Read Chocolate Cake With Hitler Online
Authors: Emma Craigie
Chocolate Cake With Hitler (14 page)
A
better day. The quietest morning yet. Quiet inside and hardly any shelling. Maybe this is the end, and at the eleventh hour the new troops have arrived and are pushing the Russians back.
Mummy came to get us up. She looked tired, but she had very exciting news: tomorrow we are going to Berchtesgaden! They have hired a plane with a top pilot to get us out of here. We will have an early night and go first thing tomorrow morning. I’ve been longing for this, but now it’s come I feel sick with nerves. It will be a very dangerous journey. The little ones didn’t think of that but all danced around the bedroom.
I don’t know who is coming with us. Definitely Mummy and Papa and Auntie Eva and Uncle Adi, but I’m not sure what Mrs. Junge and Liesl and Miss
Manziarly are going to do. I really hope they’re coming too. Especially Liesl. Surely they will because Uncle Adi and Auntie Eva will need them.
Porridge for breakfast again. Miss Manziarly was still very quiet, which made me wonder. I didn’t like to ask her what her plans were. After breakfast we went to pack up all our things – we didn’t need any prompting – except for our nightdresses which we’ll need tonight.
We played in the corridor for a bit. There’s still lots of mess from last night – champagne and schnapps and beer bottles and open cans of fruit and chocolate
wrappers
and ends of sausage and cigarette stubs. Charming. I don’t know where the kitchen orderlies are.
We played forfeits and Mummy and Papa sat with us for a bit, but they didn’t join in. I think they’ve got a lot on their minds with all the preparations for
tomorrow
. Actually, they both look quite ill. Mummy was smoking one cigarette after another, and Papa had his pulsing jaw.
It was another of those very long mornings when time seems to get stuck. We got bored of forfeits. Bored of cards. Bored of drawing. At last Miss Manziarly made us some sandwiches for lunch.
We didn’t really have a rest after lunch because nobody made us. We went down to the Leader Bunker to see what was going on. There was no sign of Auntie Eva or Uncle Leader or Liesl, so no worries about
getting
in the way or making too much noise.
I saw the soldier boy. He came to collect a telegram from Mr. Bormann. He ran past us up the stairs, and just as he was about to go out of sight he stopped, just for a second, and looked back and smiled. He has noticed me!
We had tea with Mummy and Papa in Papa’s
downstairs
room. Auntie Eva and Uncle Adi didn’t come. There was a big chocolate cake, and only us children to eat it because Mummy and Papa weren’t hungry. I think the milk must have been off again because our hot chocolate had a funny taste. None of us really wanted to drink it but Mummy said that we would need all the strength we could get for the journey tomorrow, and insisted we drink it all up.
I don’t know what it was that set me off. Mummy looking so tired. Or the nasty taste of the chocolate. I got that blocked-throat feeling. I couldn’t help it. I tried to hold my face, and I did, I kept it completely still, but I couldn’t stop the tears. They just slipped out. I didn’t wipe them away because I thought that would make everyone notice. I could taste the salt on my lips. I didn’t move. Hilde was sitting beside me and was the first to notice. She actually stroked my arm and smiled.
Mummy must have seen.
“Helga,” she spoke very quietly, “please.”
I swallowed hard. She opened the door to take us back to our room.
“We’re all going to have an early night tonight,” she said. “Go to your room and get ready for bed. I’m going to fetch Dr. Kunz, so that you can have your
vaccination
before we go.”
Heide skipped out, red scarf swinging: “Misch, Misch, you are a fish!” Big Misch gave us his usual smile, a sad smile. He opened his mouth to speak but said nothing. Everything was in slow motion. My legs felt weak. Mummy put her hand firmly on my back. “Come on, Helga, pull yourself together.”
We put on our night things and were only just ready when we heard the click of Mummy’s shoes in the
corridor
. She came in with Dr. Kunz.
Dr. Kunz is completely grey. His clothes are grey, his hair is grey, his skin is grey. He looks nervous. He is holding a black bag and his hand is shaking.
Mummy says, “Helga will go first.” She comes to me and gives me a little chocolate and a kiss. She has one for each of us. In a moment she’s gone.
The Goebbels family, 1942.
Top row: Josef, Hilde, Helga, Harald
Front row: Helmut, Holde, Magda, Heide, Hedda.
On 3 May, 1945, Soviet troops entered Hitler’s bunker and found the bodies of the six Goebbels children lying in their beds. They were wearing their white nightclothes and the girls had ribbons in their hair.
The story of the end of their lives has been pieced together from the testimonies of those from the Bunker who survived.
On 30 April, 1945 Hitler ate his last meal with Miss Manziarly, Mrs. Junge and his other secretaries. At the end of the meal he stood up and announced, “The time has come; it’s all over.” He went to talk to Goebbels who tried to persuade him to leave Berlin. Hitler insisted that his mind was made up, but encouraged Goebbels to try to escape. Goebbels said he would not abandon his Fuhrer.
The adult residents of the bunker lined up for a formal farewell. Both Hitler and Eva Braun urged everyone to try and escape. The two of them then withdrew to Hitler’s sitting room. Magda Goebbels suddenly broke down in tears, and demanded to see the Fuhrer. Reluctantly he agreed. She begged him to attempt escape. He refused and she retreated, weeping.
That afternoon Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun sat down on his little sofa. It is believed that she took a
cyanide
capsule and that he simultaneously took cyanide and shot himself in the temple. He had left instructions for
their bodies to be burnt.
The following day Magda Goebbels made
arrangements
for her children to be killed. Helmut Kunz, a
dentist
, had agreed to inject the children with morphine, but he refused to help any further. According to some reports, Magda Goebbels then tried to put the cyanide capsules in the mouths of her sleeping children herself, but was
unable
to bring herself to do it. She sent for Dr. Stumpfegger. They went into the children’s bedroom together. She may have helped him by holding each child’s mouth open in turn as he crushed open a small vial of hydrogen cyanide and tipped it down their throats. This was the fatal drug that smelt of marzipan and had been tested on the dogs, and used the previous day by Eva Braun.
According to the autopsies carried out by the Soviet doctors, the children’s bodies were unmarked, except for Helga’s. She had suffered bruising to the face, indicating that force had been needed to get her to swallow the cyanide.
Begun in the Fuhrer’s bunker
28 April’45
My dear Harald,
We are now confined to the Fuhrer’s bunker in the Reich Chancellery and are fighting for our lives and our honour. God alone knows what the outcome of this battle will be. I know, however, that we shall only come out of it, dead or alive, with honour and glory. I hardly think that we shall see each other again. Probably, therefore, these are the last lines you will ever receive from me. I expect from you that, should you survive this war, you will do nothing but honour your mother and me. It is not essential that we remain alive in order to continue to influence our people. You may well be the only one able to continue our family tradition. Always act in such a way that we need not be ashamed of it. Germany will survive this fearful war but only if examples are set to our people enabling them to stand on their feet again. We wish to set such an example. You may be proud of having such a mother as yours. Yesterday the Fuhrer gave her the Golden Party Badge which he has worn on his tunic for years and she deserved
it. You should have only one duty in future: to show yourself worthy of the supreme sacrifice which we are ready and determined to make. I know that you will do it. Do not let yourself be disconcerted by the worldwide clamour which will now begin. One day the lies will crumble away of themselves and the truth will triumph once more. That will be the moment when we shall tower over all, clean and spotless, as we have always striven to be and believed ourselves to be.
Farewell, my dear Harald. Whether we shall ever see each other again is in the lap of the gods. If we do not, may you always be proud of having belonged to a family which, even in misfortune, remained loyal to the very end to the Fuhrer and his pure sacred cause.
All good things and my heartfelt greetings
Your Papa
Written in the Fuhrer’s bunker
28 April’45
My beloved Son,
We have now been here, in the Fuhrer’s bunker, for six days – Papa, your six little brothers and sisters and I – in order to bring our National-Socialist existence to the only possible and honourable
conclusion
. I do not know whether you will receive this letter. Perhaps there is still one human soul who will make it possible for me to send you my last
greetings
. You should know that I have remained here against Papa’s will, that only last Sunday the Fuhrer wanted to help me escape from here. You know your mother – we are of the same blood, so I did not have to reflect for one moment. Our splendid concept is perishing and with it goes everything beautiful, admirable, noble and good that I have known in my life. The world which will succeed the Fuhrer and National Socialism is not worth living in and for this reason I have brought the children here too. They are too good for the life that will come after us and a gracious God will understand me if I myself give them release from it. You will go on living and
I have one single request to make of you: never forget you are a German, never do anything dishonourable and ensure that by your life our death is not in vain.
The children are wonderful. They make do in these very primitive conditions without any help. No matter whether they sleep on the floor, whether they can wash or not, whether they have anything to eat and so forth – never a word of complaint or a tear. Shell-bursts are shaking the bunker. The grown-ups protect the little ones, whose presence here is to this extent a blessing that from time to time they can get a smile from the Fuhrer.
Yesterday evening the Fuhrer took off his Golden Party Badge and pinned it on me. I am happy and proud. God grant that I retain the strength to do the last and most difficult thing. We have only one aim in life now – to remain loyal to the Fuhrer unto death; that we should be able to end our life
together
with him is a gift of fate for which we would never have dared hope.
Harald, my dear – I give you the best that life has taught me: be true – true to yourself, true to
mankind
, true to your country – in every respect
whatsoever
.
It is hard to start a fresh sheet. Who knows whether I shall complete it but I wanted to give you so much love, so much strength and take from you all sorrow at our loss. Be proud of us and try to remember us with pride and pleasure. Everyone must die one day and is it not better to live a fine, honourable, brave but short life than drag out a long life of humiliation?
The letter must go – Hanna Reitsch is taking it. She is flying out once more. I embrace you with my warmest, most heartfelt and most maternal love.
My beloved son
Live for Germany!
Your Mother