When the long preamble is finished the Führer comes to the main theme I have listened to so often. He recapitulates the reasons communicated to me a few days ago and concludes:
“It is my wish that this hard task should be undertaken by you, the only man who wears the highest German decoration for bravery.”
With the same and similar arguments as on the last occasion I once again refuse, especially as the situation at the front has still further deteriorated, and I emphasize that it is only a matter of time before the East and West fronts will meet in the middle of the Reich and when that happens two pockets will have to operate separately. Only the northern pocket would then come under consideration for the execution of his plan, and it would be necessary to concentrate all our jet air craft inside it. It interests me that the number of serviceable jet aircraft, including bombers and fighters, on the returns for the day is given as 180. At the front we have long felt that the enemy has a numerical superiority of almost twenty to one. Seeing that the jet aircraft require particularly large airfields it is obvious to start with that only a limited number of airfields within the northern pocket come into question. I point out that as soon as we have assembled our aircraft at these bases they will be pounded day and night by enemy bombers and from a merely technical aspect their operational effectiveness will be nil in a couple of days, in which case it will no longer be possible to keep the air space above General Wenk’s army free of the enemy and the catastrophe will then be inevitable because the army will be strategically immobilized. I know from my personal contact with General Wenk that the army includes my guarantee of a free air space as a reliable factor in all its calculations as we have so often done successfully together in Russia.
This time I cannot take upon myself the responsibility, and I stick to my refusal. And once again I discover that anyone of whom Hitler has reason to believe that he only desires to serve the best interests of the whole is free to express his opinion, and that he is willing to revise his own ideas, while understandably he has ceased to have any confidence in people who have repeatedly deceived and disappointed him.
He declines to accept my “two pocket theory” as an accurate prediction. He bases his opinion on a firm and unqualified promise given to him by the respective army commanders of each sector that they will not retreat from the present fronts which are, broadly speaking, the line of the Elbe in the West and in the East the line of the Oder, the Neisse and the Sudeten mountains. I remark that I trust the German soldier to acquit himself with especial gallantry now that he is fighting on German soil, but that if the Russians mass their forces for a concentrated blow at one key point they are bound to batter a gap in our defenses and then the two fronts will link up. I quote instances from the Eastern Front in recent years when the Russians hurled tank after tank into the battle and if three armored divisions failed to reach their objective they simply threw in ten, gaining ground on our depleted Russian front at the cost of enormous losses in men and material. Nothing could have stopped them. The question then was whether or not they would exhaust this immense reserve of man-power before Germany was beaten to her knees. They did not, because the help they received from the West was too great. From a purely military standpoint every time we gave ground at that time in Russia and the Soviets suffered heavier losses in men and material it was a victory for the defense. Even though the enemy ridiculed these victories we know that it was so. But this time a victorious retirement was useless, for then the Russians would be only a few miles behind the Western Front. The Western Powers have accepted a grave responsibility—perhaps for centuries to come—by weakening Germany only to give additional strength to Russia. At the end of our talk I say to the Führer these words:
“In my opinion at this moment the war can no longer be ended victoriously on both fronts, but it is possible on one front if we can succeed in getting an armistice with the other.”
A rather tired smile flits across his face as he replies: “It is easy for you to talk. Ever since 1943 I have tried incessantly to conclude a peace, but the Allies won’t; from the outset they have demanded unconditional surrender. My personal fate is naturally of no consequence, but every man in his right mind must see that I could not accept unconditional surrender for the German people. Even now negotiations are pending, but I have given up all hope of their success. Therefore we must do everything to surmount this crisis, so that decisive weapons may yet bring us victory.”
After some further talk about the position of Schörner’s army he tells me he intends to wait a few days to see whether the general situation develops as he anticipates or my fears are justified. In the first case he will recall me to Berlin for a final acceptance of the assignment. It is nearly one o’clock in the morning when I leave the Führer’s bunker. The first visitors are waiting in the anteroom to offer their congratulations on his birthday.
I return to Kummer early, flying low to avoid the Americans, Mustangs, four-engined bombers and Thunderbolts, which soon infest the upper air and are above me almost all the way back. Having to fly like this alone below these enemies and constantly on the qui vive “have they spotted you or not?”—is a greater strain than many an operational flight. If Niermann and I occasionally get rather hot under the collar with the suspense it is not to be wondered at. We are glad to set foot again on our home base.
The slight relaxation of the pressure exerted by the Russians west of Görlitz is partly due to our daily operations which have inflicted heavy losses. One evening after the last sortie of the day I drive into Görlitz, my home town, now in the battle zone. Here I meet many acquaintances of my youth. They are all in some job or other, not the least of their activities being their home defense duties with the Volkssturm. It is a strange reunion; we are shy of uttering the thoughts that fill our minds. Each has his load of trouble, sorrow and bereavement, but at this moment our eyes are focused only on the danger from the East. Women are doing men’s work, digging tank traps, and only lay down their spades for a brief pause to suckle their hungry babies; greybeards forget the infirmities of age and labour till their brows are damp with sweat. Grim resolution is written on the faces of the girls; they know what is in store for them if the Red hordes break through. A people in a struggle for survival! If the nations of the West could see with their own eyes the happenings of these days pregnant with destiny and realize their significance they would very soon abandon their frivolous attitude towards Bolshevism.
Only the 2nd Squadron is billeted in Kummer; the wing staff has its headquarters in the schoolhouse at Niemes, some of us live in the homes of the local in habitants who are 95 per cent German, and do everything possible to meet our every wish. The business of getting to and from the airfield is not altogether plain sailing, one man always squats on the mudguard of every car as look-out for enemy aircraft. American and Russian low-flying planes scour the country at every minute of the day, actually criss-crossing one another in this region. The more unpleasant visitors come from the West, the others from the East.
When we take off on a sortie we often find the “Amis” lying in wait for us in one direction and the “Russkis” in another. Our old Ju. 87 crawls like a snail in comparison with the enemy aircraft, and when we approach the objective of our mission the constant aerial combat strains our nerves to snapping point. If we attack the air is instantly alive with swarming foes; if we are on our homeward course we have again to force a passage through a ring of hostile aircraft before we can land. Our flak on the airfield usually has to “shoot us a free path.”