The Final Hours: The Luftwaffe Plot Against Goring (Aviation Classics)

204 Pages·2005·1.25 MB·English

by  Johannes Steinhoff

THE FINAL HOURS
..........................10873$ $$FM 07-07-0513:18:47 PS PAGEi
Series Editors
Walter J. Boyne and Peter B. Mersky
Aviation Classics are inspired nonfiction and fictional accounts that
revealthehumandrama offlight.Theseriescoversevery eraofmili-
tary and civil aviation, is international in scope, and encompasses
flying in all of its diversity. Some of the books are well-known best-
sellers and others are superb, but unheralded, titles that deserve a
wideraudience.
OthertitlesintheAviationClassicsseries
OperationOverflight:AMemoiroftheU-2IncidentbyFrancisGary
PowerswithCurtGentry
Ploesti: The Great Ground-Air Battle of 1 August 1943 by James
DuganandCarrollStewart
ThirtySecondsoverTokyobyTedW.Lawson
..........................10873$ $$FM 07-07-0513:18:47 PS PAGEii
THE FINAL HOURS
The Luftwaffe Plot Against Go¨ring
Johannes Steinhoff
Foreword by Dennis E. Showalter
PotomacBooks,Inc.
Washington,D.C.
..........................10873$ $$FM 07-07-0513:18:48 PS PAGEiii
Copyright(cid:2)2005byPotomacBooks,Inc.
PublishedintheUnitedStatesbyPotomacBooks,Inc.(formerlyBrassey’s,Inc.).All
rightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanymannerwhatsoever
withoutwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher,exceptinthecaseofbriefquotations
embodiedincriticalarticlesandreviews.
Copyright(cid:2)Text1974,PaulListVerlagK.G.Munchen
(cid:2)FirstEnglishtranslation1977as‘‘TheLastChance,’’Hutchinson&Co
(Publishers)Ltd.
(cid:2)1985,JohannesSteinhoff
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Steinhoff,Johannes.
[InletzterStunde.English]
Thefinalhours:theLuftwaffeplotagainstGo¨ring/JohannesSteinhoff;foreword
byDennisE.Showalter.—1sted.
p.cm.—(Aviationclassics)
OriginallypublishedinEnglishin1977underthetitleTheLastchance.
Includesindex.
ISBN1-57488-863-3(alk.paper)
1. Steinhoff,Johannes. 2. Germany.Luftwaffe—Biography. 3. WorldWar,
1939–1945—Personalnarratives,German. 4. WorldWar,1939–1945—Aerial
operations,German. 5. Fighterpilots—Germany—Biography. 6. WorldWar,
1939–1945—Germany. 7. Go¨ring,Hermann,1893–1946. I. Title. II. Series:
Aviationclassicsseries(Washington,D.C.)
D811.S7945132004
940.54(cid:2)4943(cid:2)092—dc22 2004012842
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaonacid-freepaperthatmeetstheAmerican
NationalStandardsInstituteZ39-48Standard.
PotomacBooks,Inc.
22841QuicksilverDrive
Dulles,Virginia20166
FirstEdition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
..........................10873$ $$FM 07-07-0513:18:49 PS PAGEiv
C O N T E N T S
Foreword vii
Preface xi
Introduction xiii
Oberfo¨hringArmyHospital,Munich:July1945 3
1 Scho¨nwalde:October–November1944 22
2 Brandenburg:November–December1944 43
3 Gatow:December1944–January1945 62
4 Berlin:4January1945 77
5 Litzmannstadt:13–14January1945 84
6 Berlin:19January1945 97
7 January–February1945 117
8 Brandenburg:February1945 126
9 Munich-Riem:EarlyApril1945 138
10 Munich-Riem:18April1945 159
Oberfo¨hringArmyHospital,Munich:September1945 177
IndexofNames 183
AbouttheAuthor 187
v
..........................10873$ CNTS 07-07-0513:18:52 PS PAGEv
..........................10873$ CNTS 07-07-0513:18:52 PS PAGEvi
F O R E W O R D
IfirstdiscoveredJohannesSteinhoffasagraduatestudent,preparing
afieldinWorldWarII.Hisnamekeptappearingasoneofthegifted
warriorswhocarriedtheThirdReichontheirshouldersforsixyears.
Never did men fight better in a worse cause than did the Germans
from1939to1945,andSteinhoffwasapaladin.Asafighterpilothe
served on every major front and scored 176 aerial victories. He was
amongthefirsttoflyjetsincombat,servingwiththefamous‘‘Squad-
ron of Experts’’ in the war’s final days. He had been decorated with
the Knight’s Cross with Swords and Oak Leaves. While his awards
mighthavebeenbestowedbyacriminalregime,theskillandbravery
they recognized were no less real for that. There was also a certain
karmic irony in someone often called ‘‘the handsomest man in the
Luftwaffe’’ having his face burned off in a crash just at the end of
thewar,eventuallyemergingfromyearsofrestorativesurgerywitha
gargoyle mask that was mostly scar tissue. It required little imagina-
tion to interpret Johannes Steinhoff as a symbol of Germany itself:
disfiguredbyitspast,permanentlymarkedforeveryonetosee.Iregu-
larlysuggestedthetropetomyclasses,andconsideredmyselfaclever
youngprofessorindeed.
It required no more research than reading German newspapers to
discover that Johannes Steinhoff was more than a symbol of a van-
ished regimeand a lost war. Whenthe newly establishedFederal Re-
public of Germany began considering recreating its armed forces as
part ofits reintegrationinto anemerging WesternAlliance, Steinhoff
was among the first veterans consulted. He had won general respect
for his integrity, and for his willingness to challenge openly what he
considered the disastrously mistaken operational decisions of Hitler
vii
..........................10873$ FRWD 07-07-0513:18:55 PS PAGEvii
viii FOREWORD
and his lieutenant, Luftwaffe commander Hermann Go¨ring. Initially
reluctant,likemanyofhiscounterparts,toconsiderputtingonauni-
form once more, Steinhoff finally decided that he might after all be
able to contribute directly to creating a new Germany. It would not
be a Germany of power and conquest like its Imperial and National
Socialist predecessors. Nor would it be the ‘‘Holy Germany,’’ a bea-
contothenations,ofwhichresisterslikeCol.ClausvonStauffenberg
had dreamed. This Germany would be a state and a people among
others, committed to a common European and Atlantic enterprise.
Resisting the ideological and military challenges of the Soviet Union
wasmerelyafirststeptowardtheeventualconstructionofacommu-
nityoffreepeoples,linkedbymutualinterestsandmutualrespect.He
sawGerman-Americanrelationsasthecornerstoneofthatenterprise.
Johannes Steinhoff became one of the founding fathers of a new
Luftwaffe,whoseofficersandmenservedademocracyinthecontext
oftheNATOAlliance.HeeventuallyrosetobeitsInspector-General,
then its Chairman of the Military Commission of NATO, retiring as
afour-stargeneral.Neitherhenorhispilotseverfiredashotinanger.
In his later years, Steinhoff described that as the aspect of his career
ofwhichhewasmostproud.
I learned that during our collaboration on a book titled Voices
from the Third Reich. In 1985 President Ronald Reagan made inter-
nationalheadlinesbystandingalongsideGermanChancellorHelmut
Kohl to commemorate German war dead at Bitburg, in a cemetery
including some graves of SS men. General Steinhoff, by then retired,
attended the ceremony, and was shaken by the negative reactions it
evoked in Europe and the United States. Johannes had told his own
wartime story, in The Straits of Messina and this volume, The Final
Hours.Buthebelievedtherewasalargerstorytotell:thestoryofthe
Germanpeople,especiallythegenerationthathadfoughtWorldWar
IIinthefrontlines.AfterBitburgitwasespeciallyimportantforhim
that Americans come to understand the complex web of circum-
stances and principles that brought Adolf Hitler to power and held
Germanyinhisthralluntilnothingremained.
Totellthestory,JohannesdecidedheneededanAmericancollabo-
rator. By then I was teaching at Colorado College. Johannes’s son-
in-law was also on the faculty, in a different department, and the
GeneralandIhadmetcasuallyacoupleoftimes.Whenhisdaughter
..........................10873$ FRWD 07-07-0513:18:56 PS PAGEviii
FOREWORD ix
suggested ‘‘What about Dennis?’’ he was willing to consider it. We
met,talked,andcametoaquickagreement.
Formeitwasthestartofanadventure.‘‘We’llbeworkingineach
others’pocketsforalongtime,’’Johannestoldme.‘‘Iwantsomeone
who can discuss more than today’s newspaper.’’ It didn’t take me
longtodiscoverthatthegeneralwasamanofBildung,ofcultivation,
inthebestsenseofthatdistinctivelyGermanconcept.Hewaswidely,
indeed universally, read, in history, literature, and philosophy. He
sympathized with my ignorance of Greek and Latin. He was an ac-
complished amateur artist. And well into his seventies he could pull
GsinanF-4Phantomjet.Itwasnotacombinationofcharacteristics
usuallyfoundinanAmericanseniorofficer,tosaytheleast!
Wherever we went in Germany as we worked on the project,
General Steinhoff was recognized and respected. ‘‘My face is hard
to forget,’’ he would joke. But it was his personality that made the
impression. Whether interviewing veterans and survivors of the war,
talking with men who served with him in the Bundeswehr, or ac-
knowledgingseekersofanautographorahandshakeinarestaurant,
Johannesstoodout.Hewasnoshrinkingviolet.Heenjoyedtheatten-
tionandheknewhisworth.Buthedidnotneedtoseekcenterstage.
Thespotlightsoughthim.
For many of his countrymen, on all points of the political spec-
trum,JohannesSteinhoffepitomizedthe‘‘newGermany’’oftheFed-
eralRepublic.Consciousofthepast,hehadlearnedfromit,without
either obsessing on or forgetting his part in it. His memories were
never self-protective. ‘‘I was part of a generation,’’ he would say,
‘‘that was raised on the myths of patriotism and sacrifice. Hitler ap-
pealed to those myths, and led us to destruction. Never forget that
theGermanpeoplefollowedhim.ButneverforgetthatHitler’sReich
lasted twelve years, while Germany’s history spans a thousand.’’ He
had no use for the argument that German culture or the German
people were somehow inherently flawed. ‘‘People can learn, and
grow, and change. The challenge is never to stop living, even if at
timesyouloseyourway.’’
Johannes never stopped living and kept looking forward until the
day of his death. To call him a great man would be to inspire his
laughter. ‘‘Heroes and martyrs are always scarce. Love your country
andstandfortruth.That’sthebestonecando.’’ButJohannesStein-
hoff was a remarkable man. As a young pilot he epitomized courage
..........................10873$ FRWD 07-07-0513:18:56 PS PAGEix