Read Online Hitler's Final Fortress - Breslau 1945 by Richard Hargreaves - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Richard Hargreaves
Tags: History, World War II, Military, Germany, Europe, Russia, Eastern, Russia & Former Soviet Republics, Bisac Code 1: HIS027100
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soldiers, prison camps in the Soviet Union; for civilians, rape, plunder and starvation, and finally expulsion from their homes as Silesia became Polish and Breslau became Wrocław. For Polish settlers – many driven from their homeland like the Germans they displaced – there were decades of toil and hardship as they struggled to rebuild the Silesian capital.
They succeeded. Today Wrocław is a flourishing city once more, the fourth largest in Poland, its war-scarred landscape cleared, its battle-scarred buildings restored and rebuilt. It is a seat of learning, the heart of Poland’s electronics and rail industries, a centre of banking and finance, a destination for hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. Most of these visitors are oblivious to the bitter struggle for Breslau.
The actors may be bit-part players compared with those at the fall of Berlin, the stakes not as high as at Stalingrad, the suffering not as protracted as in Leningrad, but the siege of Breslau is terrible, if compelling, drama. For the sake of the men and women involved on all sides it is a story which deserves to be told.
Gosport, November 2010
* Around one in five buildings in Berlin was destroyed during the war; the figure in Dresden was double that; some two in every three homes in Hamburg and Breslau were uninhabitable; the heart of Aachen lost four out of five homes; and in Cologne, an estimated ninety-five per cent of the old town was destroyed.
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations Used in References
AOK
Armeeoberkommando – staff of an army in the field
BA-MA
Bundesarchiv-Militär Archiv – Bundesarchiv Military Archive, Freiburg
Div
Division
DDRZW
Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg
Documenty
Festung Breslau: Documenty Oblezenia 16/2-6/5/45
HGr
Heeresgruppe – Army Group
IMT
International Military Tribunal
IWM
Imperial War Museum, London
Kdo
Kommando – command
KTB
Kriegstagebuch – war diary
NA
National Archives, Kew
NMT
Nuremberg Military Tribunal
OKH
Oberkommando des Heeres – German Army High Command
OKW
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht – German Armed Forces High Command
Pz
Panzer
SD Meldung
Sicherheitsdienst – SS Security Service – report
TB Cohn
Diary of Willi Cohn
TB Goebbels
Diary of Joseph Goebbels
TB Oven
Diary of Wilfred von Oven
Vertreibung
Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa I, Die Vertreibung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus den Gebieten östlich der Oder-Neisse
Author’s note
German ranks throughout, with the exception of Generalfeldmarschall (field marshal), have been left in their original language. An explanation of the comparative ranks can be found in the appendix. The names of towns, villages, streets and buildings in Silesia retain their German names for events prior to their becoming Polish; thereafter they revert to their post-1945 Polish names.
Prologue
The Square
Chapter 1
The Happy Fusion
The war on the Eastern Front only interests me when
the first Russians appear before Namslau
Chapter 2
The Bridgehead
Chapter 3
God Has Washed His Hands of this World
An entire city with more than one million
inhabitants was beginning to die .
Chapter 4
The Reckoning Has Begun
Chapter 5
In Defiance of Death and the Devil
Every house of Fortress Breslau, which has been entrusted to us
by the Führer, will cost the enemy rivers of blood
Chapter 6
The Breslau Method
Oh, you beautiful Breslau, how you have changed,
how you have turned into a field
of ruins and all because you are no fortress,
you were merely turned into one with words
Chapter 7
The Old Breslau Is No More
When the Oder flows with blood to the north and
the destroyed towers reach for the heavens
like scrawny fingers, Breslau will go under
Chapter 8
Any Further Sacrifice Is a Crime
Now it’s all over. My ideals are destroyed, Germany lies in ruins.
What will the Russians do with
They succeeded. Today Wrocław is a flourishing city once more, the fourth largest in Poland, its war-scarred landscape cleared, its battle-scarred buildings restored and rebuilt. It is a seat of learning, the heart of Poland’s electronics and rail industries, a centre of banking and finance, a destination for hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. Most of these visitors are oblivious to the bitter struggle for Breslau.
The actors may be bit-part players compared with those at the fall of Berlin, the stakes not as high as at Stalingrad, the suffering not as protracted as in Leningrad, but the siege of Breslau is terrible, if compelling, drama. For the sake of the men and women involved on all sides it is a story which deserves to be told.
Gosport, November 2010
* Around one in five buildings in Berlin was destroyed during the war; the figure in Dresden was double that; some two in every three homes in Hamburg and Breslau were uninhabitable; the heart of Aachen lost four out of five homes; and in Cologne, an estimated ninety-five per cent of the old town was destroyed.
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations Used in References
AOK
Armeeoberkommando – staff of an army in the field
BA-MA
Bundesarchiv-Militär Archiv – Bundesarchiv Military Archive, Freiburg
Div
Division
DDRZW
Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg
Documenty
Festung Breslau: Documenty Oblezenia 16/2-6/5/45
HGr
Heeresgruppe – Army Group
IMT
International Military Tribunal
IWM
Imperial War Museum, London
Kdo
Kommando – command
KTB
Kriegstagebuch – war diary
NA
National Archives, Kew
NMT
Nuremberg Military Tribunal
OKH
Oberkommando des Heeres – German Army High Command
OKW
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht – German Armed Forces High Command
Pz
Panzer
SD Meldung
Sicherheitsdienst – SS Security Service – report
TB Cohn
Diary of Willi Cohn
TB Goebbels
Diary of Joseph Goebbels
TB Oven
Diary of Wilfred von Oven
Vertreibung
Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa I, Die Vertreibung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus den Gebieten östlich der Oder-Neisse
Author’s note
German ranks throughout, with the exception of Generalfeldmarschall (field marshal), have been left in their original language. An explanation of the comparative ranks can be found in the appendix. The names of towns, villages, streets and buildings in Silesia retain their German names for events prior to their becoming Polish; thereafter they revert to their post-1945 Polish names.
Prologue
The Square
Chapter 1
The Happy Fusion
The war on the Eastern Front only interests me when
the first Russians appear before Namslau
Chapter 2
The Bridgehead
Chapter 3
God Has Washed His Hands of this World
An entire city with more than one million
inhabitants was beginning to die .
Chapter 4
The Reckoning Has Begun
Chapter 5
In Defiance of Death and the Devil
Every house of Fortress Breslau, which has been entrusted to us
by the Führer, will cost the enemy rivers of blood
Chapter 6
The Breslau Method
Oh, you beautiful Breslau, how you have changed,
how you have turned into a field
of ruins and all because you are no fortress,
you were merely turned into one with words
Chapter 7
The Old Breslau Is No More
When the Oder flows with blood to the north and
the destroyed towers reach for the heavens
like scrawny fingers, Breslau will go under
Chapter 8
Any Further Sacrifice Is a Crime
Now it’s all over. My ideals are destroyed, Germany lies in ruins.
What will the Russians do with
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