MOSCOW, May 6. /TASS/. The FSB office in the Ivanovo Region has declassified testimony from Hitler's former personal adjutant illustrating how the Soviet Union hurried to the rescue of Anglo-American troops in dire straits during the Battle of the Bulge, the bloodiest battle for the Western Allies in World War II. The testimony was uploaded to the FSB website on the eve of the anniversary of Berlin’s fall in May 1945.
Hitler's former adjutant Otto Guensche was captured during the battle of Berlin in April-May 1945 and, while being kept in custody in an investigative prison in Moscow, presented a firsthand account of what was happening at Hitler's headquarters in the last months of the war.
In 1948, after the Soviet daily Pravda published a statement of the Sovinformburo news agency entitled "Falsifiers of History" in response to a collection of documents of the US Department of State "Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939-1941: Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Office" Guencsche wrote a statement to the Soviet government to describe in detail why the initially successful German offensive in the Ardennes failed.
According to Guensche, in early December 1944 at a meeting at his headquarters Hitler "emphasized the special importance of the offensive, pointing out that its success would rival the success of Dunkirk, where the German armies in 1940 dealt a crushing blow to the British armies." A large German group under the command of Field Marshal Walter Model from December 16, 1944 to January 29, 1945 conducted an operation codenamed Wacht am Rhein (Guard on the Rhine) its aim being to defeat the Allied forces in Belgium and the Netherlands and try to induce the US and Britain to separate peace talks. On the first day of fighting, the German group managed to break through the American-British frontline on a stretch of 80 kilometers and capture 30,000 officers and men.
Relocation of headquarters, secret talks in Stockholm
In his statement, kept in the archived investigation case file, Guensche testified that at the end of August 1944, he learned from the representative of the German Foreign Ministry under Hitler, ambassador Walter Hewel, about secret negotiations in Stockholm at the initiative of the British on concluding a separate peace pact between Germany and the Anglo-Americans.
Hitler was so hopeful of success in the Ardennes, that to command the operation in person in late October 1944 he moved his headquarters from East Prussia to Bad Naugheim, the headquarters of Germany’s Western Front command. As Guensche testified, Hitler was certain that due to worsening weather conditions, which prevented the use of aircraft, the risk of the Red Army attacking was low.
Relocation of assault armies
According to Guensche, in late December 1944 the Chief of the ground forces’ General Staff Guderian arrived with an urgent report for Hitler. He stated that "accurate and verified intelligence" indicated that "in the very near future we should expect a major Russian offensive in East Prussia and on the Vistula". Hitler, who personally drew up the plan for the operation in the Ardennes and the capture of Antwerp, for several days doubted the reliability of such reports but found them very worrisome."
"Hitler was clearly nervous. It was evident that Guderian's report shook him up," Guensche wrote.
"Hitler indicated that he did not consider Guderian's warning as absolutely reliable, but should it become necessary to further strengthen the Eastern Front, it would only be possible at the expense of weakening the Western Front, which essentially meant the termination of the offensive launched against the Anglo-Americans and the loss of the chance to ever regain the initiative in the West," his former adjutant wrote. At the end of December 1944, Hitler recognized that the buildup of Russian tank forces on the Vistula River and on the border of East Prussia as a great threat, and in this regard, "with a heavy heart decided to transfer" two assault armies - the entire tank army under Hans Dietrich and most of the tank army under Hasso von Manteuffel - to the Eastern Front.
On January 6, 1945, Hitler told Guensche to personally deliver a verbal order to Dietrich to gradually withdraw his divisions. On January 7 Guensche arrived at Dietrich's headquarters in St. Vitus. The latter "was very surprised and said that he had already made preparations for crossing the Maas River and, in his opinion, the operation would be successful," while detachments under the command of the chief of German sabotage groups Otto Skorzeny, using British and American tanks, were successfully operating behind Anglo-American lines and approaching bridges across the Maas. On January 11, Dietrich received a written order "to immediately withdraw the armies to the Rhine.
Vistula-Oder operation
On January 6, 1945, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, due to the dire situation on the Western Front, wrote to Joseph Stalin: "I shall be grateful if you can tell me whether we can count on a major Russian offensive on the Vistula front, or elsewhere, during January, with any other points you may care to mention." On January 7, 1945, Stalin replied that although the weather was not favorable, "In view of our Allies' position on the Western Front, GHQ of the Supreme Command have decided to complete preparations at a rapid rate and, regardless of weather, to launch large-scale offensive operations along the entire Central Front not later than the second half of January. Rest assured we shall do all in our power to support the valiant forces of our Allies."
On January 12, 1945, 8 days ahead of the original deadline, the Red Army began the Vistula-Oder operation, launching a broad offensive along the entire Soviet-German front. A total of 150 Soviet divisions with large amounts of artillery and aviation were committed to action to break through the frontline and push back German troops by hundreds of kilometers.
Stalin's order to the Red Army in February 1945 read: "In January of this year, the Red Army carried out a strike of unprecedented strength on the enemy on the entire frontline from the Baltic to the Carpathians. It broke through 1,200 kilometers of Germans’ powerful defenses, which they had been creating for a number of years." Stalin stated that the successes of the winter Vistula-Oder operation "disrupted the Germans’ winter offensive in the West, which had as its aim the capture of Belgium and Alsace, and gave the Allied armies in turn a chance to go on the offensive against the Germans.".