by Emma Craigie
Praise for D-Day: Minute by Minute:
‘Studded with extraordinary detail, it’s the most joltingly vivid account ever written of the day the Allies gambled everything… Heartbreaking and thrilling by turns.’ – Daily Mail
‘This blow-by-blow account of Allied troops’ storming of the Normandy beaches highlights the poignant moments, personal stories and individual scenes that make key moments in history… The chaos, the horror and the bravery of the battlefield are all here.’
– Daily Express
‘An accessible history that conveys the havoc and vast international spread of D-Day.’ – Kirkus Review, US
‘This book creates a remarkably vivid picture of one of the most important days in modern history.’ – The Good Book Guide
Praise for The Assassination of JFK: Minute by Minute:
‘Reads like a pacey, page-turning, cold war political thriller.’
– Dermot O’Leary
‘You forget you are reading a factual description of a historical event, as it feels like a gripping crime thriller.’ – Edinburgh Evening News
‘A blow by blow account of a moment that changed history… The pictures come thick and fast as the tragedy unfolds and some of the images painted are painfully powerful.’ – Radio Times
‘A gripping account of those blood-soaked few days in November 1963.’ – Daily Express
For David, Maud, Wilf, Myfanwy and Samuel EC
For Hannah and Charlie
In memory of Derek Mayo and Michael Scott-Joynt JM
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank John Schwartz, Dietlinde Nawrath and Annette Yoosefinejad for talking about their memories and family stories; Patrick Mueller and Myfanwy Craigie for help with translation; the late Elizabeth Bruegger for the information about Harald Quandt in Latimer House; Joanna Hylton, Richard Oldfield, Gillian Rees-Mogg and Charlotte Rees-Mogg for showing, lending and giving me books and Kate O’Brien for recommending sources. I’d also like to thank my family for allowing me to shirk domestic duties in the run-up to Christmas and Jonathan for being a great collaborator – in the best sense.
EC
Many thanks to Sibylle Harrison for her invaluable German translations; the Ruffle family, and in particular Alan Ruffle, for permission to reprint Bert Ruffle’s 1945 diary; Robin Mortimer for the book loans; Phil Critchlow for his on-going minute by minute support. Particular thanks to my family who have put up with a husband and father whose head has too often been in April 1945 rather than the present day. I couldn’t have asked for a better writing partner in Emma – whose idea this book was.
JM
Thanks to Aurea Carpenter and Rebecca Nicolson for their support and enthusiasm, and to Paul Bougourd for his wise and focused editing.
Contents
Cast of Characters
Introduction
Sunday 29th April 1945
Monday 30th April 1945
After April 1945...
Cast of Characters
American
Major-General Walter Bedell Smith
General Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff
General Simon Bolivar Buckner
Commander of the US forces on Okinawa
Alistair Cooke
Journalist for the Manchester Guardian
Joseph E. Davies
Former ambassador to Moscow
General Dwight D. Eisenhower
Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces
John Eisenhower
Officer in the 3323rd SIAM company; son of Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Flight Lieutenant Alexander Jefferson
P-51 pilot and POW
John F. Kennedy
Journalist for the Chicago Herald-American
Lieutenant Wolfgang F. Robinow
German-born US army soldier
Franklin D. Roosevelt
President of the United States March 1933 to April 1945
Lieutenant Marcus J. Smith
US army medical officer working in Dachau
Lieutenant Colonel Felix L. Sparks
US 45th Infantry Division
Harry Truman
Succeeded Roosevelt as President on 12th April 1945
Lieutenant Bill Walsh
US 45th Infantry Division, serving under Lieutenant Colonel Felix Sparks
Australian
Wing Commander Lionel ‘Bill’ Hudson
POW in Rangoon jail
Belgian
Albert Guerisse
Doctor for the SOE under pseudonym Pat O’Leary; POW in Dachau
British
John Amery
Journalist and son of Cabinet Minister Leo Amery
Winston Churchill
British Prime Minister since May 1940
Lieutenant Commander Patrick Dalzel-Job
Member of Ian Fleming’s 30 Assault Unit
Richard Dimbleby
BBC correspondent in Germany
Major-General Sir Francis de Guingand
Montgomery’s Chief of Staff
Michael Hargrave
Medical student heading to Bergen-Belsen
Clara Milburn
Diarist and mother of POW Alan Milburn
General Sir Bernard Montgomery
Senior ground force commander for the invasion of Europe
Alan Moorehead
Daily Express journalist in Germany
George Orwell
Journalist and author
Captain Sigismund Payne-Best
British agent for the Secret Intelligence Service
Robert Reid
BBC correspondent in Germany
Corporal Bert Ruffle
POW in Stalag IV-C
Jack Swaab
Gunnery officer in the 51st Highland Division
Wynford Vaughan-Thomas
BBC correspondent in Germany
Major Elliott Viney
POW in Stalag VII-A at Moosburg
Second Lieutenant Alan Whicker
British Army Film and Photo Unit
Tony Wigan
BBC correspondent in San Francisco
Danish
Hans Henrick Koch
Danish Ministry of Social Welfare
Dutch
Audrey Hepburn-Rushton (aka Edda van Heemstra)
Actress
Jacqueline van Maarsen
Friend of Anne Frank
John Schwartz
First cousin of Audrey Hepburn
German
Ruth Andreas-Friedrich
Berlin resident; member of anti-Nazi resistance group
Artur Axmann
Head of Hitler Youth
Nicolaus von Below
Luftwaffe officer and adjutant to Hitler; last person to leave bunker before Hitler’s death
Gerhard Boldt
Military intelligence officer working for General Krebs; leaves bunker on mission to contact General Wenck
Colonel Bogislav von Bonin
One of the Prominente group of prisoners
Martin Bormann
Hitler’s private secretary
Eva Hitler née Braun
Hitler’s wife
Gretl Braun
Hitler’s sister-in-law, Eva’s sister
Wernher von Braun
Inventor of the V2
General Wilhelm Burgdorf
German army general; witness to Hitler’s last will and testament
Gerda Christian
Hitler’s secretary
Captain Willi Dietrich
U-boat captain in the Faust wolfpack off Norwegian coast
Admiral Karl Dönitz
Head of German navy, named Hitler’s successor in the Führer’s last testament
General A
lexander von Falkenhausen
Former German army Commander-in-Chief in Belgium; one of the Prominente group of prisoners
Hermann Fegelein
Himmler’s SS representative in the bunker, married to Eva Braun’s sister, Gretl
Sister Erna Flegel
Nurse in Reich Chancellery emergency hospital
Karl Hermann Frank
Secretary of State and Chief of Police in Prague
Lieselotte G.
Berlin resident and anonymous diarist
Joseph Goebbels
Hitler’s Propaganda Minister
Magda Goebbels
Wife of Joseph Goebbels
Helga, Hilde, Helmut, Holde, Hedda, Heide Goebbels
Children of Joseph and Magda
Hermann Göring
Recently deposed head of the Luftwaffe
Robert Ritter von Greim
Hitler’s last Luftwaffe chief
Clara Greenbaum
Prisoner at Bergen-Belsen
Hermann Gretz
Technician in the bunker
Otto Günsche
SS officer and adjutant to Hitler
Dr Werner Haase
Surgeon in Reich Chancellery emergency hospital
Fey von Hassell
One of the Prominente group of prisoners
Marta Hillers
German journalist; anonymous author of memoir, A Woman in Berlin
Heinrich Himmler
Recently deposed SS chief attempting to negotiate with the Allies
General Rudolf Holste
General supposed to be attacking Russian forces from the north-west of Berlin
Willi Johannmeier
SS officer, one of the couriers of Hitler’s last testaments
Margaret Joyce
Wife of William Joyce; German citizen from 1940
William Joyce
Broadcaster for the Reich Broadcasting Company; German citizen from 1940
General Alfred Jodl
Chief of Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command; signed German unconditional surrender on behalf of Admiral Dönitz
Traudl Junge
Hitler’s secretary
Erich Kempka
Hitler’s driver
General Wilhelm Keitel
Supreme High Command of the German Armed Forces
Karl Koller
Luftwaffe liaison officer in the bunker
General Hans Krebs
Chief of Army General Staff
Armin Lehmann
Hitler Youth runner
Dr Hans Graf von Lehndorff
Doctor in Königsberg
Ewald Lindloff
SS officer who buries Hitler’s remains
Heinz Linge
Hitler’s personal valet
Heinz Lorenz
Hitler’s press officer, one of the couriers of Hitler’s last testaments
Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven
Adjutant to General Krebs; leaves bunker with Boldt on mission to contact General Wenck
Constanze Manziarly
Hitler’s cook
Emil Maurice
Hitler’s former chauffer
Ernst Michel
Former Auschwitz prisoner
Rochus Misch
Bunker switchboard operator
General Wilhelm Mohnke
Battle Commander of Berlin’s central government district, including the bunkers
Heinrich Müller
Head of the Gestapo
Liesl Ostertag
Eva Braun’s maid
Harald Quandt
Magda Goebbels’ son from her first marriage
Hanna Reitsch
Aviatrix who flies Robert Ritter von Greim in and out of the bunker
Walter Schellenberg
SS intelligence officer working for Heinrich Himmler, organising negotiations with Count Bernadotte
Dr. Ernst Schenck
Doctor in the Berlin Reich Chancellery emergency hospital
Anni Antonie Schmöger
Munich resident
Captain Adelbert Schnee
U-boat commander
Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner aka Blutiger (Bloody) Ferdinand
Named Commander-in-Chief of the German army in Hitler’s last testament
Claus Sellier
Lieutenant in the 79th Mountain Artillery Regiment
Arthur Seyss-Inquart
Reich Commissioner in the Netherlands
Albert Speer
Architect and Minister for Munitions
Richard Strauss
Composer
Dr Ludwig Stumpfegger
SS doctor in the Berlin Reich Chancellery emergency hospital
Fritz Tornow
Hitler’s dog handler
Walther Wagner
Civil magistrate who marries Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun
General Helmuth Weidling
Commandant of Berlin, leading the defence of the city against the Russians
Rudolf Weiss
Assistant to General Burgdorf who leaves the bunker with Boldt and von Loringhoven on a mission to contact General Wenck
General Walther Wenck
Commanding forces south of Berlin, Wenck was Hitler’s last hope for relief of the capital. He was actually trying to give Berliners safe passage out of the city
Henry Wermuth
Prisoner in Mauthausen concentration camp
Sisi Wilczek
Nurse escaping Vienna for her family home Moosham Castle
August Wollenhaupt
Hitler’s barber
Walther Wulff
Astrologer who advises Heinrich Himmler
Wilhelm Zander
One of the couriers of Hitler’s last testaments; assistant to Martin Bormann
Japanese
General Isamu Cho
General Mitsuru Ushijima’s Chief of Staff on Okinawa
Yasuo Ichijima
Kamikaze pilot
Haruo Ito
Commander of Rangoon jail
General Mitsuru Ushijima
Commander of Japanese forces on Okinawa
Colonel Hiromichi Yahara
Responsible for the strategy for the defence of Okinawa
New Zealander
Major Geoffrey Cox
Intelligence officer with the 2nd New Zealand Division
Russian
Vasily Grossman
Journalist accompanying the Russian forces attacking Berlin
Nina Markovna
Taken to Germany as a forced labourer, together with mother and brother
Vyacheslav Molotov
Russian Foreign Minister
Yelena Rzhevskaya
German language interpreter working for SMERSH, the Russian intelligence unit
Captain Stepan Neustroev
Commander of the 1st Battalion in the 756th Regiment of the 150th Rifle Division whose unit stormed the Reichstag
General Vasily Shatilov
Commander of the 150th Rifle Division of the Soviet army
Joseph Stalin
Leader of the Soviet Union; real name Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili
Swedish
Count Folke Bernadotte
Swedish diplomat negotiating the release of Scandinavian Jews from German camps
Felix Kersten
Swedish masseur treating Heinrich Himmler and encouraging peace talks with Count Bernadotte
Getty Images, © Popperfoto
Adolf Hitler greets members of the Hitler Youth behind the Reich Chancellery building on his 56th birthday, 20th April 1945.
Introduction
In April 1941, Al Bowlly, one of Britain’s best-loved singers, recorded a new Irving Berlin song at Abbey Road Studios in London. ‘When That Man Is Dead and Gone’ was to become one of the most popular songs of the war. In it he looked forward to the day when the ‘news’ll flash / Satan with the moustache’ is buried ‘beneath the lawn’. The song, al
though written by an American, summed up the mood of the British people in 1941, who regarded Hitler as a ridiculous yet dangerous figure, whose death they would happily celebrate. But it had not always been the case.
Even as late as the ‘Phoney War’ or what some called the ‘Bore War’ of the winter of 1939–40, there was considerable support for reaching an agreement with the German dictator. Within a year that changed. Attitudes hardened because of the humiliation of the Dunkirk evacuation in May 1940, and the Battle of Britain of the summer and autumn that followed, but most especially because of the Blitz, which brought terror to cities such as Bristol, Coventry, Glasgow, Liverpool and London.