In almost any war one side can be dishonestly demonized even by a truthful enumeration of its crimes, if the crimes of its adversaries are suppressed. —Irmin Vinson
Excerpted from Thomas Goodrich’s 2010 book
Hellstorm:
The Death of Nazi Germany
(1944-1947)
The Last Bullet
When reports from recaptured towns and villages stated that Americans had treated civilians well and had not even engaged in looting, the desire among other Germans to surrender became overwhelming. Unfortunately… in much the same vein as Stalin and Roosevelt, Eisenhower advocated the outright massacre of German army officers, Nazi Party members and others.
Rumors that Roosevelt intended to hand over millions of German slaves to Stalin energized many laggards. “This news,” wrote one official, “worked like a bombshell among some of the cowards.” There were even stronger incentives for wavering soldiers. Announced Commander-in-Chief of the Navy Admiral Karl Donitz, expressing the mood of all military branches: “I need not explain to you that in our situation capitulation is equivalent to suicide, is certain death, that capitulation implies the death, the annihilation sooner or later of millions of German people.”
Desperate as many soldiers were to escape the front, little did they realize that there was virtually no sanctuary anywhere in the Reich. Ran a secret memo of the Internal Intelligence Service: “Every member of the community knows that we are facing the greatest national catastrophe and that it will have the most serious repercussions on every family and every individual.”
Many German generals were secretly hoping the Americans would, as one officer phrased it, “roll up our backs,” not because they held out hope of miracles or victory but because the more of Germany occupied by the West, the less that would be enslaved by the communists. As a consequence, by mid-April 1945, only token resistance—or none at all—was offered on the western front while at the same time Germans fought to the death in the east.
Unbeknownst to either Hitler or his generals, Supreme Allied Commander in the west, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had no intention of capturing Berlin. Additionally, by ordering a halt on the Elbe River, the American general was in effect presenting a gift to the Soviet Union of central Germany and much of Europe. Not only was Winston Churchill shocked and angered by the decision, but so too were many of Eisenhower’s lieutenants.
“We had better take Berlin and quick, and on to the Order,” argued George Patton, a general whose hatred of communism was no secret.
Despite only sixty miles of undefended autobahns between him and Berlin, Eisenhower was firm. “No German force could have stopped us,” spit one staff officer in disgust. “The only thing that stood between us and Berlin was Eisenhower.”
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Educate yourself about the Holocaust perpetrated on the German people by the Allied forces that the mainstream media has covered up for nearly seventy years.
Hellstorm is still available from the publisher.