ENDNOTES

* ¹Some modern estimates now place this figure as high as forty million, and it is unlikely that any conclusive total will be agreed.

* ²All military ranks given in the text are those held at the time of the events described.

* ³Patton had been dismissed from command of the U.S. Seventh Army after two episodes in which he lost patience with combat-fatigue cases whom he encountered in field hospitals. He slapped the men and abused them as cowards. The story eventually broke in the U.S. press, provoking outrage. Months later, when it was decided that Patton was indispensable for the north-west Europe campaign and re-employed, he became the subordinate of his former junior, Omar Bradley.

* ⁴One Arnhem wireless-operator suggested afterwards that the disastrous communications failure stemmed not from poor radio terrain, as apologists suggested, but laziness about recharging radio batteries after the many “stand-tos” for airborne operations that were subsequently aborted. This could not be a complete explanation for the disaster—it is known that many wireless sets were sent with the wrong crystals—but may have been a contributory factor.

* ⁵All times relating to military operations in the text are given in accordance with the twenty-four-hour clock, while those concerning civilian life are given on the twelve-hour clock—that is, 2 a.m. rather than 0200.

* ⁶G-1 is a U.S. Army staff designation. It signifies the staff officer responsible for operations at a divisional or corps headquarters (at regimental level he was known as S-1). Likewise a G-2 was responsible for intelligence, a G-3 for supply. British and German staff organization was similar.

* ⁷On 20 July 1944, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in a briefcase during a meeting at Hitler’s headquarters, before returning to Berlin to participate in a poorly organized military coup. Hitler suffered severe shock but only superficial injuries when the bomb exploded, while the coup was quickly and ruthlessly suppressed. Investigations, purges, trials and executions of actual and supposed plotters continued until the end of the war.

* ⁸General Andrei Vlassov was a very able and experienced Soviet officer prominent in the defence of Moscow, before being captured by the Germans in July 1942. Vlassov, embittered by what he saw as Moscow’s betrayal of his army in the field, and seduced by the Germans’ judiciously humane treatment, agreed to raise an anti-Stalinist force from Russian PoWs. He was successful in recruiting several infantry divisions, whose members preferred German service to certain misery and likely death in German camps. They were notorious for indiscipline and indeed brutality in Italy and Yugoslavia, though some fought with fierce determination in the last phase of the war, knowing what their fate would be in Soviet hands. Vlassov himself was hanged in 1946, aged forty-six. Most of his men who had served in Wehrmacht uniform were either summarily executed or died in the Gulag.

* ⁹First Belorussian Front, 179,490 casualties; 2nd Belorussian Front, 59,110; 1st Ukrainian Front, 113,825.

SOURCES AND REFERENCES

With a book of this kind, a bibliography would represent a mere virility parade. The published literature is vast, and I have been reading about this period for forty years. Such a list would become a catalogue of hundreds of books on my own shelves, and many more besides. Instead, it seems more useful and relevant to detail books as sources for specific passages of text, and of course for quotations, where appropriate.

Major sources of documents are abbreviated as follows: works from the Public Record Office in London—PRO; the Imperial War Museum—IWM; the Liddell Hart Archive—LHA; the German Bundesarchiv—BA; the U.S. National Archive—NA; the United States Army’s Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania—USAMHI; the Stephen Ambrose manuscript collection at the U.S. National D-Day Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana—SA; material quoted from the British Second Army’s daily Intelligence Reports, of which a full set is held in the papers of General Sir Miles Dempsey in the Liddell Hart Archive at King’s College, London—Second Army MD; Russian Ministry of Defence Archives—RMDA; Russian State Archives—RSA. A special difficulty exists in the latter case. A foreign researcher is overwhelmingly dependent upon requesting specified material of which photocopies are supplied by RSA staff. Luba Vinogradova has translated aloud for me many hundreds of pages of such material. Some of these documents bear file numbers. Others do not, for which I apologize to students who wish to follow in my wake.

Several German documents quoted in my text were captured by the Russians, and are today held in Moscow archives in Russian translation. No doubt there are linguistic oddities about some of this material, which appears here after yet another transition, into English. I have quoted from several Russian and German published works which I have not myself read, and which are reproduced in other works. I have given references to the original texts, which seems most helpful to students.

A note is due about the source of some German civilian letters from which I have used extracts. Especially in the last months of the war, advancing Allied troops captured large quantities of mail destined for the Wehrmacht or removed from the bodies of German soldiers. The most interesting and vivid of these were translated and circulated among the intelligence reports of the American and British armies. Many of the German letters from which I quote are derived from this source. There is no reason to doubt their authenticity, but names and addresses are sometimes incomplete or inaccurate.

I should draw special attention to the manuscript of the Danish journalist Paul von Stemann. Von Stemann after the war made his home in Britain, and married an Englishwoman. To his deep sadness, he never found a publisher for the memoir of his wartime experiences, which now reposes in the Imperial War Museum. I have written relatively little about the battle for Berlin in my own text, because the story is so well known. But I have quoted extensively from von Stemann’s remarkable description of life in Hitler’s capital, which as far as I know has never been exploited by an historian. I am most grateful to his widow for permission to do so.

Much of the quoted material in this book is derived from personal interviews with the individuals concerned. This raises an issue which is hotly debated among modern historians: how far is oral testimony to be relied upon, especially when it is taken from very elderly men and women? My own answer is that it forms a fascinating, almost indispensable part of the jigsaw, so long as one recognizes its limitations. It would be absurd to rely upon oral evidence for facts and dates. The remarks of many Russian veterans are still deeply coloured by national pride. A reluctance persists to discuss issues which are perceived as national embarrassments. For instance, I asked every Russian Jewish veteran I met about their experience of anti-semitism in the Red Army. All denied its existence, which defies credibility. Likewise, I would not care to offer on oath in a court of law the evidence of some German veterans with heavy consciences.

What personal recollection does for me, as a writer, is to clothe with the flesh and blood of humanity the dry detail of official records and written narratives. At their best, personal memories give a sense of how people thought and behaved, and marginal details of experience which are unrecorded in any official file—the discomforts of a certain tank, what men did in off-duty hours, how they felt about their allies and their enemies, vivid snapshots of personal recollection. Some witnesses, of course, weave fantasies. Others are highly selective about what they choose to remember or to recount. Any experienced researcher develops some instinct about these things, but it would be naive not to acknowledge that a few witnesses’ untruths probably survive into my published narrative. If this is so, I do not believe that they are of a character to significantly distort the text. I never rely upon unsupported oral testimony to make a case on a matter of substance.

A key point, it seems to me, is that it is wrong to suppose that written evidence possesses an intrinsic reliability absent in oral testimony. The scientist Solly Zuckerman once told me that when he wrote his memoirs he researched the minutes of important wartime meetings he had attended in the British Public Record Office. These documents, he said, bore scant relationship to his own recollection of what took place. They merely reflected the personal prejudices of whoever was responsible for keeping the record. It does not matter here whether Zuckerman’s memory was correct or the minutes of which he was so sceptical. The point is that written “evidence” about matters of life and death, which all documentation about the Second World War is, should be treated with at least as much caution and scepticism as interviews with witnesses. Over the years, I have encountered extraordinary deceits in official war diaries and suchlike, often designed to achieve post-facto rationalization of what was, to those who took part, merely a “cock-up” which cost lives. Many wartime military commanders exercised a baleful influence upon the writing of their country’s official histories after 1945. I am an unstinting admirer of Winston Churchill, but his history of the Second World War is wildly unreliable. The essence of all these things is, of course, to strive for a balance of evidence.

This book’s sources reflect a mingling of official records, published accounts, unpublished narratives and oral testimony, as detailed below. I have given references for all original or unpublished material, and for direct quotations from published authors. I have not given sources for oft-published and familiar quotations from leading figures and material in the public domain, which seem redundant.

INTRODUCTION

“Some twenty-seven million”: Antony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin (Viking: 2002).

“Perhaps the annihilation”: Victor Klemperer, To the Bitter End (Phoenix: 2000), p. 443.

CHAPTER ONE: TIME OF HOPE

“Allies of a Kind”: I have borrowed this heading from the title of my friend the late Christopher Thorne’s magnificent work on wartime Anglo-American relations, which should be compulsory reading for anyone studying this theme: Allies of a Kind (Hamish Hamilton: 1978).

“he considered the Russians ‘so foul’ ”: Quoted Sir John Kennedy, The Business of War (Hutchinson: 1957), p. 147.

“So we had won after all!”: Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. iii, The Grand Alliance (Cassell: 1951), p. 539.

“I didn’t work up a great hate”: AI Nicholas Kafkalas.

“Unfortunately [for the British]”: Forrest C. Pogue, Pogue’s War (University of Kentucky Press: 2001), pp. 189–90.

“Up till Overlord”: John Colville, The Fringes of Power (Hodder & Stoughton: 1985), 3.20.45.

“Up to July 1944”: Lord Moran, Churchill: The Struggle for Survival 1940–65 (Constable: 1966), 7.5.54.

“Roosevelt envied Churchill’s genius”: John Grigg reviewing Roy Jenkins’s Churchill in The Times, 10.3.01.

“a more perceptive and less romantic”: Conrad Black, Roosevelt (Weidenfeld & Nicolson: 2003), p. 996.

“As [Roosevelt’s] grip slackened”: Thorne, op. cit., p. 395.

“American opinion on the landing”: Kennedy, op. cit., p. 299.

“One got the impression”: AI Lord Carrington.

“Once he and his platoon”: AI Vitold Kubashevsky.

“When correspondents reported”: Quoted Alexander Werth, Russia at War (Barrie & Rockcliffe: 1964), p. 898.

“A watching six-year-old”: AI Dr. Galya Vinogradova.

“Yet a Western correspondent”: Werth, op. cit., p. 863.

“A recent American study”: Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett, A War to Be Won (Harvard University Press: 2000), p. 451.

“What were you looking for”: Michel Sebastian, Journals 1935–44 (Heinemann: 2001), p. 618.

“In Bucharest, the Rumanian”: Ibid., p. 611.

“Ils ne payent pas”: Ibid., p. 610.

“Russians had a stereotype”: Yelena Senyavshaya, Journal Voenno-Istorichesky Archiv, no. 2 (26), 2000, p. 116.

“I can’t say we liked”: Ibid.

“Come on, we said”: Ibid., p. 119.

“Lieutenant Valentin Krulik”: AI Valentin Krulik.

“As Major Dmitry Kalafati”: AI Dmitry Kalafati.

“Lieutenant Vladimir Gormin”: AI Vladimir Gormin.

“I was indignant that”: AI Yulia Pozdnyakova.

“Three of our agents”: 1.14.45, RSA Stalin files.

“I do not believe that”: Quoted Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men (Faber: 1986), p. 244.

“The British would take”: FDR to Stettinius, 3.17.45.

“We spoke very little”: AI Yury Ryakhovsky.

“It was a pity”: AI Pavel Nikiforov.

“Complex feelings of insecurity”: Orlando Figes, Natasha’s Dance (Weidenfeld & Nicolson: 2002), p. 63.

“They are aware”: Sebastian, op. cit., p. 618.

“I was filled with”: Milovan Djilas, Wartime (Secker & Warburg: 1980), p. 391.

“John Erickson, British”: John Erickson, The Road to Berlin (Weidenfeld & Nicolson: 1983), p. 314.

“In those days”: AI W. F. Deedes.

“Normandy had been”: AI Captain “Dim” Robbins.

“We thought: that’s it”: Jackson letter to the author, 8.10.2001.

“we were told that”: AI Captain “Dim” Robbins.

“Everything is going”: George Turner-Cain Diary, LHA.

“A Jerry gives himself”: John M. Thorpe, unpublished MS “A Soldier’s Tale,” G. P. B. Roberts Papers, LHA.

“Dear Mum”: Gow Papers, IWM, Cons. shelf.

“We could not believe our eyes”: Rudolf Lehmann and Ralf Tiemann, The Leibstandarte, Parts iv/1 and iv/2: (J. J. Fedorowicz Publishing: 1993), p. 237.

“Well, that’s it then”: AI Fritz van den Broek.

“It was a glorious feeling”: AI Theodore Wempe.

“This period was made up”: Brigadier J. S. W. Stone, MS, LHA.

“As we went across France”: Hansen Papers, box 39a, USAMHI.

“Early victory in”: H. G. Nicholas ed., Washington Despatches 1941–45 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson: 1981), p. 418.

“The Allied Control Commission”: F. S. V. Donnison, Civil Affairs and Military Government: North-West Europe 1944–46 (HMSO: 1961), p. 72.

“Until mid-September”: Pogue, op. cit., p. 189.

“It is at least as likely”: Quoted F. H. Hinsley and others, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. iii, part 2 (HMSO: 1988), p. 179.

“[It] is tolerably certain”: Ibid.

“Brad believes the Germans”: Hansen Diary, USAMHI.

“The Allies should be”: Second Army, MD.

“Our only hope”: Ibid.

“We were amazed that”: AI Helmut Günther.

“For the thousands locked up”: Von Stemann, unpublished MS, IWM, p. 182.

“and then the war will be over”: Ibid., p. 185.

“It is dreadful to read”: Second Army MD.

“My nerves are bad”: Ibid.

“Today is Sunday”: Ibid.

“Asked whether they still believed”: Ibid.

“a belief that I had”: AI Hans-Otto Polluhmer.

“Eugen Ernst”: AI Stolten.

“An American survey of”: Quoted Omer Bartov, Hitler’s Army (Oxford University Press: 1991), p. 144.

“We reached a point where”: Quoted Michael Reynolds, Men of Steel (Spellmount: 1999), p. 39.

“We recognized that”: AI Bruno Bochum.

“Throughout August”: Charles Richardson, Send for Freddie (Kimber: 1987), p. 164.

“Both Antwerp and Rotterdam”: L. F. Ellis, Victory in the West, vol. ii (HMSO: 1968), p. 5.

“Had any indication been given”: G. P. B. Roberts, From the Desert to the Baltic (Kimber: 1987), p. 212.

“quite unfit to command troops”: BLM to Commodore William Hayes, quoted Jeffrey Williams, The Long Left Flank (Leo Cooper: 1985), p. 22.

“The C-in-C intimated”: Crerar Papers, quoted ibid., p. 35.

“Crerar refused to raise the issue”: Ibid., p. 38.

“a bad mistake—I underestimated”: Field-Marshal the Viscount Montgomery, Memoirs (Collins: 1958), p. 297.

“blamed himself specifically”: Richardson, op. cit., p. 161.

“grew steadily more”: Ibid., p. 166.

“Transport, signals and heavy”: Second Army MD.

“My men can eat their belts”: Murray and Millett, op. cit., p. 433.

“In September, 1,400”: David Fletcher, British Military Transport (HMSO: 1956), p. 109.

“utter disregard of property”: 1.23.45, NA, RG492–332, box 12.

“In the ten days ending”: PRO, WO106/4348.

“I am being attacked”: Quoted Carlo d’Este, Patton: A Genius for War (Harper-Collins: 1995), p. 662.

“The movement naturally produced”: Ronald Ruppenthal, The Logistical Support of the Armies, vol. ii (Department of the Army: 1959), p. 31.

“lethargy and smugness”: Ibid., p. 349.

“Lee . . . never ceased”: Ibid., p. 362.

“an efficient little shit”: C. P. Stacey, A Date with History (Deneau: 1984), p. 135.

“The difference between him”: Goronwy Rees, A Bundle of Sensations (London: 1960), p. 174.

“We had total faith”: AI Roy Dixon.

“I’ve just been sacked”: O’Connor MSS 11/14, LHA.

“A member of Montgomery’s staff”: T. E. B. Howarth private communication to the author. Howarth, one of Montgomery’s liaison officers, edited a collection of personal reminiscences about the field-marshal, Monty at Close Quarters (Leo Cooper: 1985). He told me the above story, expressing regret that he had felt obliged to exclude it from the anthology, “because I don’t think the world’s quite ready for it yet.” I am happy to remedy the omission.

“was sowing the seeds”: Lord Tedder, With Prejudice (Cassell: 1966), p. 586.

“There was a confusion of”: Richardson, op. cit., p. 163.

“to hustle all”: Harry Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower (Simon & Schuster: 1946), p. 551.

“Have you not got”: Field-Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, War Diaries 1939–1945 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson: 2001), p. 226.

“Whatever balls-ups”: AI Field-Marshal Lord Bramall.

“almost with a physical pain”: Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph (Dell Books: 1979), p. 647.

“I am no Montgomery-lover”: WBS to DDE, 4.1.48, Smith Papers quoted Carlo d’Este, Eisenhower (HarperCollins: 2003), p. 581.

“Brad and Patton agree”: Hansen Diary, op. cit.

“The national press is”: Turner-Cain Diary, op. cit.

“My own choice of”: DDE to BLM, 9.20.44, Papers of Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery.

CHAPTER TWO: THE BRIDGES TO ARNHEM

“No wife or mother”: Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. v, Closing The Ring (Cassell: 1952), p. 583.

“Brereton”: Hansen Diary, op. cit.

“I am for the latter”: General James Gavin Diary, box 8, USAMHI.

“This is the end”: AI W. F. Deedes.

“Yet when Bedell-Smith”: Charles B. MacDonald, The Siegfried Line Campaign (Office of the Chief of Military History: 1963), p. 122.

“[Browning] unquestionably lacks”: Gavin Diary, op. cit.

“We called it Operation KCB”: AI John Killick.

“It looks very rough”: Gavin Diary, op. cit., 9.12.44.

“De Guingand telephoned”: Richardson, op. cit., p. 164.

“Montgomery’s jealousy of”: AI General Sir David Fraser.

“We feared we’d never”: AI Bob Peatling.

“the biggest and thickest men”: AI Jack Reynolds.

“There is no doubt”: Julius Neave Diary, IWM, 98/23/1.

“we were young”: AI John Killick.

“More than life itself”: Jack Curtis Goldman, Tales of a Combat Glider Pilot (privately published: 2000), p. 94.

“We were really happy”: Ibid., p. 97.

“those whom the MO thought”: Trinder MS, IWM, 85/8/1.

“These soldiers were thinking”: I should acknowledge a debt to Robert Kershaw’s excellent study of the German experience at Arnhem, It Never Snows in September (Crowood: 1990), for much eyewitness testimony and significant insights into the German tactical conduct of the battle.

“ ‘Idiots!’ we thought”: AI Wolfgang Dombrowski.

“Head for the sound of gunfire!”: AI Erwin Heck.

“They were so beaten”: Quoted Kershaw, op. cit., p. 105.

“Take that fucking”: AI John Killick.

“Peatling returned after an hour”: AI Bob Peatling.

“On Monday morning”: AI Jack Reynolds.

“In some ways”: AI John Killick.

“A tall, lithe figure”: Chester Wilmot, The Struggle for Europe (Collins: 1952), p. 470.

“At the time”: AI General Sir David Fraser.

“Captain Karl Godau”: AI Karl Godau.

“Jack Reynolds and his unit”: AI Jack Reynolds.

“There was a lot of toing”: AI Ron Graydon.

“In his lonely attic”: AI Bob Peatling.

“I was amazed by their stupidity”: James Gavin MS, “Beyond the Stars,” p. 91, Gavin Papers, USAMHI.

“Ridgway himself, that very”: Clay Blair, Ridgway’s Paratroopers (Dial Press: 1985), p. 341.

“A British tank commander”: Andy Cropper, Dad’s War (Anmas Publications: 1995).

“One of the worst sights”: Thorpe MS, op. cit., LHA.

“Very bitter fighting”: Turner-Cain Diary, op. cit., LHA.

“Intention: 12 KRRC”: Operation order in possession of Major W. F. Deedes.

“Keep up lads”: N. L. Francis MS, IWM, 88/58/1.

“Brigadier arrived in the p.m.”: Neave Diary, op. cit., 9.25.44, IWM.

“In the years to come”: Quoted The Brereton Diaries (William Morrow: 1946), p. 371.

“The soldiers who beat back”: Second Army MD, 12.8.44.

“Private Bob Peatling”: AI Bob Peatling.

“There was considerable”: Wilmot, op. cit., p. 519.

“it is arguable that Eisenhower”: Geoffrey Powell, The Devil’s Birthday (Buchan & Enright: 1984), p. 252.

“Sergeant Erwin Heck”: AI Erwin Heck.

“It was pretty dismaying”: AI John Killick.

“Lieutenant Jack Reynolds”: AI Jack Reynolds.

“When Corporal Denis Thomas”: AI Denis Thomas.

“Gavin of the U.S. 82nd”: James Gavin, On to Berlin (Viking: 1978), p. 232.

“Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris”: To the author, 8.4.77.

“The enemy has gained”: British Second Army Intelligence Report.

“the Germans would have”: Freddie de Guingand MS, “Arnhem—A Note for Posterity,” quoted Richardson, op. cit., p. 166.

CHAPTER THREE: THE FRONTIERS OF GERMANY

“The Allied drive lost”: Report of General Board of U.S. Forces in ETO, “Strategy of Campaign in North-West Europe 1944–45,” USAMHI.

“In one of the Moselle bridgeheads at Comy”: NA, RG492–332, box 11.

“We lost time because”: Ibid.

“Every day seems like the day”: Reimers Papers, USAMHI.

“Von Rundstedt’s deployments”: Wilmot, op. cit., p. 482.

“I took a dim view”: NA, RG492–332, box 11.

“Bradley argued that”: Hansen Papers, box 39a, USAMHI.

“We were still pretty good”: AI Max Wind.

“They’re coming out!”: NA, RG492–332, box 2.

“I think that the”: NA, RG492–332, box 6.

“If one gets hit”: Ibid.

“I wonder if it would”: AIs Field-Marshal Lord Bramall, General Sir David Fraser, Field-Marshal Lord Carver.

“Major-General Gerald Templer”: Norman Craig, The Broken Plume: A Platoon Commander’s Story (IWM: 1982), p. 33.

“A few guys carry your”: Captain Willie Knowlton, 12.31.44, quoted Dan Bied, Hell on Earth (privately published: 1979).

“The average man”: William E. DuPuy oral history interview, USAMHI.

“Too much cannot be said”: USAMHI, D769AZ, no. 15, c.4.

“The colonel’s the only real soldier”: Charles Felix, Crossing the Sauer (Burford Books: 2000), p. 138.

“An infantry assault”: William L. Devitt, Shavetail (Northstar Press: 2001), p. 125.

“The first advice”: AI “Red” Thompson.

“Lieutenant William Devitt”: Devitt, op. cit., p. 126.

“Nobody had time to”: AI “Red” Thompson.

“If the men can be”: NA, RG492–332, box 12, report of 4.11.45.

“A U.S. officer described an action”: USAMHI, oral history interviews quoted Robert Sterling Rush, Hell in Huertgen Forest (Kansas University Press: 2001), p. 323.

“Two British divisions”: PRO, WO106/4348.

“I never failed to be”: “Report of U.S. Board on Organization Equipment & Tactical Employment of Infantry Divisions,” USAMHI, D769AZ, no. 15, c.4.

“Enlisted personnel”: NA, RG492–332, box 12.

“Riflemen, Patton told”: USAMHI, D769AZ no. 15 c.4—Patton at Bad Nauheim, 11.20.45.

“Many Allied commanders”: Pogue, op. cit., pp. 328, 333.

“Reliance on fire superiority”: NA, RG492–332 box 3, report of 9.13.44.

“Von Rundstedt asserted”: PRO, WO205/1020, vol. i.

“That [British] infantry”: Timothy Harrison Place, Military Training in the British Army, 1940–44 (Frank Cass: 1997), p. 170.

“artillery-dominated tactics”: Ibid.

“The director of military”: PRO, WO231/8, 12.18.43.

“The American soldier”: NA, RG492–332 box 10, report of 5.7.45.

“There has been considerable”: Ibid.

“The British army’s reliance”: David French, Raising Churchill’s Army (Oxford University Press: 2000), p. 285.

“As an infantryman”: DuPuy Papers, op. cit.

“We walked over the hill”: Trotter unpublished MS, quoted Sterling Rush, op. cit., p. 80.

“We seldom knew what”: AI Wally Aux.

“The great story used to be”: AI Roy Dixon.

“I thought our tactics”: AI Field-Marshal Lord Bramall.

“The British Army was”: AI General Sir David Fraser.

“men walk when they should”: PRO, WO208/3111.

“The Americans seemed to us”: AI Walter Schaefer-Kuhnert.

“With the Allies it was always”: AI Rolf-Helmut Schröder.

“Yet Sergeant Helmut”: AI Helmut Günther.

“The tank’s inherent”: Harrison Place, op. cit., p. 130.

“Teach the men to work”: NA, RG492–332 box 12.

“If you won’t get in front”: AI Patrick Hennessy.

“During the advance to Metz”: NA, RG492–322 box 12, report of 2.22.45.

“The infantry always thought”: AI Major-General Roy Dixon.

“One always felt that”: AI Captain “Dim” Robbins.

“The infantry commander sees”: Quoted Panzertruppen, vol. ii, ed. Thomas L. Jentz (Schiffer: 1996).

“In defence, they took pieces”: DuPuy Papers, op. cit.

“The qualitative superiority”: For a full discussion of this issue see the author’s Overlord.

“Before we went into Normandy”: Belton Cooper, Death Traps (Presidio: 1998), p. viii.

“The Sherman was a very”: AI David Fraser.

“I thought: ‘To hell’ ”: AI Patrick Hennessy.

“A deluge of field reports”: NA, RG492–322 box 6.

“Had they been Russians”: Henry Metelmann, Through Hell for Hitler (Spellmount: 2001), p. 285.

“I’ll take him behind”: AI Captain “Dim” Robbins.

“Wehrmacht Sergeant Otto Cranz’s”: AI Otto Cranz.

“considered it bad psychology”: NA, RG492–322 box 12, report of 2.16.45.

“Front line troops deplore”: Second Army MD.

“finally we said ‘to hell’ ”: NA, RG492–322 box 11.

“some unfortunate incidents in”: d’Este, Patton, op. cit., p. 700.

“because they think they will”: NA, RG 492–322 box 12, report of 1.21.45.

“the Germans had a pretty good record”: AI David Tibbs, 13 Para war diary in possession of Dr. David Tibbs, cited in manuscript memoir loaned to author.

“There were body parts”: AI Tony Carullo.

“You were not afraid of being”: AI Helmut Schmidt.

“The whole experience”: AI Iolo Lewis.

“I cannot say that”: AI Henry Kissinger.

“For my generation”: Arthur Schlesinger, A Life in the Twentieth Century (Hough-ton Mifflin: 2000), p. 353.

“Gee, I’ll have something”: AI Rueben Cohen.

“Very few of us were”: AI Roy Ferlazzo.

“in indescribably cold”: Hansen Diary, op. cit., 1.22.45.

“I remember wondering what”: Michael Carver, Out of Step (Hutchinson: 1989), p. 196.

“We were absolutely certain”: AI Lord Carrington.

“Hate them?”: AI Tony Carullo.

“The Germans were just”: AI Roy Ferlazzo.

“I never hated the Germans”: AI Captain “Dim” Robbins.

“I let him go”: Sergeant Reg Romain MS, IWM.

“ ‘General,’ said the hapless”: James K. Woolnough Oral History Interview, 1971, Woolnough Papers box 1, USAMHI.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE RUSSIANS AT THE VISTULA

“Is there still a Tsar?”: WSC, “The Dream” published in the Sunday Telegraph, 12.30.66.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find you”: She was finally shot in 1941. Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin (Weidenfeld & Nicolson: 2003), p. 283.

“He was of small stature”: Djilas, op. cit., p. 386.

“Our benefactor thinks”: Quoted Figes, op. cit., p. 496.

“Stalin loses”: Sebag Montefiore, op. cit., p. 476.

“They died in the hundreds”: The former figure is a reliable minimum, but even the best modern researchers agree that all estimates are wildly speculative; see Anne Applebaum, Gulag (Penguin: 2003), passim.

“Who but us could have”: Quoted Senyavshaya, op. cit., p. 20.

“A quarter of all deportees”: Applebaum, op. cit., p. 525.

“Beria reported to Stalin”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.66 1–1 430, 1–1 427.

“It was nauseating”: The Memoirs of General the Lord Ismay (Heinemann: 1960), p. 233.

“Three months earlier”: F. H. Hinsley and others, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. iii, part 2 (HMSO, 1988), p. 283.

“On 31 July”: Ibid.

“Lieutenant-General Wladyslaw Anders”: Letter to Lieutenant-Colonel Marian Dortycz-Malewicz, 8.31.44, quoted Norman Davies, Rising ’44 (Macmillan: 2003), pp. 348–50.

“Army Krajowa considers”: RMDA, vol. xv 3(1), pp. 433, 436–7.

“Sceptical civilians”: Ibid.

“A Western correspondent quizzed”: Werth, op. cit., p. 877.

“In November, Alexander felt”: See British official history The Mediterranean and the Middle East, vol. vi, part III (HMSO: 1988), passim and appendix 7, and private information Professor Sir Michael Howard, MC.

“We don’t want British”: Werth, op. cit., p. 878.

“Why die for Stalin”: Leaflet found by the Algonquin Regiment 10.27.44, quoted Denis Whitaker and Shelagh Whitaker, The Battle of the Scheldt (Souvenir Press: 1984), pp. 208–9.

“Within a very short space”: Senyavshaya, op. cit., p. 115.

“Even the most distinguished”: Norman Davies, Rising ’44 (Macmillan: 2003), passim. I am much indebted to Professor Davies for the opportunity to read his book in manuscript.

“George Orwell, almost alone”: Tribune, 9.1.44.

“I am informed by my officers”: Werth, op. cit., p. 878.

“the clown in the circus”: Konstantin Rokossovsky, A Soldier’s Duty (Moscow: Progress, 1968).

“He also cherished”: The absence of such sentiment fuelled his animosity towards the Poles, and did not prevent the Soviet Union from asserting in its standard school history text on the Second World War which continued to be used as late as 1985 that “The Polish people, who had groaned for five years under the Fascist yoke, joyfully greeted their liberators. The Polish patriots set up a Polish National Liberation Committee. The forces of internal reaction, in order to prevent the patriotic NLC from being established, decided to mount an uprising in Warsaw” (I. V. Bekhin and others, Istoriya SSSR, trans. and ed. Graham Lyons [Leo Cooper: 1976], p. 71).

“The British and Americans are”: RMDA, vol. xv 5/4, p. 269.

“The interview was not”: Ibid., p. 283.

“An officer of the Army Krajowa”: AI Major Kazimierz Sztermal.

“We have been treated”: Quoted Davies, op. cit., p. 383.

“These people [the Home Army]”: Quoted in Churchill telegram to Roosevelt, 8.22.44, quoted Martin Gilbert, Road to Victory (Heinemann: 1986), p. 925.

“Nazi and Soviet repressions”: Davies, op. cit., p. 420.

“Is this the road”: Djilas, op. cit., p. 416.

“We knew that Warsaw”: AI Alexandr Markov.

“I felt terrible about”: AI Yelena Kogan.

“When you look at them”: Quoted Senyavshaya, op. cit., p. 121.

“It never looked easy”: AI Anna Nikyunas.

“It was a great thing”: AI Yury Ryakhovsky.

“It was a wonderful life”: AI Pavel Nikiforov.

“It was good to be out”: AI Anatoly Osminov.

“We were different people”: AI Nikolai Timoshenko.

“Where are we”: AI Gennady Klimenko.

“We were so used to living”: AI Nikolai Timoshenko.

“Higher commands were”: See RMDA, vol. xv 5/4, passim and documents collected in The Great Patriotic War, Book 3: Liberation (Nauka: 1999), Report of the State Defence Committee, Moscow.

“I’ve been waiting four”: AI Vasily Kudryashov.

“Here in the east”: Quoted Bartov, op. cit., pp. 130–1.

“Increasingly during the last two”: Ibid., p. 168.

“The rule of war is”: AI Nikolai Timoshenko.

“We killed prisoners just”: AI Vasily Krylov.

“There was no serious”: AI Pavel Nikiforov.

“Vitold Kubashevsky hated”: AI Vitold Kubashevsky.

“They are completely shameless”: Quoted Senyavshaya, op. cit., p. 22.

“Political officers held”: Ibid., p. 28.

“Lieutenant Vasily Kudryashov’s orderly”: AI Vasily Kudryashov.

“long periods of humility”: Figes, op. cit., p. 167.

“A German doctor”: Hans von Lehndorff, East Prussian Diary (Oswald Woolf: 1963), pp. 114–15.

“I always felt that I knew”: Report of 1/24 Panzer Regiment, quoted Jentz, Pan-zertruppen, op. cit., p. 223.

“this incredible wall of fire”: AI Valentin Krulik.

“Of course the Red Army”: AI Vladimir Gormin.

“The Russians didn’t think”: AI Tony Saurma.

“The Russians were not good soldiers”: AI Rolf-Helmut Schröder.

“The Russian—that pig—has”: Helmut Heiber and David M. Glantz eds., Hitler and His Generals (military conference records), (Greenhill: 2002), military conference, 1.9.45, p. 590.

“Private Vitold Kubashevsky”: AI Vitold Kubashevsky.

“I was not surprised the Germans”: AI Yury Ryakhovsky.

“They were wonderful”: AI Nikolai Timoshenko.

“a land so flat”: AI Valentin Krulik.

“The NKVD claimed that”: RSA, Stalin files shelf 1–1 box 16.

“[Russian] soldiers’ conduct”: Gabriel Temkin, My Just War (Presidio: 1998), pp. 200–1.

“Oelmer violently protested”: Quoted Jentz, Panzertruppen, op. cit., p. 221.

“Major Dmitry Kalafati”: AI Dmitry Kalafati.

“Because of the mountainous terrain”: RMDA, vol. xv 3(1), p. 463.

“Between 8 September and”: Colonel-General G. F. Krivosheev ed., Grif Setretnosti Snyat (Moscow: 1993).

“This war is not as in”: Djilas, op. cit., p. 398.

“For some reason”: RSA, Stalin files.

“On 31 December, he declared”: RSA, Stalin files, box 14/3.

“Suddenly the Major raised”: Alexander Klein, Ulikbi Nevoli, p. 396, quoted Applebaum, op. cit., p. 400.

“Stalin issued an order”: Stalin order of 1.11.45, RSA Stalin files, shelf 1–1 file 28.

“Captain Vasily Krylov”: AI Vasily Krylov.

“Twenty-one-year-old”: AI Yury Ryakhovsky.

“The men of the Red Army”: I should acknowledge a debt to Orlando Figes, op. cit., for many observations about Russian culture and thought.

“It is when they sing”: Von Lehndorff, op. cit., p. 134.

“Vitold Kubashevsky remarked”: AI Vitold Kubashevsky.

“One night in Yugoslavia”: AI Leopold Goesse.

“One has to work and work”: RMDA, vol. xv 3(1), p. 241.

“But you got used to it”: AI Anatoly Osminov.

“My corporal often saved me”: AI Vladimir Gormin.

“If you got the wrong”: AI Pavel Nikiforov.

“The T-34 was not”: AI Vasily Kudryashov.

“Vasily Kudryashov’s T-34”: Ibid.

“and all sorts of other things”: AI Vladimir Gormin.

“Orders were never”: AI Alexandr Sergeev.

“Ninety per cent”: AI Gennady Klimenko.

“The statistics were”: AI Vladimir Gormin.

“You should know that”: Senyavshaya, op. cit., p. 18.

“I had so much hatred”: Ibid., p. 37.

“War and women in trenches”: Temkin, op. cit., p. 202.

“Abortions at the front”: AI Nikolai Senkevich.

“Whole trainloads of”: AI Gennady Klimenko.

“Every senior officer”: AI Vasily Krylov.

“Corporal Anna Nikyunas”: AI Anna Nikyunas.

“Vasily Krylov was manning”: AI Vasily Krylov.

“At first, it all seemed”: AI Natalia Ivanova.

“A soldier who distinguishes”: Orders of the State Defence Committee of the USSR, published Moscow, 1997.

“I once watched a penal”: AI Yury Ryakhovsky.

“The commander of Anatoly”: AI Anatoly Osminov.

“One felt no pity”: AI Vitold Kubashevsky.

“I saw him crouching”: Temkin, op. cit., p. 182.

“I went away a boy”: AI Vasily Kudryashov.

“It was a question of making”: AIs Nikolai Timoshenko, Nikolai Senkevich.

CHAPTER FIVE: WINTER QUARTERS

“I was never able to convince”: Tedder, op. cit., p. 600.

“We had five divisions”: Whitaker and Whitaker, op. cit., p. 217.

“ ‘Unfortunately,’ wrote the colonel later”: Ibid., p. 194.

“ ‘Battle morale’ is definitely not”: Quoted Williams, op. cit., p. 135.

“Living conditions at the front”: Will R. Bird, North Shore Regiment (Brunswick Press: 1963), p. 446.

“Among the British formations”: AI Kenneth Pollitt.

“Wilhelmina Helder, a twenty-year-old”: AI Wilhelmina Helder.

“The regiment had seldom been”: A. R. Leakey, unpublished MS, “Nine Lives,” LHA.

“hard fighting and heavy casualties”: Turner-Cain MS, op. cit.

“Major-General ‘Pip’ Roberts”: Roberts, op. cit., p. 214.

“It was you, Prime Minister”: W. F. Deedes, private information to the author, based on a conversation with Montgomery c. 1965.

“The Sketch had a big write-up”: Turner-Cain MS, op. cit.

“When you analyse how difficult”: Hansen Papers, box 391, USAMHI.

“The British have had tough”: Hansen Diary, 10.31.44, USAMHI.

“what was at this stage”: Wilmot, op. cit., p. 527.

“rather depressed at the state”: PRO, CAB106/1124, Ramsay Diary.

“Some people begin to believe”: Quoted Henri van der Zee, The Hunger Winter (Norman & Hobhouse: 1982), p. 68.

“There was a change of mood”: AI Captain “Dim” Robbins.

“We don’t want any Victoria”: AI Roy Dixon.

“I’d simply got into a state”: AI Captain “Dim” Robbins.

“Two mornings in succession”: AI Denis Thomas.

“After the airborne operation”: AI W. F. Deedes.

“I was terribly impressed by”: AI Roy Dixon.

“There was something happening all”: AI Field-Marshal Lord Bramall.

“A British sniper watched”: Lieutenant Peter Downward, unpublished narrative lent to the author, p. 102.

“It is believed that certain”: “Combat Fatigue,” USAMHI, D769AZ no. 91 c.4.

“I had his head spot”: Downward MS, op. cit., p. 116.

“Corporal Stan Proctor was proudly”: Stan Proctor, A Quiet Little Boy Goes to War (Dragon Print Centre: 1996), p. 149.

“Dr. David Tibbs was driving”: AI David Tibbs.

“I could worry every minute”: Harold Fennema, unpublished MS, “What did you do in the war, Daddy?,” SA.

“Corporal Iolo Lewis put his hand”: AI Iolo Lewis.

“I saw a line of soldiers”: Cropper, op. cit., p. 52.

“During the Scheldt battle”: Carl Shilleto, The Fighting 52nd Recce (Eskdale Publishing: 2001), p. 45.

“I figured somebody had to do it”: Cooper, op. cit., p. 243.

“All the ones who said before”: AI Roy Dixon.

“A squadron commander of 2nd Fife”: Steel-Brownlie MS, IWM, 92/37/1.

“The British soldier is a little slow”: PRO, WO208/3111.

“Propaganda loudspeakers were”: PRO, WO106/43480.

“Few thought that Germany”: PRO, WO218/311, 1.17.45.

“We felt they were more”: AI Patrick Hennessy.

“always felt conscious that”: AI Captain “Dim” Robbins.

“Until a very late stage”: Times Literary Supplement, 4.21.78.

“Operation Clipper on 18 November”: PRO, WO106/4348.

“The Allies burdened themselves”: Ruppenthal, op. cit., passim.

“They seemed to be much more”: Gavin MS, op. cit., p. 91.

“I just accepted how long”: AI Field-Marshal Lord Carver.

“Every day I feel older”: Alanbrooke, op. cit., p. 646, 1.18.45.

“The outside world didn’t”: AI W. F. Deedes.

“There was always someone”: AI Captain “Dim” Robbins.

“[Tom] Driberg—Austrian”: Letter in Montgomery Papers, quoted Nigel Ham-ilton, Monty: The Field Marshal (Hamish Hamilton: 1986), p. 278.

“The contrast with our own”: AI John Denison.

“A private of the Duke of Cornwall’s”: George Taylor, Infantry Colonel (privately published: 1990), p. 61.

“The Americans seemed”: AI Lord Carrington.

“We thought of the Americans”: AI General Sir David Fraser.

“Funny lot the Americans”: AI Patrick Hennessy.

“The Americans are least good”: AI Field-Marshal Lord Bramall.

“a general feeling that”: Berlitz MS, author’s collection.

“Many men are weak”: PRO, WO208/3111.

“It is very difficult”: PRO, CAB106/1069.

“Deficiencies in infantry”: PRO, WO205/152.

“I don’t think this outfit”: Fennema MS, op. cit., SA.

“A very pleasant day”: Proctor, op. cit., p. 110.

“A British officer described”: AI John Denison.

“We thought about girls”: AI Field-Marshal Lord Bramall.

“There is a feeling of optimism”: PRO, CAB106/1068.

“This is a larger total”: Arch Dempsey Papers, LHA.

CHAPTER SIX: GERMANY BESIEGED

“Lieutenant Leopold Goesse”: AI Leopold Goesse.

“Heinz Knoke, a Luftwaffe”: Heinz Knoke, I Flew for the Führer (Evans: 1979), p. 44.

“Eleonore Burgsdorf and her family”: AI Eleonore Burgsdorf.

“Katharina Minniger, a twenty-two”: AI Katharina Minniger.

“Lieutenant Helmut Schmidt”: AI Helmut Schmidt.

“Why are you looking”: Letter lent to the author by Ursula Salzer.

“The vain hope that”: Von Stemann MS, op. cit.

“In meiner Jugend”: The Berlin Diaries of Missie Vassiltchikov (Chatto & Windus: 1981), p. 239.

“Maria Hustreiter was”: AI Maria Hustreiter.

“Ten-year-old Jutta”: AI Jutta Dietze.

“This is now a dead town”: Second Army MD.

“Fourteen-year-old Eggert”: AI Eggert Stolten.

“Regina Krakowick lost everything”: AI Regina Krakowick.

“We are getting more and more”: This report was evidently captured by the Soviets, and appears in RSA, 9401 om.2 g.97.

“I have never before seen”: Klemperer, op. cit., p. 455.

“When the enemy reaches”: Aachen, 9.15.44, Second Army MD.

“Helmut Fromm, who was serving”: AI Helmut Fromm.

“For the average German family”: Statistiches Fahrbuch, 1957, pp. 470–1.

“Well, my dear Hans”: Second Army MD.

“Albert Speer, as armaments”: Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (Weidenfeld & Nicolson: 1970), p. 378.

“Some of the foreign workers”: See Alan Milward, The German Economy at War (Athlone Press: 1965), passim.

“In addition, German industry”: Mark Harrison ed., The Economics of World War II (Cambridge University Press: 1998), p. 158.

“A statistical breakdown of”: U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, U.S. Department of Defense, 1946.

“The RAF’s legendary”: 12.16.43, quoted Alexandra Richie, Faust’s Metropolis (HarperCollins: 1998), p. 530.

“It was fantastic how”: AI Rolf-Helmut Schröder.

“Since last night, our”: Second Army MD.

“There was no guilt about”: AI Gotz Bergander.

“Most Germans realized”: AI John Zimmermann.

“After 20 July”: AI Karl-Ludwig Mahlo.

“There were some serious Nazis”: AI Tony Saurma.

“We retained some illusions”: AI Rolf-Helmut Schröder.

“The ordinary German fighting”: Knoke, op. cit., p. 162.

“believing that I could”: AI Karl-Günther von Hase.

“Wilhelm Pritz, an infantry”: AI Wilhelm Pritz.

“An order of 20 November”: Second Army MD.

“The contents of this letter”: U.S. Third Army Intelligence Report, MD.

“A PW of 353rd Division”: Second Army MD.

“A total of 44,955 men”: The scale of the problem has been underestimated by many historians, believes one modern German researcher, Major John Zimmermann.

“You silly sods”: AI Tony Saurma.

“We knew we were still pretty”: AI Max Wind.

“Twenty-six-year-old Captain Walter”: AI Walter Schaefer-Kuhnert.

“I knew that I was against”: AI Helmut Schmidt.

“I get so angry when”: AI Otto Cranz.

“I wonder what Hitler’s”: RSA, Stalin files, shelf 1–1 file 72.

“Beria reported to Stalin”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.66 1–1 318.

“That would finally be”: Heiber and Glantz, op. cit., p. 587.

“Even officers with little”: Bartov, op. cit., p. 126.

“The Potsdam Military History”: Germany and the Second World War, vol. iv (Oxford: 1998), passim.

“A remarkable year is drawing”: Helmuth von Moltke, Letters to Freya (Collins Harvill: 1991), pp. 394 and 412.

CHAPTER SEVEN: HELL IN THE HÜRTGEN

“It was a relief to see”: Alanbrooke, op. cit., p. 668, 3.3.45.

“Near Hürtgen, the U.S. 30th”: AI Werner Kleeman.

“It is a mistake to try to”: Personal minutes, 1.4.45, quoted Gilbert, op. cit., p. 1140.

“One advantage of being in Germany”: Fennema MS, op. cit.

“Most NCOs were hill-billies”: AI Werner Kleeman.

“The stagnation of the war”: Klemperer, op. cit., p. 456.

“I do not like the layout”: Alanbrooke, op. cit., p. 619, 11.8.44.

“[who] is detached and by”: Ibid., p. 628, 11.24.44.

“[Eisenhower] quite incapable”: Ibid., pp. 634–5, 12.12.44.

“The most likely way to make”: Russell F. Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants (Sidgwick & Jackson: 1981), p. 365.

“We’re still a first-class”: NA, RG492–322 box 3.

“We are taking three trees”: Pogue, op. cit., p. 289.

“The trees were so dense”: Devitt, op. cit., p. 75.

“Until that time”: Ibid., p. 71.

“They looked like a collection”: Ibid., p. 75.

“Look, Haney, that’s”: Ibid., pp. 76–84.

“It was a beautiful sight”: Ibid.

“Private Robert McCall”: Unpublished MS, IWM, 81/15/1.

“Attacking forces were interfered with”: Pogue, op. cit., p. 273.

“It was very cold and very wet”: AI Tony Moody.

“Telephone wiremen were”: AI Karl Godau.

“It was so dark that”: Ralph Gordon, Infantryman (privately published: 2000), p. 79.

“We were thankful we were still”: Ibid., p. 86.

“Battle exhaustion cases occurred”: PRO, WO218/3111, 5.23.45.

“Comparable American ETO”: U.S. Army Medical Department, Medical Statistics in World War II (Washington, D.C.: 1975), p. 43.

“enormous number of psychiatric”: Van Crefeld study for the U.S. Department of Defense, Fighting Power, 1980, p. 114.

“Combat fatigue was one”: “Combat Fatigue,” USAMHI, D769AZ no. 91 c.4.

“The strain of battle”: Chesarek Papers, box 3, USAMHI.

“There were increasing signs”: d’Este, Eisenhower, op. cit., p. 629.

“several hundred thousand”: Van Crefeld, op. cit., p. 116.

“Available statistics show that”: R. A. Gabriel and P. L. Savage, Crisis in Command: Mismanagement in the Army (New York: 1978), table 1.

“On 1 January 1945”: Donald Thomas, An Underworld at War (John Murray: 2003), p. 220.

“A further 10,000 British”: S. F. Crozier, History of the Royal Corps of Military Police (Gale & Polden: 1951), p. 121.

“A sample of British offenders”: John Ellis, The Sharp End (Pimlico: 1993), p. 244.

“In Brussels in December 1944”: Quoted ibid., p. 233.

“In the British Army, concern”: W. J. F. Eassic Papers, IWM, 75/55/1.

“Eisenhower was driven”: d’Este, Eisenhower, op. cit., p. 629.

“The U.S. Army suffered”: This issue has been exhaustively discussed by several writers, including the author in Overlord.

“We are about to invade”: K. R. Greenfield, V. D. Wiley, and Palmer, The Organization of Ground Combat Troops (Department of the Army: 1947), p. 323.

“Only 27.4 per cent of American”: R. R. Palmer, The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Forces (Department of the Army, 1948), p. 17.

“Charles Felix’s unit was”: Felix, op. cit., p. 157.

“Replacements . . . are not”: NA, RG492–322 box 3.

“saw in the emergency retraining”: Ruppenthal, op. cit., p. 468.

“as a legitimate dumping ground”: Major-General J. E. Utterson-Kelson, PRO, WO199/725.

“Yet the root cause of Eisenhower’s”: For a wider discussion of the fascinating statistical issues of combat availability see, for instance, Ellis, op. cit., passim.

“It’s Sunday, my God”: U.S. 4th Division Intelligence Report, in possession Werner Kleeman.

“The forest was a very brutal”: AI Willi Pusch.

“The soldiers of the regiment”: Rush, op. cit., p. 284.

“The German Army almost”: Weigley, op. cit., p. 372.

“Do you have a good prayer”: d’Este, Patton, op. cit., p. 685.

“There he sat, big as life”: Bill Mauldin, The Brass Ring (W. W. Norton: 1971), chapter 15.

“I always admired Patton”: Quoted d’Este, Patton, op. cit., p. 694.

“would surrender not to fighting”: General Hobart Gay Diary, USAMHI.

“The combat efficiency of the troops”: Ibid.

“Staff-Sergeant Bill Getman”: Unpublished Bill Getman MS, SA.

“Many people here are resigned”: Hansen Diary, op. cit.

“The average infantryman was nearly”: Pogue, op. cit., pp. 221, 266.

“A Company of the 4th Division’s”: Quoted Rush, op. cit., pp. 41, 328.

“the most ineptly fought”: d’Este, Eisenhower, op. cit., p. 627.

“We never do anything bold”: D. K. R. Crosswell, The Chief of Staff (Greenwood Press: 1991), p. 135.

“If we were fighting”: Hansen Diary, op. cit.

“a very, very, small man”: Alanbrooke, op. cit., p. 473, 11.18.43.

“Yet, ‘to put it candidly’ ”: Omar Bradley, A General’s Life (Simon & Schuster: 1983), p. 343.

CHAPTER EIGHT: THE BULGE: AN AMERICAN EPIC

“He [Hitler] was incapable of”: The Fatal Decisions, ed. William Richardson and Seymour Friedlin (Michael Joseph: 1956), p. 225.

“Once, in a battle on the Eastern”: AI Tony Saurma.

“some were very inexperienced”: AI Rolf-Helmut Schröder.

“a stooped figure with a pale”: Richardson and Friedlin, op. cit., pp. 231–2.

“Our soldiers still believed”: Ibid., p. 228.

“My comrades and I entered”: Lemcke quoted The Battle of the Bulge, compiled by Hans J. Wijers (Brunnen: 2001), p. 54.

“how long Sixth [SS] Panzer Army”: Second Army MD.

“Hobart Gay, Patton’s Chief”: Gay Diary, op. cit.

“ ‘Madness,’ wrote Winston Churchill”: Churchill, The Grand Alliance, op. cit., p. 536.

“Neither the 99th nor 106th”: Pogue, op. cit.

“A buddy of Private Eugene Gagliardi”: Quoted Wijers, op. cit., p. 65.

“Private ‘Red’ Thompson desperately”: AI “Red” Thompson.

“a feast for us”: Quoted Wijers, op. cit., p. 58.

“I never took part in an attack”: Ibid., p. 93.

“Watch for every opportunity”: Sixth SS Panzer, 11.30.44, Second Army MD.

“Private Donald Doubek’s platoon”: Donald Doubek MS, SA.

“Private Murray Mendelsohn, a combat”: AI Murray Mendelsohn.

“On 28th Division’s battlefield”: Charles B. MacDonald, The Battle of the Bulge (Weidenfeld & Nicolson: 1984), p. 151.

“I had the disgusted impression”: Quoted Wijers, op. cit., p. 169.

“An officer who called on his”: Tom Bigland, Bigland’s War (privately published: 1990), p. 81.

“it was evident that the”: Carol Mather, When the Grass Stops Growing (Leo Cooper: 1997), p. 287.

“Until more is known of this new”: Second Army MD.

“Well, Brad, you’ve been”: Hansen Papers, box 42a, USAMHI.

“Big issues are involved”: Second Army MD.

“It looks as if we may now”: PRO, CAB106/1071, BLM to AB, 12.17.44 and 12.19.44.

“General, there’s some rumor”: William K. Harrison oral history interview, USAMHI.

“What shall I do?”: Ibid.

“the most frightening thing”: James Woolnough oral history interview, USAMHI.

“The enemy was in total confusion”: AI Werner Sternebecke.

“They seemed as protective about”: MacDonald, op. cit., p. 369.

“I hated to give up like that”: Wijers, op. cit., p. 190.

“lots of equipment and matériel”: NA, RG492–322 box 12.

“a quivering hulk”: Major Ben Legare quoted MacDonald, op. cit., p. 387.

“The 90th Division had a joke”: Reimers Papers, USAMHI.

“We needed a few samples”: Hansen Diary, op. cit.

“If you try to take them back”: Interview Morris L. Harvey quoted Rush, op. cit., p. 317.

“Private Bill True of the 101st”: Bill True unpublished MS, “The Cow Spoke French,” SA.

“The whole matter of killing”: Pogue, op. cit., p. 297.

“This was the only time”: Donald Shoo MS, SA.

“We were in a state of confusion”: Quoted Wijers, op. cit., p. 38.

“We had no idea what was going on”: AI Murray Mendelsohn.

“If this is the way it is”: Melvin Zais MS, USAMHI.

“remarkable how little we know”: Pogue, op. cit., p. 295.

“Very stupid”: Tedder, op. cit., p. 648.

“Enemy morale was higher”: Report of General Board of U.S. Forces, “Strategy in North-West Europe,” USAMHI.

“For once, we find ourselves”: Second Army MD.

“For English soldiers”: Ibid.

“The roads are littered with”: U.S. 7th Armored Division Intelligence Report quoted ibid.

“A belief would long persist”: MacDonald, op. cit., p. 618.

“a very grave disappointment”: Richardson and Friedlin, op. cit., p. 241.

“incapable of carrying out”: Ibid., p. 236.

“Whenever you attack the enemy”: AI “Pip” Roberts, 1983.

“If U.S. forces had not held”: Rush, op. cit., p. 345.

“I spotted our battalion commander”: Hubert Meyer, History of the 12th SS Division Hitlerjugend (J. J. Fedorwicz Publishing: 1994), p. 252.

“When I reached the vicinity”: Ibid.

“Everywhere there is a feeling of”: Hansen Diary, op. cit., 1.1.45.

“The whole action was an example”: Pogue, op. cit., p. 322.

“Headquarters continues to be a madhouse”: Hansen Diary, op. cit.

“My eyes were red, swollen”: William B. Folkestad, The View from the Turret (Burd Street Press: 2000), p. 69.

“Major William Desobry”: William Desobry oral history interview, USAMHI.

“absolute chaos”: Charles Skelnar, unpublished MS, “My Days of Honor in World War II,” SA.

“As soon as you lifted up”: Henry Hills MS, SA.

“Here is a guy who really”: Harrison oral history interview, op. cit.

“Von Manteuffel asserted afterwards”: Richardson and Friedlin, op. cit., p. 249.

“What’s the form?”: Mather, op. cit., p. 288.

“He humiliated the shyest”: Hamilton, op. cit., p. 250.

“I would like to give you a word of warning”: PRO, CAB106/1069.

“There was ferocious U.S. criticism”: H. G. Nicholas ed., Washington Dispatches 1941–45 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson: 1981), p. 481.

“I think I see daylight now”: PRO, CAB106/1071.

“I said he would probably find it”: Ibid.

“Our outfit broke”: AI John Capano.

“My first reaction was fear”: Devitt, op. cit., p. 181.

“The Germans’ morale”: AI Hal McCown.

“There was an other-worldly”: Alan Moorehead, Eclipse (Granta: 2000), p. 217.

“This is not going to be easy”: AI Rolf-Helmut Schröder.

“The fact that the Hun”: Quoted Tedder, op. cit., p. 629.

“The situation is normal”: Ridgway Papers, box 5A, USAMHI.

“I want every man imbued”: Ibid.

“At least one man of the 75th”: Harold Lindstrom MS, SA.

“When the U.S. 743rd Tank”: Folkestad, op. cit., p. 75.

“Felix had been relieved to see”: Felix, op. cit.

“I don’t represent any general”: Hansen Diary, op. cit.

“As the sun came out”: AI Iolo Lewis.

“Since 24 December Guderian”: Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (Michael Joseph: 1952), p. 383.

“Provided the two ‘gateposts’ ”: Alanbrooke, op. cit., p. 637, 12.21.44.

“It’s a fickle world”: Gay Diary, op. cit.

“I’m sure that, 50 years”: Ibid., p. 161.

“Their [the British] press”: Hansen Diary, op. cit.

“Without haste and without any trace”: Second Army MD.

“Monty did a good job”: Bigland, op. cit., pp. 82–3.

“The Arnold–King–Marshall”: PM’s personal minute, D.218/4, 7.6.44, Churchill Papers 20/153, quoted Gilbert, op. cit., p. 843.

“You pay him too high”: Colville, op. cit., 2.23.45.

“Hobbs said apologetically that”: Ridgway Papers, box 5A, XVIII Corps conference, 1.13.45, USAMHI.

“We are training”: Gavin Diary, op. cit.

“If only this idiotic war”: Second Army MD, 1.17.45.

“mostly Ukrainians who do not even”: Ibid.

“didn’t so much lose heart”: DuPuy Papers, op. cit.

“That’s it—we’ve lost the war”: AI Rolf-Helmut Schröder.

“The enemy can claim to have wrested”: Second Army MD.

“This was the coldest night”: Folkestad, op. cit., p. 84.

“Sergeant Clifford Laski”: NA, RG492–322 box 6.

“Staff-Sergeant Charles Skelnar’s”: Skelnar MS, op. cit., SA.

“I felt proud”: AI George Sheppard.

“Interestingly, a British expert”: Reynolds, op. cit., p. 135.

“There was a serious discussion”: Hansen Papers, box 40B, USAMHI.

“During the half-hearted”: Tedder, op. cit., p. 633.

“considerably retarded the”: Alanbrooke, op. cit., p. 677, 3.25.45.

“Upon the conclusion of”: “Strategy in North-West Europe,” op. cit., USAMHI.

“strong defensive positions”: Report of the General Board of U.S. Forces in ETO, “Strategy of the Campaign in Western Europe 1944–45,” USAMHI.

CHAPTER NINE: STALIN’S OFFENSIVE

“Zhukov was very popular”: AI Anatoly Osminov.

“Lieutenant Vasily Filimonenko”: AI Vasily Filimonenko.

“Everyone was terrified”: AI Evsei Igolnik.

“Stalin won the war”: AI Nikolai Ponomarev.

“He saved the Soviet state”: AI Fyodor Romanovsky.

“Is there no one to rid”: AI Nikolai Senkevich.

“We were fighting for our”: AI Anna Nikyunas.

“You should obey Stalin”: AI Yury Ryakhovsky.

“I often prayed to God”: AI Nikolai Ponomarev.

“but many men crossed”: AI Anatoly Osminov.

“We all stand together”: AI Alexander Sergeev.

“Seventeen-year-old Yulia”: AI Yulia Pozdnyakova.

“saying that he refused”: Guderian, op. cit., p. 377.

“If something happens down there”: Helmut Heiber and David M. Glantz, Hitler and his Generals (Greenhill: 2002), p. 651.

“A very stupid disposition”: Tedder, op. cit., p. 647.

“Sergeant Nikolai Timoshenko”: AI Nikolai Timoshenko.

“A deserter from 118th”: BA, RH2/319.

“Yulia Pozdnyakova, a signaller”: AI Yulia Pozdnyakova.

“In January 1945 we could see”: AI Nikolai Ponomarev.

“Lieutenant Valentin Krulik’s unit”: AI Valentin Krulik.

“On 11 January, an OKW report”: BA, RH2/331B.

“When you haven’t had”: Letter lent to the author by Ursula Salzer.

“The Eastern Front is”: Guderian, op. cit., p. 387.

“On 12 January”: PRO, WO106/5924.

“May all good fortune”: 1.9.45, quoted Gilbert, op. cit., p. 1143.

“We now had to pay for”: Richardson and Friedlin, op. cit., p. 251.

“In the trenches, we all knew”: AI Alexandr Sergeev.

“Morale was very high”: AI Gennady Klimenko.

“As early as 15 January”: BA, RH2/319.

“The battle in the Vistula”: BA, RH2/320.

“Thousands of soldiers”: BA, RH2/331A.

“Lieutenant Vasily Kudryashov was”: AI Vasily Kudryashov.

“Captain Abram Skuratovsky”: AI Abram Skuratovsky.

“O blad! Generals”: Temkin, op. cit., p. 216.

“If we could have made good”: AI Yury Ryakhovsky.

“Red Army signaller Yulia”: AI Yulia Pozdnyakova.

“Used in isolation”: BA, RH2/331A.

“The VS consists of men”: BA, RH2/331B.

“There are still a lot of Germans”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.93.

“For everyone else, a German”: AI Yelena Kogan.

“we wanted to go out”: AI Alexandr Markov.

“As early as December 1944”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.68 449.

“In order to re-establish order”: RSA, Stalin files.

“A report to Stalin from Beria”: RSA, Stalin files, box 14/3.

“On 24 January, Beria”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.68 448.

“One had to be very”: AI Fyodor Romanovsky.

“The prospect of the end”: Colville, op. cit., 1.8.45.

“Make no mistake”: Ibid., 1.23.45.

“Great Britain and the British Commonwealth”: WSC, telegram to Peter Fraser, 2.24.45, quoted Gilbert, op. cit., p. 1231.

“It is incredible to view”: Hansen Diary, op. cit., 1.23.45.

“A British SOE mission”: Peter Kemp, The Thorns of Memory (Sinclair-Stevenson: 1990), p. 265.

“I’ll never forget those Russian”: Ferdinand Chesarek oral history interview, USAMHI.

“What a disorderly rabble”: Dr. Richard Feltham quoted Patricia Sewell, Healers in World War II (McFarland: 2001), p. 176.

“There seemed to be little”: Kemp, op. cit., p. 261.

“You traitor!”: AI Vasily Kudryashov.

“For fun, a soldier”: AI Valentin Krulik.

“From the enemy’s behaviour”: BA, RH2/328.

“The Front commander took”: RMDA, vol. xv 5/4, p. 110, report of 4.27.45.

“On the night of 19 February”: RSA, 9410 om.2 g.93.

“This ban was soon”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.95 252.

“It seems remarkable that”: RSA, 9410 om.2 g.93.

“Amid all the stresses”: BA, RH2/323.

“Between 12 January”: BA, RH2/8496.

CHAPTER TEN: BLOOD AND ICE: EAST PRUSSIA

“East Prussia was a province”: AI Helmut Schmidt.

“mysterious splendour. Whoever”: Von Lehndorff, op. cit., p. 1.

“It was incredibly quiet”: AI Ursula Salzer.

“I hope you’re satisfied”: AI Elfride Kowitz.

“I was not so critical of bombing”: AI Michael Wieck.

“It seemed crazy that”: AI Hans Siwik.

“Yes, you’re flying”: Von Lehndorff, op. cit., p. 2.

“We are a master race”: Koch speech in Kiev, 1943.

“The President said he thought”: Robert Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins (Har-per: 1948), p. 710.

“They want to take”: RSA, Stalin files, shelf 1–1 file 72.

“In the farmyard stood a cart”: Quoted Alfred M. de Zayas, Nemesis at Potsdam (Routledge & Kegan Paul: 1977), p. 63.

“I was so young”: AI Lise-Lotte Kussner.

“For us Prussians”: Guderian, op. cit., p. 388.

“A Wehrmacht report from”: BA, RH2/331B.

“It sounded as if a lot of heavy”: Von Lehndorff, op. cit., p. 3.

“Comrades! You have now”: Quoted Christopher Duffy, Red Storm Over the Reich (Routledge: 1991), p. 285.

“How shall I avenge myself”: Senyavshaya, op. cit., p. 28.

“Hatred for the enemy”: Ibid., p. 25.

“German villages looked”: AI Gennady Klimenko.

“Great country!”: AI Vladimir Gormin.

“In the view of some Russians”: Senyavshaya, op. cit., p. 29.

“Mugs and wooden spoons”: RSA, Stalin files.

“my soldiers promptly spitted”: AI the officer concerned, who said to the author’s interpreter in Russian, “But don’t mention that to the anglichane.”

“Nikolai Dubrovsky was an”: AI Nikolai Dubrovsky.

“Major Yury Ryakhovsky never doubted”: AI Yury Ryakhovsky.

“Corporal Anatoly Osminov spotted”: AI Anatoly Osminov.

“When Captain Vasily Krylov gazed”: AI Vasily Krylov.

“Soldiers didn’t understand”: quoted Senyavshaya, op. cit., p. 29.

“We don’t have time to start”: AI Vasily Krylov.

“Russian soldiers wandered”: RSA, report Beria to Stalin, 1.27.45.

“Lieutenant Alexandr Sergeev’s”: AI Alexandr Sergeev.

“Our boys would open”: AI Alexandr Markov.

“When seventeen-year-old Joseph”: Joe Volmar, I Learned to Fly for Hitler (Kron Publications: 1999), p. 179.

“He warmed to the memory of”: AI Hans Siwik.

“The oldest boys”: Guy Sajer, The Forgotten Soldier (Sphere: 1977), pp. 475–6.

“Any further losses would”: BA, RH2/329.

“Waltraut Ptack was only thirteen”: AI Waltraut Ptack.

“Twenty-year-old Eleonore”: AI Eleonore Burgsdorff.

“You must go—quickly”: AI Lise-Lotte Kussner.

“The first shattering reports”: Von Stemann MS, op. cit., p. 192.

“In the last days of January”: Volmar, op. cit., p. 191.

“Twenty-year-old Elfride”: AI Elfride Kowitz.

“The highway along the Frisches Haff”: RSA, Stalin files.

“would be home in time”: Von Lehndorff, op. cit., pp. 32–3.

“I tramped through the powdery”: Ibid., p. 20.

“Among the very few people”: AI Michael Wieck.

“But, by a dreadful irony”: Christopher Dobson, John Miller and Ronald Payne, The Cruellest Night (Hodder & Stoughton: 1979), passim.

“Now that the evacuation”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.83.

“The Königsberg battle was very”: AI Anatoly Osminov.

“Lieutenant Alexandr Sergeev of the 297th”: AI Alexandr Sergeev.

“The further side of the pond”: Von Lehndorff, op. cit., p. 49.

“The reasons for the fall of Königsberg”: BA, RH2/336.

“Beria reported that there were 32,573”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.95 237a.

“Dr. Karl Ludwig Mahlo”: AI Karl Ludwig Mahlo.

“We were in tearing spirits”: AI Abram Skuratovsky.

“Corporal Anatoly Osminov’s unit”: AI Anatoly Osminov.

“We stood close together”: Von Lehndorff, op. cit., p. 59.

“Through the siege of Königsberg”: AI Michael Wieck.

“The bulk of those who fled”: AI Helmut Schmidt.

“It was our holocaust”: AI a survivor of East Prussia, whose name I think it is tactful to leave anonymous.

“You have, of course, read”: Djilas, op. cit., p. 435.

“In his generous instincts”: Dwight Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (Doubleday: 1948), pp. 473–4.

“Private Vitold Kubashevsky, for instance”: AI Vitold Kubashevsky.

“All of us knew very well”: Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago, vol. i (Har-per & Row [paperback]: 1974), p. 21.

“Speed, frenzy and savagery”: Erickson, op. cit., pp. 466–7.

“We were forced to leave a land”: Documents on the Expulsions of the German People East of the Oder-Neisse Rivers, Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims, 1953.

“At his post on the shore”: AI Vitold Kubashevsky.

“I do not suppose that at any moment”: Quoted Gilbert, op. cit., p. 1182.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: FIRESTORMS: WAR IN THE SKY

“Meanwhile—still during the night”: Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt, Bomber Command War Diaries (Viking: 1985), pp. 601–3.

“The bombing of Germany”: Statistics for fatal casualties from bombing vary immensely, because so much documentation was lost in the last months of the war: reputable recent authorities offer estimates which range between a low of 305,000 and a high of 700,000. It is unlikely that this issue will ever be conclusively resolved.

“During the armies’ advance”: Weigley, op. cit., p. 668.

“The gross claims of our airmen”: Hansen Diary, op. cit.

“During the past few weeks”: Quoted Tedder, op. cit., p. 613.

“a considerable commander”: Anthony Montague-Brown, Long Sunset (Cassell: 1995), p. 201.

“We should never allow”: Eaker to Spaatz quoted Wesley Frank Craven and James Lee Cate, The Army Air Forces in World War II (University of Chicago Press: 7 vols. 1948–58), vol. iii, p. 733.

“after September 1944, no one”: Michael Sherry, The Rise of American Air Power (Yale University Press: 1987), pp. 221, 250.

“Richard Overy, among others”: See Richard Overy, War and Economy in the Third Reich (Oxford University Press: 1994), Why the Allies Won (Cape: 1995), passim. Overy’s analysis has caused me to modify some of the views I adopted in my earlier book Bomber Command about the scale of damage inflicted on the German war economy by bombing between 1942 and 1944.

“[it] actually works in our favour”: David Irving, Hitler’s War (Viking: 1977), pp. 574–5.

“I felt that again our efforts”: Tedder, op. cit., p. 607.

“In bright sunlight, even with”: Carl Fyler, Staying Alive (J. H. Johnson: 1995).

“Each time I close”: Knoke, op. cit., p. 164.

“Returning from bombing oil refineries”: Arthur M. Miller, unpublished MS, SA.

“Staff-Sergeant Delbert Lambson”: Delbert D. Lambson, When I Return in Spring (Delzona Press: 1995).

“I can go out on a mission”: Robert Burger, unpublished MS, SA.

“Major Jack Ilfrey said”: AI Jack Ilfrey.

“Nice day, but nothing for us”: Unpublished MS, IWM, 92/26/1.

“Dear Mom”: Harry Conley and Stuart G. Whittelsey, unpublished MS, “No Foxholes in the Sky,” SA.

“We had to hang around the Halifax”: Unpublished David Sokoloff MS, SA.

“Eddie Lovejoy, a navigator with”: Eddie Lovejoy, Better Born Lucky Than Rich (Media: 1986), pp. 85–6.

“Other people in the squadron”: AI Bill Winter.

“made you feel as if they had cleaned”: Unpublished Richard Burt MS, SA.

“I thought a lot about our guys”: AI Ira Wells.

“We were the Lindbergh generation”: AI Harold Dorfman.

“We never thought about what”: AI Bill Winter.

“Sergeant Jack Brennan”: AI Jack Brennan.

“Our gunners never fired”: AI Bill Winter.

“There would be seconds”: Lloyd O. Kreuger, Trials and Tribulations of a Lady (Canyon Lake: 2001), p. 37.

“The flak was brutal”: AI William Leek.

“Ammunition began to explode”: Unpublished Teresa K. Flatley MS, SA.

“We just wanted to get it over”: AI Ira Wells.

“Bledisloe had spent almost two”: Marvin Bledisloe, Thunderbolt! (Van Nostrand Reinhold: 1982).

“Yet Major Jack Ilfrey”: Jack Ilfrey, Happy Jack’s Go Buggy (Schiffer Military: 1946).

“The landscape looked just like”: Richard Hough, One Boy’s War (Heinemann: 1975), p. 137.

“You sometimes saw too much”: Ibid., p. 146.

“They are shits”: Paul Richey, Fighter Pilot (Guild Publishing: 1990), p. 108.

“that we are the barbarians”: Eaker to Spaatz 1.1.45 quoted Ronald Schaffer, “American Military Ethics in World War II,” Journal of American History 67, September 1980, p. 328.

“CLARION hit people”: AI John Zimmermann.

“I could see the cannon strikes”: Hough, op. cit., p. 147.

“We sometimes thought the Allied”: AI Helmut Lott.

“you feel as if you are flying”: Jack Pitts, P-47 Pilot (Pitts Enterprise: 1997), pp. 74, 86.

“I felt sorry for the German”: AI Tony Mann.

“There were four men unloading”: Pitts, op. cit., p. 88.

“that it would be good to fight”: Hansen Diary, op. cit., 9.21.44.

“an appeal to the chivalry”: Guderian, op. cit., p. 418, 3.6.45.

“The sky became black”: AI Helmut Schmidt.

“It was a war of despair”: Von Stemann MS, op. cit., p. 153.

“I’ll describe to you today”: Second Army MD.

“We spend most of our lives”: Ibid.

“At 4 o’clock, I arrived”: Ibid.

“Everyone is convinced that no opposition”: PRO, WO106/5922.

“We discussed why the Germans carried”: Von Stemann MS, op. cit., p. 154.

“The Berlin diarist ‘Missie’ ”: Vassiltchikov, op. cit., pp. 120, 148.

“We lived in a dark world”: AI Klaus Fischer.

“during this period of vast”: Mathilde Wolff-Monckeberg, On the Other Side (Pan: 1982), p. 119.

“I came to live in a fantasy”: AI Vilda Geertz.

“The streetcars don’t run”: Second Army MD.

“When Joyce Kuhns fled”: AI Joyce Kuhns.

“Hans Moser was the sixteen-year-old”: AI Hans Moser.

“Lieutenant Henry Docherty”: PRO, WO309/1621, WO309/291.

“On 28 February 1945”: PRO, WO309/106.

“Bud Lindsey, a nineteen-year-old”: Al Lindsey, A Soda Jerk Goes to War (privately published: 2001).

“That everything was dissolving”: Von Stemann MS, op. cit.

“all around us was the manmade”: Ibid., p. 150.

“I had a lot of imagination”: AI Gotz Bergander.

“We walked slowly, for I was now”: Klemperer, op. cit., pp. xvi, 500–10.

“It was terrible, the bodies”: Ibid., p. 502.

“The bombing of Dresden”: AI Gotz Bergander.

“Yet when a nation had tolerated”: AI Henry Kissinger.

“The smell is nauseating and clings”: Vassiltchikov, op. cit., p. 260.

CHAPTER TWELVE: MARCHING ON THE RHINE

“friendly and intimate co-operation”: Tedder, op. cit., p. 638.

“If the field-marshal had not been”: Weigley, op. cit., p. 575.

“So far as I can see”: PRO, CAB106/1070.

“lit out so vigorously that he carried”: Quoted Forrest Pogue, Marshal: Organizer of Victory, vol. iii (Viking: 1973), p. 516.

“to express his full dislike”: Alanbrooke, op. cit., p. 653, 2.1.45.

“An unsatisfactory meeting with”: Ibid.

“We must make certain”: Alfred D. Chandler, Papers of Eisenhower, vol. iv (Johns Hopkins University Press: 1970), p. 2438.

“The Germans appear to be beaten”: Gavin Diary, op. cit.

“Poor discipline was reflected”: “Trench Foot,” USAMHI, D769AZ no. 94 c.3.

“On 6 February, the Wehrmacht”: BA, RH2/8496.

“Our battery was still fully equipped”: AI Karl Godau.

“Panzer Lehr Division found”: Helmut Ritgen, Die Geschilhte der Panzer Lehr Division im Western 1944–45 (Stuttgart: Motorbuch Verlag, 1979), p. 276.

“We had to blow them up”: Helmut Günther, Von der Hitler-Jugend zur Waffen SS (Coburg: Nation Europa Verlag, 2001), p. 252.

“It was ‘subsistence warfare’ ”: AI George Schwemmer.

“It is essential that the change”: BA, RH2/328.

“When I reported back to my commander”: Helmut Schmidt, Kindheit und Jugend unter Hitler (Berlin: Siedler, 1992), p. 233.

“My flashlight revealed his greatly”: Howard M. Randall, War Chronicle (Sunbelt Media: 1999), p. 7.

“Yet Lieutenant Tony Moody”: AI Tony Moody.

“The casualties themselves”: Brenda McBryde, A Nurse’s War (Chatto & Windus: 1979), pp. 149–50.

“Tell them to go to hell”: Martin Blumenson, The Patton Papers, vol. ii (Houghton Mifflin: 1974), p. 629.

“Private Charles Felix was at a battalion”: Felix, op. cit., p. 65.

“He overdid it”: Gay Diary, op. cit., 2.1.45.

“A few of the men we had to put”: DuPuy, op. cit.

“Lieutenant William Devitt of the 330th”: Devitt, op. cit., p. 128.

“Sergeant Tony Carullo’s”: AI Tony Carullo.

“When the U.S. 90th Division”: NA, RG492–332, box 10.

“There was something a bit scary”: Interview with John S. D. Eisenhower, World War II, May 1994.

“For a victorious army”: NA, RG492–332, box 10.

“Everybody hated Veritable”: AI Field-Marshal Lord Carver.

“Private David Williams of the 104th”: David Williams MS, IWM, 98/3/1.

“It has been quite bloody”: Turner-Cain MS, op. cit.

“Private Frank Rumph dashed”: Frank Rumph, unpublished MS, SA.

“The Reichswald was the nastiest”: AI Field-Marshal Lord Bramall.

“at the last stage before frostbite”: Len Stokes, MS Diary, IWM.

“What’s up, Frank?”: Dai Evans, MS, IWM, 92/37/1.

“It is tough going”: PRO, CAB106/1071.

“It was the bravest thing”: AI Cliff Pettit.

“Every night, we kept wondering”: AI John Langdon.

“Bomb craters and fallen trees”: Captain J. L. J. Meredith, The Story of the Seventh Battalion, the Somerset Light Infantry (no publisher: 1945), p. 132.

“any action deserving of the VC”: Sir Arthur Harris to the author, 8.7.77.

“As usual, the rough plan”: Peter White, With the Focks (Sutton: 2001), p. 199.

“one young German still firing”: War History of the 4th Battalion, King’s Own Scottish Borderers (Halle: 1946), p. 143.

“of nuisance value only”: White, op. cit., p. 219.

“There was never an easy way”: AI Cliff Pettit and The Regimental Journal of the Cameronians, 1997.

“I do loathe all this destruction”: General Sir David Fraser, Wars and Shadows (Penguin: 2002), p. 250.

“The reputation of the Waffen SS”: NA, RG492–332, box 4.

“Twenty-two-year-old Katharina Minniger”: AI Katharina Minniger.

“They were in a terrible state”: AI Hildegarde Platten.

“the farmer went into a spiel”: Evans MS, op. cit.

“undue acceptance of parental authority”: PRO, WO106/5924, CI, Newssheet no. 17.

“this was the one period of my life”: AI Henry Kissinger.

“Helmut Lott, a fifteen-year-old”: AI Helmut Lott.

“on 16 March Dr. Alfred Meyer”: PRO, WO106/5924.

“I was dismayed to look out”: AI Lord Carrington.

“I’m going to end up defending”: AI Karl Godau.

“Those who weaken must be”: AI Rolf-Helmut Schröder.

“Lieutenant Tony Saurma’s loader”: AI Tony Saurma.

“Most German soldiers realize”: RMDA, vol. xv 4/5, p. 28.

“I have four divisions, facing 22 Soviet”: BA, RH2/333.

“On 13 March, the Luftwaffe’s”: Ibid.

“The whole cavalcade looked like”: Henry Metelmann, Through Hell for Hitler (Spellmount: 2001), pp. 185–6.

“Since the issue”: Second Army MD.

“Likewise Lieutenant Hummel”: RMDA, vol. xv 4/5, p. 64.

“It fills me with utter gloom”: Fraser, op. cit., pp. 248–9.

“I am here to represent”: Speer, op. cit., p. 434.

“Most people are still”: Von Lehndorff, op. cit., p. 38.

“ ‘Mind you,’ said the gunner amiably”: Colin McInnes, To the Victors the Spoils (Penguin: 1966), p. 176.

“It just means moving the catastrophe”: Heiber and Glantz, op. cit., p. 681.

“what we were doing was no longer”: AI Walter Schaefer-Kuhnert.

“The casualties to glider pilots”: PRO, WO106/4348.

“wonderful spirit of the men”: AI David Tibbs.

“Also, that as a young man”: Downward MS, op. cit., p. 107.

“but then as we were about six or eight feet”: Goldman, op. cit., p. 124.

“It was chaos”: Quoted Denis Edwards, The Devil’s Own Luck (Leo Cooper: 2001), p. 221.

“Peter Downward was overwhelmed”: Downward MS, op. cit., pp. 109–10.

“One of the stranger cargoes”: IWM, HS6/704.

“I honestly believe that he would”: Alanbrooke, op. cit., p. 678, 3.26.45.

“ ‘With hindsight,’ observed Kurt”: Kurt von Tippelskirch, Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkriegs (Bonn: Athenäum-Verlag, 1951), p. 558.

“My only experience of war”: AI John Langdon.

“There was an impatience, even desperation”: AI John Denison.

“The liberation of Germany”: Turner-Cain Diary, op. cit.

“Wilhelm Pritz had endured”: AI Wilhelm Pritz.

“In Normandy, these had accounted”: PRO, WO205/1164, ORC report no. 6, appendix A.

“They would grab at any straws”: Cooper, op. cit., p. 211.

“Observers said it looked more like”: Ibid., p. 240.

“The men as a whole are not well trained”: NA, RG492–332, box 12.

“Under stress, not infrequently”: AI David Tibbs.

“There was a certain reluctance”: AI Roy Dixon.

“The willpower to keep going”: AI W. F. Deedes.

“they are performing very well”: NA, RG492–332, box 12.

“An officer of the Highland Light Infantry”: Tom Flanagan, unpublished MS, IWM, 87/1911.

“He looked for places where the enemy”: Andrew Wilson, Flamethrower (Kimber: 1984), pp. 194–5.

“by April 1945, one in 165”: PRO, CAB106/1069.

“The sense that, with luck”: AI General Sir David Fraser.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: PRISONERS OF THE REICH

“The SS directly employed some 300,000”: See Milward, op. cit., passim.

“They could have been quicker”: AI Nikolai Maslennikov.

“You just accepted it”: AI Ron Graydon.

“Tom Barker, from Eastbourne”: I am indebted to Tom Barker for the opportunity to read and make use of the fascinating MS memoir of his experiences as a prisoner.

“Stanislas Domoradzki, a Pole”: Stanislas Domoradzki, MS memoir, SA.

“As an officer, Captain John Killick”: AI John Killick.

“we were told by the guards”: Burt MS, op. cit.

“their morale was at rock bottom”: Robert Harding, Copper Wire (Chess Mail: 2001).

“A twenty-year-old Liberator gunner”: AI Charles Becker.

“I have seen men degrade themselves”: Harding, op. cit.

“Oh, you were only inside”: AI Denis Thomas.

“Richard Feltham was amazed”: Feltham quoted Sewell, op. cit.

“When news of D-Day reached”: Barker MS, op. cit.

“We were never satisfied”: Peter Campbell MS, IWM, 86/35/1.

“Escape starts as a madness”: Ibid.

“John Killick suffered a special difficulty”: AI John Killick.

“The only thing that would end”: George Millar, Horned Pigeon (Doubleday: 1946), p. 434.

“Their demeanour was aloof”: Lindsey, op. cit.

“the fault of that stupid Geneva Convention”: Guderian, op. cit., p. 427.

“Göring pointed out to Hitler”: Heiber and Glantz, op. cit., p. 634.

“The young British soldier walked”: Barker MS, op. cit.

“American airman Richard Burt”: Burt MS, op. cit.

“Bill Bampton, a private of the East Surreys”: Bill Bampton MS, IWM.

“Dr. Helmut Hugel, a German”: Hugel Diary, IWM.

“Jerome Alexis rode on the hull”: Jerome Alexis, unpublished MS, SA.

“I feel terrible”: d’Este, Patton, op. cit., pp. 714–19.

“Every day a sort of”: Sewell, op. cit., p. 168.

“In Stalag XIB”: AI Denis Thomas.

“The saga of one of these men”: AI Mikhail Devyataev.

“Boredom is usually associated”: Jerzy Herszburg, unpublished MS, IWM, 86/89/1.

“We have taken steps to improve”: RSA, Stalin files 1135/5, Beria memorandum of 10.24.44.

“In the camps, many people died”: AI Nikolai Maslennikov.

“Zinaida Mikhailova spent three years”: AI Zinaida Mikhailova.

“Edith Gabor shared with”: AI Edith Gabor.

“In my opinion, a disproportionate”: PRO, FO371/42817 WR993.

“Gennady Trofimov was eight when he”: AI Gennady Trofimov.

“Viktor Mamontov was sixteen when he”: AI Viktor Mamontov.

“People soon realized that resistance”: AI Ted Van Meurs.

“At first when they took Jews”: AI Bert Egbertus.

“For most of the population”: AI Hans Cramer.

“His attitude is typical”: Second Army MD.

“There is considerable indifference”: Turner-Cain Diary, op. cit.

“security doubts on the reliability”: PRO, WO219/3738.

“The discovery that liberation”: PRO, WO219/11.

“There were some nice German officers”: AI Cas Tromp.

“It was not so bad for Dutch people”: AI Bert Egbertus.

“Ted Van Meurs, a medical student”: AI Ted Van Meurs.

“Not a person was to be seen”: Quoted van der Zee, op. cit., p. 46.

“It is unacceptable that bad”: Second Army MD.

“Eight-year-old Roelof Olderman”: AI Roelof Olderman.

“Cas Tromp was sent almost daily”: AI Cas Tromp.

“One day, Bert Egbertus’s mother”: AI Bert Egbertus.

“So too were Jan and Tom Wempe”: AI Theodore Wempe.

“Willem van den Broek’s mother”: AI Willem van den Broek.

“My mother was crying all the time”: AI Hans Cramer.

“Theodore Wempe thrilled each time”: AI Theodore Wempe.

“Take a litre of water”: van der Zee, op. cit., p. 150.

“Jan de Boer, one of nine children”: Jan de Boer letter to the author, 11.9.02.

“A Dutchman said he learned that winter”: van der Zee, op. cit., p. 65.

“Twelve-year-old Willem van”: AI Willem van den Broek.

“the shrunken bodies were lying”: van der Zee, op. cit., p. 158.

“The expression”: Ibid., p. 190.

“Bertha Schonfeld felt irrationally safe”: AI Bertha Schonfeld.

“The British Foreign Office told the Dutch”: Norman Longmate, Hitler’s Rockets (Hutchinson: 1985), p. 320.

“Antoinette Hamminga, a teenager”: Antoinette Hamminga letter to the author, 1.10.03.

“an example should be made”: PRO, HW/1 3709.

“Extremely fierce fighting”: Ibid.

“Surely you must know the war”: Elsa Caspers, To Save a Life (Macdonald: 1995), p. 134.

“We did it just for fun”: Annie van Beek letter to the author, 11.18.02.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: COLLAPSE IN THE WEST

“whose strategic significance was”: Weigley, op. cit., p. 678.

“Ridgway told the German colonel”: Gerald Devlin, Paratrooper! (Robson: 1979), p. 633.

“Lieutenant Rolf-Helmut Schröder”: AI Rolf-Helmut Schröder.

“what looked like a dark”: Robert Burger, unpublished MS, SA.

“When Ike’s son John”: Bradley, op. cit., p. 397.

“The PM is increasingly”: Alanbrooke, op. cit., p. 680, 4.1.45.

“there would definitely be a race”: Quoted d’Este, Eisenhower, op. cit., p. 691.

“More than one major historian”: Weigley, op. cit., p. 687.

“efforts to make sure that the Americans”: Cornelius Ryan, The Last Battle (Col-lins: 1966), p. 185.

“Eisenhower might well have sent”: Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower: The Soldier (Allen & Unwin: 1984), p. 392.

“ ‘I decided,’ he wrote in his”: Eisenhower, op. cit., p. 433.

“ ‘Apparently,’ Murphy wrote”: Foreign Relations of the U.S., vol. iii (U.S. Government Printing Office: 1965), p. 229.

“If you look at the world geopolitically”: AI Henry Kissinger.

“Staff-Sergeant Henry Kissinger”: Ibid.

“There was little that was cheerful”: Tedder, op. cit., p. 688.

“Allied officers often enlisted”: NA, RG492–332, box 12.

“The leading vehicle got knocked”: Leakey MS, op. cit.

“It seemed a stupid time to die”: Hough, op. cit., p. 169.

“On the Elbe front a weakish”: PRO, HW1/3715, Ultra.

“a deficiency of leadership”: Ibid.

“Private Ralph Gordon of First Army’s”: Gordon, op. cit., p. 87.

“In Lieutenant Howard Randall’s”: Randall, op. cit., p. 134.

“Consideration was not given to sick”: Major G. Gatling, copy report held by Werner Kleeman.

“A German woman handed”: AI Werner Kleeman.

“As men of the British 7th Somersets”: Stokes MS Diary.

“Lieutenant-Colonel Ferdinand Chesarek”: Chesarek oral history interview, op. cit.

“One night a British sentry woke”: Wilson, op. cit., p. 199.

“A contemporary British report”: PRO, WO106/4348, report no. 32.

“Did he have a Luger?”: Felix, op. cit., p. 143.

“Lieutenant Howard Randall’s”: Randall, op. cit., p. 128.

“Please do not let your men rape”: AI David Tibbs.

“During street fighting in Bremen”: White, op. cit., p. 434.

“The Germans were very hungry”: AI W. F. Deedes.

“Rape became a large problem”: “Military Offenders,” USAMHI, D769AZ no. 84.

“Sergeant Colin McInnes gazed”: McInnes, op. cit., p. 161.

“A British war correspondent”: Macdonald Hastings of Picture Post, private communication to the author.

“In ‘Red’ Thompson’s platoon”: AI “Red” Thompson.

“Lieutenant Tom Flanagan of the British”: Flanagan MS, op. cit.

“Pitiable middle-aged lady”: Proctor, op. cit., p. 128.

“In 21st Army Group throughout”: Report of the Army and Air Force Court Martial Committee, Cmd 7608, 1949.

“The countryfolk and their houses and farms”: Turner-Cain Diary, op. cit.

“An escaped Canadian pilot”: Steel-Brownlie MS, op. cit.

“Outside the town of Büdingen”: AI Helmut Lott.

“The attitude of civilians was really”: PRO, WO205/622.

“It sure makes you feel silly”: Quoted Robert Kee, 1945: The World We Fought For (Hamish Hamilton: 1985), p. 210.

“Private Denis Christian”: AI Denis Christian.

“With hindsight, it seemed”: Downward MS, op. cit.

“Es ist alles”: IWM, H56/704.

“Sergeant Robert Brookshire”: Robert Brookshire, unpublished MS, SA.

“There was some of the hardest fighting”: Hansen Papers, box 45B, USAMHI.

“Fanaticism is nasty”: AI Captain “Dim” Robbins.

“They were absolute sods”: AI Patrick Hennessy.

“A comrade noticed Fuller’s body”: Steel-Brownlie MS, op. cit.

“Clothing and underwear were caught”: Ibid.

“Once we got into Germany”: AI General Sir David Fraser.

“Germans are becoming increasingly bitter”: PRO, WO106/5924.

“Charles Farrell, a Scots Guards”: Charles Farrell, Reflections (Pentland Press: 2000), p. 131.

“A British tank officer glimpsed”: Steel-Brownlie MS, op. cit.

“In Germany it was a swan”: AI Roy Dixon.

“War is a very fatiguing experience”: AI W. F. Deedes.

“Until the very last moment”: AI Viktor Mamontov.

“The phrase ‘that’s what we are fighting for’ ”: Dr. A. R. Horwell MS, IWM, 91/21/3.

“At Belsen, I felt a curious elation”: AI David Tibbs.

“Take no initiative in organizing”: RMDA, vol. xv 5/4, p. 337, order of 4.24.45.

“A British officer complained to the Russians”: Ibid., pp. 353–4, Moscow correspondence with Admiral Archer, 5.15.45.

“After long journeys”: PRO, PREM 3/398/4 f. 276, quoted Gilbert, op. cit., p. 1312.

“If the British and Americans had not”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.97.

“Berlin never seemed so peaceful”: von Stemann MS, op. cit.

“We pretended that, having been through”: Ibid.

“The participants appeared to take it all”: Ibid.

“Ilse Bayer, twenty-five-year-old”: Unpublished MS, “My Life in Germany,” IWM, 95/13/1.

“Eleonore von Joest, who had trekked”: AI Eleonore von Joest.

“Henner Pflug fell into conversation”: AI Henner Pflug.

“Lieutenant Rolf-Helmut Schröder served”: AI Rolf-Helmut Schröder.

“Late in March after his unit”: AI Helmut Schmidt.

“When Sergeant George Schwemmer”: AI George Schwemmer.

“In the path of Konev’s armies”: AI Helmut Fromm.

“On 5 April, Victor Klemperer sat”: Klemperer, op. cit., pp. 541–2.

“A delegation of diplomats from the Japanese”: PRO, HW/1 3715.

“Captain Walter Schaefer-Kuhnert”: AI Walter Schaefer-Kuhnert.

“Moser and his young comrades”: AI Hans Moser.

“Captain Mackert, one of its battalion”: H. Spaeter and W. Schramm, Die Geschichte des Panzerkorps Grossdeutschland (Bielefeld: 1958), p. 665.

“The atmosphere was truly hopeless”: Tiemann, op. cit., pp. 277–8.

“At the makeshift hospital in the school”: AI Melany Borck.

“The flares being dropped by aircraft”: Fleming MS, IWM.

“Lieutenant Philip Dark”: Philip Dark MS, IWM.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: “THE EARTH WILL SHAKE AS WE LEAVE THE SCENE”

“I was a professional—I had to do my duty”: AI Karl-Günther von Hase.

“Suddenly, Krulik saw an 85mm anti-tank”: AI Valentin Krulik.

“We were at the end of our physical strength”: Meyer, op. cit., p. 302.

“The situation is hopeless”: BA, RH2/336.

“Our problem in 1945”: AI Valentin Krulik.

“The garrison of Vienna”: BA, RH2/336.

“He was a son of East Prussia”: K. Dieckert and H. Grossman, Der Kampf um Ost-preussen (Munich: Gräfe und Unzer, 1960), p. 165.

“I still believe in some kind of miracle”: Quoted J. Thorwald, Es begann an der Weichsel (Stuttgart: Steingrüber: 1950), p. 262.

“On 12 March, Russians found sixteen members”: RMDA, vol. xv 4/5, pp. 211–12, 2nd Belorussian Front report of 3.12.45.

“Many Germans in areas we have occupied”: Ibid., report of 4.4.45, p. 213.

“A gun would fire”: M. E. Katukov, Na Ostrie Glavnovo Udara, 2nd edn. (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1976), p. 386.

“Lieutenant Gennady Ivanov”: AI Gennady Ivanov.

“The colonel looked about inquisitively”: H. Schaufler, 1945 . . . Panzer an der Weichsel (Stuttgart: Motorbuch-Verlag, 1979), p. 102.

“Fourteen-year-old Erich Pusch”: AI Erich Pusch.

“Twenty-five-year-old Frieda Engler”: AI Elfi Kowitz.

“The Russians swept into the air-raid shelter”: AI Anita Bartsch.

“The whole place stank of corpses”: AI Vasily Krylov.

“It was very difficult to maintain order”: AI Fyodor Romanovsky.

“Yelena Kogan’s commanding officer”: AI Yelena Kogan.

“preposterous . . . I used such argumentative”: Guderian, op. cit., p. 402.

“If all our gauleiters in the east”: Heiber and Glantz, op. cit., p. 672.

“we saw it as our death sentence”: AI Karl Godau.

“This petty officer is certain of my full”: Ostseebefebl, Nr. 19, 4.19.45, IWM.

“his fists raised, his cheeks flushed”: Guderian, op. cit., pp. 414–15.

“No German town will be declared”: BA, RH2/336.

“a joke. These are Indians who”: Heiber and Glantz, op. cit., pp. 711–12.

“One of the last signals to OKH”: BA, RH2/336.

“I found myself commanding men of sixty”: AI Tony Saurma.

“As an inglorious refugee from Berlin”: Heiber and Glantz, op. cit., p. 722.

“Everyone now has a chance to choose”: Rudolf Semmler, Goebbels: The Man Next to Hitler (Westhouse: 1947), p. 194.

“In the last days of the war”: Temkin, op. cit., p. 215.

“We’d all had enough”: AI Nikolai Ponomarev.

“In the last month, especially”: AI Vladimir Gormin.

“Many have proved unstable in action”: Ministry of Defence Archives, The Great Patriotic War, ed. Major-General V. A. Zolotarev (Terra: 1995), vol. xv 4/5, p. 152.

“betrayed us in 1941 and they will betray”: Ibid., p. 153.

“They don’t look like soldiers”: Ibid.

“I wanted to fight, because everybody else”: AI Nikolai Dubrovsky.

“Many Germans seemed to feel that”: AI Pavel Nikiforov.

“a change of attitude towards prisoners”: RMDA, vol. xv 4/5, p. 120.

“I shall never forgive Zhukov for that folly”: AI Yury Ryakhovsky.

“I never thought I’d make it”: AI Vasily Filimonenko.

“A Sergeant Safronov reported seeing”: RMDA, vol. xv 4/5, p. 95.

“The divisional engineer Lieutenant-Colonel Lomov”: Ibid., p. 89, Political Department Report of 4.18.45.

“The further we got”: AI Vasily Filimonenko.

“nineteen-year-old Helga Braunschweig”: While all other names given in the text of this book are authentic, this woman asked for her identity to be protected by a pseudonym, because of embarrassment about her account of rape by the Russians.

“Any commander who shows himself”: Quoted RMDA, vol. xv 4/5, p. 95.

“Marshal Zhukov’s troops are now within”: Ibid., p. 160, 4.20.45.

“In the course of three days the infantry”: Ibid., p. 96.

“Due to the slowness of our advance”: Ibid., p. 515.

“In Wilmersdorf, the local situation”: Brigadier J. S. W. Stone Papers, LHA.

“Owing to the gravity”: PRO, HW/13715, Ultra.

“The first really wounded man”: Stone Papers, LHA.

“Third Guards Tank Army is conducting”: RMDA, vol. xv 5/4, p. 160.

“I keep being told that operations”: Ibid., p. 101.

“She’s English!”: Stone Papers, LHA.

“The enemy knows I am here”: Heiber and Glantz, op. cit., pp. 718–19.

“Today I will lie down a little more”: Ibid., p. 730.

“The whole scene was apocalyptic”: AI Yelena Kogan.

“commanders are taking serious steps”: RMDA, vol. xv 5/4, pp. 245–6, report of 5.2.45.

“It was crazy!”: AI Bruno Bochum.

“Johannes and Regina Krakowitz seldom”: AI Regina Krakowitz.

“A deputation of diplomats from the Japanese”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.95 1–1 283.

“A Wehrmacht officer emerged”: RMDA, vol. xv 5/4, p. 223, report of 4.24.45.

“Thank God there will be no more bombing”: AI Regina Krakowitz.

“Was pushed to the ground”: Margrit Hug diary loaned to the author.

“The Germans who fought to the last”: AI Yury Ryakhovsky.

“It seemed so strange, when the end”: AI Vasily Filimonenko.

“I disliked the idea of behaving”: AI Yury Ryakhovsky.

“I was here, too”: AI Vasily Krylov.

“Mutti decided she did not want”: Stone Papers, LHA, anon. narrative.

“Nothing is left of Berlin but memories”: Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham eds., Nazism 1919–45 (Exeter University Press: 1974), 4 doc. 1397, p. 667.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE BITTER END

“The Germany in which we found ourselves”: Moorehead, op. cit., p. 260.

“It was bitter to learn that Goebbels’s”: von Stemann MS, op. cit.

“People had so much hatred”: AI Valentin Krulik.

“No German soldier would have behaved”: AI Hans Siwik.

“Red soldiers during the first weeks”: Congressional Record, U.S. Senate, 12.4.45, p. 11,374.

“On the night of 2 May”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.95 1–1 294.

“Vlassov’s men were kicked to death”: AI Gennady Ivanov.

“A day or two before the end”: AI Valentin Krulik.

“Yelena Kogan, the NKVD interpreter”: AI Yelena Kogan.

“Let us not kid ourselves”: AI Vasily Filimonenko.

“What the Red Army did in Germany”: AI Yelena Kogan.

“The British people were surprised”: Fraser, op. cit., p. 257.

“Dorothea Goesse, wife of an Austrian”: AI Leopold Goesse.

“I did not mourn Hitler”: AI Karl Godau.

“I knew nothing about the Holocaust”: AI Maria Brauwers.

“Corporal Helmut Fromm”: AI Helmut Fromm.

“The fourteen-year-olds were very dangerous”: AI W. F. Deedes.

“we felt like butchers”: Walter L. Brown, Up Front with US (privately published: 1979), p. 490.

“The rules of war got very fractured”: AI W. F. Deedes.

“After a certain amount of argument”: Neave Diary, op. cit.

“They always put on their best”: Ron Gladman, Citizen Soldier (West Somerset Free Press: 1995), p. 63.

“Field-Marshal von Manstein”: Alexandr Stahlberg, Bounden Duty (Brassey’s: 1990), p. 400.

“He told Krulik to investigate”: AI Valentin Krulik.

“An onlooker in the village of Niemegle”: von Stemann MS, op. cit.

“It’s over, men”: AI Gottfried Selzer.

“I thought it was too late now”: PM’s minute, D.121/5 4.24.45, quoted Gilbert, op. cit., p. 1310.

“looked like men in a dream”: War Diary, GSHO, 1 Cdn Corps, appendix 43.

“Flight-Lieutenant Richard Hough”: Hough, op. cit., p. 150.

“I felt a great sadness”: AI Vasily Kudryashov.

“We didn’t celebrate the end of the war”: Gladman, op. cit., p. 86.

“three beautiful Red Army reconnaissance”: AI Gennady Trofimov.

“Lieutenant Gennady Ivanov was in Rostock”: AI Gennady Ivanov.

“Inge Stolten, a Düsseldorf housewife”: AI Eggert Stolten.

“We were so indoctrinated that we had never”: AI Jutta Dietze.

“In a cell in Moscow’s Butykri prison”: AI Karl-Günther von Hase.

“Now life begins!”: AI Eleonor von Joest.

“Colonel, the war is over”: AI Vladimir Gormin.

“We did not mind doing this”: AI Waltraut Ptack.

“I suppose I should feel elated”: Cross Papers, IWM, 91/8/1.

“Everything we had fought for”: AI Hans-Otto Polluhmer.

“Every day seemed a festival”: AI Theodore Wempe.

“In a little town outside Amsterdam”: AI Bob Stompas.

“Germany and Russia have suffered”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.96.

“If a Russian soldier violates you”: Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, Shauplatz Berlin, (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984), pp. 37–40.

“ ‘My dears,’ he said apologetically”: Mrs. A. S. C. McVean MS, IWM.

“to dive for cover in the Wehrmacht”: Peter Padfield, Dönitz (Cassell: 2001), p. 423.

“Martin Mutschmann, gauleiter of Saxony”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.96.

“If the Russians get at them”: AI Gotz Bergander.

“I don’t think”: Horwell MS, op. cit.

“expected to be ill-treated”: Moorehead, op. cit., p. 221.

“You do not understand how brutal”: Harding, op. cit.

“When Corporal Harry Trinder was freed”: Harry Trinder MS, IWM, 85/8/1.

“The wife of a large estate-owner”: Ann Villiers MS, IWM.

“Soon after Texan GI Bud Lindsey”: Lindsey, op. cit.

“We had not smelt”: AI Klaus Fischer.

“Sixteen-year-old Corporal Helmut Fromm’s”: AI Helmut Fromm.

“The family of sixteen-year-old Hans Moser”: AI Hans Moser.

“Captain Leopold Goesse watched”: AI Leopold Goesse.

“What extraordinary people the Germans are”: AI W. F. Deedes.

“Think how many roads and railways”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.99.

“whispered to his interpreter that he had something”: Ibid., g.97.

“Von Rundstedt, being driven as a captive”: NA, RG492–332, box 12.

“They professed to be outraged”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.96.

“Were you a professional soldier?”: Williams, op. cit., p. 300.

“There were thousands of men”: Carl Basham MS, SA.

“The NKVD complained that such unilateral”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.96.

“Colonel-General Hesleni”: Ibid.

“In the east, however, it was another”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.97.

“Our men had dropped their guard”: AI Gennady Klimenko.

“At first they mobbed us”: Piotr Tareczynski MS, IWM.

“When Zinaida Mikhailova saw the first”: AI Zinaida Mikhailova.

“When Veta Kogakevich was liberated”: AI Veta Kogakevich.

“We felt too exhausted to celebrate”: Herszburg MS, op. cit.

“Nothing had prepared us for the camps”: AI Dorothy Beavers.

“Any Italians here?”: AI David Pecora.

“Why do you care for the Jews first?”: AI Henry Kissinger.

“displayed no emotion at all”: AI Cliff Pettit.

“For the last six weeks”: AI Nikolai Maslennikov.

“Sometimes we despaired for these men”: McBryde, op. cit., p. 169.

“One night the farmer with whom”: AI Jutta Dietze.

“Twenty-two-year-old Private Harold Lindstrom”: Lindstrom MS, op. cit.

“Private Henry Williams, a New Yorker”: Donald T. Peak, Fire Mission (Sunflower University Press: 2001), p. 189.

“What good is all awareness of the peril”: Klemperer, op. cit., pp. 584–5.

“You must have been fascists”: AI Ibragim Dominov.

“Lieutenant Tony Saurma of the Grossdeutschland”: AI Tony Saurma.

“When Ursula Salzer escaped”: AI Ursula Salzer.

“Is there any place that is free from evil?”: Evelyn Waugh, Unconditional Surrender (Chapman & Hall: 1961).

“An NKVD report of 26 May”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.96.

“Genrikh Naumovich survived Mauthausen”: AI Genrikh Naumovich.

“Eighteen-year-old Viktor Mamontov”: AI Viktor Mamontov.

“Most of the people from our village”: AI Valya Brekeleva.

“Georgi Semenyak, who survived”: AI Georgi Semenyak.

“Captain Vasily Legun, a Soviet bomber”: AI Vasily Legun.

“I grew up in a world in which”: AI Anita Barsch.

“translated the nation’s tragedy”: D. Volkogonov, Stalin, Triumph and Tragedy (Weidenfeld & Nicolson: 1991), p. 509.

“After the defeat of Japan”: Quoted Maurice Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare 1943–44 (Department of the Army: 1959), pp. 533–4.

“This is what we have been fighting for”: Robert Rhodes James ed., “Chips”: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon (Weidenfeld & Nicolson: 1967), p. 414.

“Bands of Army Krajowa bandits”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.96.

“The logistical difficulties were surmountable”: Roy Jenkins, Churchill (Macmillan: 2001), pp. 783–6.