Hitler's Last Witness (24 page)

I had just put the bag aside when Schädle approached me again. I suspected what he was going to tell me. Exceptions to Hitler's general release were naturally those who were indispensable for the immediate continuation of bunker life. After Retzbach's statement it was clear to me at once that I would not be among the lucky ones released. ‘Misch, you are naturally still needed!' Schädle said. I gave him a weak nod. Therefore, on my way to the Führerbunker I passed excited people. Beucks the telegraphist almost ran past me. He had an important message for Heinz Lorenz, deputy of Reich press chief Otto Dietrich. Not five minutes later, Lorenz came to my small telephone switchboard. A signal emanating from the Western Allies had just been intercepted, he told me. According to what it said, they were hoping that Berlin could hold out another fourteen days against the Red Army so that they could encircle it and take the Reich capital together. He had to take this signal to the Führer immediately.

For the Soviets to conquer Berlin single-handed seemed to be a thorn in the sides of the Western Allies. I awaited Hitler's response with interest. When Lorenz reappeared at my side, I asked him for the outcome. ‘Too late,' he had said, making a dismissive gesture. ‘Hitler merely said, “What difference does that make? The war is lost. They should have reported themselves much earlier.”' Hitler saw the report as confirming his conviction that the Allies would eventually tear themselves apart, but too late. Meanwhile, it was too late for anything.

The Ju 352, a machine from the Führer-Staffel, took off two hours later as planned. Pilot Friedrich Gundelfinger, with whom I had made many courier flights over the last few years, rang before take-off to advise that he was intending to fly the aircraft to Reichenhall in Bavaria. My colleague Willy Arndt, Hitler's favourite servant, had taken the seat originally set aside for Gerda and the infant.

Some time later, a report reached me that this very plane had been intercepted by the Allies and been forced to change flight plan to Cologne. Gundelfinger had not complied and finally the aircraft had gone down near Dresden.
[3]
According to the reports, there were no survivors. The news did the rounds in a flash, mainly because Willy Andt had been on board. When I talked to a British officer about this aircraft years later, he stated frankly his suspicion that it had been shot down by the British. I had been that close to putting my wife and daughter on a death flight.

Meanwhile, Hitler had appointed my former commanding officer Brigadier Wilhelm Mohnke as battle commandant of the Zitadelle, the innermost government quarter.
Kampfgruppe Mohnke
led by him had its command post in the cellars of the New Reich Chancellery. The force was 4,000-strong and embraced all Waffen-SS units in Berlin, including the Wachbataillon. From these units, two regiments were formed with battalions and companies, while smaller groups of the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and a formation of Axmann's Hitler Youth made up the numbers.

While I tried to ring Gerda, hoping that she had perhaps left the air-raid shelter, somebody else had a quite different vision of how he was going to save his family. Dr Goebbels wanted to save his wife and children not
in
the world but
from
the world after the defeat; he added them all to those condemned to die in the Reich Chancellery.

Staff members who had long since been given shelter rooms in the ante-bunker had now to abandon them for the Goebbels younger generation. Goebbels himself moved into the room directly alongside my telephone switchboard, which Professor Morell had vacated the previous evening. There was no direct entry into it from the corridor. Goebbels, therefore, had to come through my workplace to enter or leave his room.

I thought it was complete madness to bring six children to live in this sarcophagus. When, instead of the Soviets, this little gang came storming into the deep bunker for the first time I did not know whether to laugh or cry. At least twice daily they visited their father, and when he left the Führerbunker they would romp around in the corridor. The atmosphere in the bunker did not dampen their high spirits in the least. They played, laughed, sang, were cocky and carefree, as all children are. Again and again I had to remind them: ‘Enough, this is not a playground,' though it was more effective for me to say: ‘Be quiet, children, your Uncle Adolf is sleeping. Under no circumstances must he be awoken.' Günther Ochs, Goebbels's valet, would then take the five girls and one boy up to the civilians in the New Reich Chancellery cellar.

Late in the evening, I rang Gerda's number again. The line was working, I heard the ring tone, but nobody picked up the phone. Gerda, my parents-in-law and the child must therefore still be in the air-raid bunker, and they would not leave it until the end. I tried to sleep at my switchboard and left my sleeping mat rolled up. Dr Goebbels might wander through my workplace at any moment. What would he think if he found me asleep!

23 April 1945

Now and again, when I could no longer tolerate the dismal, suffocating narrowness of my telephone cubbyhole, I would go up to my old service room in the adjutants' wing not far from the cellar exit and rest there for a little. In the bunker I was the only person who kept watch day and night at the switchboard – except for the short meal breaks when my colleague Retzbach covered for me.

Late in the afternoon, Hitler suddenly left his rooms. Slowly, very slowly, he plodded past me at the switchboard, the Alsatian dog Blondi never leaving his side. Together with some of the SS bodyguard he went upstairs into the Reich Chancellery garden to breathe fresh air for the last time. These were often wonderful spring days against which backdrop this hell played out.

Shortly afterwards, there was some excitement. Göring had managed to fall into Hitler's bad books at the last moment. I thought it had to do with a telegram from Göring at Berchtesgaden, but I could not obtain the precise details and was having difficulty concentrating on my telephone calls. The Krügerin – our nickname for Bormann's secretary Else Krüger – came to my switchboard and told me excitedly that Martin Bormann was sounding off about ‘high treason'. He had dictated a radio signal to her, which had to be transmitted upstairs. Not until later did I find out that, as a result of Hitler's statement on 22 April that he had no more orders to give, Göring had taken that to mean that he was ready to initiate the procedure for his successor. To all appearances Göring was already in the starting blocks, ready to take over from Hitler in the event of his apparent inability to govern, as was prescribed for such a case. Chief intriguer Bormann had seen through Göring's little game, however, and more than ever Hitler was ready to listen to shocking accusations of betrayal, conspiracy and sabotage.
[4]

Meanwhile, Albert Speer, Herr Artistic Genius, had arrived. He was the Armaments Minister, but looked completely out of place in the bunker. While waiting he paced the corridor, then finally went in to see Hitler. He stayed until the situation conference with General Krebs. Later that evening, Eva Braun wished to see Speer. She came to me at the telephone switchboard with her request to pass on the message. Speer was staying in the upper levels of the catacomb.

Finally, I got through to my wife on the telephone. It was the last time for many years that I would hear her voice. That same evening her father died, but I was not informed. He had left the air-raid bunker prematurely with two other people, because he was worried about our unlocked property being exposed to looters. A shell landed among them and blew all three to shreds. What remained of him is buried in the garden.

24 April 1945

The ranks of the faithful around Hitler dwindled. Meanwhile, the female secretaries Christa Schroeder and Johanna Wolf had been flown out. Traudl Junge and Gerda Christian remained.

Frau Christian – Dara – was Hitler's favourite secretary. She had a sense of humour and the swift Berliner retort; ‘the boss' liked that. But why was Frau Junge still here? Traudl Junge was always the spare wheel. I never knew Hitler to call her as his first choice for dictation; she was only used as a reserve if another secretary could not come. Albert Bormann had brought her one day from the Munich Party HQ when Dara took leave for several months after her marriage.
[5]
When I saw Frau Junge, Fräulein Humps as she then was, for the first time, at Berchtesgaden, it really gave me a shock. She had an incredible squint. Soon afterwards, they operated on her eyes and now one could look at her.

The Red Army was occupying ever more city districts. The airfields at Gatow and Tempelhof fell on this day. For this eventuality, Hitler had arranged for a new airstrip on the Charlottenburger Chaussee, between the Victory Column and the Brandenburg Gate, to be installed as a reserve.
[6]
He was hoping to use it to fly in reinforcements for the defence. About two hundred naval ratings arrived by this route from Dönitz in the middle of the inferno.

Hitler met me in the corridor. He now looked like the kind of figure who one imagines lives without daylight and fresh air. Pallid, stooped, uncertain in his gait, he shuffled past my switchboard like a man in prison allowed to walk up and down the corridor once every couple of hours. Like a murderer in the death cell. This was quite in contrast to Eva. She continued to take care with her appearance as before, put rouge on her cheeks and dressed as though she found herself in a villa of the nobility and not in a tomb with furniture relics of long bygone days. I liked that. One must almost make the point that Eva was the only one to remain cultured. She reminded me that we were not dead yet. Apart from her appearance, everything there had to do with death. Everywhere only the past, the end, defeat. All faces were grey, only Eva's lips were not. Until then, I had not anticipated that there was still something important to come in Eva's life – she did not have much time left.

Since Hitler had announced the end, on 22 April, it had been clear to us that by it he meant his own end. Everybody seemed to be occupied with the question of what was the best method of suicide. I heard that Dr Stumpfegger would distribute cyanide capsules. None was offered to me. I did not need poison. I kept my Walther PP on my switchboard table with the safety catch off. Should the time come, I would shoot myself in the head.

Those among us, who were here by virtue of their services being indispensable, knew only too well that the only hope of saving our own skins would come after Hitler's death. Therefore we waited for it. After that, there would be three choices: to die by one's own hand; to run up a white flag at the telephone switchboard and surrender to the Russians; or take a chance on flight. I wavered. On the one hand, I thought my hour had now come and felt dull and empty; on the other hand, strategies to save myself darted through my head. My will to survive had not yet been extinguished, but once it was I would end my life with the Walther PP. And if Hitler waited too long? Should I then simply stand up, walk out of the Reich Chancellery and try to get through to my wife and daughter? What chance was there of that? Wandering through the ruins, the Gestapo would soon pick me up. To be hanged as a coward and deserter – that I did not want. Everything revolved around two questions: When would Hitler kill himself? When would the Russians arrive at the bunker door?

It was the same for my colleagues. In any case, there were not many of us left behind. Without saying as much, we were all waiting for the same thing. When would Hitler finally release us? We waited hour by hour, day by day. Quite a few were praying – some for the first time in their lives. I was ever more isolated in the Führerbunker. None of my colleagues let themselves be seen down there unless it was absolutely necessary. Only my relief came regularly. In recent days, I had not seen my good friend Helmuth Beermann; meanwhile, he must have been flown out. The same went for Albert Bormann, who also had not taken his leave of me.

Eva Braun and Magda Goebbels often sat in the corridor discussing the day's events, the bunker and above all, naturally, Hitler and Joseph Goebbels. I heard how they gave each other courage not to leave their respective men but to die with them: ‘We have lived with them. We shall die with them.'

The telephone rang ceaselessly. Many troubled civilians called. As I mentioned, the number of the New Reich Chancellery was in the telephone directory and even the number of the Führer's flat was not a secret. Whoever knew it could pass it on. My colleagues above often redirected the calls to me.

Once I had a woman on the line, screaming and crying. She was in such a state of distress I could hardly understand her. Her neighbour was being raped, she sobbed. ‘Help, help! – come and help us!' In the background I could hear terrible screams. ‘One moment,' I said, I could not think of anything else to say, I just wanted to be rid of the call. Dr Goebbels stood nearby. I beckoned to him, holding out the receiver. ‘Civilians!' Goebbels handled every one of these appalling calls, including the one with the rape.

Between the situation conferences the mood was especially depressing. Everybody whispered. I did not wish to be infected with this sepulchral mood and spoke deliberately in loud tones and very audibly into the mouthpiece. This brought a little normality into the eerie atmosphere. In the evening, there was another situation conference.

25 April 1945

I was glad to be constantly occupied. It helped me a little to forget the times. In the evening, signals were sent to the commander-in-chief Twelfth Army, Walther Wenck, and to Jodl. The relieving attack that had been hoped of Army Wenck, however, never came.