII.
Why did Germany fight until the point of self annihilation?
Why didn't the Germans soldiers desert en masse?
Or start a revolt againt a regime that was determined to go down in flames.
Why did not something happened like at the end of WW1: a mutiny by German sailors in
Kiel in November 1918?
Some of you might say because of the Wehrmacht soldiers were indoctrinated.
Others say out of fear of reprisals of the authorities.
Yet, these explainations aren't sufficient and there are more.
And there might be aspects YOU didn't know before.
Early 1943 the allies demanded a German unconditional surrender.
By that time the German 6th army was surrounded at Stalingrad and eventually surrendered.
See, this was the first truely existential threat for the Third Reich.
Because an unconditional surrender would've meant Hitler stepping down from power.
The Third Reich would cease to exist.
From that point on it was logical for the leaders of the Reich to carry on fighting.
It was victory of death.
It was all or nothing.
Yet, this is not an adequate explanation of why many Germans kept on fighting till 1945,
because by 1944 the support of the party leadership had dwindled severily.
At the end of March 1945 the western allies held a survey among captured German soldiers.
Only 21% claimed to have faith in the Führer, contrary to 62% in January.
Now it is hard to determine how popular the leader of a totalitarian state really was.
It's not that there were public opinion polls or elections of some kind.
Yet, many reports showed people were sick of the war.
We have to make a clear distinction of what people were actually done with.
Some people were done with the war, just supported the party.
Others severily hated the party, but held on to their belief in Hitler.
For us – studying history and having the benefit of hindsight – we see that the continuation
of the war was because of the party and the party was because of Hitler.
Yet, many people back then had different thoughts about this and had their own motivation to
carry on the struggle.
In October 1944 the Soviets entered East Prussia and were now on German pre-war soil.
The took control over a village called Nemmersdorf.
A German counter attack drove them out.
When the Germans re-took control over the village a few days later they made a horrible
discovery.
The German Field Police who arrived later to find out what exactly happened reported
26 bodies.
Mostly old men and women, also a few children were among the dead.
Most of them shot in the head.
Two women were assaulted and looting and arson had occured.
Now for the German propaganda machines this case was a double edged sword.
Sure, it could help boost German moral to fight the Soviets, knowing how evil they were
– but the letting the public know the enemy was actually inside the borders, wasn't the
best propaganda either.
Eventually the German propaganda machines eagerly exploited the story, since the Germans
did re-took the village.
Outrageous horror stories of Soviet atrocities appeared in the German press.
Stories about mutilations were spreaded and exaggeration of the death toll occured.
Because of this it is kinda hard to determine what exactly happened in the Nemmersdorf village.
though it is to remember the nature and purpose of propaganda exploitation, the atrocities
Now don't get me wrong.
I'm not downplaying the Soviet crimes here.
Many Germans suffered a great ordeal once the Soviets took control of their homes.
Many men were randomly shot, houses were burned down and German women and girls were assaulted,
sometimes by a series of soldiers.
Yet, knowing this, it surely boosted moral to fight the enemy among German troops.
If it wasn't for the Reich, then it was for their own home.
Many soldiers kept on fighting because they simply wanted to defend heart and home.
Which was a very important motivation to keep on fighting.
The German aparatus did its best to keep everyone in line.
From February 1945 the terror that had been applied externally in the past years, was
now applied internally: to the German people.
Civilians that complained out loud could count on harsh repercussions.
However the German people proved to be pessimistic and full of war fatigue, they did not revolt.
This can also be explained by the years of living in a totalitarian regime.
What about the soldiers?
Many German soldiers did know their country wasn't able to win the war.
The constant promise of German 'wonder weapons' to turn the tide weren't believed by many.
And some soldiers deserted.
But this came at a costly price: death.
Since March 1945 'flying martial councils' roamed across the country to arrest, trial
and execute any suspected deserter.
German general Ferdinand Schörner was one of these hardliners who supported this.
As a firm loyalist Schörner took a hard stance against deserters and encourages the executions.
He had deserters hanged with a sign that the soldier was a deserted who refused to protect
German women and children.
Now what we saw were many 'dropout' soldiers.
Soldiers who in the thick of the fighting lost their unit and just wandered around.
It is hard to determine whether these dropouts were real dropouts or stimulated.
Nevertheless, despite the tens of thousands desertion and dropout cases (stragglers), most soldiers
carried on fighting.
By the internally applied terror I also mean the inmates of the concentration camps.
In order to avoid that these 'enemies of the Reich' did not fall into enemy hands inmates
were systematically murdered or forced to march through the bitter winter cold towards
the centre of the Reich.
Many perished during these death marches.
Germany was attacked from the west and the east, as well as from the air.
The Reich was shrinking, communication channels and transport networks were falling down one
by one.
It was under immense presure.
Yet, it did not collapse and fell to anarchy.
For example in april 1945 wages were still payed out and mail was delivered.
In order to sustain a nation under such crisis you need a refined and efficient system of
bureaucracy.
Civil servents – high and low – mostly stayed on their post untill there was nothing
more to serve.
Not per se out of loyalty to the party, but more out of loyalty to the state.
Therefore despite the many blows the system sustained by massive aerial bombing, losses
of man and material, the system did not collapse.
Another important element that should not be overlooked was that many lower and middle
class officers in the German army proved to be devoted supporters of the regime.
Because of the high losses the German army suffered younger officers were appointed and
these were the men that served in the Hitler Youth in the 1930s and were indoctrinated
to such an extent that they were willing to fight till the last man.
Other officers were hardned by the brutality of the war in the east.
They must have played a key role in motivating their soldiers to carry on the fighting.
But what about the generals?
Sure they all weren't devoted supporters of the regime.
Some must have had a common sense and resisted Hitler's will to let them, their country and
people go down in flames...
To explain that, we need to discuss a pivotal moment that occured on 20th July 1944.
Then an assassination attempt was made on Hitlers life following by a coup attempt in
Berlin.
The name for this operation was Operation Valkyrie.
The details of this plot will be explained in a future video.
Where it came down to was that the resistance movement within the German Wehrmacht tried
to eliminate Hitler and seize control of the country.
It failed.
We can only speculate what would've happened íf the July Plot was successful.
Perhaps the new Stauffenberg government would've offered a peace with the western allies and
keep fighting the Soviets in the east.
Perhaps this would create another stab-in-the-back-myth.
Perhaps this would've lead to a civil war.
We can only speculate.
What is more important is to focus on what did happen after the July Plot, because the
result of this failed plot to overthrow the party leadership were tremendous on both higher
and lower levels.
First of all we see a whole series of executions.
Note here, the plotters were high ranking Germans and now many of them – among them
Claus von Stauffenberg – were executed.
Also we see that German generals who had expressed doubts about the war effort we replaced.
So therefore we see that because of the July Plot reprisals the top command of the German
Army is filled with hardliners we were willing to follow party's command.
The radicalization of the power structure also impacted the lowers levels.
This radicalization was already set in motion on February 1943 when minister of propaganda
Joseph Goebbels held his infamous total war speech.
There he asked his (selected) crowd of people if they want the total war and the answer
is 'yes', obviously.
But here we see how every citizen is expected to support the war effort.
There were no uniforms for these men, so most of them wore an armband.
And as for weapons, historian Pritt Buttar wrote:
Obviously the military value of these formations was worthless and it basically prolonged and
extended the suffering for many.
A total war cannot be more total than this.
The same applies for the German stronghold tactics that were another element of Germany's
total war.
By declaring major cities in the east like Budapest, Königsberg, Danzig and Breslau
as so-called Festung it meant that these cities had to hold it out till the bitter end.
Civilians and forced labourers were called up to work on the fortifications.
In East Prussia 100Ks of people were put to work to establish the so-called Eastern Wall.
These were drops in the ocean.
This tactic of fortifications already proved unsuccessfull in Russia because the Red Army
moved around these stronghold, ensured major destruction and human suffering and prolonging
the inevitable.
One of the most insane battles was the Battle of Königsberg in East Prussia.
The city was largely destroyed during airraids in the Summer of 1944 and besieged by the
Soviets from January 1945.
The final assault took place in April 1945 and this all left 90% of the city in ruins.
The Soviets would later annexe it and re-name the city to Kaliningrad which is till this
day a Russian city.
And so, the war dragged on.
The longer is dragged on the more sensless and insane it got.
Between Juli 1944 and May 1945 more German civilians died than in the years before.
Many died in aerial raids.
Did you know that most allied bombs were dropped after July 1944?
The Soviet invasion of the eastern territories led to the additional deaths.
Around half of the military losses were suffered in these last 10 months.
A total of 5,3 million men of the 18,2 German military personel died over the course of
the war.
Till July 1944 2,7 million were killed.
In the last 10 months an additional 2,6 million were killed of which 1,5 million at the eastern
front.
Towards the end around 300K to 400K men were killed in action each month.
The German people were fatalistic.
The only thing they could do was keep their head down, and hope that a bomb from the air
would't hit them and that the Americans were there first, instead of the Soviets.
But I haven't talked about the most important reason why Germany kept fighting a lost war.
This was because of one man: Hitler.
He wanted to avoid the 1918 scenario, in his eyes, the 1918 disgrace at any cost.
He preferred a heroic defeat over a cowardly early capitulation.
He did not care about the prolonging of human suffering.
His build-up of a totalitarian state were all forms of collective leadership were rendered
non-existent over the course of the 1930s laid the groundwork for this collision course.
Hitlers rigidity excluded all other options.
This was enlarged by the fact that he was supreme commander of ALL armed forces.
Those directly below him never break with him – Göring, Himmler, Goebbels, Bormann
– or realized they had to do so, too little too late, like Albert Speer.
And the other elites lacked the will and means to prevent this.
It would only come to an end after Hitler killed himself.
When he took his own life the fighting in Europe was not over right away.
But that's another story for another time.