Armageddon (109 page)

“Provided the two ‘gateposts’ ”: Alanbrooke, op. cit., p. 637, 12.21.44.

“It’s a fickle world”: Gay Diary, op. cit.

“I’m sure that, 50 years”: Ibid., p. 161.

“Their [the British] press”: Hansen Diary, op. cit.

“Without haste and without any trace”: Second Army MD.

“Monty did a good job”: Bigland, op. cit., pp. 82–3.

“The Arnold–King–Marshall”: PM’s personal minute, D.218/4, 7.6.44, Churchill Papers 20/153, quoted Gilbert, op. cit., p. 843.

“You pay him too high”: Colville, op. cit., 2.23.45.

“Hobbs said apologetically that”: Ridgway Papers, box 5A, XVIII Corps conference, 1.13.45, USAMHI.

“We are training”: Gavin Diary, op. cit.

“If only this idiotic war”: Second Army MD, 1.17.45.

“mostly Ukrainians who do not even”: Ibid.

“didn’t so much lose heart”: DuPuy Papers, op. cit.

“That’s it—we’ve lost the war”: AI Rolf-Helmut Schröder.

“The enemy can claim to have wrested”: Second Army MD.

“This was the coldest night”: Folkestad, op. cit., p. 84.

“Sergeant Clifford Laski”: NA, RG492–322 box 6.

“Staff-Sergeant Charles Skelnar’s”: Skelnar MS, op. cit., SA.

“I felt proud”: AI George Sheppard.

“Interestingly, a British expert”: Reynolds, op. cit., p. 135.

“There was a serious discussion”: Hansen Papers, box 40B, USAMHI.

“During the half-hearted”: Tedder, op. cit., p. 633.

“considerably retarded the”: Alanbrooke, op. cit., p. 677, 3.25.45.

“Upon the conclusion of”: “Strategy in North-West Europe,” op. cit., USAMHI.

“strong defensive positions”: Report of the General Board of U.S. Forces in ETO, “Strategy of the Campaign in Western Europe 1944–45,” USAMHI.

CHAPTER NINE: STALIN’S OFFENSIVE

“Zhukov was very popular”: AI Anatoly Osminov.

“Lieutenant Vasily Filimonenko”: AI Vasily Filimonenko.

“Everyone was terrified”: AI Evsei Igolnik.

“Stalin won the war”: AI Nikolai Ponomarev.

“He saved the Soviet state”: AI Fyodor Romanovsky.

“Is there no one to rid”: AI Nikolai Senkevich.

“We were fighting for our”: AI Anna Nikyunas.

“You should obey Stalin”: AI Yury Ryakhovsky.

“I often prayed to God”: AI Nikolai Ponomarev.

“but many men crossed”: AI Anatoly Osminov.

“We all stand together”: AI Alexander Sergeev.

“Seventeen-year-old Yulia”: AI Yulia Pozdnyakova.

“saying that he refused”: Guderian, op. cit., p. 377.

“If something happens down there”: Helmut Heiber and David M. Glantz,
Hitler and his Generals
(Greenhill: 2002), p. 651.

“A very stupid disposition”: Tedder, op. cit., p. 647.

“Sergeant Nikolai Timoshenko”: AI Nikolai Timoshenko.

“A deserter from 118th”: BA, RH2/319.

“Yulia Pozdnyakova, a signaller”: AI Yulia Pozdnyakova.

“In January 1945 we could see”: AI Nikolai Ponomarev.

“Lieutenant Valentin Krulik’s unit”: AI Valentin Krulik.

“On 11 January, an OKW report”: BA, RH2/331B.

“When you haven’t had”: Letter lent to the author by Ursula Salzer.

“The Eastern Front is”: Guderian, op. cit., p. 387.

“On 12 January”: PRO, WO106/5924.

“May all good fortune”: 1.9.45, quoted Gilbert, op. cit., p. 1143.

“We now had to pay for”: Richardson and Friedlin, op. cit., p. 251.

“In the trenches, we all knew”: AI Alexandr Sergeev.

“Morale was very high”: AI Gennady Klimenko.

“As early as 15 January”: BA, RH2/319.

“The battle in the Vistula”: BA, RH2/320.

“Thousands of soldiers”: BA, RH2/331A.

“Lieutenant Vasily Kudryashov was”: AI Vasily Kudryashov.

“Captain Abram Skuratovsky”: AI Abram Skuratovsky.

“
O blad! Generals
”: Temkin, op. cit., p. 216.

“If we could have made good”: AI Yury Ryakhovsky.

“Red Army signaller Yulia”: AI Yulia Pozdnyakova.

“Used in isolation”: BA, RH2/331A.

“The VS consists of men”: BA, RH2/331B.

“There are still a lot of Germans”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.93.

“For everyone else, a German”: AI Yelena Kogan.

“we wanted to go out”: AI Alexandr Markov.

“As early as December 1944”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.68 449.

“In order to re-establish order”: RSA, Stalin files.

“A report to Stalin from Beria”: RSA, Stalin files, box 14/3.

“On 24 January, Beria”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.68 448.

“One had to be very”: AI Fyodor Romanovsky.

“The prospect of the end”: Colville, op. cit., 1.8.45.

“Make no mistake”: Ibid., 1.23.45.

“Great Britain and the British Commonwealth”: WSC, telegram to Peter Fraser, 2.24.45, quoted Gilbert, op. cit., p. 1231.

“It is incredible to view”: Hansen Diary, op. cit., 1.23.45.

“A British SOE mission”: Peter Kemp,
The Thorns of Memory
(Sinclair-Stevenson: 1990), p. 265.

“I’ll never forget those Russian”: Ferdinand Chesarek oral history interview, USAMHI.

“What a disorderly rabble”: Dr. Richard Feltham quoted Patricia Sewell,
Healers in World War II
(McFarland: 2001), p. 176.

“There seemed to be little”: Kemp, op. cit., p. 261.

“You traitor!”: AI Vasily Kudryashov.

“For fun, a soldier”: AI Valentin Krulik.

“From the enemy’s behaviour”: BA, RH2/328.

“The Front commander took”: RMDA, vol. xv 5/4, p. 110, report of 4.27.45.

“On the night of 19 February”: RSA, 9410 om.2 g.93.

“This ban was soon”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.95 252.

“It seems remarkable that”: RSA, 9410 om.2 g.93.

“Amid all the stresses”: BA, RH2/323.

“Between 12 January”: BA, RH2/8496.

CHAPTER TEN: BLOOD AND ICE: EAST PRUSSIA

“East Prussia was a province”: AI Helmut Schmidt.

“mysterious splendour. Whoever”: Von Lehndorff, op. cit., p. 1.

“It was incredibly quiet”: AI Ursula Salzer.

“I hope you’re satisfied”: AI Elfride Kowitz.

“I was not so critical of bombing”: AI Michael Wieck.

“It seemed crazy that”: AI Hans Siwik.

“Yes,
you’re
flying”: Von Lehndorff, op. cit., p. 2.

“We are a master race”: Koch speech in Kiev, 1943.

“The President said he thought”: Robert Sherwood,
Roosevelt and Hopkins
(Har-per: 1948), p. 710.

“They want to take”: RSA, Stalin files, shelf 1–1 file 72.

“In the farmyard stood a cart”: Quoted Alfred M. de Zayas,
Nemesis at Potsdam
(Routledge & Kegan Paul: 1977), p. 63.

“I was so young”: AI Lise-Lotte Kussner.

“For us Prussians”: Guderian, op. cit., p. 388.

“A Wehrmacht report from”: BA, RH2/331B.

“It sounded as if a lot of heavy”: Von Lehndorff, op. cit., p. 3.

“Comrades! You have now”: Quoted Christopher Duffy,
Red Storm Over the Reich
(Routledge: 1991), p. 285.

“How shall I avenge myself”: Senyavshaya, op. cit., p. 28.

“Hatred for the enemy”: Ibid., p. 25.

“German villages looked”: AI Gennady Klimenko.

“Great country!”: AI Vladimir Gormin.

“In the view of some Russians”: Senyavshaya, op. cit., p. 29.

“Mugs and wooden spoons”: RSA, Stalin files.

“my soldiers promptly spitted”: AI the officer concerned, who said to the author’s interpreter in Russian, “But don’t mention that to the
anglichane.
”

“Nikolai Dubrovsky was an”: AI Nikolai Dubrovsky.

“Major Yury Ryakhovsky never doubted”: AI Yury Ryakhovsky.

“Corporal Anatoly Osminov spotted”: AI Anatoly Osminov.

“When Captain Vasily Krylov gazed”: AI Vasily Krylov.

“Soldiers didn’t understand”: quoted Senyavshaya, op. cit., p. 29.

“We don’t have time to start”: AI Vasily Krylov.

“Russian soldiers wandered”: RSA, report Beria to Stalin, 1.27.45.

“Lieutenant Alexandr Sergeev’s”: AI Alexandr Sergeev.

“Our boys would open”: AI Alexandr Markov.

“When seventeen-year-old Joseph”: Joe Volmar,
I Learned to Fly for Hitler
(Kron Publications: 1999), p. 179.

“He warmed to the memory of”: AI Hans Siwik.

“The oldest boys”: Guy Sajer,
The Forgotten Soldier
(Sphere: 1977), pp. 475–6.

“Any further losses would”: BA, RH2/329.

“Waltraut Ptack was only thirteen”: AI Waltraut Ptack.

“Twenty-year-old Eleonore”: AI Eleonore Burgsdorff.

“You must go—quickly”: AI Lise-Lotte Kussner.

“The first shattering reports”: Von Stemann MS, op. cit., p. 192.

“In the last days of January”: Volmar, op. cit., p. 191.

“Twenty-year-old Elfride”: AI Elfride Kowitz.

“The highway along the Frisches Haff”: RSA, Stalin files.

“would be home in time”: Von Lehndorff, op. cit., pp. 32–3.

“I tramped through the powdery”: Ibid., p. 20.

“Among the very few people”: AI Michael Wieck.

“But, by a dreadful irony”: Christopher Dobson, John Miller and Ronald Payne,
The Cruellest Night
(Hodder & Stoughton: 1979), passim.

“Now that the evacuation”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.83.

“The Königsberg battle was very”: AI Anatoly Osminov.

“Lieutenant Alexandr Sergeev of the 297th”: AI Alexandr Sergeev.

“The further side of the pond”: Von Lehndorff, op. cit., p. 49.

“The reasons for the fall of Königsberg”: BA, RH2/336.

“Beria reported that there were 32,573”: RSA, 9401 om.2 g.95 237a.

“Dr. Karl Ludwig Mahlo”: AI Karl Ludwig Mahlo.

“We were in tearing spirits”: AI Abram Skuratovsky.

“Corporal Anatoly Osminov’s unit”: AI Anatoly Osminov.

“We stood close together”: Von Lehndorff, op. cit., p. 59.

“Through the siege of Königsberg”: AI Michael Wieck.

“The bulk of those who fled”: AI Helmut Schmidt.

“It was our holocaust”: AI a survivor of East Prussia, whose name I think it is tactful to leave anonymous.

“You have, of course, read”: Djilas, op. cit., p. 435.

“In his generous instincts”: Dwight Eisenhower,
Crusade in Europe
(Doubleday: 1948), pp. 473–4.

“Private Vitold Kubashevsky, for instance”: AI Vitold Kubashevsky.

“All of us knew very well”: Alexandr Solzhenitsyn,
Gulag Archipelago,
vol. i (Har-per & Row [paperback]: 1974), p. 21.

“Speed, frenzy and savagery”: Erickson, op. cit., pp. 466–7.

“We were forced to leave a land”:
Documents on the Expulsions of the German People East of the Oder-Neisse Rivers,
Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims, 1953.

“At his post on the shore”: AI Vitold Kubashevsky.

“I do not suppose that at any moment”: Quoted Gilbert, op. cit., p. 1182.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: FIRESTORMS: WAR IN THE SKY

“Meanwhile—still during the night”: Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt,
Bomber Command War Diaries
(Viking: 1985), pp. 601–3.

“The bombing of Germany”: Statistics for fatal casualties from bombing vary immensely, because so much documentation was lost in the last months of the war: reputable recent authorities offer estimates which range between a low of 305,000 and a high of 700,000. It is unlikely that this issue will ever be conclusively resolved.

“During the armies’ advance”: Weigley, op. cit., p. 668.

“The gross claims of our airmen”: Hansen Diary, op. cit.

“During the past few weeks”: Quoted Tedder, op. cit., p. 613.

“a considerable commander”: Anthony Montague-Brown,
Long Sunset
(Cassell: 1995), p. 201.

“We should never allow”: Eaker to Spaatz quoted Wesley Frank Craven and James Lee Cate,
The Army Air Forces in World War II
(University of Chicago Press: 7 vols. 1948–58), vol. iii, p. 733.