After Hitler: The Last Ten Days of World War II in Europe (11 page)

A short distance away from the house we found an NKVD soldier, completely drunk, lying fast asleep in a meadow. These units followed behind the frontline fighting – and we were well aware of their reputation.

The woman identified him as the murderer and the two men kicked him awake. Filin covered him with a sub-machine gun. The colonel took out his pistol, removed all the bullets except one and said quietly:

‘I give you a minute. At least end your life with some self-respect. At the end of the minute I will help you finish it as a coward.’

‘The shot rang out after a few seconds. We reported it as a suicide.’

On 30 April 1945 troops of Rokossovsky’s 49th Army occupied the small German town of Fürstenburg, about 50 miles north of Berlin. Captain Boris Makarov’s 385th Rifle Division was leading the way. Makarov had been ordered to set up an advance HQ. It was a picturesque location – the town was bordered by three lakes. ‘Everything was very peaceful,’ Makarov recalled. ‘There was nothing to hear and nothing to see – all was calm and still. And then a woman appeared who spoke Russian, who told us about a nearby camp at Ravensbrück. There were many women there – and they were all sick.’

Makarov and his soldiers accompanied her to the camp. At its gates they were met by Nina Nikiforov, the senior Russian prison doctor, who was now in charge of the Infirmary. She showed Makarov and his men round, explaining the dire situation. There was no electricity, no water, and around forty women were dying every day. Soviet soldier Yakov Drabkin was one of the liberators: ‘We found about 3,000 sick women there – and adolescent girls at an ancillary camp at Uckermark,’ he remembered. ‘The most horrifying thing was finding out about the “medical experiments” performed on these poor women.’ These had included amputations and a sterilisation programme. Many Russians had been in the camp, including female Red Army POWs.

Ravensbrück was built in 1938 – and was Nazi Germany’s largest women’s camp. Shortly before the Russians arrived the SS took more than 20,000 of these women on a ‘death march’, leaving in the camp those too sick to move. The following day a Russian medical unit headed by Major Bulanov arrived and set up a hospital for all those who had been left behind.

All seemed in a ghastly state of flux. Amid these horrors, political matters proceeded inexorably. To safeguard Russia’s future relations with Poland, Stalin had proposed that territory in the eastern part of the country should be given to the Soviet Union and Poland recompensed in the west with land taken from Germany. At Yalta, Britain and America had consented to this arrangement. Stalin now envisaged that the Silesian city of Breslau and the lands around it would be ceremonially handed over to the Polish army. Under the Yalta agreement, these lands would form part of the new Poland and its German inhabitants would then be expelled. But the Red Army had to capture the city first.

Breslau was Hitler’s ‘fortress city’. It had endured a siege of over three months under the fanatical defence of Karl Hanke, the Nazi Party leader in Silesia. Soviet planes bombed the city and Red Army artillery shelled it constantly. German and Russian soldiers fought ferociously for every street, every house. On 1 May Breslau was still holding out against the Soviet 6th Army. On that day the city’s Nazi broadsheet, the
Schlesische Tageszeitung
, opined: ‘We want to celebrate May 1st in our way – as a German spring festival. We do not want to be slaves of Bolshevism, far from our homes and families, living a life of little or no value, losing everything which we have created … We must come through this struggle at all costs.’

Walter Lassman observed: ‘Today is the so-called national holiday of the German people. Here, in besieged Breslau, people “celebrate” in different ways. Our doctor, Dr Franz, is plastered and unable to work. Many soldiers also stagger drunkenly through the streets of the fortress. The constant tension briefly evaporates – and the harsh reality is turned on its head.’

That evening, news of Hitler’s death – now recast as a heroic stand at the head of his troops outside Berlin’s Reich Chancellery – was announced on the German radio. A Wehrmacht officer from Army Group Centre, stationed at Rawenitz, near Prague, jotted down his thoughts:

‘The Führer has died in Berlin. Deep impression. Long silence. Appeal: resistance goes on. The troops see the death of the Führer as a heroic gesture – or at least the majority do.’

In Breslau, German soldier Hans Gottwald observed mixed reactions: ‘Many seem initially paralysed by shock or horror,’ he noted, ‘but some comrades openly show relief and even delight.’

In London’s Downing Street news of Hitler’s death was brought in midway through Winston Churchill’s dinner with press baron Lord Beaverbrook. ‘He was perfectly right to die in such a fashion,’ the British prime minister responded. ‘Except that it almost certainly didn’t happen like that,’ Beaverbrook responded more carefully. A Nazi mythology was already being created.

Beneath it lay a harsh reality. As the month of May began, the first day after the death of Hitler, it was hard to comprehend all that was being uncovered. In Breslau, Walter Lassman was struck by a reluctance to engage with it all. He continued: ‘We hear shouting in the streets, an accordion playing somewhere. Soldiers in uniform waltz with each other. I saw one who pranced around like a horse, barefooted and wearing a top-hat. It all gives the impression of a
danse macabre
.’

3

East Meets West

2
May
1945

‘T
HE 2ND MAY
was one of the most astounding days I have ever experienced,’ remembered Major Jerry McFadden of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion, fighting as part of the British 6th Airborne Division.

We ran out of Germans and ran into the Russians. The German Army gave up by the thousands. We rode on tanks and in trucks from 5.00am to 4.00pm – sometimes driving at 40mph. At one point, in a heavily wooded area, we drove through what seemed to be a German tank corps, all lined up facing the road, officers and crew standing at attention, saluting as we went by. We saluted back and got the hell out of there. Our tail gunners stopped and chatted, discovering that they were surrendering. They were out of fuel.

As we drove towards Wismar at dusk, we saw Russian Army tanks at the crossroads. All Germans, civilians and soldiers, are terribly afraid of the Russians – and I don’t blame them. They are exceptional fighters – and just as tough as they look.

Captain Derek Thomas, manning an advance observation post on 6th Airborne’s flank, formed a similar impression. He recalled:

We were in an isolated and vulnerable position, in a near-deserted village. We set up our forward HQ in a large house. And then we encountered a foot patrol of Russians – on reconnaissance – led by a senior officer. They were surprised to see us but greeted us with great exuberance. The Soviet commander insisted on showing me his equipment, with some pride. He had an automatic pistol, a compass and a map case – all attached to him by a fine chain.

The meetings between troops of the Western Allies and the Soviet Union were – for many who participated in them – unforgettable experiences. Not all of those impressions were favourable, but for the majority they were powerful and moving, despite the language difficulties. As soldiers from both sides met each other their encounters made the Grand Alliance tangible. Meetings took place against a political and military backdrop that was sometimes carefully planned and choreographed; on other occasions spontaneous and even dangerous. Suspicion existed on both sides. And yet there was also a strong reservoir of goodwill. The fighting men recognised that they had achieved a joint victory and one worth celebrating.

On 2 May 1945 Field Marshal Montgomery’s 21st Army Group was crossing the Elbe and making a dash for the Baltic ports of Lübeck and Wismar. The Western Allies knew Marshal Rokossovsky’s Soviet forces were pushing fast along the Baltic from the opposite direction. By linking up with the Red Army they would cut off retreating German forces, including the 3rd Panzer Army. Several hundred thousand Wehrmacht troops would not then be able to regroup in Schleswig-Holstein and bolster the new Dönitz regime which was based there.

This bold plan, which had been approved by the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight Eisenhower, gave Montgomery – Britain’s chief commander in north-west Europe – a final attacking role in the war’s last stages. The objective was to secure the quick surrender of a mass of German troops and hasten the end of hostilities. Eisenhower trusted the Russians – saw the link-up with them positively – and was looking to finish off the Wehrmacht. He spelled out these plans in a directive at the end of April 1945:

‘By a thrust to the Baltic we should cut off from the main enemy armies [those in central Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia] those elements located in Denmark, Norway, north-west Germany and [western] Holland … Furthermore we should gain the north German ports and thus deny the enemy the use of his naval bases and ship-building yards. Finally, we should link hands with the Russian forces sweeping across Pomerania to the north of Berlin.’

The British – Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his chief of staff, General Sir Alan Brooke – saw things differently. They were less concerned about the Germans and more about the Russians. They did not want the Red Army to advance too far into Europe. And they particularly did not want Russian troops moving into Denmark. At Yalta, no one had foreseen that Denmark might be in a Soviet zone of influence. On 19 April 1945 Churchill had telegraphed his foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, stating:

It is thought most important that Montgomery should take Lübeck [the Baltic port halfway between Hamburg and Wismar] as soon as possible – and he has an additional American Army Corps to strengthen his movements if he requires it. Our arrival at Lübeck before our Russian friends from Stettin would save a lot of argument later on. There is no reason why the Russians should occupy Denmark, which is a country to be liberated and to have its sovereignty restored. Our position at Lübeck, if we get it, would be decisive in this matter.

Churchill was always aware of the course of history. He would have remembered the importance of Nelson’s gaining sea victory at Copenhagen over the Russian fleet, which prevented them gaining an outlet on the Baltic. And he keenly felt the symbolism of the last stages of the war. The Red Army was liberating all the major capitals of central and eastern Europe. He felt rebuffed that an Anglo-American attempt on Berlin had not been given serious consideration – and by the fact that Eisenhower had communicated this decision directly to Stalin without consulting the British chiefs of staff first.

Relations between Britain and Russia had deteriorated after Yalta. As early as 8 March 1945 Churchill appraised the war cabinet of recent events in Romania, saying that the Graza government had been put in power by violence – and that this had been orchestrated by the Russians. He added that while he felt no sympathy for the Romanians, he detested these ‘murderous methods’. Churchill then remarked that Russia was behaving badly – not only in Romania but also in Poland. On 3 April he was much more emphatic, saying that there had been ‘a change of atmosphere’ since Yalta and wondering whether Stalin’s power was being challenged by others. Events in April would further fuel his suspicions of the Soviet Union.

Churchill was concerned that the Russians had liberated Vienna and installed a pro-Soviet government there, and excluded Western observers from visiting the city. He remained deeply pained by the deterioration of the situation in Poland. On 24 April he made an outright condemnation of the Soviet Union in a meeting of the war cabinet:

‘The Polish issue had now become the crux of Russian good faith – or the lack of it,’ Churchill declared. ‘At the Yalta conference no-one could have envisaged things would become as bad as this.’

He was also saddened by the perhaps inevitable decline in Britain’s influence within the Grand Alliance. In terms of manpower and industrial might, America and Russia were now the main players – with Britain reduced to a supporting role.

Churchill’s military schemes had grown increasingly erratic in the last months of the war. His insistence on conquering the Greek island of Rhodes – held by an isolated German garrison – was the nadir: the eastern Mediterranean theatre of war had little relevance now to anyone but Churchill, and his preoccupation with this arena was greeted with bafflement by America, disdain by the Soviet Union and exasperation even within Churchill’s own circle of supporters. But at the very end, Churchill recovered his military instinct. There was real wisdom in securing Denmark and some of the Baltic ports. And the situation in northern Italy was now working to the advantage of the Western Allies.

Italy had always exercised a strong magnetism over Churchill. He had persuaded America to work with him in expelling the Germans from North Africa. Then first Sicily and subsequently Italy proper were invaded by Anglo-American forces. Churchill had regarded Italy as the ‘soft underbelly’ of Europe. It proved anything but. The invasion brought down Mussolini’s fascist government, but the Germans moved in in force, using the mountain spine of the country to their advantage and constructing a series of strong defence lines. As they were dislodged from one, they fell back in good order to the next. This was the remarkable achievement of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, who managed his ground troops with the same organisational skill that he had deployed with the Luftwaffe.

Fighting in Italy became bogged down, and the priority became the establishment of a Second Front in north-west Europe. This was the objective of President Roosevelt, his army chief of staff General George Marshall and the brilliant operational planner General Eisenhower, who would be chosen to enact it as Supreme Allied Commander. It was absolutely the right course of action – one that began to rebuild trust with the Soviet Union, and was pushed through over the objections of Churchill, who never had much enthusiasm for it.