of contemporaries, but it arrived too late and
in too little quantity to affect events.
In December 1944, Hitler gambled his last
reserves in a spectacular but futile bid to de-
feat Allied ground forces in the Ardennes re-
gion. The ensuing Battle of the Bulge cost
Germany 100,000 casualties plus hundreds
of tanks and other equipment that could not
be replaced. By April 1945, a vengeful Red
Army had all but surrounded Berlin, and
Hitler was a captive in his bunker. He had
repeatedly declared that Germany was pre-
pared to fight “until five past midnight,” but
on April 30 the maniacal dictator and his
lifelong mistress, Eva Braun, committed sui-
cide. He was replaced by Adm. Karl Dönitz,
who finally signed articles of capitulation
with the Allies. Thus Hitler’s vaunted Third
Reich, which the Nazis boasted would last a
millennium, collapsed in ruins after only 12
years.
See also
Arnim, Hans-Jurgen; Dietrich, Josef; Dönitz, Karl;
Göring, Hermann; Hindenburg, Paul von; Jodl, Al-
fred; Keitel, Wilhelm; Manteuffel, Hasso von; Rom-
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War II.New York: Crown, 2000; Duffy, James P.
Hitler Slept Late and Other Blunders That Cost Him
the War.New York: Praeger, 1991; Hamann, Brigitte.
Hitler’s Vienna: A Dictator’s Apprentice.New York:
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Anton. The Last Days of Hitler: The Legends, the Ev-
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Kershaw, Ian. Hitler: Nemesis, 1936–1945.New
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the United States.” MHQ 4, no. 3 (1992): 18–23.HOKE, ROBERTFREDERICK
Hoke, Robert Frederick
(May 27, 1837–July 3, 1912)
Confederate General
A
t 27, the quiet, unpretentious Hoke was
the Confederacy’s youngest major gen-
eral. He acquired a sterling military
reputation until the last year of the war, when
he became promoted beyond his abilities.
Robert Frederick Hoke was born in Lincoln-
ton, North Carolina, on May 27, 1837, the son
of a politician. Hoke was only 17 and attending
the Kentucky Military Institute when his father
died, prompting him to quit school and return
home to run the family’s cotton mill and iron
foundry. In May 1861, North Carolina seceded
from the Union, and he joined Col. Daniel
Harvey Hill’s First North Carolina Infantry as
a second lieutenant. In this capacity he accom-
panied Hill to Virginia and was present at the
June 10, 1861, victory at Big Bethel, one of the
Civil War’s first major actions. Hoke distin-
guished himself, according to Hill, by his cool-
ness, judgment, and efficiency. He continued
rising through the ranks and by the spring of
1862 returned home as a lieutenant colonel in