Krebs informed Hitler that the attack which was to have been undertaken by a new ‘combat group’ under the command of the SS General Felix Steiner against Soviet forces to the south east of Berlin, an attack which supposedly would turn the tide, never took place: the ‘Steiner Combat Group’ and its offensive had been fictions.
At this the dictator finally cracked. He ordered everyone from the conference room except for Keitel, Jodl, Krebs and Burgdorf. To the amazement of his small audience, Hitler now admitted out loud that the war was lost. ‘Betrayal’ was everywhere! According to his Luftwaffe adjutant, Nicolaus von Below, the ‘Führer’:
[…] then unleashed a furious tirade against the Army commanders and their ‘long-term treachery’. I was sitting near the door in the annexe and heard almost every word. It was a terrible half-hour. After this outburst, however, he had at least made up his mind about his destiny. He ordered Keitel and Jodl to report to Dönitz in northern Germany and continue the war from there. He, Hitler, would remain in Berlin and take his own life.
Source:
Bessel, Richard. “The Last Days of the Reich.” Germany 1945: From War to Peace. New York, NY, HarperCollins, 2009. 106-7. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Nicolaus von Below, At Hitler’s Side. The Memoir’s of Hitler’s Luftwaffe Adjutant 1937-1945 (London, 2004), p. 236.
Further Reading:
[Hans Krebs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Krebs_(Wehrmacht_general\))
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