On 18 February 1943 Joseph Goebbels held his notorious "Total War" speech about being "faithful to the last" at the Berlin Sportpalast. But the Reich's defeat in Stalingrad a few weeks earlier shook the faith of the Germans in the "final battle", which saw Germany crumbling more and more every day. Hitler's armies had sounded the retreat, and after the landing of the Allies on 8 June 1944 at the latest, the German defeat was now only a matter of time. Yet many Germans remained staunched supporters of their Führer.
