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

by Nicholas Best

  THE OTHER NAZIS were hanged at Nuremberg in the early hours of October 16, 1946. Three black-painted gallows were erected in the prison gymnasium, thirty yards from the cells. Working through the previous night, the carpenters tried hard to keep quiet, but the prisoners all heard the sound of banging as the gallows were constructed on what had formerly been the basketball court.

  It had been agreed that the prisoners should be executed in the same order as their indictments at the trial. Göring should have gone first, but he cheated the gallows by taking poison, either concealed during numerous body searches or obtained by bribing a guard. The remaining prisoners were immediately handcuffed to American soldiers to prevent them from following suit. Wearing black silk pajamas under a blue shirt, Göring’s body was placed on a stretcher and laid to one side until the hangings were over.

  In Göring’s absence, it fell to Ribbentrop to be hanged first. Dressed in a dark suit, he entered the gym at 1:11 a.m. and climbed the thirteen steps to the platform without hesitation. “My last wish is that Germany realise its entity and that an understanding be reached between east and west,” he announced as he stood on the trap. “I wish peace to the world.”2 He looked straight ahead as a black hood was pulled over his face and the trap gave way.

  Field Marshal Keitel went next, the first soldier to be condemned under the new international doctrine that obeying orders was no defense against war crimes. He had burst into tears as he prayed with the chaplain in his cell, but pulled himself together by the time he reached the scaffold. He mounted it in military uniform as if reviewing a parade. “I call on God almighty to have mercy on the German people,” he declared. “More than two million German soldiers died for the Fatherland before me. I now follow my sons—all for Germany.”3

  There was a pause while an American doctor and a Russian disappeared behind the curtain concealing Ribbentrop’s body to confirm that he was dead. The watching reporters were allowed to smoke as his body was removed and Kaltenbrunner replaced him on the trap. “I am sorry my people were led by men who were not soldiers and that crimes were committed of which I had no knowledge,”4 Kaltenbrunner announced. “Germany, good luck.”

  Hans Frank, the governor of Poland, had converted to Roman Catholicism after his arrest. “A thousand years will pass and still this guilt of Germany will not have been erased,”5 he had told the court at his trial, repenting of his sins a little too late. Nervous, swallowing frequently, he expressed thanks for his kind treatment during captivity and called on God to accept him with mercy as he died.

  With the collar of his Wehrmacht uniform half turned up, Jodl was visibly scared as he climbed the steps to the scaffold. “My greetings to you, my Germany,”6 he said miserably, as the hood went over his head. He was later granted a posthumous pardon by a German denazification court.

  The last to die was Seyss-Inquart. With a club foot, he had to be helped up the steps by the guards. “I hope this execution is the last act of the tragedy of the Second World War,” he told his audience, “and that the lesson taken from this world war will be that peace and understanding should exist between peoples. I believe in Germany.”7

  Jodl and Seyss-Inquart were still dangling from their ropes when Göring’s body was brought in to show the witnesses that he was dead. Once Jodl and Seyss-Inquart’s deaths had been confirmed as well, the bodies were all laid out in an adjacent room and photographed by a volunteer from the Signal Corps. Several of the hangings had been botched by the hangman. Perhaps overwhelmed by the numbers, Master Sergeant John Woods and his two assistants, one of them German, had not always calculated the drop correctly to produce a clean snap of the neck. Woods left the country later to avoid German retribution.

  St. Elizabeth’s hospital in Washington had asked for the Nazis’ brains to add to its collection, but the request was refused. Instead, the bodies were driven to the concentration camp at Dachau and cremated soon after dawn. That evening, after the ashes had cooled, they were taken to the outskirts of Munich and thrown into a tributary of the Isar River, to ensure that Hitler’s henchmen should have no final resting place.

  * * *

  THE RUSSIANS SPENT SEVERAL DAYS looking for Hitler’s body in the ruins of the Chancellery. They thought they had him when a mischievous German identified the wrong corpse for them. They eventually took away a jawbone and several other bits and pieces, but were never able to identify them beyond dispute. Some of the fragments went to the Kremlin. The rest were buried at a Soviet base near Magdeburg, Germany, until 1970, when they were dug up and thrown into the Biederitz River.

  The balance of probability is that very little of Hitler survived his cremation in the Chancellery garden. His ashes were almost certainly scattered to the wind in the hours that followed. Assertions to the contrary are rarely supported by established fact.

  The Chancellery remained under Russian control after the war and was soon razed to the ground. The site was a wasteland for many years, but has now been rebuilt as a modern apartment block. Where Hitler once strutted, there are now parking spaces, a playground, and a Chinese restaurant. The exact site of his cremation is surrounded by street furniture to prevent large crowds from gathering. Tourists arrive in small groups, and Germans stand in awe as Turkish mothers wheel their prams across to the swings.

  “I shall never leave this place,” Hitler had told his people grandly when they begged him to flee the bunker. “I shall stand watch here for ever, in sacred ground.”

  Dogs do their business on the spot.

  NOTES

  1. The Death of Mussolini

  1. Christopher Hibbert, Benito Mussolini, London: Longmans, 1962, p. 328.

  2. Rachele Mussolini, My Life with Mussolini, London: Robert Hale, 1959, p. 176.

  3. Ibid., p. 179.

  2. In Berlin

  1. H. R. Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of Hitler, London: Macmillan, 1978, p. 180.

  2. Helmut, Altner, Berlin Dance of Death, Staplehurst: Spellmount, 2002, p. 62.

  3. Ibid., p. 146.

  4. Ibid., p. 151.

  5. Hildegard Knef, The Gift Horse, London: Granada, 1980, p. 82.

  6. Ibid., p. 83.

  3. Himmler Sues for Peace

  1. Count Folke Bernadotte, The Fall of the Curtain, London: Cassell, 1946, p. 61.

  2. Walter Schellenberg, The Schellenberg Memoirs, London: Andre Deutsch, p. 452.

  3. Wilhelm Wulff, Zodiac and Swastika, London: Arthur Barker, 1973, p. 177.

  4. Bernadotte, The Fall of the Curtain, p. 62.

  5. Ewan Butler, Amateur Agent, London: George Harrap, 1963, p. 193.

  6. Ibid., p. 199.

  7. Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer, London: Macmillan, 1995, p. 535.

  4. Nazis on the Run

  1. Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970, p. 484.

  2. Ibid., p. 469.

  3. Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fränkel, Hermann Göring, London: Heinemann, 1962, p. 302.

  4. Edwin Hoyt, Göring’s War, London: Robert Hale, 1990, p. 186.

  5. Willi Frischauer, Göring, London: Odhams Press, 1951, p. 265. The telegram did not survive, but eyewitnesses recalled it from memory.

  6. Emmy Göring, My Life with Göring, London: David Bruce and Watson, 1972, p. 123.

  7. David Irving, Hess, London: Macmillan, 1987, p. 270.

  5. Chaos in Italy

  1. Hibbert, Benito Mussolini, p. 333.

  2. James E. Roper, “Mussolini, Mistress Executed by Finns Squad,” UPI Archives, April 29, 1945.

  3. Philip Hamburger, “Letter from Rome,” The New Yorker, May 19, 1945.

  4. Rachele Mussolini, My Life with Mussolini, p. 180.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Ibid., p. 181.

  7. Allen Dulles, The Secret Surrender, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967, p. 206.

  8. A. E. Hotchner, Sophia, London: Michael Joseph, 1979, p. 33.

  9. Ibid., p. 41.

  10. Ibid., p. 50.

  11. Ibid., p.
47.

  12. Harold Macmillan, The Blast of War, London: Macmillan, 1967, p. 702.

  13. Ibid., p. 703.

  14. Joseph Heller, Now and Then, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996, p. 181.

  6. Himmler Looks to the Stars

  1. Wulff, Zodiac and Swastika, p. 185.

  2. Ibid., p. 186.

  3. Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of Hitler, p. 195.

  4. Sereny, Albert Speer, p. 536.

  5. Traudl Junge, Until the Final Hour, London: Phoenix, 2005, p. 184.

  6. William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, London: Arrow, 1998, p, 1128.

  7. Altner, Berlin Dance of Death, p. 160.

  8. Ibid., p. 161.

  9. Cornelius Ryan, The Last Battle, London: Collins, 1966, p. 363.

  10. Ibid, p. 362.

  7. Belsen

  1. Michael Bentine, The Long Banana Skin, London: Wolfe, 1976, p. 132.

  2. Ben Shepherd, After Daybreak, London: Pimlico, 2006, p. 76.

  3. Cecily Goodman and Leslie Hardman, The Survivors, London: Valentine, Mitchell, 1958, p. 46.

  4. Chaim Herzog, Living History, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1997, p. 61.

  5. Jo Reilly, Belsen in History and Memory, Portland, Ore.: Frank Cass, 1997, p. 212.

  6. Alan Moorhead, Eclipse, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1945, p. 221.

  7. William Whitelaw, The Whitelaw Memoirs, London: Headline, 1990, p. 22.

  8. Mollie Panter-Downes, London War Notes, London: Longman, 1973, p. 371.

  8. Operation Manna

  1. Operationmanna.secondworldwar.nl.

  2. Ibid.

  3. Martyn Ford-Jones, Bomber Squadron, London: William Kimber, 1987, p. 212.

  4. Desmond Hawkins, War Report, London: BBC Books, 1995, p. 338.

  5. Henri van der Zee, The Hunger Winter, London: Jill Norman and Hobhouse, 1982, p. 253.

  6. Barry Turner, Countdown to Victory, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2004, p. 241.

  7. BBC Archives, WW2 People’s War—Netherlands. www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peoples war

  8. Walter Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life, New York: Knopf, 2001, p. 123.

  9. Barry Paris, Audrey Hepburn, London: Orion, 1998, p. 20.

  10. Ibid., p. 30.

  11. Ibid., p. 31.

  9. Dachau

  1. Interview, G. Petrone and M. Skinner, February 25, 2000.

  2. Flint Whitlock, The Rock of Anzio, Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1998, p. 359.

  3. Ibid., p. 362.

  4. Ibid., p. 365.

  5. Marguerite Higgins, “33,000 Dachau Captives Freed by 7th Army,” New York Herald Tribune, April 29, 1945.

  6. Whitlock, The Rock of Anzio, p. 373.

  7. Ibid., p. 377.

  8. Interview, G. Petrone and M. Skinner, February 25, 2000.

  9. Sam Dann, Dachau 29 April 1945, Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1998.

  10. Whitlock, The Rock of Anzio, p. 384.

  11. Sigismund Payne Best, The Venlo Incident, London: Hutchinson, 1950, p. 231.

  10. The United Nations

  1. W. H. Thompson, I Was Churchill’s Shadow, London: Christopher Johnson, 1952, p. 155.

  2. Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Vol VI, p. 442. London: Cassell, 1949-54.

  3. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Vol VII, London: Heinemann, 1986, p. 1322.

  4. J. C. Smuts, Jan Christian Smuts, London: Cassell, 1952, p. 471.

  5. Ibid., p. 478.

  6. Herbert Parmet, Jack, New York: Dial Press, 1982, p. 132.

  7. Simon Callow, Orson Welles, London: Jonathan Cape, 2006, p. 239.

  8. Ibid., p. 240.

  9. H. Franklin Knudsen, I Was Quisling’s Secretary, London: Britons, 1967, p. 160.

  11. Assault on the Reichstag

  1. Siegfried Knappe, Soldat, New York: Orion, 1992, p. 50.

  2. Anton Joachimsthaler, The Last Days of Hitler, London: Arms and Armour, c 1996, p. 140.

  3. Junge, Until the Final Hour, p. 186.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Joachimsthaler, The Last Days of Hitler, p. 141.

  6. Ibid., p. 144.

  7. Altner, Berlin Dance of Death, p. 175.

  8. Ibid., p. 177.

  9. Knef, The Gift Horse, p. 87.

  10. Ibid., p. 88.

  11. Vasili Chuikov, The End of the Third Reich, London: MacGibbon and Kee, p. 206.

  12. James O’Donnell, The Berlin Bunker, London: JM Dent, 1979, p. 177.

  13. Ibid.

  14. Junge, Until the Final Hour, p. 186.

  12. Curtain Call for Lord Haw Haw

  1. Admiral Dönitz, Memoirs, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1959, p. 441.

  2. Ibid.

  3. Ibid., p. 443.

  4. Nigel Farndale, Haw-Haw, London: Macmillan, 2005, p. 269.

  5. Francis Selwyn, Hitler’s Englishman, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987, p. 154.

  6. Wanda Poltawska, And I Am Afraid of My Dreams, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1987, p. 146.

  7. Jerrard Tickell, Odette, London: Chapman and Hall, 1949, p. 325.

  8. Jürgen Thorwald, Flight in the Winter, London: Hutchinson, 1953, p. 190.

  9. Ibid., p. 191.

  10. Micheline Maurel, Ravensbrück, London: Anthony Blond, 1959, p. 116.

  11. Ibid.

  13. The Americans Take Munich

  1. Francis de Guingand, Operation Victory, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1947, p. 452.

  2. Charles MacDonald, The Last Offensive, Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1973, p. 437.

  3. Charles Hawley, “The U.S. Soldier Who Liberated Munich Recalls Confronting the Nazi Enemy,” Spiegelonline International, April 29, 2005.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Lee Miller, Lee Miller’s War, Boston: Bulfinch Press, c1992, p. 182.

  14. Italy

  1. Allen Dulles, The Secret Surrender, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967, p. 214.

  2. Kurt von Schuschnigg, Austrian Requiem, London: Victor Gollancz, 1947, p. 241.

  3. Geoffrey Cox, The Road to Trieste, London: William Kimber, 1977, p. 182.

  4. James Lucas, Last Days of the Reich, London: Cassell, 2002, p. 164.

  5. Rachele Mussolini, My Life with Mussolini, p. 182.

  15. Hitler Goes to Valhalla

  1. O’Donnell, The Berlin Bunker, p. 131.

  2. Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin, London: Phoenix, 2004, p. 431.

  3. Sereny, Albert Speer, p. 539.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Junge, Until the Final Hour, p. 187.

  6. Joachimsthaler, The Last Days of Hitler, p. 154.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Ibid., p. 156.

  9. O’Donnell, The Berlin Bunker, p. 187.

  10. Joachimsthaler, The Last Days of Hitler, p. 193.

  11. Ibid., p. 197.

  12. Junge, Until the Final Hour, p. 188.

  13. Joachimsthaler, The Last Days of Hitler, p. 213.

  14. Ibid., p. 214.

  16. The Germans Want to Talk

  1. Chuikov, The End of the Third Reich, p. 217.

  2. Marshal Zhukov, The Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov, London: Jonathan Cape, 1971, p. 622.

  3. Chuikov, The End of the Third Reich, p. 231.

  4. Altner, Berlin Dance of Death, p. 184.

  5. Knef, The Gift Horse, p. 91.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Joachim Fest, Inside Hitler’s Bunker, London: Pan, 2005, p. 137.

  8. Junge, Until the Final Hour, p. 175.

  17. The Nazis Regroup

  1. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 487.

  2. Ibid., p. 488.

  3. Willi Frischauer, Göring, London: Odhams Press, 1951, p. 272.

  4. Sereny, Albert Speer, p. 544.

  18. May Day in Russia

  1. Josef Stalin, War Speeches, London, Hutchinson, 1946, p. 128

  2. Nikita Khrushchev, Memoirs Vol I, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004, p. 633.

  3. Clementine Churchill, My Visit to Russia, London: p. 28.


  4. Ibid., p. 45.

  5. Ibid., p. 46.

  6. Carol Ann Lee, The Hidden Life of Otto Frank, London: Penguin Books, 2003, p. 132.

  19. Operation Chowhound

  1. Operationmanna.secondworldwar.nl/maxkrell.

  2. Ibid, /chowhound2

  3. Harry Crosby, A Wing and a Prayer, London: Robson Books, 1993, p. 317.

  4. Cameron Garrett, Stalag VIIIA, oral history. www.moosburg.org

  5. Ibid.

  6. Charles Messenger, The Last Prussian, London: Brassey’s 1991, p. 231.

  7. Joseph Ratzinger, Milestones, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2001, p. 36.

  20. Dönitz Speaks to the Nation

  1. O’Donnell, The Berlin Bunker, p. 207.

  2. Ibid.

  3. Ibid., p. 208.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Ibid., p. 211.

  6. Fest, Inside Hitler’s Bunker, p. 144.

  7. O’Donnell, The Berlin Bunker, p. 220.

  8. Junge, Until the Final Hour, p. 193.

  9. O’Donnell, The Berlin Bunker, p. 226.

  10. Ibid., p. 227.

  11. Knef, The Gift Horse, p. 91.

  12. Ibid., p. 92.

  13. Altner, Berlin Dance of Death, p.188.

  14. Leni Riefenstahl, The Sieve of Time, London: Quartet, 1992, p. 304.

  15. Göring, My Life with Göring, p. 130.

  16. Willy Brandt, My Road to Berlin, London: Peter Davies, 1960, p. 136.

  21. The News Is Out

  1. Hansard, May 1, 1945, col. 1239.

  2. John Colville, The Fringes of Power, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985, p. 596.

  3. Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, 1939–1945, London: Collins, 1967, p. 453.

  4. The Day the War Ended, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005, p. 22.

  5. Humphrey Carpenter, Robert Runcie, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1996, p. 76.

  6. Letter to the author, February 19, 2009.

  7. Sybil Bannister, I Lived Under Hitler, London: Rockliff, 1957, p. 232.

  8. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 494.

  22. The Nazis Consider Their Positions

  1. Manvell and Fränkel, Heinrich Himmler, p. 240.

  2. Rudolf Höss, Commandant of Auschwitz, London: Phoenix, 2000, p. 172.

  3. Niklas Frank, In the Shadow of the Reich, New York: Knopf, 1991, p. 316.

  4. Neil Bascomb, Hunting Eichmann, London: Quercus, 2009, p. 22.

  5. Riefenstahl, The Sieve of Time, p. 305.

  6. Irving, Hess, p. 271.

  23. Surrender in Italy