Hitler's Last Witness (19 page)

On the night of 5 June 1944, the Allied invasion of Normandy began. Hitler was not informed until midday on 6 June. He believed for quite some time that it could be halted. When it quickly became clear that the coastal sectors could not be held, he became absolutely convinced that the whole operation was connected to treason.

He saw himself confirmed in this opinion when, some weeks later, photos were released in Sweden in which a German colonel commanding an Abwehr fortified bunker installation was seen clinking glasses with two British officers – obviously without a shot having been fired. Damn – how could they have given up without a fight? They had guns there, which could have hit Plymouth, so we were told. Nothing, absolutely nothing, had gone right on the German side in connection with the invasion. There was, therefore, only one explanation – treason and sabotage. Hitler imagined it behind almost every action that failed. In fact, from the information coming in to us, it actually was possible to perceive that something of that kind was often the case. Now we began to receive reports more frequently of sabotage in sectors of armaments production. There were constant altercations with the Wehrmacht command staff, and Hitler did not exclude even Jodl and Keitel from his suspicions of manipulation. I knew many of Hitler's moods, but he always remained friendly towards me. As the war situation deteriorated, however, I also no longer believed in Final Victory.

Under the pressure of this mood impregnated with distrust, on 22 June 1944 Hitler addressed 280 high-ranking officers and generals on the Platterhof. It was very moving. Hitler implored them to show their unity and their loyalty as German officers. If they left him in the lurch, no longer believed in victory, no longer gave their all, then Germany was lost. Victory or defeat; that lay in their hands, not in his. If they wanted to give it up, how would he operate the rudder alone? Hitler was several times close to tears. The speech moved me very much; I really felt sorry for Hitler. On the evening of that June day, I saw the popular General Eduard Dietl at the Berghof. He gave Hitler the up-to-date picture of the situation in Norway and Finland. The following day, I learnt that Dietl's aircraft had crashed at Semmering near Vienna, and all aboard had been killed. I was very upset at the news.

Because of the situation on the Eastern Front, Hitler wanted to return to Rastenburg but kept putting it off for some conversion work or other to his barrack hut at FHQ Wolfsschanze. Thus, on 7 July 1944, we were still at Berchtesgaden, and Hitler went to Schloss Klessheim to see a display of new uniforms. Not until much later did I discover that Brigadier Helmuth Stieff had planned an assassination attempt on Hitler that day.
[2]

These were to be Hitler's last days at the Berghof. As a result of a stupid incident, I had to leave the Obersalzberg much earlier. While out walking with Karl Tenazek we met a young lady who, after strolling with us awhile, invited us to the Berchtesgadener Hof for the afternoon. Karl did not go along. I went alone but had an uneasy feeling about it, not only for that reason but also because of the presence of some generals there. Two or three tables further on, Hitler's chauffeur Erich Hitler's chauffeur Erich Kempka was seated with his wife, the widow of our former colleague now fallen at the front, Rudi Mumme. She was an attractive woman, and my female companion made a comment about it. ‘Yes, yes, she's beautiful all right, but not for marrying', slipped from my lips. I knew a thing or two about the former Frau Mumme and made the mistake of telling my table companion.

My companion then revealed herself to be a secretary at OKH, later the wife of Alfred Jodl.
[3]
She rang the Berghof from the Berchtesgadener Hof to gossip, and when I got back there Albert Bormann came up to me at once. ‘Misch – what's this shit you've stirred up?' he shouted at me. ‘Kempka is going to speak to the boss tomorrow. See that you're gone.' Albert Bormann liked me. I was always resolving this or that private matter he asked me to attend to. He was very grateful to me for taking a gift to his mother. He wanted me to work for him after the war – that was his wish. In this particular case, Albert Bormann had already arranged for me to leave the Berghof the next morning on the regular courier flight at nine, to allow the storm to die down a little.

In Berlin I waited anxiously for the aftermath. Anticipating this, my colleague Beermann rang me the next day from the Berghof: ‘Don't shit your pants. The marriage is going to be dissolved.' On Hitler's instructions, Kempka was already separated from his wife because her past did not conform to the required moral standard.
[4]

I think Hitler was forced to intervene, because it was unlike him to want to get involved in these affairs of passion. Thus, he took into his close staff men whom Admiral Raeder had forced out of the Kriegsmarine for conduct unbecoming an officer. A colleague of Bormann, Alwin-Broder Albrecht, had been relieved of his post in the navy after marrying a woman whose morals did not meet the approval of Admiral Raeder.

Only a few days after my rushed departure, on 14 July 1944, Hitler also left the Berghof. Shortly afterwards, at FHQ Wolfsschanze, I had to go to his car to open the passenger door. This brought me into contact with Kempka. He gave me a nod. Forgiven, forgotten. Despite the official enforced separation, he remained in touch with his ex-wife. After the war, she helped him through her contacts with the American occupiers. Then they remarried.

With my inglorious retreat from the Obersalzberg, my carefree days at the Berghof ended for ever. Not until later did that become clear.

20 July 1944

The RSD and the Führer's bodyguard, the
SS-Begleitkommando
, were responsible for the protection of Hitler, the RSD additionally for ministers. The RSD colleagues were almost without exception from Munich, the RSD having been drawn from the Munich detective force. Since 1933, it had been under the command of Johann Rattenhuber, lieutenant of the Bavarian state police, and by 1944 had a complement of 250 men.
[5]
Hitler tolerated only one bodyguard in his immediate presence, and this man would be from the
SS-Begleitkommando
. The RSD man appointed for Führer protection had to take up a position some distance away from Hitler and the
SS-Begleitkommando
bodyguard. This resulted ultimately in there being only one ‘pure' bodyguard, and he was a rather weak guardian as far as our weapons were concerned. In contrast to my better equipped RSD colleagues, we carried only the standard small Walther Polizei pistol (‘PP') of 7.65 calibre, and nothing else. This handgun would be our constant companion, and we never gave it in, not even in the area of the Führer suite.

We were not searched, and neither did we conduct searches for weapons. The RSD carried out all necessary controls. The whole arrangement was rather slack. The more important people had their own armed bodyguard, and we would know these individuals as time went on.

To all intents and purposes, the Führer-suite in the Old Reich Chancellery had long been unguarded – the doors at the tradesmen's entrance to the Reich Chancellery having only one sentry. I often did duty there myself. Frequently, people one did not know would come in, wanting to speak or visit one of the house staff. In that instance, I would have the staff member telephoned from the front door, and advised. It was not unknown for strangers to call by. It would probably not have been difficult to visit one of the staff, disable him with a spray of some kind and then run up the twenty-two steps leading from the tradesmen's entrance to the Holy of Holies. An intruder would have had a free run, for there was no other sentry.

I pointed out to Johann Rattenhuber another possibility once: ‘Do you bet that somebody couldn't make it from the street to Hitler's bedroom in two minutes?' I challenged him. I was thinking of the tradesmen's entrance, but also of the situation at the Foreign Ministry; from some of the windows, it was less than three metres to the flat of house administrator Kannenberg in the Old Reich Chancellery. All it needed from there was a plank between the buildings and an acrobat could have made it to the balcony and Hitler's bedroom. One might not believe it, but it was so – the Führer-suite was not guarded expressly.

I was also very surprised at the security precautions when Hitler drove through Berlin. Some time after the war began, he and his bodyguard would cross the Reich capital in two Volkswagens, to dine with Magda Goebbels or Inga Ley.
[6]
In the first Beetle would be his valet, adjutant and the driver Kempka; in the other, the driver Martin Schmiedel and two of my colleagues. That was the total protection. I have personally seen how a crowd would immediately gather around our cars if for some reason we had to stop for a moment. Then we would have a job to keep people at a distance. On several occasions, Hitler was very annoyed with us for forcing people back too briskly in his opinion. His security men were always working to introduce functioning security structures. It was down to Hitler himself that there were glaring holes in his personal protection measures, but whenever he was addressed on the matter he would reply in the most relaxed manner: ‘Nothing will happen to me.'

On the late evening of 19 July 1944, I was seated in the courier compartment of the night train from Insterburg to Berlin. I was bringing the daily mailbag from FHQ Wolfsschanze to the Reich Chancellery. In the train I ate my rations. I had grabbed the specially selected rolls from a nicely built pyramid of bread rolls intended for the participants at the situation conference. At first, I did not know how I was going to smuggle them out. By chance, Bussmann was removing a tray from Hitler's study. One of his serviettes was on the tray. Bussmann made a gesture in agreement when I asked him if I could have the serviette: ‘Sure, we have enough of them.' They bore Hitler's initials and were meant for his personal use only. The other serviettes were embroidered with the initials ‘RK' for Reichskanzlei (Reich Chancellery). When the Russians arrived, my wife burnt everything that could have been dangerous for us – she forgot the serviette.

After I had delivered the mail to Otto Meissner at the presidential Chancellery in the early morning of 20 July, I drove home. In the evening I had to take the night train back to Rastenburg, and I wanted to rest and see my family.

A few months previously, on 11 April 1944, our daughter Brigitta had been born. Eva Braun had given us a large pile of baby clothes and a pram. ‘From the stock,' she said, playing down her nice gesture when I protested that I could not accept it all.

Brigitta's first car ride had been in an official car from the Reich Chancellery motor pool. Gerda had been confined in a mothers' home just outside Berlin, and when she was ready to go home with the baby I heard that one of Albert Bormann's colleagues was driving to a state property north of Berlin. ‘You will pass the home where my wife is,' I told him. The colleague asked Bormann for permission, who had no objections to his picking up my wife and the newborn child. Thus, Brigitta was driven in the black Mercedes from the Führer-car-fleet.

The birth of my daughter was a joyful event, but it was around this date, from the spring of 1944, that I began to have a permanent unpleasant feeling. At midday on 20 July, I was lying on the living room settee at the house of my parents-in-law, resting after the night train journey. Since Gitta's birth my wife had been living in Rudow again, to avoid being alone at Karlshorst and so that her own mother could help with the baby. I had just fallen asleep when the phone rang. Gerda shook me awake. ‘RK!'

‘
Ach
, they should leave me in peace,' I murmured, still drunk with sleep.

‘Take it, it's urgent!'

With a deep sigh, I seized the receiver. I was to go at once to the Reich Chancellery, a car was already on the way to fetch me. What was up, I wanted to know. ‘This is no time for questions. Get here at once!' I got a move on, but had not finished dressing when the car arrived.

The Reich Chancellery, the whole government quarter, was surrounded by troops of the Berlin Wachbataillon under Major Otto Ernst Remer. There were about seventy men in the Reich Chancellery courtyard. Nobody was entering or leaving. Despite the host of people around, a deathly silence reigned. Somebody arranged for me to be admitted to the telephone switchboard in the Old Reich Chancellery – my workplace. Two colleagues were seated at the switchboard and looked very busy. Remer's people were here and there; some had even penetrated into the Führer-suite. An attitude of helplessness prevailed everywhere.

I was informed briefly that an attempt had been made to assassinate Hitler. Initially, I could not find out any more. Remer was in Goebbels's service villa, and there was no certainty about who was in command.
[7]
I felt very uneasy about all this. What the hell was going on here? Were they going to start shooting soon? Who was friend, who foe? I looked around me. Remer's people looked no less anxious. They stood around indecisively, and let my two colleagues get on with it. They were phoning round incessantly and needed my help. There was something wrong with the telephone connections to FHQ Wolfsschanze.

Goebbels insisted several times on being connected to Hitler, and both at the Propaganda Ministry and Reich Chancellery all possible lines had to be checked over to ensure they were working and free of interference. Officially, I was not on duty, being a courier, but my colleagues would not be able to solve the problems quickly, and I knew the telephone switchboard best.