Background: The Nazi propaganda apparatus kept functioning almost to the end. This is a newsletter for party leaders and propagandists in Gau Sachsen. It takes up the military situation and attempts to put the best possible light on it. It ends by dealing with the widespread belief that being occupied by the Western Allies might not be so bad.
I translate it from the copy at the German National Library in Leizpig. The "geheim” note in pencil at the top is post-war. Leipzig fell into the Soviet zone of occupation. The librarians did not destroy items from the Nazi period, but made them almost inaccessible.
The source: Politischer Informationsdienst der NSDAP. Gaupropagandaleitung Sachsen, Folge 6, 29 January 1945.
Gaupropagandaleitung Sachsen
Folge 6
Since 12 January 1945 the Bolshevists have been flooding into eastern German territory in unprecedented masses. We know that the outcome of this battle will decide the war.
The German leadership realized that, after a five-month pause on the Eastern Front, the Soviets would one day begin this decisive blow. Given the enormous aggressive force of this mass attack, we had to accept Soviet territorial gains.
Given a front with four critical areas and an enemy with greatly superior forces, this could not be determined in advance. At the Baranow bridgehead alone the Soviets had 50 infantry divisions, numerous artillery corps, 1500 tanks, and thousands of warplanes. Their forces on the other critical points were about the same.
That is the best way to understand what must now be demanded from our people in order to deal with and defeat this mass attack. At the moment we cannot predict further developments. We know, however, that we in the homeland must mobilize all forces in this decisive struggle for our very existence, and we must accept sacrifices that are close to those of front soldiers, who are fighting for the future of the Reich.
Now that the major Bolshevist offensive is in full motion, we can see the strategy that our leadership has followed since the Western offensive of 16 December 1944 [the Battle of the Bulge]. Our enemy’s goal was to attack Germany from the east and west at the same time. They saw that as the only way for force Germany to the ground. Our preventive offensive put an end to that enemy plan. The Anglo-Americans had completed preparations for a fifth offensive against Aachen at the beginning of December. Had they succeeded in beginning the offensive then, the Rhine-Westphalian industrial region would doubtlessly have been in great danger. With good conscience at the end of January, we can now know that our offensive took the initiative from the enemy in the Aachen and Luxembourg area. We can see what confusion our unexpected offensive caused then from the fact that Churchill appeared at General Eisenhower’s headquarters and used every means to secure supreme command over all armies for his Field Marshal Montgomery, including the American forces north of the Ardennes.
The German long-distance weapon V-2 has a major role for the first time on the Western Front. As the OKW report announced in recent weeks, the main supply centers in Antwerp and Lüttich have been under continuing fire. The day is long past when the responsible commander, Reich Minister Speer, could announce the thousandth firing. Hundreds of further V-2s have been launched since in the same direction. Minister Speer has seen to it that the manufacturing areas are safe from any enemy action.
In the meanwhile English and American engineers have broken their heads to discover the secret of this revolutionary German discovery, but it is a long way from the attempt to success. It is interesting to see how our enemy imagines the V-2. The British news service recently reported that the device takes the form of an approximately 9-meter long bomb with four fins at the bottom. The engine of the 15-ton rocket contains, among other things, a complicated turbine that they think makes it independent of the atmosphere, allowing it to fly far above the earth. The force of the rocket bomb is so great that parts of a V- 2 a square meter in size have been found three kilometers from the point of impact.
American war correspondent George Huix describes the impact of a German V-bomb on the Belgian front in this way: “Suddenly I heard a man call something and other people began running. I heard a terrible noise and we began running into a building to save ourselves. The explosion came. It threw us all to the ground, even though as it turned out the point of impact was a long way away. Glass fragments flew like bullets. The air was thick and gray. I believed that I was going to die. In the vibrating air, everything looked as if one were under water in a swimming pool. We heard further explosions as we withdrew to the west. Building fragments flew through the air. Another V-bomb had fallen on an American supply route.”
The American magazine Time saw “the real value of the German V-weapons during an offensive.” The German fired salvos of V-1s and V-2s just like a barrage of heavy artillery. The revenge weapons for the British bombing war are undoubted reality.
One can read such reports daily in American newspapers. They are the best evidence for us that our long-distance weapons are causing the enemy great difficulties. We know that the Führer recently awarded the Knight’s Cross of the War Service Medal with Swords to five scientists and engineers who provided unique service in the development, manufacture, and use of the V-2.
The following example of enemy agitation is to be emphasized in our propaganda. We all still remember that the Führer’s decree on “people’s sacrifice” prescribed the death penalty for those who stole or enriched themselves with supplies gathered for the “people’s sacrifice.” What has the enemy done with this German announcement?
A day later the American station Daventry said this in a French broadcast: “Hitler threatened death to all those who did not participate in the compulsory clothing drive for the Wehrmacht and the Volkssturm.”
Every word of enemy agitation that finds a hearer has worse effects than a terror bomb. The bomb drives us together. The word drives us apart.
In Folge 5 of the Politischer Informationsdienst we reported on considerable difficulties in USA armaments production. Today we learn from the American production agency’s annual report on 10 December 1944 that the production of heavy artillery munitions in October was far under the goal and that not a single main category of armaments production met the target for October. The shortage was 55% in some areas. Seventeen members of the Senate who recently visited General Eisenhower on the Western Front asked about the causes of the munitions shortage. He blamed the weather and the “war situation.”
One constantly hears people’s comrades who have the false opinion that things would go better for us under Angle-American occupation than under the Bolshevists. This is incomprehensible given the air terror, the dive bomber attacks, and the shameful deeds against German women and children in enemy occupied regions to the west. We must combat such opinions with the greatest energy. The final goal of the Americans must be explained clearly. They want to make Europe into a colony and have it sink into chaos. And chaos always leads to Bolshevism.
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