All Hell Let Loose (113 page)

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Authors: Max Hastings

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Jumping into Arnhem
(
Airborne Assault Museum
)

 

 

A Dutch child during his country's 'hongerwinter', 1944
(
© Marius Meijboom/Nederlands Fotomuseum
)

 

 

Hitler's last human resorts: Wehrmacht prisoners at the Rhine, March 1945
(
Mirrorpix
)

 

 

Soviet assault guns massed for the battle of Berlin
.

 

 

Ohrdruf concentration camp, April 1945
(
AP Photo/Byron H. Rollins/Press Association
)

 

 

Marines on Iwo Jima
(
AP Photo/US Marine Corps/Press Association
)

 

 

Hiroshima
(
Alfred Eisenstadt/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
)

 

References below to my own earlier works relate to material now lodged in the Liddell Hart Archive at King’s College London, here abbreviated as LHA. AI signifies Author Interview, meaning an eyewitness with whom I held conversations at some time over the past thirty-five years. IWM refers to manuscripts in the collections of the Imperial War Museum; BNA to the British National Archive; USNA to the United States National Archive; USMHI to the United States Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. References to Potsdam denote the magnificent multi-volume history
Germany and the Second World War
, published by the Research Institute for Military History in Potsdam, and translated by Oxford University Press. For this work, I have consulted a manuscript narrative and some papers of Air Vice-Marshal Sir Ralph Cochrane held by his son John. I have not provided references for statements by prominent figures which have been long in the public domain.

Introduction

 

‘These are strange times’ Anonymous
A Woman in Berlin
Virago 2009 p.35

‘Pfc Eric Diller’s battalion’ Eric Diller
Memoirs of a Combat Infantryman
privately published 2002 p.77

‘in January 1942 Hitler’ Helmuth von Moltke, ed. Beatte von Oppen
Letters to Freya
Collins Harvill 1991 p.204 24.1.42

Chapter 1 – Poland Betrayed

 

‘Somehow, I considered’ Rula Langer
The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt
Roy 1942 p.20

‘Like most of us’ Lynn Olson & Stanley Cloud
For Your Freedom and Ours
Heinemann 2003 p.46

‘You aren’t going to Siberia’ Jan Karski
Story of a Secret State
Penguin 2011 p.5

‘To hear people talk’ Walter Duranty
Atlantic Monthly
September 1939 p.393

‘would quickly be turned’ Galeazzo Ciano
Diaries
Milan 1946 Vol. I 15.5.39

‘If there was hardship’ Norman Davies
God’s Playground
Oxford 1981 Vol. II p.426

‘In view of Poland’s’ Edward Raczy
ski
In Allied London
Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1962 p.20 30.8.39

‘It’s a wonderful feeling’ James Owen & Guy Walters ed.
The Voices of War
Penguin 2004 p.9

‘They were united’ IWM 08/132/1 Kruczkiewicz MS p.163

‘We sang a Polish hymn’ IWM 02/23/1 Ephrahim Bleichman MS

‘and told me he was’ IWM 86/17/1 P. Fleming MS

‘You’re alive, Witold?’ Olson & Cloud p.52

‘Franciszek Kornicki’ IWM Kornicki MS 01/1/1

‘After recovering from’ IWM 03/41/1 Ralph Smorczewski MS

‘I was awakened’ Kruczkiewicz p.166

‘The stench of burning’ IWM Pilot B.J. Solak MS

‘We saw two women’ IWM 86/15/1 P. Fleming MS

‘Suddenly, there was’ Wladyslaw Anders
An Army in Exile
Macmillan 1949 p.3

‘It was a terrible place’ IWM 01/1/1 Pilot Franciszek Kornicki MS

‘I saw the very face’ Adrian Carton de Wiart
Happy Odyssey
Jonathan Cape 1950 p.156

‘news that shook’ Evelyn Waugh
Officers and Gentlemen
Chapman & Hall 1955 p.5

‘This war has a’ Moltke p.33

‘There is no excitement’ William Shirer
This is Berlin
Hutchinson 1999 p.75

‘None of the brave’ Alexander Stahlberg
Bounden Duty
Brassey 1990 p.116

‘They did not feel’ Stefan Zweig
The World of Yesterday
Pushkin Press 2010 p.247

‘I regarded England’s’ Louis Hagen
Ein Volk ein Reich: Nine Lives Under the Reich
Spellmount 2011 pp.32–3

‘have only themselves’ Cuthbert Headlam, ed. Stuart Ball
Parliament and Politics in the Age of Churchill and Attlee
Cambridge 1999 p.167

‘Mother was very’ Sandra Koa Wing ed.
Our Longest Days
Profile 2008 p.31

‘an ominous rumour’ David Killingray
Fighting for Britain
James Currey 2010 p.11

‘The effect was’ Max Hastings
Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy
Michael Joseph 1984 correspondence

‘The mental approach’ David Fraser
Wars and Shadows
Penguin 2002 p.122

‘It was a marvellous’ Max Hastings
Bomber Command
files, Davis to the author

‘How lucky you are!’ Raczy
ski p.27

‘Are they still waiting?’ Mihail Sebastian
Journal 1935–44
Heinemann 2001 p.234

‘I had never experienced’ IWM 02/23/1 Bleichman MS

‘I called out’ Janusz Piekałkiewicz
The Cavalry of World War II
Orbis 1979 p.9

‘The lovely Polish’ Olson & Cloud p.52

‘They would hurry’ Piekalkiewitcz p.12

‘I can only compare’ IWM Lt. Piotr Tarczy
ski MS

‘Boys I was at school’ IWM 95/13/1 George
l
zak MS

‘The advance of the armies’ Heinz Knoke
I Flew for the Führer
Evans 1979 p.20

‘Run – run for your lives’ IWM 78/52/1 Stefan Kurylak MS

‘You know the British’ Olson & Cloud p.69

‘What was happening’ Anders p.7

‘Fellow countrymen!’ Raczy
ski p.36

‘It isn’t right!’ Adrian Ball
The Last Days of the Old World
Doubleday 1963 pp.27–8

‘It would seem’ Janet Flanner
New Yorker
10.9.39

‘Loathing war passionately’ Leo Amery
My Political Life
Hutchinson 1955 Vol. III p.328

‘Practically everyone thinks’ Simon Garfield ed.
We are at War
Ebury 2009 p.36

‘And he, when the city’ Davies p.83

‘The procession of wounded’ Owen & Walters p.16

‘I get up at 6.30’ Mungo Melvin
Manstein
Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2010 p.122

‘It was nice to see’ ibid. p.125

‘Red, glittering flames’ General K.S. Rudnicki
Last of the Old Warhorses
Bachman & Turner 1974 p.49

‘Tomorrow morning we shall’ ibid. p.54

‘at variance with’ ibid p.63

‘Desolate as was’ IWM 91/6/1 Feliks Lachman MS

‘standing over the corpse’ IWM 08/132/1 Adam Kruczkiewicz MS p.168

‘We are now good friends’ Anders p.13

‘From this instant’ IWM 99/3/1 Tadeusz Zukowski MS

‘You Polish, fascist lords!’ Karski p.23

‘How is it possible’ IWM 91/6/1 Lachman MS

‘Gentlemen, you have seen’ John Raleigh
Behind the Nazi Front
Dodd Mead 1940 p.320

‘Well, your Poles’ Carton de Wiart p.160

‘I encountered chaos’ IWM 06/52/1 Szmulek Goldberg MS

‘In the household’ Simon Garfield
Private Battles
Ebury 2006 p.48

‘Where on earth can’ Raczy
ski p.34

Chapter 2 – No Peace, Little War

 

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