could be a compilation of Hitler’s thoughts in the last months. She ruled out a possibility of Hitler summoning Bormann to dictate to him, pointing out from her own recollection how he hated verbatim accounts on paper of what he had said casually (Schroeder, 257). The main problem with the authenticity of the text is that no reliable and certifiable German version exists. It is impossible, therefore, to be certain. A great deal has to be taken on trust; and even then no safe mechanism for checking is available.
The original document containing the monologues was said to have been entrusted on 17 April 1945 by Martin Bormann to Walther Funk, Reich Minister for Economics, to remove from Berlin for safe keeping in a bank vault in Bad Gastein. While serving his term of imprisonment in Spandau after the Nuremberg Trials, fearing further incrimination should the document be discovered, Funk, it was claimed, commissioned a friend, Hans Rechenberg, with the destruction of the document. Rechenberg, the account continues, kept his promise in a literal sense; but he made a photocopy, and in 1951 handed it to Francois Genoud, a Swiss lawyer who had meanwhile acquired control over copyright matters pertaining to Bormann, Goebbels, and other Nazi leaders. Funk, after release from Spandau, authorized Genoud to seek out Hugh Trevor-Roper with a view to arranging publication outside Germany of the document. After the meeting with Trevor-Roper, according to Genoud, the photocopy was handed back to Funk. It thereafter went missing. Remarkably, it seems, no copy of the copy had been made before returning it. Genoud had made a French translation (La testament politique de Hitler. Notes recueillies par Martin Bormann, Paris, 1959), and in 1958 had had a translation back into German made from the French version. According to Genoud, this was at Funk’s wish, since he wished to compare the texts. Funk then allegedly corrected the re-translation in accordance with the still existing copy of the original, ‘so that’, in Genoud’s words, ‘a practically authentic text, coming from this time, exists’. An English edition, with an introduction by Trevor-Roper, was published in 1961 (Francois Genoud (ed.), The Testament of Adolf Hitler. The Hitler-Bormann Documents. February-April 1945, with an Introduction by H. R. Trevor- Roper, London, 1961). This English version contains a very loose and untrustworthy translation of the German text — itself not guaranteed to be identical with any long-lost original or the lost copy of that original — which was eventually published only in 1981 (Hitlers politisches Testament. Die Bormann Diktate von Februar und April 1945, mit einem Essay von Hugh R. Trevor-Roper und einem Nachwort von Andre Francois- Poncet, Hamburg, 1981). Further examination of the text in the meantime-though this was not mentioned by the German publishers — by Professor Eduard Baumgarten had established that the translation back into German from the French (carried out by a Dutchman) contained between the lines a second German text, written in the hand of Francois Genoud. The available German text is, therefore, at best a construct; neither the original nor the copy of that original exists. Baumgarten tended, since the content was consonant with Hitler’s thinking and expression, to accept the authenticity of the text. There is, however, no proof and, therefore, no reliable German text whose authenticity can be placed beyond question. (Institut fur Zeitgeschichte (ed.), Wissensch-aftsfreiheit und ihre rechtlichen Schranken. Ein Kolloquium, Munich/Vienna, 1978, 45–51 (comments of Francois Genoud, Eduard Baumgarten, and Martin Broszat).)
122. Hermann Giesler, Ein anderer Hitler. Erlebnisse, Gesprache, Reflexionen, Leoni, 1977, 478–80. For the date of the unveiling of the model, Irving, HW, 478–80, 483.
123. See Kubizek, especially 97–110. Hitler was still dreaming when he told Goebbels, following his viewing of the Linz model, that modern technology would allow for a swift rebuilding of German cities after the war, and that housing capacity would be restored within five years (TBJG, II/15, 379 (13 February 1945)).
124. TBJG, II/t5, 321 (6 February 1945). He repeated this to Goebbels a few days later, though the Propaganda Minister noted that it could not be publicized since, otherwise, every future air-raid on Berlin would be attributed to the decision (TBJG, II/15, 370 (12 February 1945)).
125. TBJG, II/15, 320 (6 February 1945), 337 (8 February 1945), 365 (12 February 1945).
126. TBJG, II/15, 323 (6 February 1945).
127. TBJG, II/15, 368 (12 February 1945).
128. See Weinberg III, 802–9.
129. TGJG, II/15, 381–2 (13 February 1945).
130. Below, 402.
131. Speer, 433.
132. Giesler, 482.
133. Semmler, 183; Reuth, Goebbels, 581–2; Irving, Goebbels, 502.
134. LB Stuttgart, 902–3 (2 March 1945).
135. Guderian, 427 (trans. slightly amended); LB Stuttgart, 905 n.2. And see TBJG, II/15, 617, 620 (28 March 1945).
136. Jodl’s summary for Hitler of advantages and disadvantages of leaving the Geneva Convention argued that the way would then be clear for Allied usage of gas and chemical warfare at a time when they enjoyed obvious air-superiority; also that there were more German prisoners in Allied hands than Allied prisoners-of-war in Germany, so that massive retaliation would also be to Germany’s disadvantage. (IMG, xxxv.181–6, doc.606-D. See also IMG, ix.434, x.342, xiii.517–18, xvi.542, xviii.397–8, and xxxiiii.641–4, doc.158-C.)
137. Descriptions by Dr Giesing, in mid-February, and Percy Ernst Schramm a month later: Maser, 394–5, cit. Giesing report of 12 June 1945, 175ff.; Percy Ernst Schramm, Hitler als militarischer Fuhrer. Erkenntnisse und Erfahrungen aus dem Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacbt, Frankfurt am Main, 1962, 134ff.; KTB OKW, iv/2, 1701–2. See also Irving, HW, 772–3; Irving, Doctor, 211.
138. Rudolf Jordan, Erlebt und erlitten. Weg eines Gauleiters von Munchen bis Moskau, Leoni am Starnberger See, 1971, 253.
139. Below, 402. Goebbels had remarked in his diary, early in February, that the Gauleiter had not been taking central directions from Berlin seriously and were running things in their own way (TBJG, II/15, 311 (5 February 1945)).
140. Jordan, 251–8; Karl Wahl, ‘… es ist das deutsche Herz’. Erlebnisse und Erkenntnisse eines ehemaligen Gauleiters, Augsburg, 1954, 384–92 (where the meeting is wrongly dated to 25 February); Below, 402; Martin Moll, ‘Die Tagungen der Reichs — und Gauleiter der NSDAP: Ein verkanntes Instrument der Koordinierung im “Amterchaos” des Dritten Reiches?’, typescript, 60–61 (with best thanks to Dr Moll for the opportunity to see this valuable, as yet unpublished, paper); Irving, HW, 772–3; Toland, Adolf Hitler, 855 (based on oral testimony in 1971 of three Gauleiter present). The formal communique of the meeting confined itself to stating that Hitler had imparted to the Gauleiter ‘the guidelines for the victorious continuation of the struggle, for the comprehensive organization of all forces of resistance, and for the ruthless deployment of the Party in the fateful struggle of the German people’ (Domarus, 2207). In individual cases, Hitler was nevertheless even now able to rouse new hope. According to Christa Schroeder, Albert Forster, Gauleiter of Danzig-West Prussia, came to Berlin in March 1945 determined to tell Hitler the unvarnished truth about the desolate situation in Danzig. He came out of his audience reinvigorated, saying ‘he has told me he will save Danzig, and about that there can be no more doubt’ (Schroeder, 74).
141. Domarus, 2203–6. Domarus (2202, n.71, 2088) mistakenly thought the occasion had been dropped altogether in 1944. In fact, Hitler had given a speech on that occasion (24 February 1944), which Goebbels had described as ‘extraordinarily fresh’ (TBJG, II/11, 347 (25 February 1944)). In 1942, the Gauleiter of Munich and Upper Bavaria, Adolf Wagner, had read out a proclamation by Hitler (TBJG, II/3, 371 (25 February 1942)); in 1943, Hermann Esser read out the proclamation (TBJG, II/7, 412 (25 February 1943)).
142. StA Munich, LRA 29656, report of the SD-Au?enstelle Berchtesgaden, 7 February 1945: ‘… wahrend bei der uberwiegenden Zahl der Volksgenossen der Inhalt der Proklamation vorbei-rauschte wie der Wind in leerem Geast’. Other reports underlined the impression that Hitler’s address had been unable to lift the mood and found no echo among the mass of the population (GStA, Munich, MA 106695, reports of the Regierungsprasident of Oberbayern, 7 March 1945, 7 April 1945). Some reports from mid-February noted that hope of a miracle was now confined to belief in Hitler himself (Volker Berghahn, ‘Meinungsforschung im “Dritten Reich”: Die Mundpro-paganda-Aktion der Wehrmacht im letzten Kriegshalbjahr’, Militargeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 1 (1967), 83–119, here 105.
