The Journey of Anna Eichenwald

by Donald Hunt

  “Do you know where he might be…over.”

  “I think…I hope he is at the Red Cross refuge center at Dresden…over.”

  “Can we help…can we send money…over”

  “Yes..yes…I can use some money…Sarah will explain how to send it…over.” Sarah explained how to transfer funds via cablegram to her bank in Leipzig. Then reluctant goodbyes were said.

  As they signed off Sarah felt envious of Anna. Sarah had no immediate family left in Germany. She thought how strange that this Jewish woman whom she had grown to love so deeply had a bright future ahead and a loving family waiting for her. She had no one. But she dismissed those thoughts when she looked at Anna’s eyes and the tears that ran down her face. Any thoughts for herself quickly vanished.

  The following day the Eichenwalds transferred 1,000 pounds to Sarah’s bank. With rising German inflation, it translated into 50,000 Reich marks, a sum that would be more than enough to cover Anna’s living and travel expenses. The past 24 hours had indeed been remarkable for the Eichenwald family. And the following two days would hold events that would close the final on the most destructive war the world had experienced.

  * * *

  Dr. Joseph Goebbels followed the dictation of Hitler’s final testament with one of his own. The final portion was recorded as follows:

  “In the nightmare of treason which surrounds the Fuehrer in these most critical days of the war, there must be someone at least who will stay with him unconditionally until death . . . . I believe I am thereby doing the best service to the future of the German people. In the hard times to come, examples will be more important than men. . . .

  For this reason, together with my wife, and on behalf of my children, who are too young to be able to speak for themselves and who, if they were old enough, would unreservedly agree with this decision, I express my unalterable resolution not to leave the Reich capital, even if it falls, but rather, at the side of the Fuehrer, to end a life that for me personally will have no further

  Value if I canno spend it at the service of the Fuehrer and at his side.

  The decision of Joseph and Magda Goebbels to murder their children was the apogee of their blind fanatical commitment to Hitler and Nazism. He had been caught up in the mystique of Adolph Hitler from the beginning. The involvement of his wife Magda was a somewhat different story.

  Magda was born Johanna Maria Magdalena Rierschel in Berlin in 1901. Her mother and father were divorced three years later and at age five she went to live with her father in Cologne, then eventually to Brussels. Her mother remarried and later, Magda moved with them back to Berlin. When she was 17, she met a wealthy industrialist who began to court her and the couple married when she was 20. They had one son, Harald Quandt. She and husband Gunther grew apart. Because of his work as an industrialist, they spent little time together and divorced in 1929.

  Magda joined the Nazi party September 1, 1930. She was infatuated with Adolph Hitler. But the man who was destined to lead Germany to destruction was focused on politics and had no interest in a relationship. A year later, in December 1931, she married Dr. Joseph Goebbels. Hitler remained close friends of the couple until the end. Although Joseph had many affairs with many other women, Magda stayed with him and they had five daughters and a son.

  During the early part of the war, Magda was completely supportive of the effort. She entertained wives of visiting dignitaries and became thought of as the ‘First Lady of the Reich’. In later defeats, she began to doubt Hitler and his judgments. The last two weeks of April, she became resolved that she would die with her husband, but the issue of her children was difficult. One evening after she had put them to bed and the bombing had stopped, she finally spoke of it to her husband.

  “Joseph, I fear for the children. They will live in a country with little future. We are hearing of the atrocities being committed by the Russian troops. They are raping our women, looting and burning our villages. Our oldest, Hiega, will be abused. She will be at their mercy.”

  “I will not leave them to the Russians,” he said as he kissed her forehead. “They will go with us. There is no other way. You must understand this and be brave. Do you understand?”

  She slumped into a chair and nodded. “Yes. There seems to be no other way.”

  The following day, Magda Goebbels sat down and wrote a letter to her eldest son by her first marriage. He had become close to his stepfather, Joseph, and she wanted him to hear of their fate from the family. Her farewell letter was hand written.

  “My beloved son! By now we have been in the Fuhrerbunker for six days already – daddy, your six siblings and I, for the sake of giving our national socialistic lives the only possible honorable end…you shall know that I stayed here against daddy’s will, and that even on last Sunday the Fuhrer wanted to help me to get out. You know your mother – we have the same blood, for me there was no wavering. Our glorious idea is ruined and with it everything beautiful and marvelous that I have known in my life. The world that comes after the Fuhrer and national socialism is not any longer worth living in and therefore I took the children with me, for they are too good for the life that would follow, and a merciful God will understand me when I will give them the salvation….The children are wonderful….there never is a word of complaint nor crying. The impacts are shaking the bunker. The elder kids cover the younger ones, their presence is a blessing and they are making the Fuhrer smile once in a while. May God help that I have the strength to perform the last and hardest. We only have one goal left: loyalty to the Fuhrer even in death. Harald, my dear son – I want to give you what I learned in life: be loyal! Loyal to yourself, loyal to the people and loyal to your country….Be proud of us and try to keep us in dear memory….”

  On the afternoon of April twenty-ninth, possibly the last news from the outside reached the bunker. The death of Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, was communicated to Hitler. Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci, were trying to escape to Switzerland when caught by Italian Communist partisans. They were arrested and two days later were executed. She was given the option of leaving but refused. That night their bodies were taken to Milan where, the following day, they were hung upside down for public display. Finally, they were cut down and put in a gutter before being buried in unmarked pauper’s graves.

  At the situation conference at noon on April thirtieth, Hitler, Bormann, Goebbels and the others learned that the Russians were within a few blocks of the Chancellery. Hitler had given his chauffer, Erick Kempka, an order to deliver 200 liters of gasoline to the Chancellery garden. As this was being accomplished, the Fuehrer and Eva Braun bid farewells to the secretaries, staff, Dr. Goebbels, General Krebs and Burgdorf. Once again Hitler mentioned the cyanide to his secretaries to avoid the Russian brutality. Then Hitler and his new bride retired to his private quarters. Bormann and Goebbels waited in the hallway to the entrance. In a few moments a single pistol shot was heard, then silence. They entered the quarters to find Hitler dead on the floor from the pistol shot to the brain through his mouth. Frau Hitler was slumped on the couch having taken a potassium cyanide capsule.

  No words were spoken. Hitler’s valet and an orderly draped the bodies in army blankets and carried them up the stairs to the garden. They were placed in a bomb crater and soaked in gasoline. They waited for a lull in the artillery bombardment and lit the funeral pyre. Goebbels and Bormann stood at attention and offered the Nazi military salute, Heil Hitler. Whatever ceremony was intended, it didn’t happen. The artillery shelling commenced.

  Bormann and Goebbels realized that Admiral Doenitz likely had not yet received the testament message, so Bormann sent a radio message informing him that he had been appointed President of the Reich. But Bormann did not mention Hitler’s death. The reason for this remains unclear. Thinking Hitler still alive, Doenitz replied to Hitler that his loyalty to the Fuehrer was unconditional and that he would fight on to honor Germany.


  They had a last ditch plan to save the remainder in the bunker. The Chief of the Army General Staff, General Krebs, spoke Russian, having spent some time in Moscow as an attaché. They sent him to General Chuikov of the Russian High Command to attempt a negotiated agreement for safe passage of those in the bunker. Chuikov refused, demanding an unconditional surrender of all troops immediately. By 3:00 p.m. on May first, Goebbels carried out his last act as a Nazi. He sent a radio communication to Admiral Doenitz that Hitler was dead, and his ‘Testament’ was on the way.

  That evening, Frau Goebbels sought out SS physician Helmut Kunz. It was time for her to carry out the unthinkable. She was trembling as she entered his office.

  “Are you certain they will not know?” she asked.

  “I am certain,” he told her. “I will give each an injection of morphine that will make them essentially unresponsive. You are to tell them it is medication to help them rest so the bombing will not disturb them. They will need a good night sleep for their journey out of the war zone in the morning.

  “Very well. We will give the injection to Heiga first, she is the oldest.”

  As they entered the children’s sleeping quarters Heiga was reading to the others, a tale published in 1937, written by an Englishman named Tolkein and translated into several languages, including German. The central character was a dwarf named Bilbo Baggins, a Hobbit. As they entered the room Heiga read, ‘All that the unsuspecting Bilbo saw that morning was an old man with a staff. He had a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, a silver scarf over which his long white beard hung down below his waist, and immense black boots.’

  “Children,” Magda interrupted, “I hate to disturb your reading, but Dr. Kunz has some medicine for each of you so you can get a good night’s sleep. We are going to be leaving the war zone in the morning, and you will need your rest.”

  “Is it a shot?” the youngest child asked. “I hate shots.”

  “Yes, it is, but it doesn’t hurt much. Heiga will be first and show you how to be brave.” Each of the children received an injection of morphine. There was no crying. Within 15 minutes they were all sleeping. The lights had been turned off and the door closed. Magda re- entered the room with six capsules of cyanide. There was a small lamp on a table in the corner of the concrete bunker room. She paused and looked at her six children, all of whom would die before dawn. They would never see another day. She began to sob. She had convinced herself that there was no future for these beautiful children, and that any future at all would be a horror for them. She began with Heide, the youngest. She stroked her hair as the tiny four-year old lay peacefully sleeping. Gently, Magda opened the child’s mouth. Wearing a rubber glove, she crushed the capsule in Heide’s mouth and closed the child’s lips. She repeated the process with each child, finishing with Heiga, the eldest.

  Magda Goebbels then sat down in the corner and sobbed uncontrollably. She shook her head in disbelief that it had come down to this. There had once been beauty in the Reich. Now, there was only death and destruction.

  She waited for 10 minutes, all the while, carefully observing each child. They were all dead. She took a long, last look, then left the room.

  Joseph Goebbels was waiting in the central area of the Fuherbunker. He did not speak but took his wife’s hand to walk with her to the stair entrance. He had donned his military coat, hat and gloves. They bid farewell to several friends then ascended the stairs. His adjuvant, SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Gunther Schwagermann was in the garden with a can of petrol. He turned to make certain the jerry-can was full when Goebbels fired his pistol into his right temple. Magda had swallowed an identical ampoule to the ones that had taken the lives of their children. She was dead in about six minutes. Their bodies were placed in a bomb crater, covered with petrol, then set afire.

  The death of Goebbels ended the tragic life of a man who sought a dramatic spotlight but had no meaningful self-identity. Indeed, his value as a man was totally determined by Adolph Hitler. Goebbels desire for self-exaltation had ultimately led to the macabre murder of his own children.

  Later that evening, shortly after 10:00 p.m., those left in the bunker, including Bormann and Hitler’s physician, Dr. Stumpfeffer, tried their escape through a Berlin subway tunnel. Simultaneously, a program of symphonic music was interrupted by an emergency announcement. After a military drum roll the announcer read a statement:

  “Our Fuehrer, Adolph Hitler, fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism, fell for Germany this afternoon in his operational headquarters in the Reich Chancellery. On April 30 the Fuehrer appointed Grand Admiral Doenitz his successor.’

  Truth was never a tenet of Third Reich operations, so the lie that Hitler had fought ‘to the last breath’ was in keeping with such a tradition. This broadcast was followed 20 minutes later by a second announcement from the new Reich President, Admiral Doenitz, who knew that German resistance was at an end.

  Bormann and the SS doctor followed the subway tunnel. When they emerged, they encountered a German tank. They crouched closely behind the tank hoping to follow it to safety. But the tank took a direct hit from Russian artillery and both men were killed.

  On May fourth, the surrender scenario began. All forces in northwest Germany, Denmark and Holland surrendered to English Field Marshall Montgomery. The next day the troops north of the Alps, principally the German 1st and 19th armies, capitulated. Finally, in a little red school house at Reims, where the Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower made his headquarters, Germany surrendered unconditionally. The day was Monday, May 7, 1945. All hostilities stopped at midnight on May eighth. There had been almost continual bombing and fighting on the European continent since September 1, 1939.

  Although hostilities had stopped, there were issues that still had to be settled. The Doenitz government, established by Hitler on April twenty-ninth, was dissolved by the Allies on May twenty-third. All of its participants were arrested. Heinrich Himmler was in the vicinity of Flensburg on the Danish border. He had been dismissed from the Doenitz government on May sixth. The following day he tried to contact the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) to request Eisenhower appoint him Minister of Police for a post-war German government. He proposed to exchange his service for immunity from prosecution for war crimes.

  Himmler’s proposition was a delusion of incredible magnitude. His crimes exceeded all in the Reich with the possible exception of Hitler himself. Perhaps they are best represented by circumstances surrounding the assassination of his top assistant, Reinhard Heydrich, the acting governor of Bohemia and Moravia, the portion of Czechoslovakia incorporated into the Reich. On May 27, 1942, his car was attacked by Czech resistance fighters. A bomb was thrown into the open auto. Heydrich was seriously injured but not killed. However, he developed a bloodstream infection and died eight days later in a Prague hospital. The killers were pursued but not immediately caught. They were hidden by Czech nationals.

  Early on, Hitler and Himmler had decided to unleash their wrath on the community and declared to kill all men over the age of 16 in any village suspected of harboring those responsible. On a tip they converged on the small town of Lidice, 22 kilometers west of Prague. June tenth was their day of revenge and 192 men of the village were rounded up and shot. The 184 women of the town were then separated from their children and sent to a concentration camp. The 88 children were transported to a center in Lodz, where most of them eventually died. The village of Lidice was then burned. No buildings were left.

  In a desperate attempt to escape, Himmler shaved his moustache, placed a patch over one eye and put on a private’s uniform. He had false identity papers which were in such perfect order that a British sergeant at a check point became suspicious. He was arrested and on May twenty- second was recognized. He was stripped of the uniform hoping to separate him from any concealed poison. The following day he was being interrogated and was to be examined by a British physician. He b
it down on a cyanide capsule hidden in his mouth and his life was ended.

  All in all, more than 30 Nazi officers were tried by an International Military Tribunal. Most were convicted of war crimes and a number received death sentences. One of those sentenced to hang was the second in command in the Reich, General Fieldmarshal of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Goering. He was the only high-ranking Nazi officer who had amassed a personal fortune looting Jewish homes and businesses. He was also the most prominent figure in the Nazi hierarchy to sign the order to implement the ‘final solution of the Jewish Question’. He made an appeal to the court to be executed by firing squad rather than by hanging, generally reserved for common criminals. The court refused. The day before his scheduled execution he took his own life by swallowing a cyanide capsule that had been smuggled into his cell.

  Thus, the four Nazi leaders most prominent in the development of the murderous Reich - Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and Himmler - all died by their own hands, cheating the hangman. In life they had plotted and codified the execution of millions of men, women and children. In death they took a coward’s path, refusing the judgment they had earned.

  * * *

  Beryl Yenzer could hardly believe the war was over. The word spread quickly throughout the Red Cross refugee camp in Dresden. The camp was a series of 700 tents, each holding about 60 individuals, mostly men from the labor camps in central Germany and most of whom were emaciated. Some would not recover. For every 100 tents there was a central area for dining with latrines and showers. In the vicinity of each mess hall was a gasoline powered generator to run cold storage facilities for food and large hot water heaters for the showers. A hot shower was a luxury none of the men had experienced in five years. The International Red Cross had made a decision that hot water might boost morale in a way nothing else could.

  The camp also held more than 1,000 children. Most were orphans and most were Jewish. The young men from Buchenwald made up a large portion of this group. The care of the children was a priority of the Red Cross workers. The task of re-patriating tens of thousands of refugees was enormous and would take months or even years in many cases. Relief workers from Switzerland, France, Britain, the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand poured into Europe.