‘There’s a grey building in the way,’ explained Neustroev. The regimental commander grabbed the map from him and studied their position again. ‘Neustroev!’ he replied in exasperation. ‘That
The journalist also peered from a window. The Konigsplatz outside was ‘covered with flashes and fire and exploding shells and the interrupted lines of tracer bursts’. The Reichstag lay less than 400 metres beyond. ‘If there had been no fighting,’ he wrote, ‘this distance could be crossed in a few minutes, but now it seemed impassable, covered with shell holes, railway sleepers, pieces of wire and trenches.’
The German defenders had dug a network of defences all round the Reichstag. Most daunting of all, a water obstacle ran right across the middle of the Konigsplatz. This was a tunnel which had collapsed from bombing and filled with water seeping in from the Spree. It had been dug as part of exploratory work for Albert Speer’s vast Volkshalle, the centrepiece of the new Nazi capital of Germania. In this devastated, ‘Hieronymus Bosch landscape’, practical jokers had propped up on stones the heads of caryatids blasted by Allied bombs off the Reichstag’s facade.
Once breakfast was dished up, ‘everyone started checking their weapons and spare magazines’. Then at 6 a.m., the first company charged out. They had ‘hardly gone fifty metres when the hurricane of fire from the enemy made them lie down’. Two rather reduced battalions made a dash forward soon afterwards, but many were killed. Heavy fire was also coming from the Kroll Opera House, on the west side of the Konigsplatz, as well as from the Reichstag itself. With the assault force trapped in the crossfire, another division was rapidly deployed to deal with the Kroll Opera House, but first it had to clear the buildings behind on the embankment. More self-propelled guns and tanks were also brought over the Moltke bridge during the course of the morning to support the infantry on the Konigsplatz. The smoke and dust from the bombardment were so thick that the soldiers never saw the sky.
With heavy artillery and tank fire supporting them, the 150th Rifle Division battalions reached the water-filled tunnel soon after 11 a.m. But when another huge effort was made two hours later, heavy fire came from their right rear. The German anti-aircraft guns on the top of the Zoo bunker, two kilometres away, had opened up on them. They were forced to take cover again and wait until nightfall. During the afternoon, the 171st Rifle Division continued clearing buildings of the diplomatic quarter on the north side of the Konigsplatz and more self-propelled guns and tanks moved up. Some ninety guns, including 152mm and 203mm howitzers, as well as katyusha rocket launchers, fired continuously at the Reichstag. It says much for the solidity of its construction fifty years before, during the Second Reich, that it withstood such a pounding.
Another prominent building heavily bombarded that morning was Goring’s air ministry on the Wilhelmstrasse. Its ferro-concrete construction also resisted well. Because of its solidity and proximity to the Reich Chancellery, it had become an assembly point for uniformed Nazi Party members pretending that they were part of the great battle. The mixture of uniforms was striking. Along with Luftwaffe and Waffen SS, there was an elderly Volkssturm officer in his Wilhelmine uniform from the First World War who appeared ‘to have escaped from a waxworks museum’.
The government district was now heavily garrisoned with all the troops which had retreated into it — in all, nearly 10,000 men, including a large proportion of foreign SS. But the escape route to the west was effectively cut off. The 8th Guards Army in the southern part of the Tiergarten and the 3rd Shock Army in the north were held back only by fire from the huge Zoo flak tower. Beyond them the one remaining corps of Konev’s tank troops coming from the south and Zhukov’s 2nd Guards Tank Army coming from the north had occupied most of Charlottenburg. Yet even further to the west, Hitler Youth detachments still held parts of the Heerstrasse and the Pichelsdorf bridge over the Havel. They also held on at the bridge to Spandau, just over two kilometres to the north.
The French SS on the Wilhelmstrasse were so hungry on that cold and rainy morning that when somebody brought in a frightened enemy soldier, they immediately grabbed his little canvas ration bag. Their prisoner kept telling them that he was not Russian but Ukrainian and that there would be a big attack on the next day. By then the ‘Charlemagne’ battalion was down to less than thirty men and they had used up a large proportion of the panzerfaust reserves from the Reich Chancellery. The last few Tigers of the SS ‘Hermann von Salza’ battalion had, meanwhile, been withdrawn to the Tiergarten to take on the tanks supporting the 3rd Shock Army and the 8th Guards Army.
In the Fuhrer bunker, the morning of Hitler’s death was ‘like any other, with officers coming and going’. Yet the atmosphere was tense and emotional. Hitler, terrified that the poison would not work, had insisted the day before that one of Dr Stumpfegger’s cyanide capsules should be tested. Blondi, Hitler’s adored German shepherd bitch, was the obvious candidate. His passion for the breed dated back to 1921, when he had been given one in the depths of his poverty. He did not have enough space to keep it where he was living and had to lodge the dog elsewhere, but the animal escaped to return to him. This incident appears to have contributed greatly to Hitler’s obsession with unconditional loyalty. But Blondi’s absolute devotion was not enough to save her, nor her four puppies, which were taken up to the Reich Chancellery garden to be killed. The Goebbels children had been playing with the large-pawed puppies only a short time before.
Apart from Himmler’s betrayal, Hitler’s other great preoccupation remained his fear of being taken alive by the Russians. News had come through of Mussolini’s execution by partisans and how the bodies of the Duce and his mistress, Clara Petacci, had been hoisted upside down in Milan. A transcript of the radio report had been prepared in the special outsize ‘Fuhrer typeface’ which saved Hitler from wearing spectacles. It was presumably Hitler who underlined in pencil the words ‘hanged upside down’. Hitler was in any case determined that his own body should be burned to prevent its exhibition in Moscow. But the historical record also concerned him deeply. His bride was a willing companion in suicide, but if she had not been, he clearly would not have wanted her left alive for interrogation by his enemies. Death had been an inescapable clause in the contract.
During the night, confirmation had been received from Field Marshal Keitel that no relief could be expected. And that morning Brigadefuhrer Mohnke, following the intense artillery bombardment of the government quarter, warned that they had two days or less. General Weidling, who had arrived in the latter part of the morning, estimated that resistance would collapse that night due to lack of ammunition. He again asked for permission to break out of Berlin. Hitler would not give an immediate answer.
At about the time Weidling was with Hitler, Eva Hitler took Traudl Junge to her room. She presented her with the silver fox fur cape which she would clearly never wear again. Traudl Junge wondered what Hitler and his wife talked about when they were alone. They lacked the subjects of conversation of most newly married couples. She also wondered how she was to escape from the centre of Berlin in a silver fox fur cape. (Hitler’s presents to Eva had certainly improved in recent years. In 1937, his Christmas present to her had been ‘a book on Egyptian tombs’.)
General Weidling, meanwhile, returned to the Bendlerblock. These journeys through the shelling, dashing bent double from ruin to ruin, were exhausting for a man in his fifties. At 1 p.m., no more than an hour after his return, an SS Sturmfuhrer, escorted by a small detachment, arrived from the Reich Chancellery. He handed over a letter. The large envelope had the eagle and swastika and ‘Der Fuhrer’ embossed in gold capitals. Hitler informed Weidling that there was to be absolutely no question of capitulation. A breakout was permitted only if it were to join other combat formations. ‘If they cannot be found, then the fight is to be continued in small groups in the forests’ — the very forests which the Fuhrer had refused to ‘wander about in’. Weidling was elated. One of the
Before lunch, Hitler summoned his personal adjutant, Sturmbannfuhrer Otto Gunsche, and gave him careful instructions on the disposal of his corpse and that of his wife. (The very detailed investigation by SMERSH during the first few days of May concluded that Hitler’s chauffeur, Erich Kempka, had received orders on 29 April, the previous day, to send over jerry cans of petrol from the Reich Chancellery garage.) Hitler then had lunch with his dietician, Constanze Manzialy, and his two secretaries, Traudl Junge and Gerda Christian. Eva Hitler, who had presumably lost her appetite, did not join them. Although Hitler appeared quite calm, little conversation was attempted.
After lunch he joined his wife in her bedroom. A little later, they both appeared in the anteroom corridor, where Gunsche had assembled the inner circle. Goebbels, Bormann, General Krebs, General Burgdorf and the two
