Hitler's Last Witness (26 page)

First, I had to get away as soon as possible from this workplace stinking of bitter almonds. In the cellar of the New Reich Chancellery I came across the next macabre scene. Music and singing were coming from the room near the field hospital. The six Goebbels children were sitting together with their parents at a long table singing:

The blue dragoons they are riding
With drum and fife through the gate,
Fanfares accompany them,
Ringing to the hills above.

A young man, perhaps sixteen years old, provided accompaniment with his accordion. A crowd of civilians, staff and wounded stood around them. I understood: this was the manner and way in which the Goebbels family took their leave – a last opportunity to demonstrate the unity of the family. Unsuspecting and well brought up, the Goebbels children concentrated on their song – I could not bear to watch this activity any longer and was suddenly in a hurry to return to the Führerbunker.

Events followed one after another in the next few hours. Towards evening, we sent a telex to Jodl. There were five questions:

1. Where are Wenck's spearheads?
2. When will they attack?
3. Where is the Ninth Army?
4. Where will the Ninth Army break through?
5. Where are the spearheads of von Holste?
[15]

Some time towards 2300 hrs, the report was received that Italian partisans had shot dead Mussolini and his companion Clara Petacci and apparently hanged them up by the feet. Somebody said there were even pictures of it. Had Hitler needed a final shove in order to make his own suicide a reality, that was probably it.

I was almost totally exhausted, but I kept working at the switchboard. I wanted to listen to everything, know everything, miss nothing. But it was a hard battle to fend off sleep. My forehead fell forward against the junction box. Senseless, senseless, senseless. Nothing else went through my head.

1
The BBC used the opening bars of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in A minor, opus 67 as its recognition melody (‘V for Victory'); by the
Verordnung über ausserordentliche Rundfunkmassnahmen
listening to enemy radio stations was punishable by imprisonment.

2
SS-Lieutenant General Felix Steiner had instructions to assemble northeast of the city a troop that would relieve the siege of Berlin. No such troop was formed by Steiner.

3
The machine crashed near the village of Börnersdorf near Pirna/Dresden. There was probably only one survivor. He did not know the other passengers, and this created problems of identification because the bodies were so badly charred. Thus initially it was suspected wrongly that the secretaries Christa Schroeder and Else Krüger had been on board. Christa Schroeder,
He Was My Chief
, London 2009, p. 180. It remains unclear when exactly the plane crashed and if important documents, which according to Flight Captain Hans Baur had been entrusted to the safekeeping of Arndt by Hitler, were lost. The mystery surrounding these missing files provoked the ‘Hitler-diaries' farce in 1983.

4
In an opening telegram, Göring had requested Hitler's agreement to take over the leadership of the Reich as from 2200 hrs. In a second telegram Göring had ordered Foreign Minister Ribbentrop to Berchtesgaden for the succession. This convinced Hitler that Martin Bormann was right when he said that Göring's request to Hitler had actually been an ultimatum.

5
Misch recollects that, when he enquired, Albert Bormann replied that he had brought Traudl Junge from the Munich Party Chancellery as a conscript for essential service. She says in her memoir: ‘My sister Inge was then making a living in Berlin as a dancer at the Deutsche Tanzbühne. One of her colleagues was related to Albert Bormann and through him one fine day I received an offer to go to the Führer's Chancellery in Berlin . . . I accepted and went there . . . I often asked myself why they had sent for a secretary expressly from Munich and even conscripted her for essential service.' See Traudl Junge,
Bis zur letzten Stunde – Hitlers Sekretärin erzählt ihr Leben
, Munich 2002, p. 37. In an interview with André Heller, Junge said she had asked a female friend with links to Albert Bormann to solicit from him a position for herself. See the documentation in André Heller and Othmar Schmiderer,
Im toten Winkel
, DVD 2002.

6
Today, Strasse des 17 Juni.

7
Hanna Reitsch had the Iron Cross, First and Second Class.

8
Greim (1892–1945), see biographical entry, p. 227.

9
The V-1,
Vergeltungswaffe
-1 (weapon of reprisal), known internally as FZG 76
Flakzielgerät
(flak target device), was Goebbels's propaganda term for the Fieseler-103, an unmanned aircraft armed with explosives (the first semi-guided missile).

10
The Fi-156 was a high-wing, single-engined propeller aircraft developed at the Fieseler Works, Kassel, and called the Storch for its high, fixed undercarriage.

11
Against his own orders, General Heinrici had ordered the retreat of von Manteuffel's Panzer-Armee. Keitel met Heinrici personally but was unable to convince him to use his forces to mount an attack to relieve Berlin by opening a gap in the Soviet ring around the trapped troops. Heinrici considered this would cause senseless losses. Keitel then relieved Heinrici of command at his own request. See Joachim Fest,
Der Untergang
, Berlin 2002, pp. 111ff.

12
Himmler had attempted to negotiate with the Western Powers through the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte and had even said he was ready to ‘capitulate unconditionally'. See Joachim Fest,
Der Untergang
, Berlin 2002, p. 114.

13
Misch did not wish to reveal the name of the gunman, out of regard for the latter's family.

14
According to Traudl Junge, Joseph Goebbels dictated his own Testament to her while she was working on the dictation of Hitler's Will. Goebbels' Testament was to have been an appendix to Hitler's. See Traudl Junge,
Bis zur letzten Stunde – Hitlers Sekretärin erzählt ihr Leben
, Munich 2002, pp. 203f.

15
Major General Rudolf von Holste commanded XXXXI Panzerkorps to the north of Berlin.

*
Not a rocket ‘Rakete'; propulsion was by ram-jet. (TN)

Chapter Fourteen

Hitler's Last Day: 30 April 1945

SHORTLY AFTER ONE IN
the morning, Hitler wanted to know if there were any fresh reports from OKW. There were none. Two hours later, around three o'clock, a long-awaited radio signal arrived from Keitel, which extinguished any remaining shimmer of hope. The attempt to break the encirclement of Berlin had come to a halt. Upstairs, they had to send another signal. Dönitz must take immediate action against all traitors ruthlessly and as soon as possible.

It was not until much later, around midday, that the Berlin city commandant, Helmuth Weidling, reported that the Russians were in immediate proximity to the government district.

Suddenly, Hitler came shuffling along the corridor to my telephone switchboard and stood in the doorway. I rose, assuming he had a job for me. He looked me in the eyes. His gaze was lustreless but clear; nevertheless, it was not the old Hitler gaze. I had the impression he wanted to communicate something private. Before I could think how I should respond if he spoke to me or offered me his hand for the last time, he turned away without a word and shuffled back to his room. In a way relieved to have avoided an undesirable scene, I resumed my seat at the switchboard.

Now it would be soon. Towards 1500 hrs, I heard a quiet murmuring in the corridor. For the last time I heard Hitler's voice, and I also heard Günsche, Goebbels, Linge, Bormann and perhaps Axmann, but now I am no longer so sure. Hitler was speaking quietly and unexcitedly. I pricked up my ears but could not understand anything precisely and had to concentrate on my work – telephone calls were coming in all the time. Now and again I stood up, went to the door, then turned back to take the next call.

I caught a last glimpse of Hitler as he disappeared into his study. Eva, now his wife, followed him. She looked pretty in her dark blue dress with a bright white frilled collar. She rode out the the last hours of her life differently from others who saw their end approaching. For me, she is the only one who went truly nobly to her death. In any case, Eva lived until death. She had married a dead man – in a mortuary.

Günsche closed the door behind Eva and Hitler and then came over to me: ‘The boss does not want to be disturbed again.' The small farewell party broke up. The Goebbels couple and generals Burgdorf and Krebs were among them, Frau Manziarly and Hitler's secretaries. Traudl Junge almost rushed past me. Günsche whispered to me that ‘the boss' had taken his leave of him with a handshake and released all soldiers from any erstwhile oath sworn to the Führer.

Now it was still, dead still. Besides Hentschel, there was an RSD colleague with me at the telephone switchboard. Günsche had asked him to stand by ready for the burning. I had already been informed that under all circumstances Hitler wished his body to be consigned to the flames. Günsche told me. The memory of Mussolini's body strung up for exhibition must have stayed with him – for that reason the funeral pyre seemed very important. We waited. For what? Hitler had asked Haase about various ways to commit suicide sparing oneself unnecessary suffering. Which would he choose? We all thought he would shoot himself. It was soon clear to us that we would probably not hear anything – the diesel motor in the adjoining room was far too loud.

I was nervous. Not for Hitler. Or not exclusively in any case. I whispered with Hannes Hentschel. During the lunch break, I saw Gestapo Müller in the New Reich Chancellery accompanied by two high-ranking SS officers. All still in full uniform.
[1]

‘Hannes, what in heaven's name is he doing here?'

Müller never came into the Reich Chancellery – I had never met him there even once. Were all eyewitnesses to be eliminated? What if the bunker had been so constructed that if necessary the whole thing could be blown up? Was the bunker provided with a time-fuse installation? Hentschel had been present when they built the bunker and so I asked him, ‘Hannes, be frank with me, can the bunker be blown up?'

‘Whatever next?' he said, trying to calm me.

Everybody was listening, but all we could hear was the humming of the ventilation system and the droning of the diesel generator. Nothing could be heard of the fighting above.

Waiting.

We had already been waiting since 22 April.

I needed to have something to eat, having postponed my lunch break repeatedly. Eat now? Yes. In any case, get away from here. I called the New Reich Chancellery and told Unterscharführer Retzbach to come down and relieve me. As soon as I had hung up I heard somebody shouting: ‘Linge, Linge, I think the time has come.' Bormann or Goebbels, I am not sure which, was calling for Hitler's valet.
*
One of them must have heard something. At the telephone switchboard, nobody had heard a shot fired.

I took a few cautious steps from my room into the corridor. Linge pushed me aside from behind, barged past me hastily. I do not know if he came from the washroom or the steps from the ante-bunker. Deathly silence. Linge placed his ear to the door of the anteroom. He and Günsche opened the first door to the anteroom. They advanced slowly to Hitler's study door. Nobody drew breath. The second door was opened. I took a few steps forward and craned my neck. I looked for only a few seconds but I have never forgotten what I saw.

My glance fell first on Eva. She was seated on the sofa with her legs drawn up, her head inclined towards Hitler. Her shoes were under the sofa. Near her – I cannot remember whether on the sofa or the armchair near it – the dead Hitler. His eyes were open and staring, his head had fallen forward slightly. I saw no blood.

I shrank back. All I wanted to do now was get away. Retzbach was in the corridor by the telephone switchboard having answered my call at once. I heaved a sigh. Hitler was dead, Retzbach had come. I had been relieved and had a reason to leave the deep bunker. In hurrying past I called to Retzbach that I had to go upstairs quickly to make a report to our commander Schädle. I rushed up the stairs, strode through the ante-bunker, ran along the bomb-damaged Kannenberg-Allee. Then I stopped suddenly. Hitler, the Führer, was dead. I had to return immediately, see what happened now, I did not want to miss anything. Back at the threshold of the study I saw that, meanwhile, they had laid Hitler out on the ground. Standing outside, I made way for the Führer for the last time. Linge, Günsche, Kempka and an RSD man I did not recognise wrapped him in a grey blanket and carried him past me. The blanket was too short to cover the body, and Hitler's shoes projected out from below it.

Goebbels stated that he would now take a long walk around the gardens until he was killed by the shelling. I went back to Retzbach to tell him I was going up again. He called after me that I should hurry. He looked distinctly unwell. No wonder. Our commander Franz Schädle remained totally calm as I delivered to him the news of Hitler's death. His features were as if carved in stone. He murmured only ‘Hmm', and told me to return at once to my workplace. I made a detour through the kitchen, but found I had no appetite. I burnt my service identity document in the fireplace, where the field kitchen vat hung over it. My yellow ‘Open Sesame' was now a worthless piece of paper, and soon would have been a deadly one too.