The Hitler Youth, Gristle for the Reich's Mill: The Story of Hitler's Children and their Role in Germany's Destruction by David G Williams

Author:David G Williams [Williams, David G]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Two Moons Rising
Published: 2014-11-19T22:00:00+00:00

Left: the exhausted 7th army is nearly completely surrounded, the SS Divisions, along with the HJ fight a desperate battle to keep an escape corridor open

Five Panzer Divisions (or what was left of them) and one newly created one were now preparing for the next battles. Far away, the Führer and his Generals pushed Division numbered flags around large maps, but the reality was that these Divisions were shattered, under half strength and with little equipment, little food, medical supplies and almost out of fuel. They had fought for a month with little sleep and under constant bombardment. What nerves they had left were also shattered. It is a remarkable feat that they held on for so long, something that deserves the utmost respect, it was soldiering at its very best, but it was over. The war was lost and it was time to sue for peace with the West and try to save the German army and its people from the abyss that was being prepared for them. However, that is not what happened next.

The HJ were promised reinforcements from Fieldmarschall von Kluge, and replacement in the line by an Infantry Division shortly, but in the meantime, the Division would be split up and used to bolster up depleted battle groups. One can imagine much to the dismay of the HJ boys who had lived, fought, killed and died together for a month now. The near destroyed Wünsche Kampfgruppe was rebuilt and what was left of the HJ (alarmingly little) would form the Meyer Kampfgruppe, because that was all there was enough left for. It was placed around Campagne, and would for now be the battle reserve of the I SS Panzerkorps.

The SS Divisions were preparing for Valhalla and were in no mood for surrendering. For the men of these elite Divisions they had fought without respite for years, the Third Reich for them and the HJ was all they had ever believed in, they had been raised to since childhood. For many, they simply could not accept that they had been defeated, they could not envisage a world without them dominating it, without national socialism or Adolf Hitler as their leader, for others, it was simply a case of trying to keep the enemy out of Germany. Many also believed that the Western Allies and the Germans would still unite, at the end they would turn and fight the Soviets together, it sounds farcical, but it was widely believed.

‘Sepp’ Dietrich requested 2000 replacements for the HJ, he got 261. Despite the HJ’s outstanding prowess and successes in inflicting large casualties on their enemies it had now lost 6,164 men (teenagers) by the 20th July.[95] A third of the new elite Division of Germany’s finest young men had been killed in six weeks, that’s a thousand a week lost.

On 21st July von Kluge wrote a frank and what should have been an illuminating letter to the Führer to make it clear to him of the situation they were facing,

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