Category: Writing

“Everyone had a score to settle. But along the Western Front the German Army scarcely existed any longer as a cohesive, organized force. Decimated during the Ardennes offensive, the Reich’s once-powerful armies had been finally smashed in the month-long campaign between the Moselle and the Rhine. Hitler’s decision to fight west of the Rhine rather than withdraw his battered forces to prepared positions on the eastern banks had proven disastrous; it would be recorded as one of the greatest military blunders of the war. Nearly 300,000 men had been taken prisoner and 60,000 were killed or wounded. In all, the Germans lost the equivalent of more than twenty full divisions.”

Ryan, Cornelius. The Last Battle. 1966. p. 130-1

“On March 6 [Major General Hellmuth] Reymann assumed command. Within a few hours he made an appalling discovery. Although Hitler had declared Berlin a Festung, the fortifications existed only in the Fuhrer’s imagination. There was no plan, there were no defenses and there were virtually no troops. Worse, no provision had been made for the civilian population; an evacuation plan for the women, children and old people simply did not exist.”

Ryan, Cornelius. The Last Battle. 1966. p. 65 (italics in original)

“The Nazis occupied a particular place in the life of the city. Berliners had never fully accepted Hitler or his evangelism. They had always been too sophisticated and too international in outlook. In fact, the Berliner’s caustic humor, political cynicism and almost complete lack of enthusiasm for the Fuhrer and his new order had long plagued the Nazi Party. Whenever torchlight parades or other Nazi demonstrations to impress the world were held in Berlin, thousands of storm troopers had to be shipped in from Munich to beef up the crowds of marchers. ‘They look better in the newsreels than we do,’ wisecracked the Berliners, ‘and they also have bigger feet!’

Try as he might, Hitler was never able to capture the hearts of the Berliners. Long before the city was demolished by Allied bombs, a frustrated and angry Hitler was already planning to rebuild Berlin and shape it to the Nazi image. He even intended to change its name to Germania, for he had never forgotten that in every free election in the thirties Berliners had rejected him. In the critical balloting of 1932 when Hitler was sure he would unseat Hindenburg, Berlin gave him its lowest vote of all – only 23 percent. Now, the fanatics among the citizenry were determined to make Berlin, the least Nazi city in Germany, the last Festung (fortress) of Nazism. Although they were in the minority, they were still in control.”

Ryan, Cornelius. The Last Battle. 1966. p. 52 (emphasis in original)

“Dr. Margot Sauerbruch also expected the worst. She worked with her husband, Professor Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Germany’s most eminent surgeon, in Berlin’s oldest and largest hospital, the Charité, in the Mitte district. Because of its size and location close by the main railway station, the hospital had received the worst of the refugee cases. From her examination of the victims, Dr. Sauerbruch had no illusions about the ferocity of the Red Army when it ran amok. The rapes, she knew for certain, were not propaganda.

Margot Sauerbruch was appalled by the number of refugees who had attempted suicide – including scores of women who had not been molested or violated. Terrified by what they had witnessed or heard, many had slashed their wrists. Some had even tried to kill their children. How many had actually succeeded in ending their lives nobody knew – Dr. Sauerbruch saw only those who had failed – but it seemed clear that a wave of suicides would take place in Berlin if the Russians captured the city.

Most other doctors apparently concurred with this view. In Wilmersdorf, Surgeon Gunther Lamprecht noted in his diary that ‘the major topic – even among doctors – is the technique of suicide. Conversations of this sort have become unbearable.'”

Ryan, Cornelius. The Last Battle. 1966. p. 31