Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis (Allen Lane History)

by Ian Kershaw

  Despite a desperate plea from Keitel to throw everything into the relief of Berlin, Jodl had diverted the hard-pressed units of Holste and Steiner to fend off Soviet forces to the north of the capital. It was tantamount to giving up on Berlin.84 Bormann scathingly commented in his diary, in remarks pointedly directed at Reichsführer-SS Himmler’s recognized reluctance to deploy Steiner’s SS corps to help save Berlin: ‘The divisions marching to our relief are held up by Himmler-Jodl! We will stand and fall with the Führer: loyal into death. Others believe they have to act “from higher insight”. They sacrifice the Führer, and their lack of loyalty – shame on them – matches their “feeling of honour”.’85

  Hitler and Goebbels relapsed into reminiscences. They were prompted by Mohnke’s remark, entirely without irony: ‘We haven’t quite brought about what we wanted in 1933, my Führer!’ Hitler’s explanation – it had scarcely been in his mind at the time – was that he had come to power too early. A year or more later, at Hindenburg’s death, would have been the right time. To bring about a complete revolution, the old system needed to have revealed itself as utterly bankrupt. As it was, he had been forced to compromise with Hugenberg, Schleicher – not much of a compromise since the former Reich Chancellor had, in fact, had been murdered by Hitler’s henchmen at the time of the ‘Röhm affair’ in 1934 – and other pillars of the old order. By the time of Hindenburg’s death, Hitler went on, the determination to rid himself of the conservatives had lessened, and the work of reconstruction was under way. ‘Otherwise, thousands would have been eliminated at that time,’ he declared. ‘It could have happened, if I had come to power through an express will of the people’ – presumably meaning a presidential election – ‘or through a putsch. You regret it afterwards that you are so good,’ he concluded.

  This took the discussion inexorably once more back into pathos and an evocation of ‘heroism’. He was staying in Berlin, Hitler said, ‘so that I have more moral right to act against weakness… I can’t constantly threaten others if I run away myself from the Reich capital at the critical hour… I’ve had the right to command in this city. Now I must obey the commands of fate. Even if I could save myself, I won’t do it. The captain also goes down with his ship.’ Voß, predictably, picked up the metaphor. Pathos and emotion got the better of him, too. ‘Here in the Reich Chancellery it’s just like the command-bridge of a ship,’ he implausibly ruminated. ‘One thing here applies to all. We don’t want to get away.’ (He would, ultimately, like most of the others, nevertheless seek to flee the bunker at the last moment.) ‘We belong together. It’s only a matter of being an upright community.’86

  IV

  The news trickling in during the day could scarcely have been worse. Wenck’s troops, without assistance from the 9th Army (whose encirclement was by now accepted as practically a foregone conclusion), had been pushed back south of Potsdam. There was a ‘doomsday’ mood in the bunker, alleviated only by copious supplies of alcohol and food from the Reich Chancellery cellars.87 Hitler told Below he had decided to give Weidling, the Commandant of Berlin, the order to break out. All his staff should go, as well as Bormann and Goebbels. He would stay behind and die in the capital. By evening, amid worsening news, he had changed his mind. An attempt to break out would be useless. He gave Below a poison-capsule, should it come to ‘a difficult situation’.88

  The fate of the encircled 9th Army, with its eleven divisions almost four times as strong as the forces at Wenck’s disposal, took Hitler back, like a long-playing record, at the third briefing of the day to what he saw as constant disobedience and disloyalty in the army. Only Schörner, commander of Army Group Centre, was singled out for praise as ‘a true warlord’. Dönitz, too, stood in high favour for holding to his promise to send naval units to the defence of Berlin, and to Hitler’s personal protection. The faint hope in Wenck was still not totally extinguished. But Hitler was looking to the last stand in the ‘Citadel’. Firm command and reliable troops for the defence of the ‘Citadel’ were vital. His fear of capture surfaced again. ‘I must have the absolute certainty,’ he said, following news that enemy tanks had for a short time forced their way into Wilhelmstraße, ‘that I will not be dragged out through some crafty trick by a Russian tank.’ He saw it as only a question of time before the Soviets brought up heavy artillery to shell the ‘Citadel’ from close range. ‘It’s a matter then of a heroic struggle for a last small island,’ he commented. ‘If the relief doesn’t arrive, we have to be clear: it’s no bad end to a life to fall in the struggle for the capital of your Reich.’89

  Not everyone was willing to join a suicide pact. Hermann Fegelein, the swashbuckling, womanizing, cynical opportunist who had risen to high position in the SS through Himmler’s favour then sealed his bonds to Hitler’s ‘court’ through marrying Eva Braun’s sister, had disappeared from the bunker. His absence was noticed on 27 April. And that evening he was discovered in civilian clothes in his apartment in Charlottenburg, allegedly with a woman friend, worse for wear from drink, and with a good deal of money in bags packed for departure.90 He rang Eva Braun to have his sister-in-law intercede. (It seems, in fact, that he may have been more attracted to Eva Braun than he was to her sister; and that he had been in touch with her beforehand from his apartment, attempting to persuade her to leave the bunker before it was too late.91) But it was to no avail. He was hauled back into the Reich Chancellery that evening in deep disgrace, stripped of his epaulettes and collar flashes, reduced to the ranks, and kept in an improvised cell until Hitler was ready to see him.92

  In the early hours of 28 April, despairing calls were made from the bunker to Keitel and Jodl urging all conceivable effort to be made to relieve Berlin as absolute priority. Time was of the essence. There were at most forty-eight hours, it was thought. ‘If no help comes within that time, it will be too late,’ Krebs told Keitel. ‘The Führer passes that on again!!!’93 From Wenck, there was nothing but silence.

  As so often, the bunker inmates thought they smelled the scent of disloyalty and treason. Bormann telegraphed Puttkamer that evening: ‘Instead of spurring on the troops who should liberate us with orders and appeals, the men in authority are silent. Loyalty has given way to disloyalty. We remain here. The Reich Chancellery is already a heap of ruins.’94 In his desk diary, the entry was of high treason and betrayal of the country.95

  An hour later, the suspicions seemed dramatically confirmed. Heinz Lorenz appeared in the bunker. He had just picked up a message from Reuters, sent by the BBC in London and confirmed in Stockholm. He gave one copy to Bormann, whom he found sitting with Goebbels and Hewel. The other copy he handed to Linge to pass on to Hitler. It confirmed the truth of a disturbing story broadcast in the morning news of Radio Stockholm, relayed to Hitler in mid-afternoon, though initially seeming to lack substance: that the Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler, had offered to surrender to the western Allies, but that this had been declined. Hitler had at first received the news, late that afternoon, of Himmler’s discussions about capitulation ‘with complete contempt’.96 He had immediately telephoned Admiral Dönitz, who had said he knew nothing of it. Dönitz then in turn contacted Himmler, who categorically denied the report and recommended ignoring it rather than putting out a denial on the radio.97 But Hitler continued to brood on it. Perhaps he was expecting something of the sort. His distrust of Himmler had grown in recent weeks. The disobedience, as he saw it, of Sepp Dietrich in Hungary and of Felix Steiner in the failure to attempt the relief of Berlin, showed, it seemed, that even the SS were now disloyal to him. As the day wore on, so it appeared to Below, Hitler’s bitterness towards Himmler mounted.98

  And now it all fell into place: the earlier story had been correct, and Himmler’s denial a lie. More than that: the Reuter report had added that ‘Himmler had informed the western Allies that he could implement an unconditional surrender and support it.’99 It amounted to an implication that the Reichsführer-SS was now de facto head of state, that Hitler had been disempowered.100 This
was a bombshell. This could on no account be tolerated. This was base treason.

  Whether Hitler had earlier been aware of Himmler’s tentative feelers towards the western powers through the intermediacy of Count Folke Bernadotte, Vice-President of the Swedish Red Cross and a close relative of the King of Sweden, is uncertain.101 The Reichsführer’s dealings with Bernadotte had stretched back some two months. SS-Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg, head of the Foreign Intelligence Service in the Reich Security Main Office, had instigated the meetings and acted as intermediary.102 Bernadotte’s initial aim had been to bargain for the release of prisoners – particularly Scandinavians – from concentration camps.103 From Himmler’s point of view, urged on by Schellenberg, Bernadotte offered a possible opening to the West.104 As Germany’s military situation had drastically deteriorated, Himmler, still hesitant and evidently under great nervous strain, had become more amenable to gestures at humanitarian concessions aimed at showing himself in as good a light as possible. Like most Nazi leaders, he was looking to survive, not throw himself on the funeral pyre in the Berlin Götterdämmerung. In March, he had agreed, in contravention of Hitler’s wishes, to allow concentration camps to be handed over to the approaching enemy, not destroyed. He had conceded the release of small numbers of Jews and other prisoners, to be sent to Switzerland and Sweden.105 At his second meeting with Bernadotte at the beginning of April, he had also consented to let Danish and Norwegian women and the sick in camps be taken to Sweden.106 At the same time, he still regarded the camp prisoners as his ‘hostages’ – bargaining counters in any negotiations with the West.107

  Bernadotte had brushed aside Schellenberg’s suggestion – almost certainly prompted by Himmler – that he might sound out Eisenhower about the possibility of a surrender in the West. Such a proposition, Bernadotte had pointed out, had to come from the Reichsführer himself.108 Himmler was, however, in a state of chronic indecision as well as extreme nervous tension. He saw clearly the writing on the wall; the war was irredeemably lost. But he was well aware that Hitler would take Germany down into perdition with him rather than capitulate. Himmler, in common with most Nazi leaders, wanted to save his own skin. And he still hankered after some role in a post-Hitler settlement. As dogmatic as Hitler in the fight against Bolshevism, he harboured the notable illusion that the enemy might overlook his part in monstrous crimes against humanity because of his value to the continuation of the struggle against the mortal enemy not just of Germany, but also of the West. He could not, however, even now free himself from his bonds with Hitler. He still hankered after Hitler’s favour, and was distressed at the way he had fallen into discredit after his failure as commander of Army Group Vistula. Not least: now, as before, he feared Hitler.109

  A third meeting with Bernadotte on 21 April, at which the Reichsführer-SS looked extremely drawn and in a highly nervous state, made no progress on the issue of overtures to the West. Himmler still remained ultra-cautious, unwilling to risk any initiative.110 Possibly, as Schellenberg later suggested, he had already decided by lunchtime on 22 April that the time had come to act, though this seems doubtful.111 What certainly convinced him was the news which Fegelein telephoned through to him from the Führer-Bunker that day of Hitler’s extraordinary fit of pent-up fury and his uncontrolled tirade against treachery on all sides – not least directed at the SS on account of Steiner’s failure to launch the ordered counter-offensive – culminating in his announcement that he would stay and die in Berlin.112 At this, Himmler’s indecision evaporated.

  On 23 April, Count Bernadotte had agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to Schellenberg’s suggestion to meet Himmler for a fourth time that evening. The meeting took place in the Swedish Consulate in Lübeck, eerily lit by candles because of a power cut. ‘Hitler is very probably already dead,’ Himmler began. At any rate, his end could be no more than a few days away. Before now, his oath of loyalty had prevented him from acting, Himmler went on. But with Hitler dead or on the verge of death, the situation was different. He now had a free hand. There could be no surrender to the Soviet Union. He was, and always would be, the sworn enemy of Bolshevism. He insisted that the struggle against Bolshevism must continue. But he was ready to declare Germany defeated by the western powers, and begged Bernadotte to pass his offer of capitulation to General Eisenhower in order to prevent further senseless destruction. Still by candlelight, Himmler drafted a letter to Sweden’s Foreign Minister, to be handed to him by Bernadotte, and passed on to the western Allies.113

  Himmler, like Göring (if in a different way), had taken the news of Hitler’s outburst on 22 April to imply the Fiihrer’s effective abdication. Like Göring, Himmler was soon to be disabused of such presumption. His immediate instinct, however, now that his own decision had been clarified, was to build a cabinet, invent (at Schellenberg’s suggestion) the name for a new party – the ‘Party of National Concentration (Nationale Sammlungsparteiy – and ponder whether he should bow or shake hands when he met Eisenhower.114 It apparently never occurred to him that his offer of capitulation might be turned down. But that outcome – as good as certain to all beyond the perimeters of the detached mental world of Nazi leaders at this juncture – was precisely what had happened by the time, during the course of the afternoon of 28 April, the sensational news filtered out of the Reichsführer-SS’s willingness to capitulate.115

  For Hitler, this was the last straw. That his ‘loyal Heinrich’, whose SS had as its motto ‘my honour is loyalty’, should now stab him in the back: this was the end. It was the betrayal of all betrayals. The bunker reverberated to a final elemental explosion of fury. All his stored-up venom was now poured out on Himmler in a last paroxysm of seething rage. It was, he screamed, ‘the most shameful betrayal in human history.’116

  When the outburst subsided, Hitler retired to his rooms with Goebbels and Bormann for a lengthy discussion. As soon as he reappeared, he sent for the imprisoned Fegelein and subjected him to a fearsome verbal assault. Fegelein’s recent disappearance now appeared to have sinister significance: joining the base treachery of the Reichsführer-SS. Hitler’s paranoid suspicions were running riot. Possibly Himmler was plotting to assassinate him; or to hand him over to the enemy. And Fegelein was part of the plot. After the merest formalities in a hastily improvised ‘court martial’, Fegelein was summarily sentenced to death, immediately taken out, put in front of a firing-squad and executed.117 For some of the bunker inmates, there was a sense of shock that one from within the ‘inner circle’ was guilty of such ‘betrayal’, and had been so peremptorily dispatched. For Hitler, it was the closest he could come to revenge on the Reichsführer-SS himself.

  V

  By now, Soviet troops had forced their way into Potsdamer Platz and streets in the immediate vicinity of the Reich Chancellery. They were no more than a few hundred yards away. A breakdown in communications for most of the day had left the bunker inmates desperate for any news of Wenck’s army (which remained, hemmed in, south of Potsdam).118 In the prevailing climate within the bunker, even the lapdog Keitel and the ever-reliable Jodl were now coming under suspicion of treachery for not bringing about the relief of Berlin.119

  Soon after midnight, following Fegelein’s execution, Hitler commissioned Greim to deploy the Luftwaffe in making every effort to aid Wenck through attacks on Soviet positions blocking his route to Berlin. It was the faintest of faint hopes. He had a second commission for Greim – one, if anything, even more important. Greim was to leave Berlin and fly to Dönitz in Plön to ensure that the traitor, Himmler, was arrested – better still, liquidated forthwith.120 To this end, an Arado 96 training plane had been ordered to Berlin from Rechlin and, astonishingly, had defied all odds in touching down on the East-West Axis. Protesting their wish to stay with Hitler in the bunker, Greim, on crutches and far from recovered from his injured foot, and his companion Hanna Reitsch nonetheless accepted the commission, were driven in an armoured vehicle to the plane, waiting close to the Brandenburg Gate, managed to take off, and, even
more remarkably, to negotiate the heavy Soviet anti-aircraft fire to fly to Rechlin, from where they later flew to Plön. The perilous journey was pointless. The few planes Greim was able to order into the defence of Berlin made not the slightest difference. And by the time he reached Dönitz’s headquarters, the Grand Admiral had nothing to gain by having Himmler arrested, let alone shot. Even avoiding death in the bunker was no consolation to Greim and Reitsch. ‘It is the greatest sorrow of our lives that we were not permitted to die with the Führer,’ they chorused some days later. ‘One should kneel in reverence at the altar of the Fatherland and pray.’121

  After Greim and Reitsch had left, Hitler became calmer. It was time to make preparations. As long as Hitler had had a future, he had ruled out marriage. His life, he had said, was devoted to Germany. There was no room for a wife. It had also been politically inconvenient. No one outside the inner circle was to know of Eva Braun’s existence. She had been forced to accept that she was no more than an appendage, there when Hitler wanted her to be, stored well out of sight for the rest of the time. But she had chosen to come to the bunker. And she had refused Hitler’s own entreaties to leave. She had committed herself to him once and for all, when others were deserting. The marriage now cost him nothing. He did it simply to please Eva Braun, to give her what she had wanted more than anything at a moment when marrying him was the least enviable fate in the world.