How Hitler Could Have Won World War II (42 page)

p. 254: “against the Allies.” Although Germany produced more than a thousand Me-262s, few ever got into the sky due to the quick work of Allied air forces. They bombed the refineries producing the special fuel for the jets, easily spotted the extended runways required for them to take off, and destroyed the Me-262s on the ground. See Shirer, 1099.

p. 255: “ ‘Make peace, you fools.' ” Blumenson,
Battle of the Generals,
100.

p. 255: “Allied aircraft near Livarot.” Rommel, 485–86. Heinz Guderian wrote that on July 18, 1944, a Luftwaffe officer, whom he did not name, informed him that “Field Marshal von Kluge intended to arrange an armistice with the western powers without Hitler's knowledge, and that with this object in view was proposing shortly to establish contact with the enemy.” See Guderian, 338.

pp. 255–256: “ ‘grew increasingly violent.' ” Guderian, 341–42.

p. 256: “Rommel chose poison.” Rommel, 503–6.

p. 256: “the British 2nd Army.” Bradley and Blair, 269.

p. 257: “to deal with it.” Michael D.Doubler,
Closing with the Enemy
(Lawrence: Kansas U. Press, 1944).

p. 257: “American casualties in Normandy.” Ibid, 37–38.

p. 258: “soldiers out of the hedgerow.” Ibid., 49–52.

p. 259: “equipped with the device.” Ibid., 46.

p. 260: “ ‘cut down by splinters.' ” Rommel, 489.

p. 260: “Panzer Lehr virtually vanished.” Blumenson,
Breakout and Pursuit,
240.

p. 260: “30th Infantry Division, exulted.” Blumenson,
Battle of the Generals,
145.

p. 261: “ ‘power at critical moments.' ” Ibid., 147.

p. 262: “Mayenne, Laval, and Angers.” In a side action, the 5th Infantry Division of Walton Walker's 20th Corps took both Angers and Nantes, thereby securing the Loire River line. Patton felt this operation was a diversion of strength, because there was little or no danger from Germans south of the Loire.

p. 263: “alerted them to the attack.” Bradley and Blair, 291–92.

p. 264: “ ‘pure utopia.' ” Blumenson,
Battle of the Generals,
193.

p. 265: “Jacques Leclerc.” Leclerc was the wartime pseudonym of Philippe François Marie de Hautecloque, a regular army captain who joined de Gaulle in 1940. He traveled through Chad to Libya and assisted Montgomery's army on the desert flank. He formed the 2nd Armored Division in North Africa in 1943 from assorted French and French Empire sources.

p. 266: “ ‘
toujours
l'audace.
' ” Blumenson,
Battle of the Generals,
216.

p. 266: “ ‘go beyond Argentan.' ” Bradley and Blair, 298.

p. 266: “ ‘in the Canadian army.' ” Ibid., 298.

p. 266: “the Germans in a trap.” Blumenson,
Battle of the Generals,
207.

p. 268: “surrendered to the Americans.” Ibid., 227–28.

p. 269: “ ‘triumphal march to Germany.' ” Ibid., 238.

p. 271: “a new defensive line.” An RAF study, published in 1945, and located in the early 1990s by Michel Dufresne, revealed that the Germans had 270,000 men in the Falaise pocket and on the roads to the Seine on August 19, 1944. Another 50,000 men were elsewhere west of the Seine. Of these 320,000 men, 80,000 were lost in the last twelve days of August, while 240,000 arrived at the Seine and crossed, plus 28,000 vehicles and several hundred tanks. The principal means were sixty ferry- and boat-crossing sites, and three pontoon bridges at Louviers, Elbeuf, and near Rouen. Some crossed in small boats and rafts. The bulk of the crossings occurred at night. By September 1, all the Germans were across. See ibid., 259. Allied losses in the Normandy campaign were 200,000, two-thirds of them American. Bradley listed German losses at 500,000, but actual losses were probably about those of the Allies. German records showed total casualties in the west from June 1 to August 31 were 294,000. See Bradley and Blair, 304; Mellenthin, 283.

p. 271: “ ‘don't see it.' ” Blumenson,
Battle of the Generals,
255.

p. 272: “Is Paris burning?” Blumenson,
The Duel for France,
360–61.

p. 272: “ ‘into Paris on August 25.' ” Bradley and Blair, 309. A small French force, aided by civilians who hastily removed barricades, pushed through side streets from the south and actually reached the Hôtel de Ville shortly before midnight on August 24. See Blumenson,
The Duel for France,
355.

p. 272: “ ‘back alleys, brothels, and bistros.' ” Ibid., 359–66; Bradley and Blair, 309.

p. 273: “advance toward the Saar.” Only half of Patton's army (two corps, Eddy's 12th and Walker's 20th) was available for immediate movement eastward. Troy Middleton's 8th Corps was still in Brittany, and Haislip's 15th Corps was deploying from Mantes. As a sop to Bradley, Montgomery got “operational coordination” of Hodges's army, but not “operational direction,” which in theory remained with Bradley. See Bradley and Blair, 315, 318, 325.

p. 273: “ ‘such an opportunity.' ” Liddell Hart,
Second World War,
558.

p. 274: “ ‘if you'll keep 3rd Army moving.' ” Ibid., 562.

p. 274: “ ‘into Germany almost unhindered.' ” Westphal, 172–74.

p. 274: “forces on the front.” Liddell Hart,
Other Side of the Hill,
428.

p. 274: “avoid being killed.” Liddell Hart,
Second World War,
567; Bradley and Blair, 319.

p. 275: “the end of August.” Bradley wrote that the Americans began running out of gasoline on or about September 1. See Bradley and Blair, 321.

Chapter 23: The Battle of the Bulge

p. 276: “ ‘the objective Antwerp.' ” Cole, The Ardennes, 2; MacDonald, 11. Another source for the battle is John S. D. Eisenhower, The Bitter Woods: The Battle of the
Bulge
(New York: Putnam, 1969; reprint New York: Da Capo, 1995).

p. 277: “ ‘the German officers corps.' ” MacDonald, 21.

p. 278: “ ‘worth his while.' ” Bradley, 454.

p. 280: “ ‘passed me on.' ” Ibid., 467–69.

p. 280: “ ‘was really practicable.' ” Liddell Hart,
Other Side of the Hill,
447.

p. 281: “mount an offensive.” MacDonald, 79.

p. 281: “ ‘sonuvabitch gotten all his strength?' ” Bradley, 466.

p. 281: “he held in reserve.” Eisenhower, 342.

p. 285: “massacring eighty-six American prisoners.” On July 11, 1946, an American war crimes court convicted Peiper, Sepp Dietrich, and seventy-one other defendants, all former SS officers or soldiers. Peiper and forty-two others were sentenced to death. In time, attitudes changed due to a political climate more favorable to the Germans and the admission by the American prosecution that it had gained confessions by using hoods (as if the questioner was to be executed), false witnesses, and mock trials. None of the guilty were executed. All were ultimately paroled: Sepp Dietrich in 1955 and Peiper just before Christmas 1956. Peiper found Germany hostile to him, however, and moved to a village in Alsace. In the summer of 1976, two weeks after a sensational article about him appeared in the French newspaper L'Humanité, firebombs destroyed Peiper's house and killed the sixty-year-old former SS commander. See MacDonald, 216–23, 620–23.

p. 285: “help of ‘artificial moonlight.' ” Liddell Hart,
Other Side of the Hill,
459.

p. 287: “ ‘Christ come to cleanse the temple.' ” Bradley and Blair, 365.

p. 287: “ ‘drive like hell.' ” Bradley and Blair, 365–67; MacDonald, 514–21; Liddell Hart,
Second World War,
656–57; Montgomery, 275–82.

p. 288: “ ‘Go to hell!' ” MacDonald, 511–13.

p. 288: “ ‘when they were needed.' ” Liddell Hart,
Other Side of the Hill,
463.

p. 289: “lost a thousand aircraft.” MacDonald, 618.

Chapter 24: The Last Days

p. 290: “ ‘all this rubbish?' ” Guderian, 382–83.

p. 291: “ ‘with what it's got.' ” Ibid., 387–88.

p. 293: “change Hitler's mind.” Ibid., 393.

p. 293: “ ‘views on their superiors.' ” Ibid., 397.

p. 294: “accused Guderian of treason.” Ibid., 401–2, 404–5.

p. 294: “all the more difficult.” On February 4–11, 1945, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at Yalta, a resort on the Crimean peninsula. With victory only months away, the sole topic was the postwar world, especially eastern Europe. Stalin insisted on an eastern frontier of Poland approximating the line dividing German and Soviet occupation zones after the defeat of Poland in 1939. To compensate, the three Allied leaders agreed to extend Poland's boundaries westward at the expense of Germany. The result established Germany's eastern frontier along the Oder and Neisse rivers, giving Poland Silesia, Pomerania, and southern East Prussia (Russia took over northern East Prussia, including Königsberg). Stalin also backed a Polish government set up by himself (the Lublin government). The western Allies supported the Polish government in exile in London, but, since Russia occupied Poland, could do little to advance its cause. See Zabecki, vol. 1, 50–51 (Philip Green); Kimball, 308–18.

p. 294: “ ‘I can't bear that.' ” Guderian, 407; Shirer, 1097.

p. 296: “ ‘doesn't fit the plan.' ” Bradley and Blair, 405–7.

p. 297: “did not take place.” Shirer, 1103–5; Guderian, 422–24.

p. 298: “Eisenhower wrote.” Eisenhower, 396–97.

p. 299: “defense of the city.” Shirer, 1113.

p. 301: “ ‘be burned immediately.' ” Ibid., 1123–27.

p. 302: “shot himself in the mouth.” There is some evidence that Hitler bit down on a cyanide capsule and almost simultaneously fired a bullet through his head. See Rosenbaum, 79–80.

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