Hitler's Last Day: Minute by Minute: The hidden story of an SS family in wartime Germany (29 page)

In the classroom at St Josef’s in the north of Holland, the German and Allied delegations have divided up into different groups to examine in detail the issues to be solved before a humanitarian truce can be agreed. Operation Manna is underway but with no formal agreement saying that the
Allied planes won’t be shot down as they carry out their food drops.

‘Watching this scene,’ Major-General Sir Francis de Guingand recalled later, ‘I found it hard to believe I wasn’t dreaming, for all intents and purposes it reminded me of a staff college exercise with the best syndicates arguing amongst themselves as to the best way of solving a particular problem.’

While the groups are talking, General Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff Major-General Walter Bedell Smith takes the opportunity to talk to Reich Commissioner Seyss-Inquart about the capitulation of the remaining 200,000 German soldiers in Holland. Around a table with sandwiches on it, Bedell Smith pours Seyss-Inquart a large glass of gin and explains to him that he would be held responsible if any disaster befell the Dutch people, and that he expects the war will be over in a matter of weeks.

‘I agree,’ Seyss-Inquart replies.

Surprised by the answer, Bedell Smith pushes further. He says as the German army is cut off in Holland they should surrender to avoid further bloodshed. Seyss-Inquart replies that he has no orders or authority to carry out such a surrender. Bedell Smith says, ‘But surely it is the politician who dictates the policy to the soldier, and in any case our information points to the fact that no real supreme headquarters exists any longer in Germany today.’

‘But what would future generations of Germans say about me if I complied with your suggestion? What would history say about my conduct?’ Seyss-Inquart replies.

‘Now look here,’ Bedell Smith says impatiently, ‘General Eisenhower has instructed me to say that he will hold you directly responsible for any further useless bloodshed. You have lost the war and you know it. And if, through pigheadedness, you cause more loss of life to Allied troops or Dutch
civilians, you will have to pay the penalty. In any case you are going to be shot.’

Seyss-Inquart looks at Bedell Smith and says quietly and slowly, ‘That leaves me cold.’

‘It will,’ Bedell Smith replies.

In Heemstede, a suburb of Haarlem in the Netherlands, Audrey Hepburn’s cousin, eight-year-old John Schwartz, is at his grandparents’ farm watching the planes of Operation Manna dropping food bags in the large open fields. It is a sight he will never forget. ‘It really looked as if there was no end to the planes coming in from the sea, dropping all these bags (instead of bombs).’

In Amsterdam, Jacqueline van Maarsen is at school. Like everyone in the city she is longing desperately for the end of the war. Throughout the city, people are dying of starvation. At home Jacqueline’s family have no gas or electricity or food. She is constantly hungry, and missing her many friends who have gone abroad, including her best friend, Anne Frank, whose family (Jacqueline thinks) have moved to Switzerland. As her class sit at their desks they suddenly hear the sound of planes. They look out of the window and see the sky is full of Allied aircraft heading towards them. Everybody in the school rushes up the stairs and onto the roof. The children wave everything that can be waved: scarves, books, handkerchiefs. From the rooftop they can see the planes flying over fields on the edge of the city, and drifting black dots falling from the sky. They have no idea that these are bags full of food.

The Goebbels children are playing quietly in their bedroom in the upper bunker. In the corridor outside, Hitler’s secretary Traudl Junge is sitting in an armchair smoking a cigarette. Otto Günsche comes up the stairs from the Führerbunker to call her. ‘Come on, the Führer wants to say goodbye.’ She quickly stubs out her cigarette and tries to waft away the smell. Hitler disapproves of smoking, and hates the smell of cigarettes. He is always warning his staff that smoking causes cancer, a view many of them regard as eccentric.

Junge follows Günsche down to the Führerbunker corridor where Constanze Manziarly, Gerda Christian and other staff members have gathered together with Martin Bormann and Magda and Joseph Goebbels. They wait for a few moments and then Adolf and Eva Hitler emerge from his study.

Hitler walks very slowly. Junge thinks he is stooping more than ever. He shuffles from person to person, proffering a quivering hand. When it comes to Junge’s turn, she feels the warmth of his right hand, but she realises that he is looking through her. He mutters something, but she can’t take it in. She is numb, frozen. It’s the moment that they have all been waiting for but now it has come she feels completely detached.

Eva Hitler approaches Hitler’s valet, Heinz Linge, and says, ‘Thank you so much for everything you have done for the Führer.’ She leans in and lowers her voice, ‘Should you meet my sister Gretl, please do not tell her how her husband met his death.’ She doesn’t want her to know that Hermann Fegelein was executed on Hitler’s orders.

Then Eva goes over to Traudl Junge and jolts her out of her daze by hugging her. ‘Do your best to get out,’ Eva says. ‘It may still be possible. And give Bavaria my love.’ She is smiling, but her voice catches.

Joseph Goebbels stands before Adolf Hitler. He is suddenly desperate. He has sworn his loyalty unto death to the Führer. He has demonstrated it by bringing his wife and children into the bunker to die alongside their leader, but the prospect now seems unbearable. ‘
Mein Führer
, it is still possible to escape. You can oversee the war from Obersalzberg. Artur Axmann can arrange for the Hitler Youth to escort you safely from Berlin.
Mein Führer
, I beg you to consider…’

‘Doctor, you know my decision. I am not going to change it. You and your family can of course leave Berlin.’

Joseph Goebbels raises his head and looks the Führer in the eyes.

‘We will stand by you and follow your example,
Mien Führer
.’

The two men shake hands. Then Hitler leans on Heinz Linge, and retreats slowly to his study.

At the study doorway Hitler stops and turns to look at Linge. In the last six years, he has been at his master’s side at all times. He has had a total of about three weeks’ leave. He has always travelled in the same vehicle as Hitler. He has always worn clothes which match Hitler’s – a uniform if Hitler was in uniform, civilian clothes if Hitler was in civilian clothes. Linge fixes his eyes on ‘the hank of hair, as always, across the pale forehead’.

‘I’m going to go now.’ The Führer’s voice is quiet and calm. ‘You know what you have to do. Ensure my body is burned and my remaining possessions destroyed.’

‘
Jawohl, Mein Führer
.’

‘Linge, I have given the order for the breakout. You must
attach yourself to one of the groups and try to get through to the west.’

Linge swallows. ‘What is the point? What are we fighting for now?’

‘For the Coming Man.’

It is not clear what he means, but Linge salutes. Hitler offers his hand. He looks exhausted, grey. Then the Führer raises his right arm in his final salute. He turns to go into his study.

Traudl Junge is suddenly seized by a wild urge to get as far away as possible. She rushes out of the Führerbunker and towards the stairs to the upper bunker. There, sitting silently, halfway up, are the six Goebbels children. No one has remembered to give them lunch. They want to find their parents and Auntie Eva and Uncle Hitler.

‘Come along,’ says Junge, trying to keep her voice calm and light. ‘I’ll get you something to eat.’

She tells them to sit down at the table in the
Vorbunker
corridor and goes to the kitchen where she finds bread, butter and a jar of cherries.

The children’s parents are still down in the Führerbunker. Magda Goebbels is embracing Eva Hitler. The relationship between Germany’s first lady and the Führer’s consort has always been awkward. Magda, 11 years older, has always been more dominant, more socially confident, but now, as they say goodbye, it is Magda who stands weeping and Eva, calm and controlled, who tries to comfort her. Eva then turns and joins her husband in his study.

Outside the main gate at Dachau, Lieutenant Marcus J. Smith and his medical team are talking with the GI guards. One of the orderlies asks a war-weary sergeant, ‘What was it like yesterday? Was it rough getting in?’

‘Not bad. We were mad. We got those bastards...’

Heinz Linge closes the door behind Adolf and Eva Hitler and for a moment the corridor is quiet. Then suddenly there’s a commotion. Magda Goebbels bursts out crying, begging to be allowed to see the Führer for a final time. Linge hesitates. Magda Goebbels is insisting that she has to have ‘a personal conversation’. Linge goes through to ask Hitler if he will see her, and he agrees.

It is a very brief conversation. Like her husband, Magda is panicking as the reality of killing their children comes closer. She begs the Führer to leave the capital. If Hitler goes then her husband will agree to go, and she will feel that she and the children can leave too. His refusal is brusque. She emerges from the room crying and Heinz Linge closes the heavy iron security door of the study behind Adolf and Eva Hitler for the final time. People start to drift away from the corridor. Linge goes up the stairs to the bunker exit for a quick breath of fresh air, but he doesn’t hang about. He knows it won’t be long.

In the Reich Chancellery canteen someone puts on a record and a group of soldiers and nurses start dancing. There is no longer a sense of day or night in this underground world. As their music drifts down, the dancers have no idea what is happening in the Führerbunker.

Hitler’s adjutant, the gentle giant Otto Günsche, is standing guard outside the study. Goebbels, Bormann and several
members of staff are hovering nearby, waiting for the sound of a gunshot. There is a lull in the shelling. The only sound is the loud drone of the diesel generator.

At the table in the upper bunker corridor the Goebbels children are wolfing down their late lunch, watched by Traudl Junge. Helmut is particularly cheery. He loves hearing all the explosions knowing that they are safe: ‘The bangs can’t hurt us in the bunker.’

There is the sound of a gunshot.

For a moment they all fall silent. Then Helmut shouts, ‘Bullseye!’

Traudl Junge says nothing. She presumes it’s the sound of the Führer’s gun.

She butters another slice of bread, and asks the children brightly what games they are planning to play after lunch.

Heinz Linge decides that they have waited long enough. He opens the door and enters the study. Bormann is close behind him. They find Hitler and his wife sitting side by side on the sofa. There are two pistols by Hitler’s feet, the one he fired and the one he kept as a reserve. He has shot himself through the right temple. His head is leaning towards the wall. There is blood on the carpet, blood on the blue and white sofa. Eva is sitting on Hitler’s right. Her legs are drawn up on the sofa; her shoes are on the floor. On the low table in front of them is the little brass box in which she kept her cyanide phial. The poison has contorted her face.

Bormann goes to fetch help and Linge lays out two blankets. As Linge lifts the Führer’s body and lays it on one of the blankets he avoids looking at his face – an issue which the Russians will return to again and again during the valet’s ten years of interrogations as they seek to establish the details of the fatal gunshot.

The children go back to their bedroom to read and play.

Traudl Junge helps herself to a glass of Steinhäger gin from a bottle that has been left on the table. She knows it’s all over.