It’s October 1943 and it’s pretty clear now that the Germans are going to lose the war. Yet, no one in German High Command seem to be thinking or planning for losing the war. It’s weird. They’re losing territory and yet they just keep pillaging, destroying and killing as many people as they possibly can.
In fact when Germany does surrender very very few actually try to run. Hitler hands the rains over to Karl Donitz. Who’s a navy man and isn’t the type of guy that would carry on the “Superior Aryan Race” and “Kill all Jews” that the Nazi’s preached. Basically as soon as Hitler is dead Donitz surrenders within a month and the cause is basically dead. It doesn’t appear that Hitler had a plan for his cause to go on after he died.
The other thing that is strange that all of German High Command who survived the war they lived out their lives in basically obscurity. I can’t think of any of them who tried to gain power, money, weapons and recruit people so that they could recreate Nazi Germany and carry on with the “Superior Aryan Race” and “Kill all Jews” cause.
Based on their actions the Nazi cause was complete crap and what they were really all about was pillaging, destroying and killing as many people as they could.
Having read biographies of many of the high ranking officers, many subscribed to the ‘Aryan race idea’ and were anti Semitic.
Donitz was a staunch Nazi, but not insane, so recognised the reality of the position and did not share Hitler’s view that ‘Germany should be punished for not bringing him victory’.
It terms of the killing and destruction it should be remembered that by 1943 Germans had been subject to 10 years of Nazi Ubermensch propaganda and had been conditioned and brutalised by the thier time in the Hitler Youth to be casually violent and to view non-aryans as sub-human. The Nazi state was a machine that intentionally turned human beings into monsters.
As to running, where? The Swiss and Swedes wanted nothing to do with them and the rest of Europe, East of Spain, was hunting them. Towards the end the realistic option was to make every effort to be captured by the Western Allies.
Go back to the American Civil War in early 1865. Lincoln has been reelected. Lee’s Army is locked in a siege at Petersburg that is bleeding his army faster than his Union counterparts, especially deserters. The only major Confederate army besides Lee’s has been utterly wrecked in the Western Theater. Sherman has marched across Georgia and is now moving into the Carolinas. The Confederacy is hopelessly beaten in every way.
And yet when Confederate representatives meet Lincoln at Hampton Roads in February 1865 they are still trying to negotiate for peace with Confederate independence. Even after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Jefferson Davis is determined to reach the Trans-Mississippi and continue the war indefinitely. The amount of denial and delusion amongst many of the Confederates was mind-boggling. And the Confederate ideological commitment and propaganda was vastly less than the Nazis.