Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

midnight. This year, Hitler, in depressed mood, had already told his valet, Heinz Linge, that he did not want to receive his household; there were no grounds for congratulation. Linge was ordered to pass on the message. Predictably, this Fuhrer order was ignored. Waiting in the ante-room, as midnight approached, to offer their formal congratulations were Chief Adjutant General Wilhelm Burgdorf, Himmler’s liaison SS-Gruppenfuhrer Hermann Fegelein (who had recently married Eva Braun’s sister, Gretl), the long-serving factotum Julius Schaub, who had been a member of the ‘household’ since the mid-1920s, Hitler’s adjutants NSKK-Oberfuhrer Alwin-Broder Albrecht and SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Otto Gunsche, Ribbentrop’s liaison Walter Hewel, and press officer Heinz Lorenz. Hitler, tired and dejected, said Linge should inform them that he had no time to receive them. Only following Fegelein’s intercession with his sister-in-law Eva Braun (who had returned to the Reich Chancellery some weeks earlier, announcing she was staying with Hitler, and resisting all attempts to persuade her to leave)¹ did he concede, trudging down the assembled line of his staff to receive their murmured birthday greetings with a limp handshake and a vacant expression.² Further muted, almost embarrassed, congratulations followed from the military leaders attending the first briefing of the day. Afterwards, Hitler drank tea in his study with Eva Braun. It was approaching nine o’clock in the morning before he finally went to bed, only to be disturbed almost immediately by General Burgdorf with the news of a Soviet breakthrough and advance towards Cottbus, some sixty miles south-east of Berlin, on the southern part of the front. Hitler took the news standing in his nightshirt at the door of his bedroom, and told Linge he had not slept up to then and to waken him an hour later than normal, at 2p.m.³

After breakfasting, playing with his alsatian puppy for a while, and having Linge administer his cocaine eyedrops, he slowly climbed the steps into the Reich Chancellery park. Waiting with raised arms in the Nazi salute were delegations from the Courland army, from the SS-Division ‘Berlin’, and twenty boys from the Hitler Youth who had distinguished themselves in combat. Was this what Berlin’s defence relied upon? one of Hitler’s secretaries wondered.⁴ Hitler muttered a few words to them, patted one or two on the cheek, and within minutes left them to carry on the fight against Russian tanks.

Bormann, Himmler, Goebbels, Reich Youth Leader Artur Axmann, and Dr Morell were among those in a further line waiting to be received at the door of the Chancellery’s Winter Garden. Looking drained and listless, his face ashen, his stoop pronounced, Hitler went through the motions of a brief address. Not surprisingly, he was by now incapable of raising spirits.⁵ Lunch with Christa Schroeder and senior secretary Johanna Wolf was a depressing affair.⁶ Afterwards, he retraced his steps down into the bowels of the earth for the late afternoon briefing. He would not leave the bunker again alive.

By now, most of the leading figures in the Reich — at least, those in the Berlin vicinity — were assembled. Goring, Donitz, Keitel, Ribbentrop, Speer, Jodl, Himmler, Kaltenbrunner, the new Chief of Staff General Hans Krebs, and others all presented their greetings. No one spoke of the looming catastrophe. They all swore their undying loyalty. Everyone noticed that Goring had discarded his resplendent silver-grey uniform with gold-braided epaulettes for khaki — ‘like an American general’, as one participant at the briefing remarked. Hitler passed no comment.⁷

I

The imminent assault on Berlin dominated the briefing. The news from the southern rim of the city was catastrophic. Goring pointed out that only a single road to the south, through the Bayerischer Wald, was still open; it could be blocked at any moment. His chief of staff, General Karl Koller, added that any later attempt to transfer the High Command of the Wehrmacht by air to new headquarters could be ruled out. Hitler was pressed from all sides to leave at once for Berchtesgaden. He objected that he could not expect his troops to fight the decisive battle for Berlin if he removed himself to safety. Keitel had told Koller before the briefing that Hitler was determined to stay in Berlin.⁸ When greeting Hitler, Keitel had murmured words to the effect that they had confidence that he would take urgent decisions before the Reich capital became a battleground. It was a strong hint that Hitler and his entourage should leave for the south while there was still time. Hitler interrupted, saying: ‘Keitel, I know what I want. I will fight on in front of, within, or behind Berlin.’⁹ Nevertheless, Hitler now seemed indecisive. Increasingly agitated, he declared moments later that he would leave it to fate whether he died in the capital or flew at the last moment to the Obersalzberg.¹⁰

There was no indecision about Goring. He had sent his wife Emmy and daughter Edda to the safety of the Bavarian mountains more than two months earlier. He had written his will in February. Crate-loads of his looted art treasures from Carinhall, his palatial country residence in the Schorfheide, forty miles north of Berlin, had been shipped south in March. Half a million marks were transferred to his account in Berchtesgaden. By the time he arrived at the Reich Chancellery to pass on his birthday wishes to Hitler, Carinhall was mined with explosives; his own remaining belongings were packed and loaded on to lorries, ready to go on to the Obersalzberg.¹¹ Goring lost no time at the end of the briefing session in seeking out a private word with Hitler. It was urgent that he go to southern Germany, he said, to command the Luftwaffe from there. He needed to leave Berlin that very night. Hitler scarcely seemed to notice. He muttered a few words, shook hands absent-mindedly, and the first paladin of the Reich departed, hurriedly and without fanfare. It seemed to Albert Speer, standing a few feet away, to be a parting of ways that symbolized the imminent end of the Third Reich.¹²

It was the first of numerous departures. Most of those who had come to proffer their birthday greetings to Hitler and make avowals of their undying loyalty were waiting nervously for the moment when they could hasten from the doomed city. Convoys of cars were soon heading out of Berlin north, south, and west, on any roads still open. Donitz left for the north, armed with Hitler’s instructions — the implementation of the directive five days earlier on division of command should the Reich be geographically split — to take over the leadership in the north and continue the struggle. It was a sign of Donitz’s high standing with Hitler on account of his uncompromising support for the stance of fighting to the last, and of hopes for a continuation of the U-boat war, that he was given plenipotentiary powers to issue all relevant orders to State and Party, as well as to the Wehrmacht in the northern zone.¹³ Himmler, Kaltenbrunner, and Ribbentrop soon followed. Speer left later that night in the direction of Hamburg, without any formal farewell.

Hitler, according to Julius Schaub’s post-war testimony, was deeply disappointed at the desire of his paladins to leave the bunker in barely concealed haste. He gave no more than a perfunctory nod of valediction to those who, now that his power was as good as ended, were anxious to save what they could of themselves and their possessions.¹⁴ By this time, most of the army top-brass had left. And Bormann had already told the remaining government ministers — Finance Minister Lutz Graf Schwerin-Krosigk, Transport Minister Julius Dorpmuller, Justice Minister Otto Georg Thier-ack, Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories (a long redundant post) Alfred Rosenberg, Education Minister Bernhard Rust, and Labour Minister Franz Seldte — together with head of the Presidential Chancellery, the old survivor, Otto Meissner, to make hasty preparations to leave for the south, since the road would soon be blocked. Hitler’s naval adjutant, Admiral Karl-Jesko von Puttkamer, was dispatched to the Obersalzberg to destroy important papers there.¹⁵ His two older secretaries, Johanna Wolf and Christa Schroeder, were summoned to his study that evening and told to be ready to leave for the Berghof within the hour. Four days earlier, he had told them in confident tones: ‘Berlin will stay German. We must just gain time.’ Now, he said, the situation had changed so much in the past four days, that he had to break up his staff.¹⁶

The scene in the courtyard of the Reich Chancellery was near-chaotic as vehicles were stuffed with bags and suitcases, the rumble of artillery a reminder of how close the Red Army was as the cars hurried through the night, through clouds of smoke billowing from burning buildings, past shadowy ruins and Volkssturm men setting up street barricades, to waiting aeroplanes.¹⁷ During the following three nights, some twenty flights were made from Gatow and Staaken aerodromes in Berlin, taking most of Hitler’s staff to Berchtesgaden.¹⁸

Late in the evening, the remaining adjutants, secretaries, and his young Austrian diet cook, Constanze Manziarly, gathered in his room for a drink with Hitler and Eva Braun. There was no talk here of the war.¹⁹ Hitler’s youngest secretary, Traudl Junge, had been shocked to hear him admit for the first time in her presence earlier that day that he no longer believed in victory. He might be