rise-and-fall-of-the-third-reich-william-shirer-pdf

998 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICHa motor caravan whose trucks were filled with booty from his fabulous estate,Karinhall. Each of these Old Guard Nazis left convinced that his beloved Leaderwould soon be dead and that he would succeed him.They never saw him again. Nor did Ribbentrop, who also scurried for saferparts late that night.But Hitler had not yet given up. On the day after his birthday he orderedan all-out counterattack on the Russians in the southern suburbs of Berlin byS.S. General Felix Steiner. Every available soldier in the Berlin area was to bethrown into the attack, including the Luftwaffe ground troops.”Any commander who holds back his forces,” Hitler shouted to GeneralKoller, who had remained behind to represent the Air Force, ”will forfeit hislife in five hours. You yourself will guarantee with your head that the last manis thrown in.” 1334All through the day and far into the next Hitler waited impatiently for thenews of Steiner’s counterattack. It was a further example of his loss of contactwith reality. There was no Steiner attack. It was never attempted. It existedonly in the feverish mind of the desperate dictator. When he was finally forcedto recognize this the storm broke.April 22 brought the last turning point in Hitler’s road to ruin. From earlymorning until 3 p.m. he had been on the telephone, as he had been the daybefore, trying to find out from the various command posts how the Steinercounterattack was going. No one knew. General Keller’s planes could not locateit, nor could the ground commanders, though it was supposed to be rolling onlytwo or three miles south of the capital. Not even Steiner, though he existed,could be found, let alone his army.The blowup came at the daily military conference in the bunker at 3 p.m.Hitler angrily demanded news of Steiner. Neither Keitel nor Jodl nor anyoneelse had any. But the generals had other news. The withdrawal of troops fromthe north of Berlin to support Steiner had so weakened the front there that theRussians had broken through and their tanks were now within the city limits.This was too much for the Supreme Warlord. All the surviving witnessestestify that he completely lost control of himself. He flew into the greatest rageof his life. This was the end, he shrieked. Everyone had deserted him. Therewas nothing but treason, lies, corruption and cowardice. All was over. Verywell, he would stay on in Berlin. He would personally take over the defense ofthe capital of the Third Reich. The others could leave, if they wished. In thisplace he would meet his end.The others protested. There was still hope, they said, if the Fuehrer retiredto the south, where Field Marshal Ferdinand Schoeraer’s army group inCzechoslovakia and considerable forces of Kesselring were still intact. Doenitz,who had left for the northwest to take over command of the troops there, andHimmler, who, as we shall see, was up to his own game, telephoned to urge theLeader not to remain in Berlin. Even Ribbentrop called up to say he was aboutto spring a ”diplomatic coup” which would save everything. But Hitler had nomore faith in them, not even in his ”second Bismarck,” as he once, in a momentof folly, had called his Foreign Minister. He had made his decision, he said toall. And to show them that it was irrevocable, he called for a secretary and intheir presence dictated an announcement that was to be read immediately overthe radio. The Fuehrer, it said, would stay in Berlin and defend it to the end.Hitler then sent for Goebbels and invited him, his wife and their six young