Hitler. Part 32

119. The Over-extended Front. Leningrad: A huge cannon, mounted on a train, fires on the besieged city. The gun weighed 145 tons, had a barrel 16.4 metres long, and had a range of 46.6 kilometres. The Over-extended Front. Leningrad: A huge cannon, mounted on a train, fires on the besieged city. The gun weighed 145 tons, had a barrel 16.4 metres long, and had a range of 46.6 kilometres.

120. The Over-extended Front. Libya: German tanks rolling along the front in Cyrenaica.

121. The Over-extended Front. Bosnia: An expedition to hunt down partisans.

122. An exhausted German soldier on the Eastern Front.

123. Hitler viewing the Wehrmacht parade after laying a wreath at the cenotaph on Unter den Linden on 'Heroes' Memorial Day', 21 March 1943. Behind Hitler (left to right) are Goring, Keitel, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy Karl Donitz, and Himmler. Shortly beforehand, a planned attempt to kill Hitler by opponents from within Army Group Centre had had to be aborted when the dictator's usual timetable on the day was altered without notice.

124. Hitler is saluted by the Party's 'Old Guard' in the Lowenbraukeller in Munich on 8 November 1943, the twentieth anniversary of the Beerhall Putsch. Goring is to Hitler's right. It was to be the last time that Hitler would appear in person at this symbolic ritual, a high point in the n.a.z.i calendar.

125. Martin Bormann, head of the Party Chancellery (following the flight of Rudolf He to Scotland in May 1941). From the beginning of the war onwards he was invariably at Hitler's side, and in April 1943 was officially appointed Secretary to the Fuhrer. This proximity, together with his control of the party, gave him great power.

126. Hitler and Goebbels, still capable of raising a smile despite military disasters and mounting domestic problems, photographed during a walk on the Obersalzberg above Berchtesgaden in June 1943.

127. The Eastern Front in spring and autumn. A German vehicle bogged down in heavy mud.

128. The Eastern Front in winter. Tanks and armoured vehicles, unusable in the conditions, had to be dug in at strategic points to secure them against Soviet attacks.

129. The Eastern Front in summer. Limitless s.p.a.ce. A Waffen-SS unit treks across seemingly unending fields.

130. The 'Final Solution'. French Jews being deported in 1942. Frightened faces peer out from behind the barbed-wire covering the slats of the railway-wagon.

131. The 'Final Solution'. Polish Jews forced to dig their own grave, 1942.

132. The 'Final Solution'. Incinerators at Majdanek with skeletons of camp-prisoners murdered on the approach of the Red Army and liberation of the camp on 27 July 1944.

133. Hitler and Himmler take a wintry walk on the Obersalzberg in March 1944.

134. The 'White Rose' resistance group of Munich students. Christoph Probst (left) with Sophie and Hans Scholl in July 1942. On 22 February the following year, they were sentenced to death and beheaded on the same day for distributing leaflets in Munich University, in the wake of the disaster at Stalingrad, condemning the inhumanity of the n.a.z.i regime.

135. The brilliant tank commander Heinz Guderian. Though he clearly recognized that Hitler was leading Germany to catastrophe, he condemned the attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate him on 20 July 1944. A day later, Guderian was appointed Chief of the General Staff, retaining the position until his dismissal on 28 March 1945.

136. General Ludwig Beck, who, following his resignation because of Hitler's insistence on risking war over Czechoslovakia as Chief of the General Staff in 1938, became a central figure in the conservative resistance, committing suicide on 20 July 1944 after the failure of the bomb-plot.

137. Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, the driving-force behind the conspiracy to kill Hitler on 20 July 1944, who took upon himself the responsibility both for carrying out the a.s.sa.s.sination in the Wolf's Lair and for directing the intended coup d'etat in Berlin. On its failure, he was arrested and shot by a firing-squad late that night.

138. Major-General Henning von Tresckow, one of the most courageous figures in the resistance, the inspiration of several plans, hatched within Army Group Centre, to kill Hitler in 1943. Stauffenberg regarded Tresckow as his mentor. This is one of the last photographs of him, taken in 1944. He committed suicide on 21 July on the Eastern Front on learning of the failure of the bomb-plot.

139. Hitler, looking shaken, just after the a.s.sa.s.sination attempt on 20 July 1944.

140. Hitler's trousers, shredded by the bomb-blast.

141. Hitler greets Mussolini at Fuhrer Headquarters the last time they would meet some three hours after Stauffenberg's bomb had exploded on 20 July 1944. Hitler had to shake hands with his left hand because his right arm had been slightly injured in the blast.

142. Grand-Admiral Donitz professes the loyalty of the navy in a broadcast shortly after midnight on 21 July 1944, just after Hitler and Goring had spoken to the German people. Listening to Donitz are Bormann (left, next to Hitler) and Jodl (on Hitler's right, with bandaged head).

143. An ageing Hitler, pictured at the Berghof in 1944. An ageing Hitler, pictured at the Berghof in 1944.

144. Wonder-Weapons: a V1 flying-bomb is taken to its launch-pad. Wonder-Weapons: a V1 flying-bomb is taken to its launch-pad.

145. Wonder-Weapons: a V2 rocket, ready for launch at Cuxhaven. Wonder-Weapons: a V2 rocket, ready for launch at Cuxhaven.

146. Wonder-Weapons: An American soldier stands alongside a Me 262 on the advance into Germany in April 1945. Hitler had for a long time insisted on having the jet-fighter designed as a bomber. When finally deployed as a fighter, it was far too late to be effective. Wonder-Weapons: An American soldier stands alongside a Me 262 on the advance into Germany in April 1945. Hitler had for a long time insisted on having the jet-fighter designed as a bomber. When finally deployed as a fighter, it was far too late to be effective.

147. Sc.r.a.ping the barrel. Ill-equipped men of the 'Volkssturm' the people's militia established by Hitler on 25 September 1944, ordering all able-bodied men between 16 and 60 to take up arms pictured during a swearing-in ceremony in Berlin in December 1944. Sc.r.a.ping the barrel. Ill-equipped men of the 'Volkssturm' the people's militia established by Hitler on 25 September 1944, ordering all able-bodied men between 16 and 60 to take up arms pictured during a swearing-in ceremony in Berlin in December 1944.

148. The last 'Heroes' Memorial Day', 11 March 1945. Hitler did not appear, leaving it to Goring (flanked by Donitz on his left, and Keitel on his right) to lay the wreath at the cenotaph on Unter den Linden.

149. Women and children fleeing as the Red Army attacks Danzig in March 1945.

150. Fantasy: In February 1945, with the Red Army within striking distance of Berlin, Hitler ponders the model of the intended postwar rebuilding of his hometown of Linz, designed for him by his architect Hermann Giesler.

151. Reality: Hitler, with his adjutant Julius Schaub, standing in the ruins of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin in March 1945, a few weeks before his suicide.

Epilogue.