In the cold, damp months that followed, he saw the face of war on a very personal level as his regiment fought in the Masurian Lakes area. After establishing a bridgehead on the opposite side, Steiner made his division the sectors leading unit. A bachelor, was found dead (probable heart attack) in his apartment in 1966. It is primarily based on the memoirs of Gertraud "Traudl" Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara), one of Hitler's . He was sentenced to death, and in 1951, despite the American revision of many sentences, Ohlendorf was executed by hanging. In 1916, he was transferred to the Lithuanian Front. Felix Martin Julius Steiner (23 May 1896 - 12 May 1966) was a German SS commander during the Nazi era. Beyond that, the SPD's core clientele, which . Himmler, anxious to reward his SS heroes, promoted Steiner to the rank of SS Brigadefhrer und Generalmajor der Waffen SS on November 9. Among the few with recollections and opinions from a senior Waffen-SS commander. The vast majority of recruits were non-German volunteers from Denmark, Norway, Belgium, and Holland. They planned to murder Hitler and end the war before Germany was totally destroyed, but by that time the Fhrer had already retreated to the relative safety of his Berlin bunker. Immensely erudite, but with a flair that drew hordes of students to his lectures, Dr. Steiner was the rare literary. In July, Wiking took part in the storming of Rostov and then set off across the steppes toward the Caucasus. Felix Martin Julius Steiner was born on 23 May 1896 in Stallupnen, East Prussia. In the Wiking Division, Steiner created a capable formation from disparate elements, and he commanded them competently through the many battles in the east from 1941 until his promotion to command of the III (Germanic) SS Panzer Corps. [6] At the time of its creation, the division consisted mostly of non-German volunteers (Dutch, Flemish, Finns and Scandinavians), including the Danish regiment Frikorps Danmark. Christian Steiner, 14. It was used as a military think tank and propaganda tool for German rearmament. The Waffen SS was growing, and commanders such as Steiner were needed to turn the raw recruits into fighting men. On June 22, as part of Generaloberst Ewald von Kleists Panzergruppe 1, Wiking crossed the Russian border and began what was to be a four-year struggle to the death against the Red Army. The 9th soon followed, and Soviet tanks and infantry were soon in open country, hoping to encircle Steiners corps and the rest of the German 18th Army. For Steiner, the order seemed nothing short of lunacy. In the main, I believe we achieved this objective, despite what some said about us and at times not without reason.. Among her accomplishments are being the Founder of the true crime blog, Stories of the Unsolved, which garners between 400,000 and 500,000 views annually, and a contributor for John Lordans Seriously Mysterious podcast. Losses began to mount as the Soviets hit back, trying to stop the Germans, but by early October the division was still on the move across the desolate steppes east of the Dnieper. The V-Truppes first foray into action occurred during the invasion of Poland in August 1939. He directed large-scale rearmament and, on 1 September 1939, invaded Poland, resulting in Britain and France declaring war on Germany. The three Wehrmacht services (Army, Navy, and Air Force) had continued to look upon these Asphalt Soldiers as bastard children, but with the stroke of a pen, Hitler had elevated the V-Truppe to a more or less equal footing in the armed forces. view all 13 Hans Steiner's Timeline. Unable to avoid the collision, Steven hit the driver's side of the vehicle. He said that a more limited attack, which would leave the 11th Army less vulnerable to a certain Soviet counterattack, would put him in a better position to fulfill his mission of defending Pomerania. In the series of battles that followed, Steiner led his men through the defenses of the Weygand Line and across the Aisne River, taking position after position in sharp assaults. Already suspicious of the armed forces and contemptuous of their leadership, Hitler now lost all faith in them. Prior to its hiatus, she also served as the Head of Content for UK YouTube publication, TenEighty Magazine. He was a gifted naval officer and a devoted Nazi, but he had come up through the ranks of the military, not the Nazi party, unlike other prominent leaders of the Third Reich. It also afforded him charge of a new unit, the III (Germanisches) SS Panzercorps, made up of Army and Luftwaffe personnel. In the eyes of Hitler and high-ranking members of the SS, the V-Truppe had proven itself in the field. While initial plans were to train new members, the Soviets had other ideas. The carnage that he saw in Flanders and France left a deep impression on him. In mid-February, he was ordered to attack Marshal Georgi Zhukovs 1st Belorussian Front and continue an advance to a point near Kstrin, where the Warthe and Oder Rivers converged. events, and resources, Waffen SS General Felix Steiners WWII Legacy. In 1919, Steiner joint the Freikorps in the East Prussian city of Memel and was incorporated into the Reichswehr in 1921. On May 10, Steiner led his men across the border as part of General der Artillerie Albert Wodrigs XXVI Armeekorps. The work put into the V-Truppes development paid off. His three regimental commanders, Hilmar Wckerle (Westland), Reichsritter von Oberkamp (Germania), and Fritz von Scholz (Nordland), knew what Steiner expected of them, and the division soon began to take shape as a multinational fighting force. Where is Steiner? Adolf Hitler demanded as his Thousand Year Reich crumbled around him in April 1945. In January 1919, he joined a volunteer corps to fight against Communist elements on the eastern border. The name triggered an immediate response in Hitler, who was soon planning another fanciful mission for the SS general. The aim was to attack Marshal Georgy Zhukovs 1st Belorussian Front, which was making its way toward Germany, and to advance to Kstrin. In the eyes of Hitler and high-ranking members of the SS, the V-Truppe had proven itself in the field. The officers and enlisted men also shared the same mess area, and anyone aspiring to become an officer had to serve at least two years in the ranks before being accepted for officer training. Steiner joined the SS-Verfgungstruppe (V-Truppe) on March 16, 1935, as Obersturmbannfhrer and appointed commander of the 3rd Battalion/SS-Standart Deutschland. With ex-Army officer Paul Hausser, he set out making his soldiers the finest in Europe, staging his training around the tactics of the Sturmtruppen. Replacements arrived to flesh out the division, and Steiner seemed to be everywhere at once, watching his regiments train and giving advice on how to improve their assault tactics. In an interview with ABC . Hitler remains in control, drawing possible lines of attack on the map, believing that SS commander Felix Steiner's Panzer divisions will repel the Soviets. Bill was born on December 21st, 1959 in Somers Point, NJ to William a Despite his growing reputation as a general who traveled his own course, Steiner took command of the new III(Germanisches) SS Panzerkorps, which was supposed to be built around the Wiking and Nordland SS divisions. Columbia County, Wisconsin, USA. 9, The Einsatzgruppen Case). He had Hitlers tapes, privately taped and massive amounts of pictures of his father, who knew Hitler well. Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1973-138-14A, Felix Steiner.jpg 532 . When war broke out, the unit was sent to the Russian border. Steiner's books and memoirs have been characterised by historian Charles Sydnor as one of the "most important works of apologist literature," together with warfare analyses Grenadiere by Kurt Meyer and Waffen-SS in Action by Paul Hausser. His funeral was attended by hundreds of his men who came from all over Europe to pay their last respects. date of death. Steiner's Panzer Corps played a leading role during the Battle of Narva and the Battle of Tannenberg Line. It was Steiners final snub to the leader that he had once so gladly served. One of the first things he did was to relegate the barracks square drill to a position of secondary importance. He focused on athleticism, as opposed to barracks square drills, and he abolished the class system. Despite fighting exhaustion, Steiner molded them into a cohesive unit. Downfall (German: Der Untergang) is a dramatic film from 2004 recounting the last days of Nazi Germany as the Red Army closes in on Berlin, when Adolf Hitler and the senior Nazi leadership that remained at his side, including Joseph Goebbels (Ulrich Matthes), waited around to die.. [12], A second book was published in 1963 under the title Die Armee der Gechteten (English: "The Army of the Outlaws") and was also tendentious.[13]. In November, the division repulsed several Soviet attacks that were a prelude to Stalins planned winter offensive. The immediate cause was a fever, said his son, David Steiner. He ordered General Felix Steiner, who commanded the defense of Berlin, to prepare a counterattack on the positions of the Red Army "until their complete and final defeat." Everyone present understood that the order was impossible, but no one dared to object. In August 1939, a few days before the invasion of Poland, Hitler issued an order placing units of the V-Truppe under the command of the army, securing for them a position as military fighting formations. He sent Gotthard Heinrici and Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel to force him to attack, but their attempts failed and the Fhrer relieved him of his duties on April 27, 1945. To facilitate this attack, Steiner was assigned the three divisions of the Ninth Army's CI Army Corps: the 4th SS Panzergrenadier Division Polizei, the 5th Jger Division, and the 25th Panzergrenadier Division. [9] With Paul Hausser, Herbert Gille and Otto Kumm, Steiner became a founding member of HIAG, the lobby group founded by former high-ranking Waffen-SS officers in West Germany in 1951. Paul Hausser also known as Paul Falk after taking his maiden name post war (7 October 1880 - 21 December 1972) was a German general and then a high-ranking commander in the Waffen-SS who played a key role in the post-war efforts by former members of the Waffen-SS to achieve historical and legal rehabilitation.. Hausser served as an officer in the Prussian Army during World War I and attained . The unit breached Dutch defenses along the Wilhelmina Canal and began a march through the country that ended with the capture of Walcheren Island, south of Rotterdam, on May 17. Impressed with the unit, Adolf Hitler signed a decree making it a permanent force within the countrys military. Holste was to attack from the north while General Walther Wenck attacked from the west and General Theodor Busse attacked from the south. He faced charges at the Nuremberg Trials, but they were all dropped and he was released. His SS units morale was still high, but the army units that passed through his command were beginning to show the strain of the horrors of the Eastern Front. Steiner remained firm. In her spare time, Clare likes to play Pokemon GO and re-watch Heartland over and over (and over) again. He ordered him to be relieved, but the SS general persuaded his replacement to leave him in command. Michael . In the Nieppe Forest, with the aid of Haussers unit and the 3rd Panzer Division, the Deutschland Division was able to breach enemy lines and reach Lys Canal. Steiner's detachment had been instructed to attack Zhukov's forces encircling the city from the north while the German Ninth Army under Theodor Busse approached from the south in a pincer . He reached the rank of SS-Obergruppenfhrer und General der Waffen-SS. When Himmler heard that Steiner had referred to him as a sleazy romantic, Himmler rebuked him by saying, You are my most insubordinate general. The Reichsfhrer was also forced to send an aide to tell Steiner to keep his mouth shut after word reached him that the East Prussian had been vocally criticizing Hitlers strategy during the campaign in the west. 1942. While hiding out in his bunker, Hitler planned for Steiner and his men, now called the Armeegruppe Steiner, to launch another attack on Zhukovs forces in order to prevent them from surrounding General der Panzertruppe Hasso von Manteuffels 3rd Panzerarmee and advancing on Berlin. How much should the German public know about any of Chancellor Angela Merkel's potential illnesses? 1 reference. 6731 Whittier Avenue, Suite C-100 McLean, VA 22101, Stay up to date with all of our latest news, Steiner, William 'Bill' C., - 60, of Absecon, passed away peacefully with his family by his side on Saturday, December 12th, 2020. George Steiner, who has died aged 90, was a polymathic European intellectual of particular severity. Steiner was introduced to Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, to oversee the creation of, and then command the new SS Division Wiking. During the final week of the war, Steiner led his unit to the west, surrendering to the Americans and saving his men from Soviet labor camps. Salvation for the bridgehead came in the form of a tank-destroyer unit from the SS Totenkopf Division, which forced the surviving British to withdraw. He knew full well that the hardships on the battlefield demanded an unquestioned trust between the two groups. 12/22/1941 M Caucasian 08/19/2011 LAC+USC Medical Center Hitler now waited for the attack, and Steiner did nothing. Steiner was chosen by Heinrich Himmler to oversee the creation of, and command an elite Panzer division, the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking. Kind of odd considering all SS generals in the game gets transferred to the Nazis during the German Civil War. Steiner first joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) (membership number: 4,264,295) and the Sturmabteilung (SA). In those final battles, Steiner noticed that the Sturmtruppen (assault troops), which were special groups used to breach the Allied lines, enjoyed both success and a camaraderie that was not found in the Regular Army units. 2 references. Another Felix Steiner innovation was the abolishment of the class system between officers and enlisted men. Once the Soviet Army had reached the Oder River, the Eleventh SS Panzer Army became inactive, and the III SS Panzer Corps was reassigned to the German Third Panzer Army as a reserve during the Soviets' Berlin Offensive Operation. Cain Steiner died suddenly and unexpectedly on the 15th of January 2023. During the Battle of Seelow Heights, the first major battle of the offensive, General Gotthard Heinrici, the commander of Army Group Vistula, transferred most of the III SS Panzer Corps' divisions to General Theodor Busse's Ninth Army. In 1932, he was leading a company of the regiment, using the skills that he had learned during the war to train a new generation of German soldiers. He, too, was an ex-army officer who shared many of his commanders opinions, including his disdain of Himmler. This attack is nonsensemurder. The small victory gave Hitler hope, and Steiner remained in charge of the 11th Army until turning it over to Army General Walther Lucht in March 1945. David Steiner, 42, and his wife, Ornella Steiner, 5, died during an afternoon hike across the searing New Mexico desert with their son, Enzo who survived. In November/December 1943 his corps was transferred to the Eastern Front and positioned in the northern sector at Leningrad under Army Group North. In 2019 Felix sang on Glastonbury's acoustic stage and she continued performing until just a few weeks before her death. New York: G.P. On 09-03-1914 Steiner passed his abitur. It was a corps in name only, consisting of the Nordland Division and SS Polezei (Police) Regiment 14. Rudolf Steiner Biography Austrian philosopher and educational reformer Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) remains perhaps best known for the educational methods he pioneered in his Waldorf schools, which have spread slowly but steadily around the world since his death. Upon surrender, Felix Steiner was arrested. His family had been Austrian in origin, but had emigrated from Salzburg to Prussia in 1731. The. While the two other regiments of Haussers division were locked in the forest battle, Steiners regiment was sent on a flanking attack with the 3rd Panzer Division. Holste was to attack from the north while General Walther Wenck attacked from the west and General Theodor Busse attacked from the south. In April 1943, Steiner was placed in command of the newly formed III SS Panzer Corps. Join historians and history buffs alike with our Unlimited Digital Access pass to every military history article ever published (over 3,000 articles) in Sovereigns military history magazines. At the time, the V-Truppe was little more than a ceremonial guard with little or no military training. The 32-year-old commander of his 1st Battalion, Fritz Witt, received the award on September 4. In the upcoming weeks, the Fhrer would once again call on Steiner when all hope seemed lost. Realizing Leningrad had fallen, Steiner led his forces across the river Narva and into the western part of the city. Trevor-Roper, Hugh (1978). After the war ended, and having reached the rank of first lieutenant, Steiner joined the 1st Infantry Regiment of the Reichswehr. The fall of France found Steiners regiment on the demarcation line with the newly formed Vichy territory. Based on Steiner's assessment, Heinrici called General Hans Krebs, Chief of Staff of the German General Staff of the Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres or OKH), and told him that the plan could not be implemented. Steiner was proud of his regiments success, but he knew that the next battle would not be long in coming. When he found out the truth, he flew into a blind rage, sending Heinrici and Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel to Steiners headquarters to force him to attack. On the 21st April 1945, Hitler ordered the Armeeabteilung Steiner (and the ninth Army) to execute a counter-attack on the approaching Soviet forces. Hitler, ignoring the facts, started to call the ragtag units that came under Steiner's command, the Army Detachment Steiner (Armeeabteilung Steiner). Corruption in the Nazi State E.g. After the early war campaigns, Steiner was chosen by SS-Reichsfhrer Heinrich Himmler to oversee the creation of, and then command the new volunteer SS Division, SS-Division Wiking. Felix Masiye, MSc, PhD, is the Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zambia and an Affiliate Assistant Professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. 00:31. Therefore, he broke down the traditional barriers that separated the men from their superiors by having them compete in sporting events as equals. Julie Felix, the folk music legend, has died at the age of 81 following a "short illness," her agent, Fran Collier, said in a statement. This time, Steiner was ordered to attack and shatter Zhukovs spearhead, which would prevent von Manteuffel from being encircled and would save Berlin at the same time. Focus soon turned to France, where the German Army had to contend with fierce British resistance. The aim was to attack Marshal Georgy Zhukov 's 1st Belorussian Front, which was making its way toward Germany, and to advance to Kstrin. On June 5, 1940, with the Allies retreating from Dunkirk, Steiner led his men through the Weygand Line and across the Aisne River and the Marne. father. The rank of Obergruppenfhrer was the highest in the SS till 1942, immediately behind the rank of a Reichsfhrer-SS (Heinrich Himmler held this rank in World War II). IHME had previously announced its move to a 3-year cycle of major model updates for most non-fatal causes and risk factors (but not causes of death) [].Each future GBD round will include a subset of these "in rotation", while still producing results each year for all causes of death and all non-fatal outcomes. The success of Deutschland in Poland caused Steiners star to rise in the eyes of Himmler. Survived by son, Alexander Leach; mother,. Along with other former high-ranking Waffen-SS personnel, Steiner was a founding member of HIAG, a lobby group of negationistic apologists formed in 1951 to campaign for the legal, economic and historical rehabilitation of the Waffen-SS. Advancing toward Dunkirk, the division ran into heavy British resistance in the Nieppe Forest. Steiner slowly transformed the Deutschland into a unit that impressed even senior army officers. Steiner was appointed commander of the 3rd Batallion/SS Standarte Deutschland with the rank of OberSturmbannfhrer (Lt. Col.). Felix Martin Julius Steiner (23 May 1896 12 May 1966) was a German officer, who became Obergruppenfhrer of the Schutzstaffel, General of the Waffen-SS, and a signed-up member of the Nazi Party of Nazi Germany. The three divisions from CI Army Corps were 24 kilometres (about 15 miles) east of Berlin, and the attack to the south would cut the 1st Belorussian Front's salient into two. She died on 22 February 1985, in Penn Valley, Nevada, California, United States, at the age of 27, and was buried in Los Gatos Memorial Park, San Jose, Santa Clara, California, United States. Rudolf Steiner as 21-year-old student (1882) When he was nine years old, Steiner believed that he saw the spirit of an aunt who had died in a far-off town, asking him to help her at a time when neither he nor his family knew of the woman's death. Based on Steiner's assessment, Heinrici called Hans Krebs, Chief of Staff of the German General Staff of the High Command of the Army (Oberkommando des Heeres or OKH), and told him that the plan could not be implemented. Only a few weeks after the alleged poisoning at the rout-party, Steiner delivered his workers lecture on poisonous substances. he described phosphorus poisoning and its antidotes . Rudolf Steiner, (born February 27, 1861, Kraljevi, Austriadied March 30, 1925, Dornach, Switzerland), Austrian-born spiritualist, lecturer, and founder of anthroposophy, a movement based on the notion that there is a spiritual world comprehensible to pure thought but accessible only to the highest faculties of mental knowledge. That training was short lived, however, as the war clouds that had been gathering over Europe burst that August. General Helmuth Weidling's LVI Panzer Corps, which was still east of Berlin with its northern flank just below Werneuchen, was also ordered to participate in the attack. Even if it was on utilitarian grounds, Steiner felt that the Commissar Order was to be ignored, as detrimental to good order and discipline. It then marched into Poland and settled into camouflaged positions near Lublin. In December 1933, he retired from the army with the rank of major, and the following year he became a training adviser. On August 10, Steiner was summoned once again to the Wolfsschanze, this time to receive the coveted swords to the Ritterkreuz. The dictator's Chief of the Army General Staff Hans Krebs explains the situation. With his armies crumbling around him, here was a general who could still fight. In June 1941, Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union. After some initial difficulties with some of the more arrogant German training officers and NCOs (Steiner soon weeded them out), the men were soon doing as well or better than their German counterparts in the division. At an age when most boys get their kicks by chasing girls and sneaking beers, 17-year-old Joe Clark of Baraboo, Wisconsin, got his through the imprisonment and torure of other boys. A few days after relieving Steiner of his duties, he took his own life. Although successful at first, the armies of the Kaiser soon ran into an Allied defense that slowed and then stopped any hope for victory. Only a few days before receiving Hitlers latest order, another plot was hatched by Steiner and Obergruppenfhrers Richard Hildebrandt and Curt von Gottberg. Cause of Death Coronary Angiography* Coronary Disease / complications Coronary Disease / diagnostic imaging Electrocardiography* Female Humans Kaplan-Meier Estimate Length of Stay Male Middle Aged Nervous System Diseases / etiology Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest / complications Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest / diagnostic imaging* He felt that it was incompatible with soldierly conduct and would result in a breakdown in military discipline, and that it was incompatible with giving combat its moral worth. Felix Steiner: The SS General Who Turned Against Hitler TRUE WAR HISTORY 1.96K subscribers 4.1K views 1 year ago #WW2 #SS The Waffen-SS was a German military division that aided in the Nazi. Steiner's attack was due to coincide with General Busse's Ninth Army, attacking from the south in a pincer attack. In January 1945, Felix Steiner was tasked with defending Pomerania with his newly formed 11th SS Panzer Army. Time after time, Hitler asked his staff how the offensive was proceeding. After making the trip north to the Orianenbaum Front of Heeresgruppe Nord, they were joined by ill-equipped Luftwaffe field divisions. As Hitler listened, Steiners armored unit was mentioned in passing. Since then, hed become involved in plans to arrest and kill the Fhrer, but theyd fallen through. . Along with publishing books detailing his military experience, he also helped found the Waffen-SS Veterans Association, which campaigned for the legal, historical, and economic rehabilitation of the military organization. In 1935 he enlisted in the SS. [10][11], From his home in West Germany he published Die Freiwilligen der Waffen-SS: Idee und Opfergang ("The Volunteers of Waffen-SS: Idea and Sacrifice") in 1958. He served in both World War I and World War II and was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. With the outbreak of war, Felix Steiners regiment was sent to the Russian border to deal with an expected Russian invasion. Mit dem Angriff Steiners wird das alles in Ordnung kommen. In April 1943, he was placed in command of a newly formed III SS Panzer Corps. She lived with her illness with courage and good humour. On the same day, General Rudolf Holste was given what few mobile forces Steiner commanded so that he could participate in a new plan to relieve Berlin. According to the state medical examiner, he passed away after an undisclosed medical emergency happened at about 3:30 a.m. Sunday. Last modified on Sun 9 Feb 2020 15.37 EST. Pushing forward toward Modlin and the Narew River, Steiner tried to seize the river crossing at Rozan ahead of the retreating Poles. These works demanded rehabilitation of the military branch of the NSDAP, with Steiner's works being important in stressing the theme of the purely military Waffen-SS. However, he was cleared of all charges of war crimes and released in 1948. DW's Felix Steiner. The German senior military commander Felix Steiner died on this day in 1966. Steiner died on 12 May 1966, 11 days before his 70th birthday. Returning to Germany, Steiner found a place in the 100,000-man Reichswehr, the postwar German Army. His brother, Bill Steinman revealed that Jim died of kidney failure after a time battling with illness. Steiner told Guderian that with only 50,000 men and 300 tanks the operation would be a suicide mission with no expected success. There has not been a cause of death released at this time. Susie Steiner Death, Cause of Death. Despite the Red Armys efforts, Steiners men held strong and were eventually joined by Sturmbannfhrer Johannes-Rudolf Mhlenkamps panzer unit. While there are several incidents documented by historians in which the division engaged in massacres, the Wiking's official combat record is clear of any specific War Crimes prosecutions. Writing Portfolio He remained with the corps until October 30, when he turned over command to ObergruppenfhrerGeorg Keppler and returned to Germany for a well-deserved rest. Together with Paul Hausser, he contributed significantly to the development and transformation of the Waffen-SS into a combat force made up of volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and un-occupied lands.[1][2]. By the mid-1930s we had managed to install ourselves as commanders of these cadres, the embryo SS combat units who were at that time little more than novices, very keen but without any military training at all.. It was involved in several major offensive engagements, yet suffered only 15 dead and 35 wounded, a remarkably low casualty rate, especially for an SS unit. In the months that followed, the defenders inside the Narva bridgehead held out against overwhelming odds. Hitler finally declared that the war was lost, blamed the generals for the Reich's defeat and announced that he would remain in Berlin until the end and then kill himself. Susie Steiner who was the author of the books "Missing Presumer", "Person Unknown" and many more died at the age of 51 only. [2] However, as his worn out and exhausted unit was outnumbered by ten to one, Steiner made it clear that he did not have the capacity for a counter-attack. Breaching the enemy line, elements of the panzer division were stopped by a strong British defense at Merville. Hitler declared that the war was lost, he blamed the generals, and announced that he would stay on in Berlin until the end and then kill himself.[3]. On 30 April 1945, his empire crumbling around him, Adolf Hitler - Fhrer, leader of the Third Reich, and instigator of the Holocaust - committed suicide. 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