Hitler's Last Days (25 page)

Hitler also suffered from insomnia; eye problems that made him sensitive to bright light; severe, chronic stomach cramps; and eczema, an itchy, scaly skin condition.

As a result of the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944, when a bomb exploded near his desk, Hitler's right eardrum was ruptured and his right arm was temporarily paralyzed. Some medical historians believe that Dr. Theo Morrell, whom Hitler began to see in 1937 and later said he could not live without, injected Hitler with methamphetamines and other drugs with a frequency that gradually made him an addict. We shall never know.

During his years as F
ü
hrer, several women were forced to work as food tasters for Hitler. In 2013, one woman, then ninety-five years old, told a British newspaper: “It was all vegetarian, the most delicious fresh things, from asparagus to peppers and peas, served with rice and salads. It was all arranged on one plate, just as it was served to him. There was no meat, and I do not remember any fish.”

It is possible that, as Hitler aged, he adopted a vegetarian diet, perhaps because he felt it increased a body's purity.

THE TOOTHBRUSH MUSTACHE

H
ITLER'S TINY MUSTACHE HAS BECOME
a symbol of evil. But this was not Hitler's first mustache style. Early photographs show him to be clean shaven, then later with a bushy mustache that turned up at the ends, and finally with the postage-size mustache under his nose.

Some fashion historians say that Americans brought the style to Europe. Certainly Charlie Chaplin wore one as early as 1915, and he was by then a very famous actor. In Europe, several famous sports figures wore small mustaches, as did upper-class men in Berlin and Vienna.

No one knows why Hitler adopted the style. Some say he was told to shave his bushy mustache during World War I because it impeded the seal of his regulation gas mask. Others assume he looked at rich, powerful men and wanted to emulate them.

GERMAN SOLDIERS AND POLICE: THE WEHRMACHT, SS, AND GESTAPO

T
HE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE
W
EHRMACHT
and the SS can be summed up in the translations of their names. Wehrmacht means “defense force” in German, while the SS, or
Schutzstaffel
, roughly translates to “protection squadron”—as in, the protection of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party ideology.

The Wehrmacht comprised all of the German armed forces—the
Heer
(army),
Kriegsmarine
(navy), and
Luftwaffe
(air force)—as well as the SS. Each wore different uniforms, the SS often with
SS
on the collar or in camouflage. Though a branch of the military, SS troopers swore to be loyal to Adolf Hitler unto death; they could be ordered to do literally anything in the name of the F
ü
hrer. This led SS troopers to commit scores of unconscionable acts of terror and brutality—acts that included murdering prisoners of war, Jews, and other innocent civilians. The
Totenkopf
(skull and crossbones) worn on SS headgear signified that “you shall always be willing to put yourself at stake for the life of the whole community,” in the words of SS leader Heinrich Himmler.

A ceremonial march of SS soldiers precedes a meeting where Hitler will give a speech.
[Mary Evans Picture Library]

The barbaric behavior of the SS at the concentration camps stands in sharp contrast to the behavior of Wehrmacht soldiers such as Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, whose troops were forbidden from ill treatment of civilians. Rommel and other German commanders ignored SS admonitions to murder Jews and enemy prisoners. That said, many German fighting men participated in civilian atrocities, especially against the peoples of Poland, France, and the Soviet Union. “I have come to know there is a real difference between the regular German soldier and officer, and Hitler and his criminal group,” Dwight Eisenhower later said. “The German soldier as such has not lost his honor. The fact that certain individuals committed in war dishonorable and despicable acts reflects on the individuals concerned, and not on the great majority of German soldiers and officers.”

The Gestapo was a branch of the SS also under the supervision of Heinrich Himmler. As Germany's official secret police (and often clad in civilian clothing), Gestapo agents terrorized and murdered anyone who might represent a threat to the Nazi Party. Even law-abiding Germans lived in fear of a visit from the Gestapo because its officers operated outside the normal laws of state. The Gestapo headquarters featured underground cells where prisoners were held before being tortured. Today the remains of those cells lie beneath the Topography of Terror historic site in Berlin, which is built on the large city block that was once home to the Gestapo. The buildings comprising Himmler's headquarters have been demolished. All traces of that awful legacy have been replaced by a stark landscape of gray stones. Except for the documentation center and the legacy of murder represented by the excavated cellar rooms of the SS headquarters, the entire city block will never again be developed.

The ruins of the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin, photographed in 1948.
[Mary Evans Picture Library]

JOSEPH STALIN AND THE RUSSIAN ARMY

T
HE
R
USSIANS WERE UNEASY PARTNERS
with the United States and western European countries. Joseph Stalin, premier of the Soviet Union, was both a dictator and a communist. He had initially signed a nonagression pact with Germany, and Russia had been supplying Germany with much-needed oil and wheat. All that stopped when Germany invaded Russia.

On June 22, 1941, using more than three million troops, nineteen panzer divisions, three thousand tanks, twenty-five hundred aircraft, and seven thousand artillery pieces, Hitler attacked the country he had asked to join the Axis powers just one month before. In his quest for world domination, Hitler saw that besides the United States, which was neutral at the time, and England, which was winning the air war with Germany, his biggest threat was Russia in the east. To fight the largest army in the world, Germany would have to rely on its skill at the blitzkrieg—quickly destroying enemy air power early in the invasion, disabling communications systems, and infiltrating behind enemy lines to surround them. And the Germans accomplished many of these goals. In the first day, the Germans destroyed or disabled a thousand Russian aircraft. In only a few days, they had advanced three hundred miles into Russia and were heading for Moscow.

Then Hitler changed his strategy. He decided to concentrate his invasion forces on southern Russia and Ukraine to gain access to their economic resources. Only after Ukraine was secure did he allow his troops to march on Moscow that fall. By December 1941 the Germans were twenty miles from the Kremlin, but the onset of winter and fresh Russian troops from Siberia stalled their advance.

A German panzer unit advances into Russia, July 1941.
[Mary Evans Picture Library]

In 1942, Hitler launched a two-pronged attack, sending one set of troops to Baku, a region rich in oil, and another toward Stalingrad. In Stalingrad, the German soldiers discovered brutal, ferocious opponents who fought to kill, often at close range. The Red Army, as the Russians were called, had recovered from its initial losses and disorganization and soundly defeated the Germans in a battle that lasted from July 1942 to February 1943.

After the Battle of Stalingrad, the German forces retreated. The Russians had earned their reputation for violence and abuse, but so did the Germans. During the time they occupied Russian villages, there were tales of brutal oppression, starvation, and violence. As the Russians chased the Germans to their border, Hitler issued an order for German citizens to destroy anything the Russians might use.

Soldiers fight house-to-house during the Battle of Stalingrad, Russia, 1942–1943.
[Mary Evans Picture Library]

By 1943, the Russians had been fighting the Nazis on Soviet soil for two years. Stalin needed his Allies to take some pressure off his army by drawing German efforts elsewhere. Though England and the United States agreed to attack Sicily and open a front in Europe, Stalin continued to push for a larger invasion in the north.

With the German army's assets further divided after D-day in June 1944, Russia succeeded in entering Eastern Europe, taking parts of Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. By April 1945, the Red Army accomplished the siege of Berlin, effectively ending the war in Europe.

It is estimated that, out of a population of 168 million Soviets, twenty million soldiers and civilians died between June 22, 1941, and May 2, 1945.

The uneasy relationship between Russia and the western Allies became increasingly strained over disagreements about the governance of postwar Europe. The growing mistrust between the United States and the Soviet Union ultimately resulted in the Cold War.

THE RED BALL EXPRESS