I want to be a beautiful corpse, said Eva amid a frenzy of sex and drinking
Hitler’s last 24 HOURS
A MESMERISING new book gives a minute-byminute account of Hitler’s last day in his Berlin bunker exactly 70 years ago. On Saturday, in our first extract, we revealed how he toasted his wedding to Eva Braun before preparing for death. Today, we tell how an orgy of drunkenness and debauchery broke out among his henchmen as the Russians closed in.
7am, Sunday, April 29, 1945
THE people of Berlin are emerging from their overcrowded underground bunkers in search of food. Armin Lehmann, 16, working as a Hitler Youth courier, is horrified by the desperation of ordinary citizens, many of whom are starving. Recently, he saw two men hacking with a knife at a horse. It had been injured by shrapnel, but was still alive.
10am
ANOTHER Hitler Youth runner appears in the upper bunker to report that Russian tanks are now about 500m from the Reich Chancellery. [Both the upper and lower bunkers, where Hitler and a few staff have been living since January, are below the Reich Chancellery. The Fuhrer spends most of his time in the lower one — known as the Fuhrerbunker — which is protected by a 10ft-deep concrete roof.]
10.30am
IN HIS office in the upper bunker, the monocled General Krebs is on the phone to army HQ in Berlin. He’s told the German defence is collapsing on all fronts. Then the line suddenly goes dead: the balloon that supports radio-telephone communications has been shot down.
All telephone contact between Berlin and the outside world has just ended. From now on, the Hitler Youth runners will have to risk their lives several times a day as they dodge across Wilhelmstrasse, Berlin’s central street, taking messages between army HQ and the Fuhrerbunker.
‘It was a nightmare . . . a game of Russian Roulette,’ 16- year- old Armin Lehmann recalled. ‘ Those who stepped out from cover were taking their life in their hands.
‘At best, they’d get a mouthful of the constant cloud of phosphorus smoke and poisonous petrol from the incendiaries; at worst, they’d be sliced down by a Russian rocket. Wilhelmstrasse stank with the smell of scorched bodies.’
Boys who refuse to follow orders are strung up as an example to others. Only a couple of days ago, Lehmann was briefly arrested for staring at the body of a boy — ‘he can’t have been more than 13’ — who’d been hanged from a post with a length of clothes-line.
11am
HEINZ LINGE, Hitler’s valet, knocks on the door of his master’s small bedroom. For the past six years, it’s been part of Linge’s job to help him get dressed.
The routine’s always the same. Linge holds a stopwatch to time the process, which begins when Hitler shouts ‘Los!’ (‘on your marks’). In the early days, the faster he got dressed, the better the Fuhrer’s mood.
This morning, however, Hitler is lying on his bed fully clothed. Except for his tie. There’s a special ritual for the tie. Hitler stands in front of the mirror, with his eyes closed, and counts the seconds as Linge does it up. Then he opens his eyes and checks the tie in the mirror.
A few seconds later, Hitler’s barber, August Wollenhaupt, comes into the bedroom to give his hair and moustache their fortnightly trim.
Hitler’s moustache is designed to cover his unusually large nostrils. The style originated in America, where it’s known as the toothbrush moustache and sported by Charlie Chaplin and Walt Disney. In Bavaria, it’s known as a Rotzbremse — or ‘snot brake’.
Linge now administers cocaine drops to Hitler’s right eye, which has been causing intense pain for the past few days, and gives him a packet of pastilles to suck through the day. These are the ‘anti-gas pills’ that his master takes for stomach cramps and flatulence.
For the first time in nine years, Hitler has no personal doctor. A week ago, he furiously dismissed Dr Theodor Morell, after accusing the doctor of trying to sedate him in order to whisk him out of Berlin.
Morell has left behind a cabinet full of medicines, including glucose and amphetamine injections, which he used daily to boost the Fuhrer’s energy. At one point, Hitler was having 28 different pills and injections every day.
The Fuhrer has long been a hypochondriac, but he’s now suffering from Parkinson’s disease and a heart problem, as well as from numerous stress- related conditions.
Before dismissing Linge this morning, Hitler asks him to get Wulf, his favourite puppy among those born in the bunker to his Alsatian, Blondi.
The Fuhrer is particularly attached to Blondi, who sometimes provides a whole evening’s entertainment. She barks on command and howls when he orders her to sing.
He’s most proud of the fact that when he tells her to ‘sing like Zarah Leander’ — a Swedish singer famed for her deep voice — Blondi gives a deeper howl.
11.05am
GENERAL BURGDORF, a commander in the army, drops round to see if General Krebs fancies a drink. He’s closely followed by Hitler’s private secretary, Martin Bormann, who’s also ready to hit the bottle.
Along with the two generals, he’s been spending most of his time sitting in the bunker corridors, drinking schnapps.
From time to time, all three cruise over to the Reich Chancellery, where a kind of mass hysteria, fuelled by an endless supply of alcohol in the cellars, has led to a relaxing of sexual inhibitions.
Bormann’s philandering has the support of his wife Gerda, the mother of his ten children. Just over a year ago, he wrote to her with the proud news that he’d succeeded in seducing the well-known actress Manja Behrens.
Gerda wrote straight back, congratulating him and offering to welcome Manja into their household. They should arrange a system of motherhood by shifts, she said, ‘so that you always have a wife who is usable’.
11.45am
THE six children of Joseph and Magda Goebbels are playing in the corridor of the upper bunker.
Most of them are excited to be here — they call the bunker a ‘cave’ and have made several friends. Rochus Misch, the gentle giant at the switchboard, is a particular favourite. They’ve made up a rhyme about him which the fouryear- old, Heide, sings every time they see him: ‘ Misch, Misch du bist ein Fisch!’ [Misch, Misch, you’re a fish!]
They’re charming and well brought-up children, according to Hitler’s secretary Traudl Junge, who’s been helping to look after them, and know nothing of the fate that awaits them
‘Only the oldest, Helga, sometimes had a sad, knowing expression in her big brown eyes,’ Junge will write later. ‘She was the quietest, and sometimes I think, with horror, that in her heart that child saw through the pretence of the grown-ups.’
2pm
HITLER is lunching with Eva Braun — whom he married a few hours ago — and his two remaining secretaries. He’s been sharing his meals with secretaries since autumn 1942, shortly after the start of the Battle of Stalingrad.
Until then, he’d always eaten with his adjutants, but their conversation about what was turning out to be the bloodiest single battle in history was putting him off his food.
The secretaries have a rota to make sure someone’s with him for every meal, including tea in the early morning hours. They’ve been instructed not to bring difficult issues into the conversation.
Today, however, it’s Hitler who raises a difficult subject. ‘I’ll never fall into the enemy’s hands, dead or alive,’ he tells them. ‘I’m leaving orders for my body to be burned so no one can ever find it.’
Traudl Junge eats mechanically as the conversation turns to the best method of suicide.
Hitler says, matter-of-factly: ‘The best way is to shoot yourself in the mouth. Your skull is shattered and you don’t notice anything. Death is instantaneous.’
Eva is horrified. ‘I want to be a beautiful corpse . . . I’m going to take poison,’ she says. She shows the secretaries a little brass box containing a phial of cyanide, which she keeps in the pocket of her dress. ‘I wonder if it hurts very much,’ she says. ‘I’m so frightened of suffering for a long time . . . I’m ready to die heroically, but at least I want it to be painless.’
Hitler reassures her: ‘The nervous and respiratory systems are paralysed within seconds.’
Junge and Gerda Christian exchange glances, then turn in unison to the Fuhrer. ‘Do you have any phials we could use?’ Neither woman is keen to commit suicide, but poison could be preferable to capture by the Russians.
The Fuhrer says he’ll make sure they each get one. ‘I’m very sorry I can’t give you a better farewell present.’
About 3pm
IN THE loos opposite the switchboard, the Fuhrer’s beloved Alsatian, Blondi, is trembling as her handler, Sergeant Fritz Tornow, holds her nose and forces her jaw open.
One of the Reich Chancellery doctors, Werner Haase, crushes a cyanide capsule inside her mouth with a pair of pliers. Blondi falls sideways ‘as if struck by lightning’.
Hitler comes by to inspect the body. He wants to see for himself that the cyanide capsules actually work.
The smell of bitter almonds — from the cyanide — overwhelms Misch, the telephonist, who rushes out of the switchboard room to get away from it.
Tornow carries Blondi’s body up to the Chancellery gardens, where he buries it. Then he returns for
Wulf and the four other puppies, takes them to the garden to be shot and buries them with their mother.
4pm
IN THE Reich Chancellery’s green room, propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels and his family are at a farewell party for some Hitler Youth. About 40 people have gathered, including staff and patients from the emergency hospital that’s been set up in the Chancellery cellar.
The Goebbels children are passed from lap to lap. After a meal of pea soup, Goebbels asks the Hitler Youth to sing some of the old Nazi fighting songs. He listens with tears running down his cheeks.
His children then gather around the table and start singing German folk songs and lullabies, to the accompaniment of a young soldier playing an accordion.
About 10pm
HITLER is sitting at the table in the Fuhrerbunker conference room, reading the transcript of a broadcast about the death of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who was shot and then strung up by his ankles.
Heinz Linge is standing behind him. Part of his duty is to ensure the Fuhrer has access at all times to pencils, spectacles, magnifying glasses, atlases and compasses.
On this occasion, Hitler needs neither spectacles nor a magnifying glass as the transcript has been typed in extra-large ‘Fuhrer’ font. He does, however, require a pencil, which he uses to underline three words ‘hanging upside down’.
Even now, he hasn’t completely given up hope that Berlin can be relieved. He orders a radio message to be sent to the German forces, asking when and where their attacks will be taking place.
His questions reflect his complete disconnection from the military realities. None of his commanders believes in the possibility of saving Berlin any more.
12.30am, Monday, April 30
IN THE switchboard room, Rochus Misch is woken from a doze by a message from Hitler. Has there been any news about a German counterattack, he wants to know. There hasn’t.
1.30am
ABOUT 25 guards and servants have been summoned from the Reich Chancellery to the Fuhrerbunker. Hitler tells them he intends to take his own life rather than be captured by the Russians.
‘I don’t want to be put on show like an exhibition in a museum,’ he says. Then he shuffles along the line of people, shaking hands with each of them, thanking them for their service and telling them they’re released from their oath of loyalty.
2am
SS DOCTOR Professor Ernst Schenck has never been physically so close to Hitler. Looking at the Fuhrer’s eyes, he notices that they’re expressionless and bloodshot, with dark bags beneath.
Schenck, who previously experimented on prisoners at Dachau concentration camp, is one of four medics who’ve been woken from deep sleep for this meeting. After working in the emergency hospital all week, carrying out operations on an endless stream of wounded people, he’s exhausted.
Hitler, he notes, is a diminished, hunched man with shaking limbs who clearly has Parkinson’s disease. He also has food stains on his jacket. In short, he’s nothing like the inspiring leader that Schenck has admired from afar.
Slowly, the Fuhrer moves along the line of medics, shaking their hands and mumbling thanks for their work. Among them is a nurse, Erna Flegel.
When Hitler takes her hand, she breaks down, sobbing. ‘My Fuhrer! Have faith in the final victory. Lead us and we will follow you!’
Hitler doesn’t respond.
2.30am
THE doctors and nurses join a big party of drinkers in the corridor of the upper bunker. Two secretaries now appear with a third woman — Eva Hitler. She sits at one end of the table, knocking back the booze and dominating the conversation with chirpy stories.
Dr Schenck can’t tell whether the tremor in her voice is caused by a lisp or by alcohol.
3am
HITLER’S just been told that German troops are either encircled or under attack and cannot reach Berlin. In frustration, he orders a message to be sent to Admiral Donitz, head of the German navy: ‘Immediate ruthless action must be taken against all traitors.’
Dr Schenck is desperate for a pee. He leaves the drinkers and hurries down to the lower bunker. It’s normally guarded by two armed men, but they seem to have disappeared.
The Fuhrerbunker is ghostly quiet except for the drone of the diesel generator and the distant sounds of a boisterous party, somewhere in the Reich Chancellery.
Through an open doorway, he sees the Fuhrer standing by a table, in deep conversation with another medic — Dr Haase.
Hitler is telling Haase that he wants to die at exactly the same moment as Eva. They agree that he’ll have two pistols, in case one jams, and two cyanide capsules, in case one is a dud. Eva will also have two capsules.
He’ll put one capsule in his mouth and hold the pistol at eyebrow level at a right angle, with the muzzle resting on his temple. Then he’ll fire and bite simultaneously.
Later, Dr Haase talks to Eva. She tells him she’s worried that she’ll lose her resolve if Hitler dies first. Haase tells her to bite the moment she hears a shot. She’ll also have a pistol, he tells her — but she says she doesn’t want to use it.
In the Ministry of the Interior, about 600 yards from the Reich Chancellery, a Soviet kitchen has been set up in the basement. A vat of porridge is being hurriedly cooked as an early breakfast for troops about to launch a dawn assault on the Reichstag — Germany’s former parliament building.
Stalin has ordered that the red flag should be flying from its rooftop in time for Russia’s national May Day holiday tomorrow.
4.30am
IN THE Fuhrerbunker, Hitler retires to bed. Dr Schenck makes his way back to the Reich Chancellery, where a raucous party is still in full swing. Behind the door of the Chancellery dental surgery, a woman is being strapped into the dentist’s chair.
By day, this room is used for tooth extractions; by night, it’s the most popular place to have sex.
6am
HITLER is sitting in a chair beside his bed, wearing soft leather slippers and a black satin dressing gown over his nightshirt. He’s just summoned General Mohnke to ask: ‘How long can we hold out?’
‘Twenty or 24 hours at most, mein Fuhrer.’
The first company of Russian soldiers charges towards the Reichstag. After less than 200ft, they’re thrown to the ground by a hurricane of German fire. Meanwhile, a premature message of triumph is being radioed to Moscow, telling Stalin that the Reichstag has been taken.
6.30am
FOR the second day in a row, Hitler’s valet finds his master lying on his bed fully clothed in uniform jacket and black trousers. Hitler puts his finger to his lips, gets up and shuffles quietly down the corridor.
Martin Bormann and Generals Krebs and Burgdorf are asleep on the benches outside his room. Beside them are bottles of schnapps and loaded pistols, safety catches off. Both secretaries are sleeping on camp beds in the conference room.
In the switchboard room, Hitler radios a message to the commandant of Berlin, asking for an update. The reply comes quickly: the Russians are in immediate proximity.
7am
EVA HITLER has barely slept. She hurries up the concrete steps to the Reich Chancellery garden. She has a sudden urge ‘ to see the sun once more’.
The garden has been wrecked by shelling and the sky is darkened by smoke from the battle of the Reichstag. She hesitates briefly before returning to her bedroom.
Half an hour later, Adolf Hitler follows his wife’s example and heads up the steps to the garden. As he reaches the top, the sounds of shelling intensifies. Instead of opening the door, he turns around and slowly makes his way back down.
Could he not bear to see the spot where he knows his body will soon be cremated?
For, as we shall learn in tomorrow’s instalment, the sound of a pistol shot will shortly be heard in the bunker’s concrete corridors — and its echo will reverberate across the whole world.