The Power of Nothing to Lose by William L. Silber

Author:William L. Silber [Silber, William L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2021-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

Headlines throughout the world during November 1944 hailed the Allies’ march to the brink of the Rhine, threatening to trample the Third Reich and raising the stakes for Hitler’s final bet. The New York Times led with the banner “To the Rhine,” the Irish Times put “Americans Advance on Rhine ‘Gateways,’” on its front page, but the Manchester Guardian, which did not mention Germany’s most famous river, irritated Hitler most of all with the headline “Two Novembers.”18 The British newspaper compared Germany’s current military position with November 1918, when the country surrendered, ending the Great War: “The Kaiser’s armies were still able to carry out large scale offensive operations. . . . Today the German war machine is almost worn out. It is no longer working full blast. The cogs no longer fit together. . . . The situation for the Germans on Armistice Day, 1918, was, beyond comparison, more favorable than now.”19 The disrespect only hardened Hitler’s determination to counterattack; to turn the Third Reich’s heartbeat into a drum roll.

Chief of Staff Jodl had met with a handful of senior officers on Friday, November 3, to outline the Ardennes offensive, swearing them to secrecy by Hitler’s order. General Hasso von Manteuffel, short in stature but with a big reputation, heavily decorated for bravery during battles in North Africa and Russia, and promoted by Hitler to lead the Fifth Panzer Army, recalled the formal oath he signed at the beginning of the meeting: “I had assumed that the conference would be merely routine . . . but a glance at the document . . . quickly showed this was to be an unusual meeting. . . . Each officer present had to pledge himself to complete silence . . . [and] should any officer break this pledge . . . his offense would be punishable by death.” Manteuffel signed the document, thinking, “I had frequently attended top-secret conferences presided over by Hitler at Berchtesgaden or the Wolf’s Lair, both before and after July 20, 1944, and this was the first time that I had seen a document such as [this] one.”20

During the meeting, Jodl set Saturday, November 25, as the date for the counterattack, and asked Manteuffel to comment. The diminutive general said he would “do his utmost” to implement the plan, despite reservations about its wisdom, and recalls the horrified look on Jodl’s face “when I went on to say that I did not see how the attack could possibly be launched successfully before December 15.”21 Jodl said, “Hitler would never agree to that,” but Manteuffel stood his ground. He was right about the timing, and Hitler later accepted the delay, eventually agreeing to Saturday, December 16, as Null Tag, Germany’s D-day.22

Manteuffel had a lengthy private conversation with Hitler after a briefing on Saturday, December 2, and the Nazi leader explained that a successful counterattack would be a public relations coup, buoying German morale and gaining renewed respect in the Allied countries. He then added a thought that raised

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