Five Days That Shocked the World: Eyewitness Accounts from Europe at the End of World War II

by Nicholas Best

HITLER GOES TO VALHALLA

  AT THE CHANCELLERY, they were having a party. While Hitler retired to his room to kill himself, the soldiers in the upstairs canteen were drinking and dancing, enjoying a frenzied release of tension as they waited for him to die. There had been a series of increasingly frantic drinking sessions in the past few days as the Russians tightened their grip and the Chancellery staff abandoned all hope of escape. Shedding their inhibitions, some men had gotten married in a hurry, while others had taken to the bottle or sought distraction in sex. With the Chancellery full of secretaries and female refugees from the surrounding streets, there had been no shortage of sex for those who wanted it. Ernst-Günther Schenck, an SS doctor at the Chancellery, was an eyewitness:

  There was a kind of contagious mass-hysteria seeking a group outlet. Many of the same wild, red-eyed women who had fled their Berlin apartments, in terror of rape by Red Army soldiers, now threw themselves into the arms, and bed rolls, of the nearest German soldiers they could find. And the soldiers were not averse. Still, it came as a bit of a shock to me to see a German general chasing some half-naked signalwoman between and over the cots. The more discreet retired to Dr Kunz’s dentist chair upstairs in the Chancellery. That chair seemed to have had a special erotic attraction. The wilder women enjoyed being strapped in and made love to in a variety of novel positions.

  I was sceptical as that story made the rounds. But then one of the women involved, drunk and hysterical, gave me the clinical details. I dosed her with sedatives. She told me she had been twice raped before fleeing to the Chancellery, took to drinking, could not hold her liquor. Towards the end, she lost all inhibitions. Another diversion was group sex, usually off in the dark corners.1

  Traudl Junge shared Schenck’s bemusement: “An erotic fever seemed to have taken possession of everybody. Everywhere, even on the dentist’s chair, I saw bodies entwined in crude sexual embraces. The women had abandoned all modesty and were freely exposing their private parts.”2

  But they had lost the appetite for exposing themselves as they waited for Hitler to die. Instead, music blared out from the canteen: “Tipperary,” “The Lambeth Walk,” American swing, all the “Jewish jungle music” that Hitler despised. It was so loud that Otto Günsche, standing guard outside Hitler’s room, ordered Rochus Misch to ring the canteen and tell them to be quiet while the Führer was trying to kill himself. Misch rang several times, but got no answer. “They probably couldn’t even hear the phone. So I told the orderly to run up and tell them, but I’m sure he was too late.”3

  * * *

  THE MUSIC was still playing when Traudl Junge decided she couldn’t bear the tension any longer. “When that door closed behind Hitler and Eva, all I wanted was to get out. I felt I was suffocating. I craved quiet and sleep. I wanted terribly not to be so frightened.”4 Desperate to get away, Junge ran for the stairs to the upper bunker, only to find the Göbbels children sitting on them, looking lost. No one had given them any lunch, so Junge went to get them something to eat. Returning with a jar of cherries, she kept talking as she buttered bread and made ham sandwiches for them all: “I talk to them to distract them. They say something about being safe in the bunker, and how it’s almost fun to hear the explosions when they know the bangs can’t hurt them. Suddenly there is the sound of a shot, so loud, so close that we all fall silent. It echoes on through all the rooms. ‘That was a direct hit,’ cried Helmut, with no idea how right he is. The Führer is dead now.”5

  Junge was certain that the sound she had heard was Hitler shooting himself, but others were unconvinced. The artillery fire, the humming of the ventilation system, and the constant pounding of the generators in the machine room made it almost impossible to distinguish individual sounds in the bunker—especially through a bombproof steel door. Whatever the truth, it was just after three in the afternoon, by Junge’s watch. Desperate to be alone, she sent the children back to their room and reached for the bottle of Steinhäger on the table. There was an empty glass beside it. Junge grabbed the glass without thinking and poured herself a stiff drink to calm her nerves.

  Others were drinking, too. Heinz Linge, Hitler’s orderly, had had several glasses of schnapps at the party in the canteen as he waited for his master to die:

  I then returned to the lower bunker. My instinct told me that now was the time. In the central corridor of the lower bunker I met Günsche, to whom I said it must now have happened. I then went into the antechamber to Hitler’s room, where I found the door to his room closed and smelt powder smoke. In order to have a witness with me before going into the living room, I returned to the corridor, where I found Bormann standing at a table. I addressed Bormann with the words “Herr Reichsleiter, it has happened!” whereupon we both immediately went into the living room.6

  As Linge remembered it, the bodies of Hitler and his wife were slumped on the sofa against the wall facing the door. Hitler was on the left, as seen from the door. His head was bent to the left and leaning slightly forward. He wore black trousers, a uniform jacket, and black socks and gloves. His two pistols lay at his feet. He had evidently shot himself in the head:

  On his right temple I noticed a dark circular spot about the size of a ten pfennig piece. From this spot, a streaked trail of blood ran down to about the middle of his cheek. Directly next to the sofa I saw a puddle of blood about the size of a medium-sized plate, from which drops had splattered on to the frame of the sofa and the wall. Hitler’s eyes were open.

  About 30 centimetres away from Hitler was the body of Eva Braun-Hitler. She had drawn her legs up on to the sofa. The legs pointed to the left. Her upper body rested against the back of the sofa. The head was upright. Her eyes were open and her lips were compressed. The body was dressed in a blue dress with a white collar and stockings. The shoes stood side by side on the floor in front of the sofa. Her face appeared completely unchanged. There were no injuries. There were also no traces of blood.7

  Eva had presumably taken poison. But Günsche, who entered the room right behind Linge, remembered the details differently:

  Eva Braun was lying on the sofa standing against the wall opposite the door from the antechamber. The head was on the left side of the sofa as seen from the door to the antechamber. She was lying on her back. Both lower legs were drawn up slightly. The body was completely still. The eyes were open. My immediate impression was that Eva Braun, as well as Hitler, was dead. The body was dressed as before in a blue dress with white facings and stockings. The shoes were lying on the sofa a short distance away from her feet.

  Hitler himself sat in an armchair standing to the left and slightly forward—as seen from the antechamber—but very close to the sofa. His body was slightly sunk together and slanted slightly to the right over the armrest. The right arm hung down over the armrest. The head was bent slightly forward to the right. I noticed an injury to the head slightly above the outer end of the angle of the right eyelid. I saw blood and a dark discolouration. The whole thing was about the size of an old three mark piece. The mouth was slightly open. There was a small pool of blood on the floor to the right of the armchair.8

  Photographs of the bloodstains suggest that Linge’s memory was more accurate. Hitler almost certainly shot himself in the temple, rather than the mouth, while his wife took cyanide—actually, prussic acid—leaving a strong smell of burnt almonds in the room. Death for both must have been instantaneous.

  Linge and Günsche needed a couple of minutes to recover themselves. Then Linge fetched a blanket to wrap up Hitler’s body, while Günsche went to the conference room to announce the death. He found Göbbels waiting for him, with Generals Krebs, Burgdorf, and a few others. Clicking his heels, he brought himself up to attention. “I must report. The Führer is dead,” he told them.

  Wordlessly, they followed him back to Hitler’s room. The body was carried past them, its legs dangling from the blanket as it was taken to the conference room. Eva’s body followed, carried by Martin Bormann. Göbbels was so upset that he announced his
intention of leaving the bunker at once to seek his own death outside at the hands of the Russians.

  The rest stood around, wondering what to do next. They were still discussing it when Erich Kempka, Hitler’s chauffeur and manager of the motor pool, arrived. Günsche had contacted him earlier, asking for jerricans of gasoline to be delivered urgently to the bunker. Kempka had managed to get some cans together, but wanted to know what they were for, when fuel was so very hard to come by. He also wanted to know why they had to be delivered so urgently, in the middle of the shelling.

  “The chief is dead,” Günsche told him.

  “How could that be?” Kempka demanded. “I spoke to him only yesterday. He was perfectly healthy and alert.”

  They explained. Once he had got over the shock, Kempka helped carry the bodies upstairs. By his own, much-embellished account, Kempka was disgusted to see that Eva Braun’s body was being carried by Martin Bormann. The two had heartily disliked each other in life. Bormann’s solicitude for Eva in death sickened Kempka:

  That lout Bormann was carrying the body of Eva Braun, clutching her breast with his apelike paw. He was carrying her as if she were a sack of potatoes. Just as they all started to go up the stairs, I reached the bottom. So I grabbed the body of Eva Braun-Hitler from Bormann and began to carry her upstairs myself. I think if Bormann had tried to stop me, I would have hit him. But he made no protest.9

  The plan was to burn the bodies at once in the garden, secretly, without the rest of the Chancellery knowing. It was easier said than done, with artillery fire raining down. The barrage was so heavy that they were several times forced back inside the bunker. Eventually, however, Hitler’s corpse was dumped in its blanket three or four yards from the entrance. Then Günsche followed with Eva’s body, which he had taken from Kempka:

  I placed Eva Braun’s body directly next to Hitler’s, to Hitler’s right. The rest of the garden looked like a field full of shell craters, but the spot where the bodies had been deposited was still level. Just as I was laying Eva down, Bormann stepped up to Hitler’s body and uncovered his face. While I was still bending over after putting Eva down, I got another glimpse of Hitler’s head. The bloodstains from the temple had spread over his face. But the face itself was still clearly recognisable.10

  Gasoline was sprinkled over the corpses. Göbbels proffered a box of matches, but the bodies stubbornly refused to ignite. Günsche thought of throwing a stick grenade at them, but opted instead for a rag dipped in gasoline. While he was getting it ready, he saw that Linge had produced one of the paper spills he used for lighting the emergency butane lamps in the bunker. Bormann lit the spill, and Linge threw it out into the open, hurriedly shutting the bunker door behind him as the bodies burst into a sheet of flame.

  Opening the door again, they saw that Hitler and Eva were well and truly alight. Stepping somberly forward, they snapped to attention and gave the Nazi salute, some from outside the bunker, others from just inside the doorway. The heat was so intense that Hitler’s body was already beginning to shrivel as it burned, his arms and legs jerking like a marionette’s as the flames took hold. Heinz Linge watched fascinated through a slit in the door: “One thing that has stuck in my mind is that within a very short while one of Eva Hitler’s knees was lifted up. One could see that the flesh of the knee was already being roasted.11

  Later, Eva Hitler sat up as well, according to some accounts, her body jackknifing under rigor mortis into the classic equestrian position, arms outstretched as if she were holding a pair of reins. But Linge didn’t stay to see that. He remained only a few minutes at the bunker entrance and then hurried back downstairs, unable to take any more.

  * * *

  WHILE THE BODIES were being burned, Traudl Junge sat alone for a long time, trying to come to terms with her thoughts. Then she plucked up the courage to go see where her master had died:

  The door to Hitler’s room is still open at the end of the corridor. The men carrying the bodies had no hands free to close it. Eva’s little revolver is lying on the table with a pink chiffon scarf beside it, and I see the brass case of the poison capsule glinting on the floor next to Frau Hitler’s chair. It looks like an empty lipstick. There is blood on the blue and white upholstery of the bench where Hitler was sitting: Hitler’s blood. I suddenly feel sick. The heavy smell of bitter almonds is nauseating. I instinctively reach for my own capsule. I’d like to throw it as far away as I can and leave this terrible bunker.12

  Still desperate to be alone, Junge ran away again. Hurrying along the corridor, she left the Führerbunker and went across to the New Chancellery. She found to her dismay that the Chancellery, too, was full of people, cheerful secretaries bravely carrying on with their work as if the Russians weren’t just outside. They didn’t know that Hitler was dead, and Junge certainly wasn’t going to tell them.

  Instead, burdened with her terrible secret, she made her way to the room that she shared with several others. Her suitcases were there, packed and ready to go. Junge flung herself down on her camp bed, angry at Hitler for deserting them all, furious with him for killing himself and leaving everyone else behind. She lay on her bed wishing that she could feel the wind again and breathe some fresh air, hear the trees rustling in the breeze. Freedom, peace, and calm were all she wanted, an end to all the strife and discord. But freedom, peace, and calm were far out of reach as Junge lay on her bed, tossing and turning distractedly. It was still only early evening as she fell into an exhausted sleep.

  * * *

  THE BODIES took until nightfall to burn. SS men emerged at intervals to keep the fire going. The doors to the garden had been locked to prevent anyone seeing, but various bunker guards spotted what was happening and watched discreetly as the men stoked the flames and poured on more gasoline. They all had different memories when they recounted it later.

  Harry Mengershausen claimed to have seen Hitler’s feet burned off as far as the midcalves, while the rest of him was still recognizable. Herman Karnau claimed to have witnessed the bodies at 5:00 p.m.: “I saw that both corpses had burned down to skeletons. There were no more flames to be seen, but there were still flakes of white ash blowing upwards. Intending to consign the remains to the earth in a crater a meter away and half a meter deep, I tried to shove them in with my foot. At the first touch both skeletons crumbled. I then had to abandon the attempt because very heavy artillery fire set in again.”13

  Karnau changed his story later, saying he had seen no bones, only ash. But Erich Mansfeld, who joined him at 6:00 p.m., remembered more than ash: “We went to the site of the fire. There we saw two charred and shrunken corpses that were no longer identifiable.”14

  The one thing they all agreed on was that Hitler had been reduced to a pile of ash by the end, leaving no identifiable remains that his enemies could disinter. Others suspected that enough of him had survived to be wrapped in a tarpaulin, or perhaps the bloodstained rug from the bunker, and buried in the garden after dark, by the light of burning buildings. There was talk of Hitler’s skull surviving, or at least the bones of his jaw, identified later by their gold and porcelain bridges. Otto Günsche admitted that Hitler had not completely disappeared by nightfall, but he was adamant that what little remained had been scattered across the garden and then dispersed by shellfire. The truth is that nobody really knew or cared anymore. With Hitler gone and the Russians closing in, they were all far more concerned with their own futures, wondering how they were going to get safely out of the bunker and make their escape, now that they were free to leave at last.

  * * *

  A MEETING was held to discuss it. Gathering in the conference room, Göbbels, Bormann, and Generals Krebs, Mohnke, and Burgdorf debated what to do now that Hitler was gone. They lit cigarettes as they did so. Hitler had always forbidden smoking in his presence, but the rule had been relaxed in the past few days, and now it didn’t apply at all. His henchmen were free at last to do as they pleased and address the situation as they thought fit, dealing with it calmly a
nd rationally without any ranting from the Führer.

  The first question was the succession. Dönitz was in command of the nation, now that Hitler was gone. But they didn’t need reminding that the new Führer was in Plön, far removed from Berlin. There was no one to take the lead in the bunker as Hitler’s followers, rudderless and distraught, dragged on their cigarettes and wondered where they went from here.

  Bormann was for breaking out immediately, getting several hundred troops together and fighting through the Russian lines that night under cover of darkness. But the generals poured scorn on the idea, knowing it would never work. They understood all too well that they were trapped where they were, with no possibility of escape.

  After a long discussion, they decided that their only hope of survival was to approach the Russians, who didn’t know that Hitler was dead, and try to make a deal of some kind, one sovereign government talking to another. Under the terms of Hitler’s will, Göbbels and Bormann were still both members of the government. If they offered to surrender Germany to the Russians, perhaps the Russians would allow them safe conduct to Plön, to have the offer ratified by Dönitz.

  It was a slim prospect, but it was all they had. After further discussion, it was decided that General Krebs would be the best person to make contact with the Russians. As a former military attaché in Moscow, Hans Krebs spoke the language and had once been publicly hugged by Stalin, an event recorded on newsreel for German viewers. The Soviet leader had told him that Germany and Russia should stand together and always be friends.

  A call was put through to Colonel Refior at the army’s Bendlerblock headquarters in the Tiergarten. He was ordered to send a radio message to Red Army command, asking if they would be prepared to receive a representative of the German government. The Russians took a while to respond, but proved agreeable. A messenger went through their lines to discuss the details, after which a temporary cease-fire was arranged in the sector south of the Chancellery, near what remained of the Anhalter station.