Hitler's Last Witness (34 page)

Goebbels, Joseph (1897–1945)

WWI volunteered but rejected as unfit (club foot resulting from osteomyelitis as a child); 1917 best school-leaving certificate of his year; studied German language and literature, history and ancient philology at Bonn, Freiburg and Heidelberg; 1922 graduated at Bonn; 1923 briefly employed as money market crier at Dresdner Bank; then unemployed and active as writer; 1924 co-founder of NSFP (substitute for banned NSDAP); private secretary of Gregor-Strasser (left, anti-capitalist wing of Party as opposed to Folkish-nationalist wing of Adolf Hitler); enticed away by Hitler, nominated Gauleiter of Berlin-Brandenburg; 1928 Reichstag deputy; most important speaker and NSDAP demagogue in the 1932 elections; 13 March 1933 Reich propaganda minister, president of Reich Chamber of Culture and Reich Cultural Senate; from 1942 Reich defence commissioner for Greater Berlin; 1943–5 Reich inspector for civilian air-raid precautions; 25 July 1944 plenipotentiary-general for total war; 25 September 1944 head of Deutscher Volkssturm in the Gross-Berlin Gau; 30 April 1945, 15.30 hrs made Reich chancellor by Hitler's Political Testament; 1 May 1945 committed suicide by taking poison.

Goebbels, Magda, née Behrend (1901–1945)

Daughter of unmarried servant girl Auguste Behrend, her father was builder and engineer Dr Oskar Ritschel; later her mother married the Jewish leather manufacturer Richard Friedländer, who adopted Magda and gave her his surname; 19 December 1931 married Joseph Goebbels; propaganda made Magda into the exemplary mother of the Third Reich; their six children were Helga, Hildegard, Helmut, Hedwig, Holdine and Heidrun; in 1939 some of them appeared in a pro-euthanasia film, contrasting them to the repulsive ‘impaired' opposites; 1 May 1945 after poisoning all her children, Magda Goebbels took poison herself and also died.

Göring, Hermann Wilhelm (1893–1946)

1912 joined 12th
Prinz Wilhelm
Infantry Regiment at Mulhouse, Alsace, then German territory; WWI pilot training; commander Fighter Squadron No. 1 (von Richthofen's ‘flying circus'); after the war, exhibitions and commercial pilot; 1922 joined NSDAP; from December 1922 leader of SA; 9 November 1923 wounded during Munich Putsch; given morphine to relieve the pain – became addicted; fled abroad (Austria, Italy, Sweden); end of 1927 returned to Germany (after general amnesty); stayed in rehabilitation centre for morphine addiction; after ban on NSDAP was lifted, was readmitted to Party and SA; 1928 lieutenant general; 30 August 1932 president of Reichstag; after Hitler became Reich chancellor, Göring was appointed Reich minister without portfolio and Reich commissioner for the Prussian Interior Ministry; 10 April 1933 minister-president of Prussia; 1933 Reich Commissioner for Aviation, Reich Minister for Aviation, Reich Forestry Superintendent; 1934 Reich Hunting Superintendent and Hitler's successor in the event of his death; May 1935 commander-in-chief newly founded Luftwaffe; 20 April 1936 general; 18 October 1936 head of the Four-Year Plan (taken over by Speer in 1942); responsible for founding the Gestapo and setting up the first concentration camp; July 1940 promoted from field marshal to Reichsmarschall of the Greater German Reich; 31 July 1941 passed Hitler's order to Reinhard Heydrich to extend the ‘Final Solution' of the Jewish Question to all areas of Europe under German control. On 24 April 1945 he was arrested on the Obersalzberg on Hitler's orders for ‘treason against Hitler's person and the National Socialist cause'. At the end of the war surrendered to US Seventh Army; 21 May 1945 placed in the secret US Camp ‘Ash Can' at Bad Mondorf in Luxemburg; at Nuremberg Trials sentenced to death by hanging; took cyanide a few hours before his execution.

Greim, Robert Ritter von (1892–1945)

1911 ensign, Bavarian railway battalion; 1912 transferred to 8th Field-Artillery Regiment (Nuremberg); War Academy at Munich; 1915 trained as aircraft observer; 1916 trained as pilot at Schleissheim/Munich; January 1917 1st lieutenant; 1917 captain, Fighter Squadron 34; 1918 awarded Pour le Mérite; elevated to nobility ‘Ritter von'; 1920 flew during the Kapp Putsch (attempt by Kapp and von Lüttwitz to overthrow the Weimar Republic); took to studying law; 1922 bank employee; 1924–7 in China to advise on building its air force; 1927 head of flying school at Würzburg; 1 January 1934 entry into Reichswehr (major); development of fighter squadron ‘Richthofen'; summer 1935 inspector of fighter pilots; 20 April 1936 colonel and inspector of flight safety and equipment; 1938 head of Luftwaffe personnel office; 1 February 1938 brigadier; beginning of 1939 commander 5th Air Division; October 1939 commander 5th Air Corps; 19 July 1940 promoted to General of the Luftwaffe; 1 April 1942 commander-in-chief Luftwaffe Command East; 26 April 1945 commander-in-chief Luftwaffe and field marshal; seriously injured, when his aircraft was hit by ground fire while landing at Berlin; 24 May 1945 suicide in US custody before being handed over to the Soviets.

Günsche, Otto (1917–2003)

1934 entered
SS-Leibstandarte
; 1936 SS bodyguard; 1941–2 SS cadet school Bad Tölz; made his career in the SS; January–August 1943 Hitler's personal adjutant (as representative); fought at the front with
SS-Leibstandarte
Panzer Division; February 1944 personal adjutant to Hitler until his death; burnt Hitler's body; fled from Reich Chancellery; Soviet POW; 1955 transferred to German Democratic Republic prison at Bautzen; 1956 released; fled to West Germany.

Haase, Werner (1900–1950)

1918–19 military service; studied medicine and surgery; 1927 ship's doctor; 1933 entered NSDAP and SA; 1934 transferred into the SS; 1935 for a short while travelling physician on Hitler's staff; 1943 senior surgeon at the Surgical University Clinic, Berlin; April 1945 headed military dressing station in Reich Chancellery cellar; 2 May 1945 Soviet captivity; 6 May identified the bodies of the Goebbels's family for the Soviets; died of tuberculosis, probably in Moscow prison Butyrka.

Hammitzsch, Angela, née Hitler (1883–1949)

Hitler's half-sister, daughter of Hitler's father Alois and his second wife Franziska Matzelsberger; during WWI head of the Mensa Academica Judaica (a boarding house for Jewish students); 1924 (or 1925) moved to Munich; made Hitler's housekeeper there and later at the Berghof; mid-1930s moved to Dresden after a break with her brother; married the architect Martin Hammitzsch; spring 1945, brought from Dresden to Berchtesgaden by Hitler, to prevent her falling into Soviet hands; May 1945 her husband committed suicide.

Heinkel, Ernst (Heinrich) (1888–1958)

German engineer and aircraft manufacturer; the Ernst Heinkel Works were owned initially by the Luftwaffe, bombers being developed and built there, later the works passed to Heinkel; 1937 one of leaders of the military economy; 1945 a large part of the Heinkel works were destroyed or dismantled.

Hentschel, Johannes ‘Hannes' (1908–1892)

1934 senior machinery foreman, Old Reich Chancellery; 2 May 1945 captured by Soviets; released 1949.

Hess, Rudolf  Walter Richard (1894–1987)

1914 volunteer (infantry, later fighter pilot); 1920 entered DAP, then into NSDAP; November 1923 participated in the Munich Putsch; imprisoned with Hitler (Hitler dictated to Hess
Mein Kampf
); 1925 Hitler's private secretary; 21 April 1933 deputy NSDAP leader, Reich minister without portfolio; 1939 member of the Council of Ministers for Defence of the Reich; 10 May 1941 flew to Britain; 1946 sentenced to life imprisonment at Nuremberg war trials; 1946–87 served his sentence until his death at Berlin-Spandau (from 1966 the prison's only inmate).

Hewel, Walther (1904–1945)

1923 participated in the Munich Putsch; imprisoned with Hitler at Landsberg; worked in Indonesia for several years as employee of a British firm; member of Overseas Organisation of NSDAP; head of trade office and press departmental chief of NSDAP/AO Java, Dutch East Indies; 1938 head of personal staff, Reich foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Foreign Ministry liaison officer to Hitler; 2 May 1945 committed suicide after escaping from the Reich Chancellery.

Himmler, Heinrich Leopold (1900–1945)

1918 officer cadet (no service at front); 1919 Freikorps Landshut and Oberland; studied farming; 1923 entry into NSDAP; took part in Munich Putsch; during ban on NSDAP joined front organisation NSFB; from 1925 NSDAP member again; 1927–8 representative of Reichsführer-SS; 1929 until 29 April 1945 Reichsführer-SS; 1 April 1933 political police commander in Bavaria, Gestapo inspector in all German provinces (except Prussia and Schaumburg-Lippe); 1939 Reich commissioner for the consolidation of German national characteristics; ran the SS and the concentration camp apparatus; architect of the ‘Final Solution'; 29 April 1945 relieved of all offices by Hitler for attempting to negotiate a separate peace with the Western Allies; assumed a false name in an attempt to merge into German society; 23 May 1945 suicide after arrest by British forces and being identified.

Hitler, Alois; changed name in 1945 to Hiller (1882–1956)

Hitler's half-brother; illegitimate son of Alois Hitler, Senior and his second wife, Angelika Matzelsberger; early prison sentence for theft; emigrated to Britain, married Irishwoman Bridget Dowling (1911 had son William Patrick); 1915 returned to Vienna minus his family; married Hedwig Heidemann (1923 had son Heinrich); during the Nazi period ran a tavern in Berlin.

Hitler, Paula (1896–1960)

Hitler's full sister, sixth child of Hitler's father and third child of Hitler's mother; lived anonymously in Vienna using the name Wolf. Her contact with her surviving brother Adolf was slight; he had a disagreeable fiancé of hers sent to the front; 1945 detained by US forces; returned to Vienna; later lived out her life at Berchtesgaden.

Hoffmann, Heinrich (1885–1957)

Hitler's personal photographer; 1901–6 active with various photographers; 1906–8 head of two photo studios in Munich; 1909 opened his own studio; worked as press photographer; 1917 served in infantry in WWI; 1918 resumed as press photographer; 1920 entered NSDAP; took over anti-Semitic broadsheet
Auf gut Deutsch
; photographed Party bosses, including Hitler, during incarceration at Landsberg; 1929 introduced Hitler to his student Eva Braun in his studio; 1932 Heinrich Hoffmann Verlag involved in propaganda reports; made professor by Hitler; 1938 member of commission for the ‘evaluation of confiscated works of degenerate art'; 1945 arrested by US army, sentenced to four years' detention and confiscation of his fortune by denazification tribunal; 1950 discharged; lived subsequently in Munich.

Högl, Peter (1897–1945)

SS-Standartenführer at his death; his final position equivalent to detective chief superintendent, Reich Security Service (RSD); 2 May 1945 committed suicide at Reich Chancellery.

Horthy, Miklos; officially, Held Nikolaus Horthy von Nagybanya (1868–1957)

Hungarian admiral and politician; WWI last commander-in-chief Austro-Hungarian navy; 1919 overthrew communist republic of councils under Bela Kun in order to bring back the monarchy; 1 March 1920 until 16 October 1944 Hungarian regent (provisional head of state representing the monarchy); 20 November 1940 Hungary entered Axis pact (with German Reich, Italy and Japan); 11 October 1944, after signing armistice agreement with the Soviets, deposed after coup initiated by Germans; arrested and brought to Germany; 1945 released by US forces; exile in Portugal.

Isenburg, Helene Elisabeth, Prinzessin von (1900–1974)

Wife of geneticist Wilhelm Karl Prinz von Isenburg (1937 professor of blood-and-family research, Munich; pleaded the National Socialist racial cause); 1951 president of organisation to assist PoWs and internees; called ‘Mother of the Landsbergers' for her efforts on behalf of National Socialist war criminals awaiting execution at Landsberg prison; her organisation pursued increasingly revisionist aims; November 1999 federal finance court recognised her organisation as a charity.

Junge, Traudl, née Humps (1920–2002)

1935 member of the girls' branch of the Hitler Youth, the ‘Bund deutscher Mädel' (BdM); 1936 middle school and higher business school, then female clerk with VDM (German Metal Works), Munich; secretary to notary and assistant to chief editor of a trade journal for tailors; trained as dancer; 1942 applied for advertised post at Hitler's Chancellery, Berlin; 30 January 1943 appointed as one of Hitler's private secretaries; 1 May 1945 succeeded in escape from Reich Chancellery; 9 June 1945 taken prisoner by Soviets, rescued from a transport to the East by an Armenian interpreter; worked for administration at Charité University Clinic, Berlin; April 1946 fled to Bavaria to escape Russian occupiers, briefly interned by US forces; various employments as secretary.

Kannenberg, Arthur ‘Willy' (1896–1963)

1931 ran the officers' mess at the Nazi Party headquarters, the ‘Brown House' in Munich; 1933 house administrator Reich Chancellery (with wife Freda); 1945 detained in Bavaria; 1946 released; later innkeeper at Düsseldorf.

Kempka, Erich (1910–1975)

Motor mechanic; 1930 entered NSDAP and SS; 1932 driver with Hitler's SS bodyguard; from 1936 Hitler's personal chauffeur; 1945 detained, 1947 released; later test driver at Porsche.

Körber, August (1905–?)

1932 entered NSDAP and SS; 1934 LSSAH; later in Hitler's SS bodyguard.

Krause, Karl Wilhelm (1911—)

A carpenter and joiner by trade; 1931 Reichsmarine; 1 August 1934 entered Hitler's service as valet; 10 September 1939 during Polish campaign dismissed for making false statement; 2 November 1940 with LSSAH; December 1943 12th SS Panzer Division
Hitlerjugend
(Hitler Youth); 1945 SS-Untersturmführer; POW; June 1946 released.