The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1944–1945

REINHARDT, GEORG-HANS, Colonel-General (1887–1963): Commander-in-Chief Army Group Centre, August 1944–January 1945.

RENDULIĆ, LOTHAR, Colonel-General (1887–1971): Commander-in-Chief Army Group Courland, January 1945, March–April 1945; Commander-in-Chief Army Group North, January–March 1945; Commander-in-Chief Army Group South (renamed ‘Ostmark’ at end of April), April–May 1945.

RUNDSTEDT, GERD VON, Field-Marshal (1875–1953): Commander-in-Chief West, September 1944–March 1945.

SCHÖRNER, FERDINAND, Colonel-General, from 5 April 1945 Field-Marshal (1892–1973): Commander-in-Chief Army Group North, July 1944–January 1945; Commander-in-Chief Army Group Centre January–May 1945.

VIETINGHOFF-Scheel, HEINRICH VON, Colonel-General (1887–1952): Commander-in-Chief Army Group Courland, January–March 1945; Commander-in-Chief South, March–May 1945.

WOLFF, KARL, SS-Obergruppenführer, General of the Waffen-SS (1900–84): from July 1944 Plenipotentiary General of the German Wehrmacht in Italy.

Illustrations

 

The ‘quadrumvirate’ of Nazi grandees: (above) Martin Bormann (left), Heinrich Himmler (right); (

below) Joseph Goebbels (left), Albert Speer (right).

 

^{Captured German prisoners near Falaise in early September 1944.}

^{German civilians leaving Aachen on 19 October 1944, two days before the city fell to the Americans.}

 

Military leaders: (above) Wilhelm Keitel (left), Alfred Jodl (right); (below

) Heinz Guderian (left), Karl Dönitz (right).

 

^{The rural population digging a defensive trench near Tilsit in September 1944.}

^{Erich Koch, Gauleiter of East Prussia, inspects food provisions in his province, August 1944.}

^{German soldiers viewing corpses in Nemmersdorf (East Prussia) following Soviet atrocities during the Red Army’s incursion in October 1944.}

^{After initial successes, the Germans are forced to retreat during the Ardennes offensive in December 1944.}

 

Front commanders: (above) Walter Model (left), Georg-Hans Reinhardt (

right); (below) Ferdinand Schörner (left), Gotthard Heinrici (right).

 

^{Ill-equipped Volkssturm men on the eastern front in October 1944.}

^{Volkssturm men march past Goebbels in Berlin on 12 November 1944.}

 

Four prominent Gauleiter: (above left) Arthur Greiser (Wartheland), (right) Josef Grohé (Cologne-Aachen); (below left

) Karl Hanke (Lower Silesia), (right) Karl Holz (Franconia).

 

^{Refugees crossing the frozen Frisches Haff in East Prussia in February 1945.}

^{‘Somewhere in East Prussia’. An abandoned wagon in icy conditions after the Soviet offensive in January 1945.}

^{The verdict is read in a summary court martial.}

^{The corpse of a soldier is left hanging in Vienna, April 1945. The sign round his neck accuses him of helping the Bolsheviks.}

^{An overcrowded ship carries away refugees from Pillau in East Prussia, March 1945.}

^{Death and devastation through Allied bombing: (above) Dresden, (below) Nuremberg.}

^{Young Germans near Frankfurt an der Oder, armed with the ‘Panzerfaust’ and cycling off to the front, February 1945.}