Jonathan Sumption

Nothing left to lose

Jonathan Sumption on the obduracy, distrust and inertia that characterised the end of the Third Reich

issue 20 August 2011

In chess, the king is never taken. When defeat is inevitable, the losing player resigns. And so it is in war. Defeated leaders sue for terms. Or they are toppled and replaced by fresh leaders who sue for terms, like Napoleon in 1814 and 1815, Reynaud in 1940 and Mussolini in 1943. ‘Wars are finally decided’, Adolf Hitler told his military commanders in December 1944, ‘by the recognition on one side or the other that the war can’t be won any more.’ Yet Hitler himself was to be virtually the only exception to the rule, unless we count Saddam Hussein.

At the time that he uttered these words Hitler was facing enemies on two fronts, each disposing of immeasurably greater forces than he could muster on all fronts combined. On the Russian front alone, he was outnumbered 11 times over in infantry, seven times in tanks, 20 times in field artillery, 20 times in airpower.

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