Hitler And His Generals: Military Conferences 1942–1945 from Stalingrad to Berlin

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Browning, Christopher R. (2007). The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942. University of Nebraska Press. Generalplan Ost: The Search for a Final Solution through Expulsion. ISBN 978-0803203921.

And they launched this big Soviet counter-offensive in front of the gates of Moscow and catch the Germans completely by surprise and force them onto the retreat and that's the end of Barbarossa. On April 30 he said farewell to Goebbels and the few others remaining, then retired to his suite and shot himself. His wife took poison. In accordance with his instructions, their bodies were burned.Hitler received the final military plans for the invasion on 5 December 1940, which the German High Command had been working on since July 1940 under the codename "Operation Otto". Upon reviewing the plans, Hitler formally committed Germany to the invasion when he issued Führer Directive 21 on 18 December 1940, where he outlined the precise manner in which the operation was to be carried out. [81] Hitler also renamed the operation to Barbarossa in honor of medieval Emperor Friedrich I of the Holy Roman Empire, a leader of the Third Crusade in the 12th century. [82] The Barbarossa Decree, issued by Hitler on 30 March 1941, supplemented the Directive by decreeing that the war against the Soviet Union would be one of annihilation and legally sanctioned the eradication of all Communist political leaders and intellectual elites in Eastern Europe. [83] The invasion was tentatively set for May 1941, but it was delayed for over a month to allow for further preparations and possibly better weather. [84] Symonds, Craig (2014). Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199986118. Second, soldiers received the “Guidelines for the Behavior of the Troops” which instructed that “this war demands ruthless and aggressive action against Bolshevik agitators, snipers, saboteurs, and Jews, and tireless elimination of any active or passive resistance.” Thus, Jews became almost immediately a target for the German army.

Another curious account of late days in the bunker came from Gerhard Herrgesell, one of Hitler’s stenographers, who told American interrogators that the exchange wasn’t one-sided. Frantic leadersKeitel and Alfred Jodl, the head of Germany’s armed forces operations staff, warned Hitler to leave Berlin. “I have killed many generals because they retreated,” Hitler said, according to Herrgesell ‘srecollection in an interview on April 14, 1948. “Therefore, I will not retreat myself. When I leave Berlin, everything is lost.”

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Snyder, Timothy (2010). Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-46503-147-4. Roberts, Geoffrey (2014). "Stalin's Wartime Vision of the Peace, 1939–1945". In Snyder, Timothy; Brandon, Ray (eds.). Stalin and Europe: Imitation and Domination, 1928–1953. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19994-558-0. Glantz, David (2002). Slaughterhouse: The Encyclopedia of the Eastern Front. Garden City, NY: The Military Book Club. ISBN 978-0-73943-128-3.

The German army first encountered the Einsatzgruppen in Poland in 1939, to the consternation of some generals. For example in February 1940, Johannes Blaskowitz, German military commander for the eastern territories, complained about the SS policy of slaughtering some 10,000 Jews and Poles, which he believed would hurt Germany. He argued that such actions strengthened enemy propaganda about German atrocities, united Jews and Poles against Germany, weakened the respect of the Wehrmacht, and led to the spread of mass depravity among Germans. He urged that those units found guilty of carrying out such murderous actions be held accountable by military authorities. Main articles: Einsatzgruppen, German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war, The Holocaust in Russia, and War crimes of the Wehrmacht Masha Bruskina, a nurse with the Soviet resistance, before her execution by hanging. The placard reads: We are the partisans who shot German troops, Minsk, 26 October 1941. Many of these divisions don't have uniforms they're just civilian clothes, some of the divisions they have to share rifles there's not enough rifles to go around. At the same time, the first arctic convoys are arriving in Murmansk and Archangel bringing supplies from Britain, just giving enough equipment for the soviets to sort of stay in the field. Gellately, Robert (1990). The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933–1945. Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-820297-4. Main article: Germany–Soviet Union relations, 1918–1941 The geopolitical disposition of Europe in 1941, immediately before the start of Operation Barbarossa. The grey area represents Nazi Germany, its allies, and countries under its control.

Dear, Ian; Foot, M. R. D., eds. (1995). The Oxford Guide to World War II. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-534096-9. Blumentritt, Günther (1952). Von Rundstedt: The Soldier and the Man. London: Odhams Press . Retrieved 12 August 2021. Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. Just four days later, he met privately with top military leaders to attempt to win their support. This was especially important because the military had historically played a very important role in German society and therefore had the ability to overthrow the new regime. And that wasn't the only problem for Germany. Though these new troops were undersupplied and under-trained, new supplies were beginning to arrive from Britain.

Liedtke, Gregory (2016). Enduring the Whirlwind: The German Army and the Russo-German War 1941–1943. Helion and Company. ISBN 978-0-313-39592-5. These postwar agreements were an attempt to update international law in a way that would prevent another conflict as destructive as World War I. However, the dominant attitude within the German army was that military necessity always outweighed international la w. L ike many other nations, Germany bent or broke the rules when it found it advantageous to do so . Baker, Lee (2009). The Second World War on the Eastern Front. London: Pearson Longman. ISBN 978-1-40584-063-7. Breitman, Richard (1990). "Hitler and Genghis Khan". Journal of Contemporary History. 25 (2/3): 337–351. doi: 10.1177/002200949002500209. JSTOR 260736. S2CID 159541260.

1. Heinrich Himmler

When the operation commenced on the 22nd of June 1941 those tactics worked perfectly, the advance exceeding all expectations. Hundreds of thousands of troops were captured as German tanks steamed through the Soviet defences. Childers, Thomas (2017). The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-45165-113-3. Rees, Laurence (2010). "What Was the Turning Point of World War II?". HistoryNet . Retrieved 8 July 2017. Braithwaite, Rodric (2010). Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War. Profile Books. ISBN 978-1-86197774-8. Megargee, Geoffrey (2000). Inside Hitler's High Command. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-70061-015-0.