ready to go under; her own life, she felt, had barely begun. Once Hitler — early for him — had retired to his room, she was glad to join Eva Braun, and other bunker ‘inmates’, even including Bormann and Morell, in an ‘unofficial’ party in the old living room on the first floor of Hitler’s apartment in the Reich Chancellery. In the ghostly surrounds of a room stripped of almost all its former splendour, with the gramophone scratching out the only record they could find — a schmaltzy pre-war hit called ‘Red Roses Bring You Happiness’ (
When Hitler was awakened at 9.30 next morning, it was to the news that the centre of Berlin was under artillery fire.21 He was at first incredulous, immediately demanding information from Karl Koller, Luftwaffe chief of staff, on the position of the Soviet artillery battery. An observation post at Berlin’s zoo provided the answer: the battery was no more than eight miles away in the suburb of Marzahn.22 The dragnet was closing fast. The information scarcely helped to calm Hitler’s increasingly volatile moods. As the day wore on, he seemed increasingly like a man at the end of his tether, nerves ragged, under intense strain, close to breaking point. Irrational reactions when a frenzy of almost hysterically barked-out orders proved impossible to implement or demands for information impossible to supply, point in this direction.
Soon, he was on the telephone again to Koller, this time demanding figures of German planes in action in the south of the city. Communications failures meant Koller was unable to provide them. Hitler rang once more, this time wanting to know why the jets based near Prague had not been operational the previous day. Koller explained that enemy fighters had attacked the airfields so persistently that the jets had been unable to take off. ‘Then we don’t need the jets any more. The Luftwaffe is superfluous,’ Hitler had replied in fury. ‘The entire Luftwaffe leadership should be hanged straight away!’23
II
The drowning man clutched at yet another straw. The Soviets had extended their lines so far to the north- east of Berlin that it opened up the chance, thought Hitler and Chief of Staff Krebs, for the Panzer Corps led by SS- Obergruppenfuhrer Felix Steiner to launch a counter-attack with good chances of success. A flurry of telephone calls with more than a hint of near-hysteria assigned a motley variety of remaining units, including naval and Luftwaffe forces untrained in ground warfare and without heavy armour, to Steiner’s command.24 ‘Every commander withholding forces has forfeited his life within five hours,’ Hitler screamed at Koller. ‘The commanders must know that. You yourself guarantee with your head that the last man is deployed.’25 Any retreat to the west was strictly forbidden to Steiner’s forces. Officers unwilling to obey were to be shot immediately. ‘On the success of your assignment depends the fate of the German capital,’ Hitler told Steiner — adding that the commander’s life also hinged on the execution of the order.26 At the same time, Busse’s 9th Army, to the south of Berlin, was ordered to restabilize and reinforce the defensive line from Konigswusterhausen to Cottbus. In addition, aided by a northward push of parts of Schorner’s Army Group Centre, still doggedly fighting in the vicinity of Elsterwerda, around sixty miles south of Berlin, it was to attack and cut off Konev’s tank forces that had broken through to their rear.27 It was an illusory hope. But Hitler’s false optimism was still being pandered to by some of the generals. His mood visibly brightened after hearing upbeat reports from his most recent field-marshal, Schorner (who had been promoted on 5 April), and from General Wenck about the chances of his newly constructed 12th Army attacking American forces on the Elbe.28
Colonel-General Heinrici, Commander of Army Group Vistula, was not one of the eternal optimists who played to Hitler’s constant need for good news. He warned of encirclement if the 9th Army were not pulled back. He threatened resignation if Hitler persisted in his orders. But Hitler did persist; and Heinrici did not resign.29 The general had implied to Speer days earlier that Berlin would be taken without serious resistance.30 This thinking was anathema to Hitler. He told Jodl on the day his orders to Steiner and to the 9th Army went out: ‘I will fight as long as I have a single soldier. When the last soldier deserts me, I will shoot myself.’31 Late that night, he still exuded confidence in Steiner’s attack. When Koller told him of the inadequacies of the Luftwaffe troops he had been compelled to supply to Steiner’s forces, Hitler replied: ‘You will see. The Russians will suffer the greatest defeat, the bloodiest defeat in their history before the gates of the city of Berlin.’32
It was bravado. Two hours earlier, Dr Morell had found him drained and dejected in his study. The doctor and his medications, however little efficacious in an objective sense, had been for years an important psychological prop for Hitler. Now, Morell wanted to give him a harmless further dose of glucose. Without any forewarning, Hitler reacted in an uncontrollable outburst, accusing Morell of wanting to drug him with morphine. He knew, he said, that the generals wanted to have him drugged so that they could ship him off to Berchtesgaden. ‘Do you take me for a madman?’ Hitler railed. Threatening to have him shot, he furiously dismissing the quivering doctor.33
The storm had been brewing for days. It burst on the afternoon of 22 April, during the briefing that began at 3.30p.m. Even as the briefing began, Hitler looked haggard, stony-faced, though extremely agitated, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. He twice left the room to go to his private quarters.34 Then, as dismaying news came through that Soviet troops had broken the inner defence cordon and were within Berlin’s northern suburbs, Hitler was finally told — after a frantic series of telephone calls had elicited contradictory information — that Steiner’s attack, which he had impatiently awaited all morning, had not taken place after all.35 At this, he seemed to snap. He ordered everyone out of the briefing room, apart from Keitel, Jodl, Krebs, and Burgdorf.36 Even for those who had long experience of Hitler’s furious outbursts, the tirade which thundered through the bunker for the next half an hour was a shock. One who witnessed it reported that evening: ‘Something broke inside me today that I still can’t grasp.’37 Hitler screamed that he had been betrayed by all those he had trusted. He railed at the long-standing treachery of the army. Now, even the SS was lying to him: after Sepp Dietrich’s failure in Hungary, Steiner had not attacked. The troops would not fight, he ranted, the anti-tank defences were down. As Jodl added, he also knew that munitions and fuel would shortly run out.
Hitler slumped into his chair. The storm subsided. His voice fell to practically a whimper. The war was lost, he sobbed. It was the first time any of his small audience had heard him admit it. They were dumbstruck. He had therefore determined to stay in Berlin, he went on, and to lead the defence of the city. He was physically incapable of fighting himself, and ran the risk of falling wounded into the hands of the enemy. So he would at the last moment shoot himself. All prevailed upon him to change his mind. He should leave Berlin forthwith and move his headquarters to Berchtesgaden. The troops should be withdrawn from the western front and deployed in the east. Hitler replied that everything was falling apart anyway. He could not do that. Goring could do it. Someone objected that no soldier would fight for the Reich Marshal. ‘What does it mean: fight?’ asked Hitler. ‘There’s not much more to fight for, and if it’s a matter of negotiations the Reich Marshal can do that better than I can.’38
At this, Hitler, his face a deathly pallor, left the briefing room and retreated to his own quarters.39 He sent for his remaining secretaries, Gerda Christian and Traudl Junge, and his dietician Constanze Manziarly. Eva Braun was also present as he told his staff they should get ready; a plane would take them south in an hour. ‘It’s all lost,’ he said, ‘hopelessly lost.’ (‘Es
Urgent telephone calls were meanwhile put through from Donitz and Himmler. Neither could persuade him to change his mind. Ribbentrop arrived. He was not even allowed to see Hitler. Goebbels was also present.41 Hitler, highly disturbed, had telephoned him around five o’clock, raving about treachery, betrayal, and cowardice. Goebbels hurried as fast as he could go to the bunker, and spoke a while alone with Hitler. He was able to calm him down. Goebbels emerged to announce that on the Fuhrer’s orders, he, his wife, and his children would be moving into the bunker and living there from now on.42 For the Propaganda Minister, Hitler’s decision was the logical consequence of his consistent stance; he saw it in full pathos as a historic deed which determined the heroic end in Berlin of a latter-day Siegfried, betrayed by all around
