Hitler's Last Witness (12 page)

In the late evenings, the cinema show would begin, presented by Erich Stein or his colleague Ellerbeck. Hitler was a great film fan. Often he would sit watching one film after another. Stein had to organise a constant supply from the Propaganda Ministry or the Reich film archive. Mostly they were US productions. Stein was also responsible for providing the films Hitler watched in the music room at the Reich Chancellery. I watched these films from the perspective of Stein or Ellerbeck more out of boredom than anything. As the presentation took place in the large Hall at the Berghof, the SS bodyguard made up the viewing public. The projector was near the external staircase, and I usually sat on the steps. Hitler loved Charlie Chaplin films. Unfortunately, I cannot remember which ones he ordered, nor if the anti-Hitler satire
Der grosse Diktator
(The Great Dictator) was among them.
[15]

I recall especially that we watched
Vom Winde verweht
(Gone with the Wind) at least three times. After seeing this epic for the first time, Hitler sent for Goebbels at once, and they sat watching the whole film over again. ‘Something like that,' he said afterwards to Goebbels emphatically, ‘something like that might bring our people round again!'

Eva

I noticed the presence of Eva Braun more frequently in the summer of 1940. My first personal contact with her was in the Munich house on Wasserburger-Strasse.
[16]
I had to bring her something and she detained me in conversation – pleasantries obviously, but she was not supposed to go even that far. We of the SS bodyguard never began a conversation. If we were asked something, we answered; otherwise we said only what was absolutely necessary.

Officially, Eva had been introduced as the female housekeeper. The arrangement of the rooms in the Reich Chancellery and at the Berghof told another story. We were supposed to address Eva Braun as Gnädiges Fräulein (Madam), but nobody ever did; she was simply Fräulein Braun. And she thoroughly approved. Eva did not correspond to the ideal of a German maiden, as one might perhaps have expected. A natural girl, a girl rooted to the soil, this was not her thing. She changed her attire several times a day, was always carefully made up and wore expensive jewellery. I never saw any intimacies between Hitler and Eva, and neither did my colleagues, or at least nobody spoke of them if they did. I would also have kept silent had I seen anything of that kind. As far as I could make out, they certainly never rang each other daily when Eva was at the Berghof and Hitler was in Berlin. If Eva rang to speak to Hitler, the telephonist at the far end putting her through would merely say: ‘The Berghof for the suite'. Then one would know.

Fairly soon after my new duties began, I had an unusual encounter with Eva. One morning, still quite early, just after beginning duty I went into Hitler's suite in the Old Chancellery as I did so often, in order to leave reports on the small stool outside his bedroom.

The flow of reports obviously did not come to a stop at night, and so our duties continued all around the clock. If the servants and adjutants were still asleep, we brought the despatches immediately from the bodyguard quarter and directly to Hitler without the usual detours. One could reach his bedroom from the study or the guest room; both, therefore, always had a small ‘stool for despatches'. From the stairs the route through the guest room was somewhat shorter than through the study, so it was my custom to deposit the despatches on the stool in the guest area. Therefore, I opened the door, took a couple of steps inside and just as I was putting the batch of papers down I noticed that the guest bed was occupied. In shock I recognised Eva Braun, wearing only a very flimsy nightie. I went hot and cold.

Eva had already seen me; therefore, our eyes met. She said nothing, but merely raised her right forefinger to her closed lips. I turned away at once and crept off to the nearby study, heart beating furiously, deposited the paperwork on the stool there and made myself scarce. Well, that's the end of my service with the Führer, I thought immediately. But why hadn't she shut the damned door? I was also furious with my colleagues. None of them had warned me when I began my shift that Eva had arrived. Over the next few weeks I expected every day to have to face the consequences. Nothing ever came of it.

In the autumn of 1940, Hitler began shuttling between Berlin and Berchtesgaden. That October, after a fleeting stay at my fiancée's house, I was at the Berghof again. At the end of that month, Hitler left the Obersalzberg for a meeting with General Franco on the Franco-Spanish border.
[17]

Scarcely had Hitler driven off than Eva took control. She was a woman of two quite distinct personalities. In Hitler's presence she was reserved; at state functions she retired to her room or went down to the bowling alley in the cellar. She would make small talk, maintaining a good atmosphere and trying to please everybody. Once Hitler left the Berghof, Eva changed at once. While one could still see the limousines driving down the serpentine road below, the first preparations for much entertainment would already have been taken in hand. Still as virtuous as a governess, she turned everything on its head, and then she would be gay and carefree, almost child-like.

On that October day when Hitler set off for southwest France, only Karl Tenazek and I of the bodyguard had remained behind. Soon afterwards, Eva appeared and invited us to join the others in the great living room. The girls needed dancing partners. Hesitant and uncertain, Karl and I followed her. In a flash she had organised a party – foxtrot music and a small buffet. We nibbled on the sly and talked.

‘You have to enjoy yourselves,' Eva urged us both continually. ‘You have to dance.' Eva was aiming to fix me up with one of the house employees called Gretl. ‘You would be a lovely couple,' she giggled like a silly teenage girl. Relationships between the female employees at the Berghof and the SS bodyguard were common. Sometime or other, the last housemaid had netted herself a bodyguard, it appeared. Among those who – like myself – were already attached, not all could resist a flirtation with one of the girls from the Berghof or Berchtesgaden. Many of the men had been away from home for a long time. I was lucky enough to be able to see Gerda regularly during my stays in Berlin. This Gretl whom Eva continually manoeuvred into my proximity was the ‘bar girl' at the Berghof. At receptions and festivities she supplied the alcohol, mixed wonderful cocktails and supervised the drinks. That made her interesting, of course.

Even when Hitler was there, Eva would often invite her friends Herta Schneider
[18]
or the Austrian girl Marion Schönmann
[19]
to visit. Because of Eva, the atmosphere at the Berghof was above all unforced, almost cheerful. One thing was taboo for me, however – I never danced with Eva. That really was not done. She was the Führer's girl. Eva had a zest for living almost until the end. I liked her.

Molotov's Bunker

After the meeting with Franco, and contrary to expectations, Hitler did not return to the Berghof.
[20]
Karl and I were therefore flown back to Berlin, where we awaited the visit of the Soviet foreign minister Molotov
[21]
in mid-November.
[22]
I was on duty when Hitler and Molotov dined at the Reich Chancellery. The Soviet foreign minister decided to return to the Schloss Bellevue guest house afterwards, and I brought a blanket to the limousine, which he had requested for his legs. It was a bitterly cold night.

Back at the Reich Chancellery, I went to the smoking room in which the other diners had gathered. My duty post was the telephone. Everybody was talking about Molotov, but I heard none of it because telephone reports were coming in constantly. Finally I was told: an Allied aircraft had been identified over Lüneburg heading on a southeasterly course – and therefore towards Berlin. I reported it at once to the chief of protocol, Alexander Freiherr von Dörnberg,
[23]
who was standing close by me. Hitler was not far away and asked at once what the problem was. When Dörnberg explained the situation, the Foreign Ministry liaison officer to Hitler, Hewel, asked: ‘What should we do about Molotov, if that aircraft is actually heading for Berlin? We should bring him at once to Hotel Adlon!'

‘Why there?' Hitler asked in irritation.

‘Because Hotel Adlon has a bombproof bunker.'

This kindled a discussion about secure bunker installations below the Reich Chancellery. It had an air-raid cellar, which many called a bunker, but it would not survive a direct hit. Accordingly, that same evening Hitler decided to build a bunker there: ‘It is high time that the head of state of the German Reich is also in a position to offer his guests at least as safe a place to shelter as Hotel Adlon.'

Construction work on the bunker was held back, however, and not until 1943 was it begun. In the centre of the Reich Chancellery garden a giant hole was suddenly dug. ‘Wonderful, now we're going to have a swimming pool,' my colleagues joked. The bunker was never fully finished. To the very end, which would concentrate my duties, the Third Reich and Hitler precisely into that very place, the subterranean labyrinth never really dried out.

The Ban on Hess Flying

Shortly after the visit of the Soviet foreign minister, in November 1940, I was again with Hitler on the Obersalzberg – this time only for a few days.
[24]
One evening, one of the adjutants asked us to prepare a place for another guest at dinner. Hitler liked to eat in company at the Berghof and, as often happened, he gave us very little notice of his dinner guests. A colleague knew that Hess was staying in his house on the Obersalzberg, and I reached him by telephone. He was free that evening and set off for the Berghof straight away.

Towards the end of the meal, a courier arrived and handed a despatch to Reich press chief Otto Dietrich. He ran his eye over it quickly and then passed it to Hitler, who read it standing up and then exclaimed: ‘My God, what am I supposed to do? I can't fly there and beg on my knees.'

I didn't know the background, but as the talk subsequently increased in volume I picked up a few scraps. I understood that the discussion was all about a meeting in Portugal between the military attaché Enno Emil von Rintelen, whom we called ‘Hitler's postman', and his Swedish colleague Graf Bernadotte. The exact purpose or the aim of the whole thing was not revealed to me. Only later did I hear the rumours of secret negotiations with the British. What I do remember, however, was that Hess, answering Hitler's earlier observation, not to him but to his adjutant, uttered something like: ‘Perhaps he can't. But I – I can!'

Hess excused himself relatively soon after this incident and took his leave. I was on very good terms with Josef ‘Sepp' Platzer, Hess's servant, and when we were in Soviet captivity together much later he took the opportunity to give me a full report on what happened next during that evening and how things panned out. Sepp drove back with Hess to his house, and in the car he repeated that sentence: ‘Hitler cannot. But I can!' Then he let Sepp into his plan. He had decided to fly to Britain on his own account. Nobody else was to know – at first, not even his own adjutants. First of all, Sepp had to obtain two British history books. Above all, however, Hess had to have knowledge about the flight safety zones, especially the code words, which were changed daily, so as to find the ‘dead zones' and avoid coming under friendly flak fire. Sepp mentioned to Flugkapitän Baur the map with the safety zones marked out on it. At first, Baur declined the request. Sepp insisted: ‘You know my boss, he wants to be informed about everything.' Baur then personally obtained a copy from Göring, commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, on the pretext that the map was needed by his deputy, Hitler's second pilot, Georg Betz.

After this had been achieved, Hess needed a place to which he could withdraw and prepare for his operation. He got his servant to ask a Gauleiter to put a farmstead in Austria at his disposal. At that point, Hess had never made a parachute jump. Sepp got him some special beginners' boots and bandages used by paratroopers at the start of their training. Hess stuck the map on the wall of his hut in the Austrian mountains and studied it lying in bed. Sepp had seen that for himself.

Hess incessantly flew an Me 110 fighter bomber. He even made some courier flights. One day when he met Hitler in Berlin – I was on duty – Hitler looked at him in surprise: ‘What are you doing here?' Hess requested to familiarise himself officially with courier flights, but Hitler refused, and forbade Hess as well as Göring as his deputies – Hess as deputy Party chairman, Göring as Reich chancellor – from flying altogether. Obviously neither took any notice.

In February 1941, Hess took off on his first ‘British flight' attempt. Sepp advised him that, at all costs, he must wear uniform. As a civilian, the British would put him before a firing squad; they were very strict about it. Shortly before getting into the Messerschmitt aircraft, Hess gave to his adjutants Karl-Heinz Pintsch and Alfred Leitgen an envelope, with strict instructions that it was only to be opened if he did not return within twenty minutes. Hess had hardly gone off to the aircraft when the two adjutants became anxious and tore open the envelope. Inside the outer envelope was another addressed to Hitler; it was marked ‘Very Urgent'. Before the adjutants could decide what to do next, Hess came back after only seven minutes. He had in fact taken off, but landed again immediately. He spoke briefly with the flight engineer Neumaier, who – also under the greatest secrecy regarding the mission – had placed explosives and additional fuel tanks in the aircraft, and then got back in the car with Sepp, the adjutants and the driver Rudi, and drove back to Munich.
[25]
Nobody knows whether there was really a technical problem with the aircraft or if Hess suddenly lost courage. Sepp and I thought the latter, because Hess had trained incessantly on the plane, and a defect at this stage was unlikely.