stated that Hitler’s dictation of his testament had begun shortly before midnight, before the wedding. Joachimsthaler, 185, follows her in this in speaking of the wedding ‘towards midnight’. But in her earlier testimony for Musmanno (Michael A. Musmanno Collection, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, interview with Gertraud Junge, 7 February 1948, FF25, Fols.32–6), she had said that, while the dictation of the testament — from which that she learnt from the private will (which he dictated first) that he intended to marry Eva Braun — began about 11.30p.m., it then took two to three hours for her to type up the wills (political and private), and that the wedding took place while she was doing this. In her later testimony (IfZ, ED 100, Irving-Sammlung, Traudl Junge Memoirs, Fols. 152– 4), she wrote of being awakened in the middle of the night while preparations for the wedding were being made. As Trevor-Roper (207 n.1) points out, when Greim and Reitsch spoke to Koller as late as 8 May they knew nothing of the nocturnal marriage (Koller, 95). It was, therefore, after they had left the bunker. Joachimsthaler, 183, accepts that Greim and Reitsch left after midnight. The date of the wedding certificate itself is 29 April, indicating that the ceremony was completed after, not before, midnight (Joachimsthaler, 186–7). The wedding was probably, therefore, not before ia.m. Copy of the wedding certificate in PRO, WO208/3790, Fols.151–2; Joachimsthaler, 186–7 (photostat).
124. IfZ, ED 100, Irving-Sammlung, Traudl Junge Memoirs, Fol.155 (where the impression is given that the dictation began later in the night); Amtsgericht Laufen, Verfahren des Amtsgerichts Berchtesgaden zur Todeserklarung bzw. Feststellung der Todeszeit von Adolf Hitler, testimony of Gertraud Junge, 24 February 1954, Bl.4; Michael A. Musmanno Collection, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, interview with Gertraud Junge, 7 February 1948, FF25, Fol.32; Galante, 13 (Junge); Joachimsthaler, 188–9; Musmanno, 202ff.
125. Joachimsthaler, 192 (text photostat); Domarus, 2240–41. In her early post-war testimony, Traudl Junge made clear that Hitler dictated first the private and then afterwards the political testament. (Michael A. Musmanno Collection, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, interview with Gertraud Junge, 7 February 1948, FF25, Fol. 32; Amtsgericht Laufen, Verfahren des Amtsgerichts Berchtesgaden zur Todeserklarung bzw. Feststellung der Todeszeit von Adolf Hitler, testimony of Gertraud Junge, 24 February 1954, Bl.4.) In her later memoirs, she implied that the political testament came first (IfZ, ED 100, Irving-Sammlung, Traudl Junge Memoirs, Fol.155; Galante, 13).
126. IfZ, ED 100, Irving-Sammlung, Traudl Junge Memoirs, Fol.155; Galante, 13.
127. The grammar of this passage is garbled in the original: ‘
128. Maser,
129. Amtsgericht Laufen, Verfahren des Amtsgerichts Berchtesgaden zur Todeserklarung bzw. Feststellung der Todeszeit von Adolf Hitler, testimony of Gertraud Junge, 24 February 1954, Bl.4; Michael A. Musmanno Collection, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, interview with Gertraud Junge, 7 February 1948, FF25, Fol. 35; Joachimsthaler, 189.
130. Maser,
131. Traudl Junge claimed in 1954 that she finished work on Hitler’s will, carried out while the wedding celebrations continued, only around 5a.m. (Amtsgericht Laufen, Verfahren des Amtsgerichts Berchtesgaden zur Todeserklarung bzw. Feststellung der Todeszeit von Adolf Hitler, testimony of Gertraud Junge, 24 February 1954, Bl.4). In 1948, she had stated that the typing of the wills had taken two to three hours, putting the completion time, therefore, no later than 3a.m. (Michael A. Musmanno Collection, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, interview with Gertraud Junge, 7 February 1948, FF25, Fol.35. See also Joachimsthaler, 189. The document itself gives the time of 4a.m. for the signing).
132. IfZ, ED 100, Irving-Sammlung, Traudl Junge Memoirs, Fols.152–3
133. NA, Washington, NND 901065, Folder 2; printed in Joseph Goebbels,
134. Below, 416.
135. Linge,
136. Amtsgericht Laufen, Verfahren des Amtsgerichts Berchtesgaden zur Todeserklarung bzw. Feststellung der Todeszeit von Adolf Hitler, testimony of Otto Gunsche, 19–21 June 1956, Bl.8; Kempka, 80; Trevor–Roper, 227 (Junge). Joachimsthaler, 250–9, convincingly argues that the poison was not cyanide, as most of the bunker inmates themselves thought, but the more effective prussic acid capsules, produced in thousands by the criminal police, and causing death within a fraction of a second.
137. Amtsgericht Laufen, Verfahren des Amtsgerichts Berchtesgaden zur Todeserklarung bzw. Feststellung der Todeszeit von Adolf Hitler, testimony of Otto Gunsche, 19–21 June 1956, Bl.8–9; Joachimsthaler, 194–7; IfZ, ED 100, Irving-Sammlung, Traudl Junge Memoirs, Fol.153; Galante, 12 (Junge); Kempka, 84.
138. Trevor-Roper, 218–21; Domarus, 2241 and n.214–16.
139. Trevor-Roper, 221; Joachimsthaler, 176–81.
140. Joachimsthaler, 193–4.
141. Boldt, 172–5.
142. Trevor-Roper, 224-5; Domarus, 2242.
143. Domarus, 2242; Trevor-Roper, 226.
144. Trevor-Roper, 223–4.
145.
146.
147. Joachimsthaler, 202. Keitel, 368, has another version, for which there is no other evidence and is presumably a distortion from memory: ‘No further hope of relief of Berlin and reopening of access from west; suggest break-out via Potsdam to Wenck; alternatively flight of Fuhrer to southern region.’ The effect of the telegram seems to have been to reinvoke accusations of betrayal, now even in Keitel. (See Trevor-Roper, 228–9 (though the original text for Bormann’s cable to Donitz does not survive and Trevor-Roper gives no source).)
148. Amtsgericht Laufen, Verfahren des Amtsgerichts Berchtesgaden zur Todeserklarung bzw. Feststellung der Todeszeit von Adolf Hitler, testimony of Erwin Jakubeck, 23 November 1954; Michael A. Musmanno Collection, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, interview with Gertraud Junge, 7 February 1948, FF25, Fols.38, 41; Joachimsthaler, 201–4, 217; Trevor-Roper, 227 and 275 (where the leave-taking is misdated to 29 April). One guard later testified that he had witnessed a farewell ceremony for Hitler’s close entourage during the night of 29–30 April. (Joachimsthaler, 201 (Kolz testimony)). He must have been confusing this with the farewell gathering of around twenty to twenty-five mainly servants and guards. Hitler bade farewell to his ‘householdz’ only shortly before his suicide, next afternoon.
149. Joachimsthaler, 206.
150. ‘Der Endkampf in Berlin’,
151. Joachimsthaler, 210–15 (with justifiable criticisms of Kempka’s reliability); Kempka, 90–92. In his testimony of 20 June 1945, Kempka stated that Gunsche had telephoned about 2.30p.m., telling him to come to the Fuhrer bunker and to bring 200 litres of petrol (David Irving Microfilm Collection (Microform Academic Publishers, East Ardsley, Wakefield), Third Reich Documents, Group 7/13, ‘Erklarung von Herrn Erich Kempka uber die letzten Tage Hitlers’).
