Hitler's Last Witness (25 page)

26 April 1945

The battle for Berlin entered its final phase. The Reich Chancellery lay under an artillery bombardment all day. Despite having plenty of filters, occasionally Hentschel had to close the fresh air ventilation system because it was sucking smoke into the interior.

Despite the incessant artillery fire, I continued to spend my breaks upstairs. I simply had to leave that coffin now and again, otherwise I would have gone completely mad. I now decided myself when I would have a break, but with Retzbach's approval. On this day too, after lunch, I went to my service room. At the entrance to the adjutants' wing a Volkssturm man lay dead. He had probably been hit by falling masonry during an air attack. Dead tired, I stepped over the corpse and dragged myself to the bed. It was my last time upstairs before Hitler died.

In the evening, the female pilot Hanna Reitsch
[7]
and Luftwaffe General Robert Ritter von Greim
[8]
arrived in the bunker. Hanna Reitsch was a real she-cat. I knew the gifted and bold pilot from her several visits to Hitler. It was she whom he had chosen in 1944 to find the fault in the V-1 flying bomb.
[9]
This missile, on which such great hopes rested, was not working correctly and the fault had to be sought in flight. Therefore, a converted version with a cockpit had to be constructed. When Hanna Reitsch was suggested as pilot, Hitler growled ‘Can't a man fly it?' but finally he agreed. Reitsch found at least one of the causes of the malfunction: a cable in the guidance system of the machine
*
was disconnected, and there was probably a whole series of other problems.

Because Gatow airport had been in Soviet hands for some time, Reitsch and Ritter von Greim had had to land their Fieseler Storch
[10]
on the Charlottenburg Chaussee, which had been renamed East–West Axis in 1935. Greim was wounded in the leg, as the aircraft came under fire when landing. My SS colleagues brought him in to see Hitler on a stretcher. While they spoke, Hanna Reitsch spent the time with me at the telephone switchboard. I looked at the Iron Cross, First Class resplendent on her roll-neck sweater. Günther Ochs, Goebbels's valet, fetched three wine glasses and filled them up. Outside, the last battle of the war raged, and we sat there in a kind of church-hush drinking a glass of wine. When Frau Goebbels appeared, Hanna Reitsch asked her straight away about her children. She pleaded, using her silver tongue, to be allowed to fly the five girls and one boy out. Nobody need know whose children they were. ‘If necessary I will fly in and out of here ten times,' she implored the mother. Finally, she made it clear: ‘What you decide for yourself is your affair. If you want to stay with your husband, then do so. But the children . . .' All to no avail.

Meanwhile, the talk between Hitler and Ritter von Greim had finished. Greim looked almost jolly as he hobbled out. Hitler had promoted him to field marshal and commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe. Göring had been replaced and relieved of all his offices. Later, Hitler had him arrested, together with all his entourage at Obersalzberg. Greim and Hanna Reitsch spent the night in the ante-bunker.

27 April 1945

Report followed report unceasingly. At first, we were told that Wenck had made a decisive advance and was twenty kilometres from Berlin. Goebbels announced that Berlin must be held without regard to the losses. I did not hear any more. I functioned as if hypnotised. Wenck's advance meant for me just another prolongation of the tough wait for Hitler to kill himself.

The radio contact to Wenck was continually breaking off, and soon the report was received that the advance had stopped. The offensives to the north and south of Berlin were also unsuccessful. If such a thing was possible, all this compounded the depression in the bunker. According to Hitler and Martin Bormann, the failure of the offensives could only be explained by treachery – treachery extending up into the closest circle. The remaining SS bodyguard and I meanwhile went over the countless senarios in which the Russians stormed the bunker.

In the afternoon, Hitler wanted to speak to Himmler's liaison officer Hermann Fegelein. After Fegelein's marriage to Eva Braun's sister Gretl, the ladies' man was to a certain extent Hitler's brother-in-law to be. We of the SS bodyguard had no doubt that, by means of his marriage to a Braun, Fegelein was aiming to inveigle himself into the close circle around Hitler. Marrying a Braun, however, had not proved as useful as he had hoped.

On this 27 April, Fegelein could not be found in the Reich Chancellery cellars. I was told to call all known telephone numbers he used in order to contact him, but found him present at none of them. An RSD squad finally located him at his flat on the Bleibtreu-Strasse, a side street off the Kurfüstendamm. Martin Bormann was waiting in the corridor to the Führerbunker when the RSD men returned without Fegelein, to make their report. I stood listening as they told Bormann that they had found Fegelein at his flat, but he had declined to accompany them to the Reich Chancellery. What were the RSD men to do? They were simple soldiers, in SS uniform admittedly, but without rules – mere police. Fegelein, on the other hand, had the rank of a brigadier. He was not obliged to follow the instructions of these RSD men. Fegelein had been under the influence of alcohol, lightly clothed and not alone, the report went on. They had not recognised the lady accompanying him as his wife. She was probably a radio announcer from Deutschlandfunk, as I later learned. In any case, according to the RSD men, Fegelein had then made the vulgar observation: ‘What is all this shit about, anyway? It doesn't involve me any more.'

Bormann scowled when he heard that. ‘Go back there immediately! Arrest him and bring him here,' he stormed. Meanwhile, Fegelein had decided to come to the Reich Chancellery under his own steam. I understood that all kinds of valuables had been found in his flat, jewellery maybe, and a lot of money including British pounds sterling. Apparently, he wanted to withdraw secretly. Later, on my way to our commander Schädle, I saw Fegelein in uniform in the catacombs of the New Reich Chancellery accompanied by two RSD men. He was taken to Mohnke's command post for interrogation by Kriminalrat (detective chief superintendent) Peter Högl.

I went back to my workplace suspecting that it was not going to be pleasant for Fegelein. I got one of the RSD men, Hans Hofbeck, to promise to keep me informed. Hitler concerned himself only briefly with the matter; he reduced his ‘brother-in-law to be' to the rank of an SS private and ordered a field court martial. Fegelein was stripped of all orders and decorations. Hofbeck told me that after the interrogation Fegelein would await the judgement of the tribunal under Högl.

28 April 1945

At night I had much to do again. Several times I set up a line for Krebs to Keitel. In the early hours it became disconnected. Keitel was having difficulties with the commander-in-chief of Army Group Vistula, General Gotthard Heinrici. Heinrici probably ignored orders to mount a relieving attack and was immediately relieved of command.
[11]

More bad news arrived in the bunker. The signals service took down foreign news broadcasts, which served as one of the main sources of information for the daily situation conferences. From a Swedish radio station we now learnt that Heinrich Himmler had made the British and Americans an offer to capitulate. It had been turned down on the grounds that the Western Allies would only accept unconditional surrender to them all, including the Soviets.
[12]

Himmler was probably trying to wriggle out of this when confronted. Then the BBC sent a Reuters report confirming all the rumours. The chief of the news bureau, Heinz Lorenz, took the report to Hitler personally. For a moment Hitler lost his self-control. It was loud – I could hear his voice above the telephone calls I was dealing with: ‘Himmler of all people, Himmler of all people!' Snatches of his words could be heard throughout the Führerbunker area. The whole thing reminded me of his reaction to Hess's defection to Britain in 1941.

Hitler called Hanna Reitsch and Ritter von Greim to him. They were to arrest Himmler. I was totally downcast. I had been hoping secretly that Hitler would fly out with Greim. Now the last hope floated – or better put, flew away. Hitler was to remain in Berlin. I did not leave the bunker. Reitsch and Greim took off from the Charlottenburger Chaussee airstrip in order to meet Dönitz at Plön.

Hans Hofbeck appeared below again and told me more about the Fegelein affair. In the light of Himmler's efforts, Fegelein had been given short shrift. A search of his service room in the catacombs had brought to light certain files from which it was obvious that he must have known of the secret negotiations initiated by Himmler through the Swedish intermediary Count Folke Bernadotte. Thus, Fegelein was not merely guilty of planning to flee Berlin, but of high treason. The field court martial under Kriminalrat Högl condemned the husband of Gretl to death by firing squad. There was no direct order from Hitler. He had only ordered Fegelein to be reduced to the ranks.

Hofbeck now described to me in great detail the execution carried out immediately after sentence. An RSD colleague – Hofbeck told me his full name – had shot Fegelein from behind with a machine pistol in the cellar corridor.
[13]
Hofbeck imitated the raising and aiming of the weapon to shoulder height and then downwards and imitated the noise of the shooting: ‘Ratatatata'.

29 April 1945

Shortly after midnight, I saw a man in the bunker whom I had never seen before. Hentschel nearby seemed less surprised than I, as the man and two assistants walked calmly past us.

‘Who is that then?' I asked Hentschel.

‘That is the registrar.'

‘The who?' I thought I must have misheard, but Hentschel repeated: ‘The registrar!' He was the Stadtrat (city councillor) and Gauamtsleiter (NSDAP regional office leader) Walter Wagner, who had worked with Goebbels in the Berlin Gau leadership. ‘The boss is getting married today,' the technician informed me. I also asked him to repeat this sentence as well.

In this manner I heard of the planned marriage of Hitler to Eva Braun. So at last. I saw Wagner disappear into Hitler's study, the two men who had accompanied him remained outside. Inside Eva and Hitler both said ‘
Ja
'. Apparently, Bormann and Goebbels were the witnesses. Towards half past one, it was completed.

There were a few well-wishers present to toast the Hitler newly-weds: the Goebbels couple, Hitler's secretaries Junge and Christian, generals Krebs and Burgdorf, Colonel von Below and Hitler's diet-cook Constanze Manziarly. I remained at my workplace and considered how I should now greet Eva when I met her. ‘Frau Hitler' – that did not seem possible. ‘Frau Hitler' did not suit Eva, the Führer's girl, and neither did it suit Hitler to be a married man. The bodyguard speculated later that Hitler had only wanted to make Eva ‘Frau Hitler' to preserve convention at the end – above all for Eva's parents, so that everything should ultimately be in order. The Brauns must not live with the shame of their daughter having died as a concubine.

Thoughts about the correct form of address for Eva Hitler and the whole marriage thing had long given way to the big question: When will we have the suicide? Sunk in contemplation, I failed to notice that Traudl Junge had quietly sat down on the only other seat by the telephone switchboard and begun to type up something from her dictation pad. ‘My Political Testament' – I could not read anything else. Frau Junge typed three copies in a business-like manner.

While she was making the fair copies, Bormann and Goebbels appeared and gave her something more urgent to do. More urgent than Hitler's Testament? Yes, apparently so.
[14]
In the early morning, it was between five and six o'clock, the copies of this last Will were sent by courier – one to Dönitz, a second one to Schörner and the last to the NSDAP headquarters in Munich. Therefore, it could not be much longer now – and Hitler would finally put an end to himself. My telephone lines ran hot because of the failure to arrest Himmler.

Meanwhile, the noose around our necks grew ever tighter. It was clear to all that at any moment the Russians could storm the bunker. I still had lines to almost all of Berlin, and so I rang civilians at random to find out where the Red Army was. I discovered later that the Russians were doing exactly the same in order to establish their own frontline. It was dreadfully stuffy in my small switchboard, and made me sleepy. I approved a few cognacs for myself.

My former company commander Mohnke was ordered to Hitler in his capacity as battle commander of the government district. How long can we still hold out, Hitler wanted to know. ‘No longer than twenty, at the most twenty-four hours,' I heard Mohnke state. Without speaking to me Mohnke left the Führerbunker.

Shortly afterwards, I observed Professor Werner Haase, since 1935 Hitler's travelling physician, having a quiet conversation with Hitler in the lobby. Haase would usually be found operating on the wounded in the field hospital below the Reich Chancellery. He and Hitler finally emerged into the corridor and stood in front of my telephone switchboard. At that moment, Feldwebel Fritz Tornow led in Blondi. Haase and Tornow then disappeared with the dog into the washroom about three metres from my post. The door was left open, and I peered in. Tornow held Blondi's nose up, and Haase thrust a pair of tongs inside the mouth to drop a small object inside. There was a cracking sound and Blondi quickly collapsed. Hitler made a few steps forward and observed for a few seconds. Then he turned away silently and returned to his room. There was a smell of bitter almonds. After the dead Blondi had been dragged away, Tornow took her five pups, born at the beginning of the month, into the Reich Chancellery garden and shot them dead. Now I could be sure. If Hitler had decided to kill his beloved dog, then it would not be long until he followed her in death.