Karl Doenitz and the Last Days of the Third Reich

Barry Turner

• Publisher: Icon Books
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781848319233
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

Among the military leaders of the Second World War, Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz remains a deeply enigmatic figure. As chief of the German submarine fleet he earned Allied respect as a formidable enemy. But after he succeeded Hitler – to whom he was unquestioningly loyal – as head of the Third Reich, his name became associated with all that was most hated in the Nazi regime.Yet Doenitz deserves credit for ending the war quickly while trying to save his compatriots in the East – his Dunkirk-style operation across the Baltic rescued up to 2 million troops and civilian refugees.Historian Barry Turner argues that while Doenitz can never be dissociated from the evil done under the Third Reich, his contribution to the war must be acknowledged in its entirety in order to properly understand the conflict.An even-handed portrait of Nazi Germany's last leader and a compellingly readable account of the culmination of the war in Europe, Karl Doenitz and the Last Days of the Third Reich gives a fascinating new perspective on a complex man at the heart of this crucial period in history.

CHAPTER ONE

Berlin, 30 April 1945
1530 hours

The ruins of a once-great city were about to fall to the invader. In his Fuehrerbunker under what was left of the Reich Chancellery, Adolf Hitler could hear the gunfire as, street by street, the Red Army closed in on him. All hope was gone. With Eva Braun, his mistress of twelve years and bride for less than two days, he entered his private apartment. The door closed. Standing outside were Martin Bormann, Hitler’s secretary and head of the Party bureaucracy; his long-serving adjutant, Otto Guensche; his valet, Heinz Linge; and his personal bodyguard, Rochus Misch. They waited in silence. After some minutes, Linge, with Bormann beside him, opened the door. They found Hitler face down at a table. Blood was dripping from his right temple. Beside him, a picture of his mother as a young woman; behind, a portrait of Frederick the Great. His Walther pistol was by his foot.

Eva Braun was slumped over the armrest of a couch. Linge noticed the scent of burnt almonds. Cyanide. Guensche made for the conference room where others of Hitler’s entourage were gathered. On the way, he bumped into Erich Kempka, Hitler’s chauffeur.

‘What’s going on?’

‘The Chief is dead.’

Among the select few who went to view the scene were Nazi propaganda supremo Joseph Goebbels and head of the Hitler Youth Artur Axmann. Then Linge and another SS man wrapped the late Fuehrer in an army blanket and he was carried out. Hitler’s bloodstained head was covered but Misch, who was standing by, recognised the black trousers: ‘His legs were sticking out as they carried him past me. Someone shouted, “Hurry upstairs, they’re burning the boss.”’¹

Hitler’s body, along with that of Eva Braun, was carried up four flights of stairs to the emergency exit to the Chancellery garden. Put in a shallow grave, the two corpses were doused with gasoline. Returning to the bunker, Linge came back with a thick roll of papers. Bormann lit the papers and threw the torch on to the bodies. As the funeral pyre blazed, the small group of mourners, sheltering in the bunker doorway, raised their arms in the Nazi salute.

*

Three hours after Hitler had ended his life, Bormann radioed Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, recently appointed supreme commander of all land and sea forces in northern Germany and the Baltic, along with the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. Waiting on developments at his headquarters at Ploen, a lakeside town 150 miles from Berlin and not far from the Danish border, Doenitz had no need to be told that Berlin was lost and he fully expected to hear that Hitler was dead. But the message put before him by his adjutant, Commander Walter Luedde-Neurath, made no mention of Hitler’s suicide. Judged by his own future, the news for Doenitz was more startling.

‘The Fuehrer has appointed you, Herr Grossadmiral, as his successor. Written full powers follow. With immediate effect you should take all measures which seem appropriate.’

Why Doenitz? It is a question that Germany’s most senior naval officer must have asked himself. He was, above all, a professional. Neither allies nor enemies ever doubted his talents as a military commander. As a political leader, however, his credentials were less apparent. A regular attender at Hitler’s strategy conferences, his advice was welcomed and trusted on naval matters but he was by no means a Nazi ideologue. Until 1944 when the bomb plot to assassinate Hitler gave added value to badges of allegiance, he was not even a Party member. Others, surely, were better qualified and better placed to take on the succession. On the other hand, Doenitz must have recognised that a process of elimination had raised his status.

Hermann Goering was the first to fall from grace. The founder of the Luftwaffe and originator of the Gestapo, along with concentration camps, he was designated heir apparent in September 1939. But Goering had not lived up to expectations. His failure to bomb Britain out of the war or to break Allied air superiority had relegated him to the ranks of those who were deemed to have betrayed the Reich. Hitler bade him a chilly farewell on the evening of 20 April when Goering left Berlin for his Bavarian estate, part of the Nazi enclosure that included Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s mountain hideaway.

On that night, as if to underline Goering’s failure as Luftwaffe chief, British and American air forces delivered their last massive air raid on the centre of Berlin. Doenitz, with Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Hitler’s Chief of Armed Forces, and their wives watched the spectacle from Doenitz’s service quarters. As Keitel recalled:

During this final heavy bombardment in perfect and sunny weather the already badly afflicted Reich Chancellery building escaped further damage; our own fighter squadrons did nothing to beat off the attack on Berlin, and the anti-aircraft defences were powerless against an enemy attacking from such a height. The raid lasted almost two hours, the bombers parading overhead in tight formation as though it were a peacetime air display, dropping the bombs in perfect unison.²

Despite everything, Goering kept faith in what he assumed to be his destiny. He waited confidently for the call to action. It came, or so he believed, on 22 April, two days after Hitler’s 56th birthday. By then, the Fuehrer had come to accept what all others in his tattered administration had long accepted, that the massive counter-attack to drive the Russians from Berlin was not going to happen. Bad news had been followed by news that was even worse. The advancing Allied armies east and west, having joined forces at the River Elbe, had split the Reich in half. Everywhere, German defences were crumbling.

In maniacal rage, Hitler vented his frustration on the liars and traitors who had betrayed his mission. Then, exhausted, he declared that he would defend Berlin to the last. ‘I will never leave Berlin; I will defend the city with my dying breath.’ Keitel and General Alfred Jodl, Chief of Operations, were told to leave for Berchtesgaden. Hitler had no further orders to give.

‘There is no question of fighting now. There’s nothing left to fight with. If it’s a question of negotiating, Goering can do that better than I.’

Hitler’s apparent abdication soon filtered through to Goering, who responded to the invitation, as he put it in a telegram to Hitler, to ‘take over, at once, the total leadership of the Reich, with full freedom of action at home and abroad’.

It soon turned out that Goering had acted prematurely. In calmer mood, Hitler either forgot what he had said or had come to regret his outburst. As one of the few close advisers left in the bunker, Martin Bormann, a long-time Goering rival, fed Hitler’s suspicions that Goering had joined the ever-lengthening list of back-stabbers. Resentment at his worthless pretensions to military glory, not to mention his sybaritic lifestyle, boiled over into a vicious condemnation of the Nazi crown prince and a demand that he should resign at once from all his offices. Without waiting for a response, Bormann, presumably with Hitler’s approval, ordered the arrest of Goering for high treason. For general consumption, it was announced that the Reichsmarschall had retired for health reasons.

What then of Heinrich Himmler, whose power was rooted in the SS and the Gestapo? The master of prevarication and self-delusion, Himmler had been quick to join the exit from Berlin but remained in easy reach at Schloss Ziethen, 30km north-west of the city. There he agonised over his next move.

The Reichsfuehrer relied heavily on the guidance of Walter Schellenberg, his head of foreign intelligence and the youngest of the SS generals. Possessed of a passion if not a talent for political intrigue, Schellenberg was convinced that he could move his boss into prime position for negotiating peace with honour. As early as February, the architect of the Holocaust had signalled his readiness to break ranks by coming to a deal with Count Folke Bernadotte, vice-chairman of the Swedish Red Cross, on the care of Scandinavians held in German camps. The prospect of opening direct talks with Eisenhower, touched on tangentially, was discounted by Bernadotte unless, of course, Himmler was empowered to speak for the Reich. Schellenberg was sure this could be arranged.

But despite several more meetings, it was not until Goering’s downfall that the persistent Schellenberg was able to persuade his master to pursue his fantasies by turning, once again, to Count Bernadotte. The critical encounter took place at the Swedish consulate in Luebeck. With his horn-rimmed spectacles, recalled Bernadotte, the sinister Himmler brought to mind ‘a harmless schoolteacher from the country’. The meeting had barely started when bombs fell and the lights went out. The strain on Himmler was all too obvious. He was ‘indescribably tired and nervous’, said Bernadotte, ‘and fighting hard to maintain his outer calm’. But he had come to a decision. Himmler stated:

It is very probable that Hitler is already dead and, if not, he very probably will be within the next few days. Berlin is surrounded and it is only a matter of days until it falls. The last three times we three have met you urged me to end the war. I agreed with you that the situation was hopeless, that the war must stop, and that Germany must admit she is beaten. But I have not been able to see how I could break my oath to the Fuehrer. Now the situation is different. I recognise that Germany is defeated.

He continued:

In this new situation I have a free hand. In order to protect as much of Germany as possible from a Russian invasion I am willing to capitulate on the Western Front and to let the Western Powers’ troops advance as rapidly as possible eastwards. Conversely I am not prepared to capitulate on the Eastern Front.³

Bernadotte knew Himmler’s aims were hopeless but while refusing to contact Eisenhower, which would have compromised his neutrality, he agreed to pass on the offer, via his government, to the American and British representatives in Stockholm. When Bernadotte set off for home, Schellenberg went with him part of the way. Under orders from Himmler he was to have one last try at getting Bernadotte to appeal directly to Eisenhower.

However [recalled Schellenberg], at our parting on the road near Waren in Mecklenburg, Count Bernadotte said to me: ‘The Reichsfuehrer no longer understands the realities of his own situation. I cannot help him any more. He should have taken Germany’s affairs into his own hands after my first visit. I can hold out little chance for him now. And you, my dear Schellenberg, would be wiser to think of yourself.’ I did not know what to reply to this.⁴

Schellenberg drove back to Hohenlychen, the hospital and convalescent home reserved for the SS, slept for two hours, and was then called to Himmler at about 12.30 p.m. on the following day, 22 April.

He was still in bed, the picture of misery, and said that he felt ill. All I could say was that there was nothing more I could do for him; it was up to him. He had got to take some action. At lunch we discussed the military situation in Berlin, which was steadily growing worse.

At about four o’clock, having convinced him that it would be unwise to drive to Berlin, we drove towards Wustrow. In Loewenberg we were caught in a traffic jam, troops having become involved with the unending columns of fleeing civilians which blocked all the roads between Berlin and Mecklenburg. As we drove on, Himmler said to me for the first time, ‘Schellenberg, I dread what is to come.’⁵

Bernadotte duly reported to his foreign minister who passed on the message to the American and British representatives in Stockholm. The response was easily predicted. The Allies would accept only an unconditional surrender to the three powers on all fronts.

By now, rumours of Himmler’s bid to end the war and to create, in effect, an anti-Soviet alliance, were front-page news. Apparent confirmation came with a report on Radio Atlantic, a supposedly ‘free German’ underground station but in fact operated by British intelligence, which spiced up Himmler’s role in the negotiations with claims that his sole purpose was to supplant Hitler. And this was precisely what the Fuehrer himself concluded when news of Himmler’s ‘betrayal’ reached him on the evening of 27 April.

It was one item in a catalogue of disasters. Early that day, Berlin’s two airports, Gatow and Tempelhof, were lost, cutting off all communication and supplies by air. For Hitler’s evening briefing General Weidling, Berlin’s commandant, reported on the near-exhaustion of ammunition, food and medical supplies. He proposed a breakout from the ‘Berlin pocket’. But to what avail? As Hitler commented, they would simply be going from one pocket to another. At midnight, Admiral Voss, liaison officer for Doenitz, telegraphed from the bunker: ‘We hold on to the end’. An order was given for Himmler’s arrest.

After the toppling of the two leading contenders, it was still not clear that Doenitz was next in line. But the list was shortening. Of other candidates who came to mind, Goebbels had the strongest claim, if he chose to press it. For those who knew Goebbels, that was unlikely. The man who had shaped the Nazi myth could not imagine acting independently of his proudest creation, a leader who could do no wrong.

With a stronger sense of self-preservation, Martin Bormann, the arch intriguer who had long cast himself as the power behind the throne, may have had dreams of the succession. His talent for command, however, was not obvious. As for Joachim von Ribbentrop, his defects were even more glaring. Whatever misplaced respect Hitler had once had for his foreign minister, his cock-eyed schemes for a diplomatic breakthrough had stripped him of all credibility.

That left Albert Speer. Making for Hamburg, he flew out of Berlin on 21 April. It says much for his relationship with Hitler that he was allowed to go. In his capacity as armaments minister with all-embracing control of the war economy, Speer made no secret of his conviction that having lost the war, the German people should be urged to protect whatever was left of their commercial and social infrastructure. Hitler would have none of this. For him, the only substitute for victory was annihilation. On 19 March he had ordered the destruction of all factories, water and electrical installations, railways and bridges at risk of falling into enemy hands. Four days later, the gauleiters, Hitler’s regional hatchet men, were given detailed instructions on implementing the scorched earth policy.

Fully expecting retribution, Speer voiced his opposition. But the Fuehrer retained a soft spot for the youngest of the Nazi big barons and his favourite architect with whom he had planned and partly implemented a monumental rebuilding of Berlin. When Speer left the bunker, on the night following Hitler’s birthday, he carried with him a written plea for common sense that he planned to broadcast from Hamburg. Enlisting the help of his friend Karl Kaufmann, gauleiter for Hamburg, Speer recorded his speech but then decided to keep it under wraps until the drama had played out in the Fuehrerbunker. As Speer noted: ‘Once more Hitler had succeeded in paralyzing me psychically … I justified my change of mind on the grounds that it would be wrong and pointless to try to intervene in the course of the tragedy.’⁶

Speer now made for Eutin in Schleswig-Holstein, where he set up a base not far from the Doenitz headquarters. But left to himself the old magnetism in Berlin recovered its power and he was soon drawn back to the bunker. He finally took his leave on 24 April.

By now it was about three o’clock in the morning. Hitler was awake again. I sent word that I wanted to bid him farewell. The day had worn me out, and I was afraid that I would not be able to control myself at our parting. Trembling, the prematurely aged man stood before me for the last time; the man to whom I had dedicated my life twelve years before. I was both moved and confused. For his part, he showed no emotion when we confronted one another. His words were as cold as his hand: ‘So, you’re leaving? Good. Auf Wiedersehen.’ No regards to my family, no wishes, no thanks, no farewell.

In his last words to Hitler, Speer talked of coming back while knowing it was impossible. But he did leave Hitler with a piece of advice that had long-reaching consequences. He suggested to the Fuehrer that in looking for a successor, Doenitz might fit the bill.⁷

In truth, Hitler was beginning to run out of options. Of the generals of any stature, most were dea...

Table of contents

• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of illustrations and maps
• Foreword
• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• Chapter Eight
• Chapter Nine
• Chapter Ten
• Chapter Eleven
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Notes
• Acknowledgements
• Index
• Back Cover