100 Days in History: The Agony of The "Third Reich"

[Martin Antonenko]

Over the Reich:
Royal Airforce bomber aquadrons fly attacks on Hanover, Osnabrück and Münster.

They cannot do much more than digging up the rubble of the already totally destroyed cities (here Hannover) ...



That is different with the 1,200 year old city of Hildesheim, 50 kilometers south of Hannover!

There are still many undestroyed buildings there...:









Like the citizens of Dresden, the residents of Hildesheim had given themselves to the illusion that the old city with its irreplaceable architectural monuments protected it and prevented the Allies from attacking.

Wrong thought! On this day the "Lancasters" of Bomber Command appear over the city!



The historic old town is wiped out in less than an hour! 85% of half-timbered houses, 80% of all public buildings, schools and churches, 50% of industrial plants fall victim to the bombs.







The old Hildesheim no longer exists!

The total number of victims: 1,645 people, including 103 foreigners; 277 dead could no longer be identified.

The town hall is also intact before the attack!

What the Allies do not know: In this town hall there is a provisional concentration camp, into which 500 prisoners have been crammed by the SS!

During the attack, the town hall was badly damaged by several direct hits, and about half of the prisoners who were not allowed to get to safety before the attack die...:



Even after the attack, the SS forced the unfortunate to remain in the destroyed building because they needed to be cleaned up in the city.

Only after a few days will she march to the Ahlem subcamp near Hanover, from where they will be sent on a death march to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp with the other prisoners in the camp ...

 

[Martin Antonenko]

More...


Western Front:


Today the British manage to combine their four small bridgeheads, which they have struck across the Lower Rhine, into one large one with a front width of 45 kilometers!





A rare photo: British soldiers cross the Rhine in a captured German "Kübelwagen" ...:








Further south, the 3rd U.S. Army takes Darmstadt and Hanau.

The Americans can occupy Darmstadt practically without resistance, not much is left of the former city of 110,000 since the great air raid of September 11, 1944 ...



Hanau, on the other hand, must be shot "storm ready" beforehand ...



The next picture shows 155-mm M12 GMC artillery self-propelled guns from the 11th US Panzer Division, which have been positioned near Büdesheim, close to Hanau ...:



Since the Allies have achieved total aerial control over Hitler's empire, they can openly deploy their equipment in the open and do not have to bother to camouflage it ...

In Hanau, the occupiers found one of the many small armaments production facilities in the declining empire, which were set up to protect against air raids, here a workshop of the "Walther" company, in which many finished "Sturmgewehr 44" rifles were captured ...:



In the next photo, US soldiers lead German prisoners of war through Bangertstrasse at Hanau...:







Eastern Front - Hungary:



The Hungarian offensive, on which Hitler had placed so much hope, is finally history today:

The Germans, including the SS elite formation, had to switch to the defensive days ago. Now General Rodion Malinowskijs ...



... "2nd Ukrainian Fornt" west of Budapest to successfully launch their counter-offensive, to cross the Hron River and thereby break through the German front.







During these fights, this very rare photo was taken, on which a "Krasnoarmeets" presents the wooden dummy gun barrel of a shot down German "Panzer IV" command tank ...:



The Soviet armored leaders did not stay long with the completely understaffed German defense positions (the comrades from the second wave did that) but rolled on and took the city of Esztergom on the same day!

So the Germans are trapped in Budapest ...!



Oh yes - this March 25th, 1945 is also "Palm Sunday" ...

 

[Martin Antonenko]

Monday, March, 26, 1945


Western Front:


After crossing the Rhine at Oppenheim, the tank tips of the 1st US Army reach the Westerwald ...:




The GI's capture child soldiers en masse - Hitler's last contingent!

Most are anti-aircraft helpers ...



... but there are also SS members among them who - since ceased to speak of "voluntariness" in Germany! - were drafted into the skull troop ...:




General Patton's troops are entering Bavaria in the south ...:




The British are also making good progress in the north and, after crossing the Rhine near Wesel, are taking the town of Rees am Rhein on their push towards Wesel ...:











It is just under 15 kilometers to Wesel, an important traffic junction ...



Great Britain:


In Llanystumdwy (Wales), the British politician and Prime Minister during the First World War, David Lloyd George dies...:




The news about it is hardly noticed; it falls far behind current events.

Only in 2007 will Lloyd George be memorialized on Parliament Square in London ...:




**continued next post**

 

[Martin Antonenko]

Eastern Front:

Since January 26th, the boiler battle of Heiligenbeil (east of Danzig) has been raging on the Eastern Front (which is no longer as far east) ...



... where smashed remains of the German 4th Army under General of the Infantry Horst Großmann ...



... continue desperate resistance with 150,000 soldiers ...:









Also included are countless refugees who tried to reach Elbing (today: Elblag), hoping in vain to make it to the west on a rescue ship ...:




The Germans face two Soviet fronts (army groups), the "3rd Belarusian Front" under Marshal Alexander Wassilewski ...



... and the "2nd Belarusian Front" under Marshal Konstantin Rokossowski ...:



The balance of power is about 12 to 1 - the Soviets have six armies and an air army and the their aviators have total air control!

Today the fanatical Nazi and Gauleiter of East Prussia, Erich Koch ...



... fly into the army headquarters from the "fortress" Königsberg, which is also included, in order - as he says cockily - to "coordinate the defense".

In reality, he wants to fix the situation - and what he finds doesn't seem to have given him any confidence:

Anyway, after his "coordination visit", Koch doesn't fly back to Königsberg, but hastily sets off to the west!

Koch, a brutal and unscrupulous power man who had previously raged bloodily as "Reichskommissar" in occupied Ukraine, has every reason to fear the revenge of the victors!

He will go into hiding, shave off his characteristic Hitler mustache, disguise himself with glasses and make his way through the false identity of "former Major of the Reserve Rolf Berger" near Hamburg as a representative and agricultural worker.

After the currency reform in 1948, he will receive unemployment benefits of 18 marks. As a wanted war criminal, he could not use two properties in West Germany that he owned.

He would probably have escaped discovery and arrest if his urge to apply had not been so large:

On May 24, 1949, Erich Koch would not be able to resist the temptation to speak at a public refugee meeting and even be elected chairman of the meeting. He is recognized, reported and arrested by the British in the evening of the same day.

They will deliver Koch to Poland from ...



... where he will be sentenced to death in 1959 ...:



A year later his sentence will be changed to "life imprisonment".

And in this case it means "until the end of life"!

The next pictures show Koch in his cell on his 90th birthday when he was shown to selected journalists ...:







Erich Koch will die in the state prison in Barczewo on November 12, 1986 ...



Soviet Union:



Marshal Boris M. Shaposhnikov, former personal military advisor to Stalin and probably the leading strategist of the Red Army, dies on thos day in Moscow after a long illness at the age of 62 ...:

 

[Martin Antonenko]

Tuesday, March 27, 1945


Eastern Front:


At the end of 1944, the Nazi leaders also declared the Silesian city of Breslau (today: Wrotzlaw) a "fortress", even though it had no fortifications and only a few German troops were available for defense ...:



While all male residents were rushed to build defence positions ...



... women and childreen were allowed to leave the city...



Since February 1945 the Red Army has completely enclosed the city!



Over the name of the city on the sign "Breslau" visible in the foreground is written in Russian: "Hand over!"




Today, on March 27, 1945, the Soviets after weeks of fire consider the city ready for storm and attack ...:



But after desperate battles, they are repelled by the defenders!

Breslau will be able to hold until May 6, 1945 - three days before the end of the war ...:

A total of 8,500 German defenders and 7,000 Soviet soldiers will be killed in the fighting - plus 2,000 out of 20,000 inhabitants.

Out of 31,500 buildings in the city, more than 20,000 will destroyed ...:






In the eastern regions of Germany, primarily in Pomerania and East Prussia, there are increasing rape of women and girls by Soviet soldiers.




Today, researchers assume almost 2 million rapes by Soviet (and just about 11,000 by Western allies).

The German authorities are now approving abortions for victims who have become pregnant.

Women who seek protection at the local "Komandantura" in Soviet-occupied areas are usually sent away if they say that they have been raped by Red Army soldiers.

At least 10,000 women kill themselves after such excesses:






The Soviets have their own language rules for such cases:

In their reports, they always speak of "men in Red Army uniforms", suggesting that the rapists may have been "German bandits" who camouflaged themselves with stolen Soviet uniforms ...



Western Front:



East of the Rhine, the German defensive positions are breached by the Western Allies! The "Ruhrkessel" is closing...







The Allies summon German soldiers who are still willing to fight in leaflets to surrender!

And they do more than that:
The following leaflet is aimed at the included civilian population and asks them to act on soldiers to stretch their arms!



In a few days the sack will be closed...



Great Britain:



In Great Britain, the last "V-2" missile of the war hits the town of Orpington (Kent) on this day! It causes serious damage again ...:







In total, the Germans fired more than 3,000 of these weapons ...

 

[Blind Pew]

Great stuff Martin. One of the saddest things is to see those beautiful German towns and cities. Little did those poor people know what was to come.

 

[Martin64]

Sorry to be a kind of spoil-sport but I follow this thread with mixed feelings because the pictures that illustrate the story indicate to show the exact events that you report, Martin.
Although I agree about your remarks about the mass rape of German women by the Red Army (on a different scale not only committed by the Red Army) I think that if there is a need to post graphic pictures of victims of these crimes they should not show Jewish victims of a pogrom at Lemberg 1941. https://malkowsky.jimdofree.com/holocaust-1/lemberg-pogrome/
Decendants of these victims rightfully may take offence.

Cheers, Martin

 

[Martin Antonenko]

Hi Martin!

No problem! Unfortunately, with 7,000 images I have collected for this manuscript, this can happen. I am grateful for any information!

 

[Martin Antonenko]

Wednesdsay, March 28, 1945


Eastern Front:
On this day, the Wehrmacht not only suffers a military but also a logistic disaster: The Red Army is taking over Gotenhafen (today: Gdynja), the last reasonably efficient port on the Eastern coast in German hands!





Now the German units still fighting in the coastal area can not only be supplied with supplies - far worse, however, that no civilians fleeing from the Soviets can be evacuated to the west!

Again German defenders go into captivity ...:



In order to make the use of the port impossible for the Soviets, the Kriegsmarine still sank the badly damaged battleship "Gneisenau" in the port entrance - it did not use ...:





The Reich:


In the "Führer headquarters", a bunker with extra thick reinforced concrete reinforcement deep below the Reichszanzlei in Berlin, Hitler fires the army chief of staff, Colonel General Heinz Guderian (front, with glasses)!



The picture also shows: Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring (front right) and behind Hitler SS Obergruppenführer Hermann Fegelein, the husband of Gretl Braun, the sister of Hitler's secret friend Eva. Almost hidden by Guderian is the famous Stuka pilot Hanns-Ulrich Rudel, the only bearer of the highest German bravery award (knight's cross with oak leaves, swords and brilliants in gold).

Officially, Guderian is "sick", in reality the general is doomed that once he gets too much of his "leader" the evacuation of the useless army group of about 500,000 men fighting in Kurland and their use to defend the Oder line (and the capital) Berlin!)

Guderian must be happy just to be fired, because his last argument with Hitler had turned into a loud screaming duel.

When Guderian left, Hitler instructed General Hans Krebs, the previous chief of the general staff operations department, to assume the duties of chief of staff...:



Krebs will shoot himself in the "Führerbunker" in May after Hitler's suicide...
Great Britain:

This day, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill asks RAF Bomber Command chief Arthur Harris ...



... ina letter to stop bombing German city centers immediately!



In military terms, these attacks have become pointless due to the degree of destruction they have achieved - and after the war, Churchill will make no secret of the fact that he considers these attacks (on civilians and civilian targets) to be a war crime in a small group of friends.


Western Front:




According to German reports, 293,120 soldiers have been captured there since February 23, 1945 - most of them voluntarily.


What can still fight, the 8th Army of Field Marshal Walter Model, is about to be completely encircled (and thus isolated) on the Ruhr...:





Reims (France):


Allied commander-in-chief General Dwight Eisenhower ...



... wrote this day one of the most important documents of this war to the Soviet dictator Yossif Stalin:

In a secret message, Eisenhower tells Stalin that he has no intention of marching on Berlin and conquering the capital.

He - Eisenhower - consider southern Germany with the presumed "Alpine fortress" (an Allied fiction!) to be the more important military target...:



The message has been coordinated with US President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, but Eisenhower's official deputy in Command Marshal Montgomery is being deliberately withheld!

"Monty" has steadily declined in Eisenhower's appreciation since the "D-Day" due to the failures it was responsible for (Caen, Arnheim, Antwerp, etc.) and its tendency to always blame (and find) others for it.

The Brit still dreams of writing history and marching victoriously into Berlin ...



Moscow:



Eisenhower's secret message triggers entirely different expectations than joy or even satisfaction from Jossif Stalin!



Stalin, who regards Berlin as his lawful spoil of war, doesn't believe a word in this letter! He's sure the American wants to dupe him! The Soviets are also aware that the British Commander in Chief Bernhard Montgomery (deeply suspicious of Stalin!) disagrees.

And so the Soviet "Woshd" (leader) makes its directives:
There will be two armies of attack for Berlin:

One (Shukow) is supposed to march westwards from the Oder directly to the capital, the other (Konjew) is to attack from the southeast and initially encompass Berlin to the west, thus moving between the western allies and the German capital ...:






Arctic Ocean:



As of today there is no longer a long-term weather forecast in the German Reich!

All the necessary weather stations now hold the Western Allies and the Soviets occupied!

 

[Nap]

Hi Martin

Thank you again for the next days events , once published how many pages do you think it will be ?

A heck of a project

Stay safe

Nap

 

[Blind Pew]

Again Martin, excellent. I always especially like the 'this was the last time....' aspects. It emphases how the Third Reich was collapsing. Very interesting bit about the weather forecasts!

 

[Martin Antonenko]

how many pages

About 300 to 400 - or more...

 

[Martin Antonenko]

Thursday, March 29, 1945


Eastern Front:


A few remnants of the German soldiers trapped in the Heiligenbeil basin manage to escape to the "Kurische Nehrung" (Curonian Spit), a peninsula off the coast, after being literally pushed back to the sea by the Red Army ...










The troops arrived there are evacuated by the Kriegsmarine.

Some points on the bank of the Baltic sea can actually be held until the end of the war ...:









In the south, the Red Army reaches the former Austrian border - and thus the Reich border ...:
"Austria" is written on the sign in Cyrillic!

The troop celebrates this by crossing the border with unrolled regimental flags ...:











Western Front:



On their continued rapid advance, US troops take the cities of Wiesbaden ...



... Mannheim, Gießen, Wetzlar, Marburg and the city of Frankfurt on Main ...:



The huge administration building of the chemical company "IG Farben" in Frankfurt will become their headquarters after the occupation of Germany ...:



The building has remained almost intact, while the rest of Frankfurt is in ruins. And so there are still rumors to this day that the "IG Farben" building was deliberately left out during the bombing of the Allies, since it was identified as a possible headquarters very early on...

**continued next post**

 

[Martin Antonenko]

Reich Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels, who is also as "Reichsverteidigungskommissar" ("Reich Defense Commissioner") the head of the "Deutsche Volkssturm", issues a decree after the members of the last German contingent - the so-called "Volkssturm" - are to be used only in backward areas.

The losses of the poorly armed and untrained "Volkssturm" members (men over 60 and children unter 16 years)...



...have simply become intolerable - even by Nazi standards ...:





The Nazis can't even give the poor pigs uniforms anymore, but hunt them into the fire in their civilian clothes!

In order to at least protect them from being shot as "irregular fighters" in the event of capture under current martial law, they are given an armband in addition to a weapon with a few shots of ammunition, along the (mostly last) path they considered to be "Soldiers" identifies ...:




Often it is not even enough and they use all kinds of improvisations ...:











Poland:



Meanwhile, Jossif Stalin starts to till his field:

In occupied Poland, the Soviet secret services NKVD and GRU (military secret service)...



...start a large-scale wave of arrests of Polish politicians who worked underground during the German occupation and are close to the Polish "home army" and the London government in exile, that will go on all summer...:



The Soviets only recognize the "Lublin Committee" they have established as a legitimate government - everyone else is for the "traitors" and "counter-revolutionaries" ...

 

[Martin Antonenko]

Friday, March 30, 1945


Eastern Front:


On September 1, 1939, the first shots of the Second World War were fired by the German Battleship "Schleswig-Holstein" in the then free city of Danzig (Gdansk) under the League of Nations mandate ...:



After the German Wehrmacht captured the city, Hitler was triumphantly received by the Danzig population ...:



Now - almost six years later the war has returned to Danzig ...:



On the two posters you can read:

Left: "Soldiers - come to the nearest military service. Whoever travels with civilian trecks or stays in private quarters is a deserter."
Right: "People of Danzig, keep discipline! Pain and rumor-making are the best allies of the Bolsheviks"

The war comes in the form of a thirst for revenge Red Army, eager to "seek out the fascist beast in its cave", as it was said in propaganda at the time ...




The soldiers belong to the 2nd Belarusian Front (Army Group) of Marshal Konstantin Rokossowski (in the right)...



... and today they have no idea that they will not be able to visit the "cave" (Berlin!), because Rokossowski's troops will push past Berlin to the north!



Rokossowski will get to know during this his British colleague Marshal Montgomery, who, according to his boss's will, will also not allowed to conquer Berlin ...



But today Rokossowski's troops are taking over Gdańsk, which was badly destroyed by the previous fire! The beautiful inner city, consisting of the legal city, old town, suburb and lower town, have been completely destroyed!

The following two photos (before and after) are exactely taken from the same perspekctive...:





Those of the German defenders who don't lay down their arms and go into captivity or die...





... flees sothward into the impassable Vistula delta...:




During and after the Soviet invasion there were heavy looting and arson by Red Army soldiers, to whom much of the remaining buildings fell victim. There are also a lot of mass rapes!


**continued next post**

 

[Martin Antonenko]

Western Front:


The British are also conquering other cities!
Today it's Bocholt...



... and Emmerich on the Rhine ...:



After that Bocholt practically no longer exists ...:




On the same day, there is fierce controversy between the Allied Commander-in-Chief, US General Eisenhower and the British commander, Field Marshal Montgomery!



The two of them can't stand each other anyway, with "Monty" making no secret of the fact that he was the better "Commander-in-Chief".

Unlike his boss Eisenhower, to whom the fictional "Alpine fortress" of the Germans appears to be a very important military target and who does not want to suffer bloody losses in street fights to conquer the rubble pile Berlin, Montgomery recognizes the symbolic meaning that Berlin has.

And the British Marshal would very much like to write his name as a conqueror of Berlin in the history books!

In addition, "Monty" has another notch to cut:
Many military and politicians blame him for the disaster of the Arnhem operation, which he had largely planned ...:




With his recent successes in Bocholt and Emmerich behind him, Montgomery is again asking Eisenhower for permission to march on Berlin!

And given that the German soldiers are surrendering in droves to the Western Allies and the Soviets are still east of the Oder and are involved in heavy fighting, the project would not have been so hopeless.

But Eisenhower declines!

He again asserts his military reasons, but does not disclose to Monty that he is now with Stalin.

Montgomery is pissed and tries to intervene personally through Prime Minister Churchill. But he does the best he can do - and stays out of the argument!

Now Eisenhower is massive - nothing more is to be felt of the appearance of friendly cooperation, which the British and the American connects ...:




Montgomery receives two strict orders on this day:

First: The targets of the British troops are Hamburg and northern Germany.

Second, Monty receives a written ban on going east just a mile across the Elbe.

The British Marshal foams - but he complies ...



On the way of the British is also Bremen, my hometown (marked with green arrow)...



The Reich:



On the allegations of his favorite architect and now Minister of Armaments Albert Speer ...



... ("My Führer, you are robbing the German people of their most primitive livelihoods!") Hitler mitigates his infamous "Nero order":

Industrial and armaments plants, which are in danger of falling into the hands of the enemy and being used by them, no longer have to be completely destroyed, but may in future be "paralyzed" (by the expansion of important parts).


Today is a black day for the German Kriegsmarine:

Massive bomb attacks on shipyards and bunkers mean that 50 submarines are lost in just one day, including several of the latest "XXI" type ...:










Hitler has exactly one month to live on this day ...

 

[Blind Pew]

Superb again Martin. Interesting reminder about Ike & Monty as well!

 

[Martin Antonenko]

Before I started this book, I only knew something about Monty's role in Africa as Rommel's opponent.

I then dealt with it extensively for this project, and today I consider him the - reluctantly said! - mostly overrated commander of the Second World War.

And he must have been quite disgusting ...
Cheers

 

[Martin Antonenko]

Saturday, March 31, 1945


Eastern Front:


The fortress Küstrin can no longer be held by the German defenders and today fallstoday into the hands of the Red Army!












A part of the surviving fortress crew - around 1,000 men strong - managed to escape, among them the NSdAP district leader (and mayor) Hermann Körner ...



... and the fortress commander, SS Obergruppenführer and Lieutenant General of the Waffen SS Heinz Reinefarth ...



... who on February 2, the Wehrmacht major general Adolf Raegener, whom Hitler described as "too weak" ...



... had replaced.

The NSdAP-Bonze and the SS-General escaped from the lot to which they exposed their soldiers: "Victory or death"!
By the way, Reinefarth (here with Cossack Papakha in Warsaw) is one of the murderers who, as deputy commander, put down the Warsaw Uprising of the Polish "home army".





He is commonly known in Poland as "The butcher of Warsaw".


The Cossack units and Ukrainian militias commanded by him lived endlessly bloody among the Poles!


After the war, Reinefarth will offer and "unpack" to the US secret service as an informant. The Americans will make sure that his hair is not bent, and in particular that he will not be extradited to Poland, where he is sentenced to death in absentia!


He will make it to the mayor of the city of Westerland on the island of Sylt and the member of the state parliament (1958) ...



The commander of the 8th Soviet Guard Army, which captured Küstrin, is none other than Vasily Chuikov ...



.. who had defended Stalingrad against the Germans in 1942/43!

Everyone knows what's imminent: the major Soviet attack on Berlin!

There they heard about the mass rapes of the Red Army men - but consider the danger to life from the incessant bombing by the Western Allies to be the greater danger!

The contemporary witness Ursula von Kardorff...



... notes in her diary...


... a bitter joke that is circulating among Berline women: "Better a Russian on the stomach than an American on the head ..."


Hitler immediately orders a 40 km deep defense zone to the west of the Oder! Only: With which troops this zone should be defended, he does not say that!

Southeastern Front/ Hungary:

That day the Hungarian troops, who were previously on the German side, turn their rifles!

They run over to the Red Army almost entirely (in the ranks of which many exiled Hungarians serve in closed associations!) and together with their new brothers in arms immediately start the fight against the German troops who are still in Hungary, especially in the capital Budapest.






The Germans take revenge immediately:

All Hungarian soldiers, whom they can get hold of, are deported to the German Reich as forced laborers (or work slaves).


**continued next post**

 

[Martin Antonenko]

Western Front:


There is almost no German resistance in the West! The US troops can now comfortably roll over the Reichsautobahn - disarmed German officers remain the role of onlookers ...






On the median, masses of German prisoners march west without guard ...




On this day US-General Major Lucius Clay...



... is appointed Deputy General Eisenhower for civil affairs in the conquered German western areas with immediate effect.

Clay, as US commander of Berlin, will later organize the famous "Berlin Airlift" during the Soviet blockade (June 24, 1948 to May 12, 1948) ...:









The Reich:


On the same day, a bizarre scene takes place about 15 kilometers southwest of the city of Paderborn:

At the command of "Reichsführer" Heinrich Himmler, SS members blow up the north tower of Wewels Castle ...:




... and destroy all the inventory they had brought there before!

Himmler had wanted to turn this castle into a kind of "Ordensburg" or mythical "cult site" for "his" SS ...