by Emma Craigie
00.35am
In Berlin Robert Ritter von Greim and Hanna Reitsch climb out of the armoured vehicle which has brought them to the Brandenburg Gate, where a light aircraft is waiting. They squash into the small two-seater plane. Reitsch is at the controls with von Greim behind her, his crutches jammed down by his feet. They set off down the makeshift Tiergarten runway. The plane picks up speed and soars into the night sky. It’s immediately illuminated by Russian searchlights and comes under fire – but they make it into the clouds. Reitsch looks down at the cloud bank, shining in the silver moonlight, ‘still, serene, idyllic’, and thinks that it looks like a giant quilt wrapped over the flaming city. She heads for Rechlin airfield, where von Greim will issue his first instructions for the Luftwaffe.
Hanna Reitsch is the only woman to be awarded the German Iron Cross (First Class). She won it for her bravery as a test pilot. Before and after the war she set more than 40 gliding and altitude records. In February 1944 she suggested to Hitler that the Luftwaffe develop a plan she called Operation Suicide, in which pilots sacrificed their lives for the Fatherland in the style of Japanese kamikaze pilots. Hitler agreed to the plan but, to Reitsch’s disappointment, felt that it wasn’t the right ‘psychological’ moment to put it into operation.
00.45am
Following Hitler’s instructions, Heinz Linge puts through a call to Hitler’s driver, Erich Kempka, in the underground car park, to ask him to source some petrol.
‘Petrol?’
‘Yes, petrol. We need about 200 litres.’
‘A mere 200 litres?’ Kempka quips sarcastically. Petrol is desperately scarce. ‘Is this a joke? What are you going to do with 200 litres of petrol?’
‘Believe me, Erich, I cannot tell you on the phone, but this is not a joke. We need 200 litres of petrol delivered to the exit of the Führerbunker as soon as possible. Do whatever you need to do to get hold of it.’
Linge puts down the phone and pours himself a couple of glasses of schnapps to help him get over the shock of the implication of this order.
Kempka orders an assistant to syphon off whatever remnants of petrol he can find in the cars in the underground garages. The concrete roof has fallen in and most of the cars are covered in masonry.
‘When the Chief has won the war, I can play my own part in the film of our life story.’
1.00am
Eva Braun and Adolf Hitler emerge from their rooms, her arm through his. She is in her black dress. It is a simple, elegant dress, decorated around the neck with sequins. Black is the traditional colour of German wedding dresses, though white is now more fashionable. As a girl, dreaming of marriage, Eva was photographed dressing up in her grandmother’s black lace wedding dress. Hitler has not changed his clothes and is wearing his usual black trousers and grey military jacket. Walther Wagner, the civil magistrate, greets them nervously. The couple take their seats on one side of the empty map table, flanked by their witnesses; Wagner sits opposite.
Braun and Hitler met in October 1929 at the Hoffman photographic studio in Munich shortly after she had started working there as an assistant. Hitler was one of Hoffman’s main customers, commissioning endless propaganda portraits. She was 17 and he was 40. One day he came into the studio, wearing his beige belted Burberry raincoat just as she was climbing a ladder to reach some files from a top shelf. Braun was embarrassed because she had shortened her skirt that morning and she could tell that the man with the ‘funny moustache’ was looking at her legs. She was worried that he would notice that her hem was uneven.
1929 was the year when Hitler became a household name in Germany and the Nazi Party’s popularity began to soar as German unemployment rose in the wake of the Wall Street Crash. Eva Braun was soon in love with this increasingly powerful man and did all she could to insinuate herself into his circle. From about 1931 Hitler started to invite Braun to cafés, to the opera, and eventually to stay.
The first four years of their relationship were very difficult for Eva Braun. Hitler showed her very little interest or concern. She stayed in Munich, working at the photographic studio, living with her strict Catholic parents, while he worked in Berlin, surrounding himself with adoring fans. He rarely called. He frequently let her down. Twice she attempted suicide, and it was after the second attempt in May 1935, when her sister Ilse found her in a coma, after she had taken an overdose of the sedative Vanodorm, that he decided to accept her as his official mistress.
Hitler’s relationship with Eva Braun was always hidden from the public, but it was now made known to his staff and immediate circle. He bought her a house in Wasserstrasse in Munich and in the following months had a suite of rooms refurbished for her in the Berghof, his mountain home in Obersalzberg. She still had to hide away when there were official visitors, but privately she became mistress of the Berghof. Their relationship became steady, comfortable. She knew that her job was to keep him relaxed, and she was good at it. He loved her quality of ‘Gemütlichkeit’, cosiness. He used to say, ‘Eva gives me a rest. She keeps my mind off things I don’t want to think about.’ Always a passionate photographer and film maker who loved to star in her own home movies, Eva Braun dreamed of Hollywood. She would tell people, ‘When the Chief has won the war, I can play my own part in the film of our life story.’
Braun’s nickname for Hitler is Chief (German ‘Chef’); he calls her ‘Tschapperl’ which translates as ‘wench, bumpkin or idiot’.
The two-page marriage certificate is laid out on the map table in the Führerbunker conference room. Wagner reads out the preliminary questions about the couple and fills in the information with a thick blue-ink pen. Hitler omits the names of his parents and gives his address as the Reich Chancellery. Braun, apparently flustered, gives two different street numbers – 8 and 12 – as her address on Wasserstrasse (12 is correct). Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann give their details as witnesses. The bride and groom are then asked to confirm that they are of ‘pure Aryan descent and free of any hereditary diseases that would exclude them from marriage’.
Hitler’s descent, and in particular the absence of any hereditary diseases, was in fact very much in doubt. His paternal grandmother was unmarried at the time of his father’s birth and the identity of his paternal grandfather was never confirmed, but it was widely believed to be his foster father, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, whose surname he took. The change of spelling to Hitler was thanks to a phonetic transcription by the pastor of Döllersheim who kept the register of births and deaths. Johann Nepomuk Hiedler was also the grandfather of Hitler’s mother, Klara, so that Hitler’s parents seem to have been uncle and niece. The family was certainly beset with health issues. Adolf was one of only two of their six children to survive childhood. The other, his sister Paula, had a learning disability. Hitler himself is believed to have had two forms of genital abnormality: an undescended testicle and a rare condition called penile hypospadias in which the urethra opens on the underside of the penis or, in some cases, on the perineum. The popular British army marching song, sung to the tune of Colonel Bogey, that began, ‘Hitler has only got one ball/The other is in the Albert Hall’, may have been more accurate than the troops ever imagined.
Having received satisfactory responses, Walther Wagner then reads out the marriage vows: ‘Mein Führer, Adolf Hitler, are you willing to take Fräulein Eva Braun as your wife? If you are, answer, “I do”.’
Adolf Hitler repeats, ‘I do.’
‘Fräulein Eva Braun, are you willing to take our Führer, Adolf Hitler, as your husband? If you are, answer, “I do”.’
Eva Braun repeats, ‘I do.’
Hitler places a gold ring on Eva’s finger, and she places one on his. The rings have been taken from the bodies of murdered Gestapo prisoners. The couple discover the rings (hastily obtained from the Gestapo treasury) are too big.
Wagner then declares ‘this marriage is legal before the law’. When he drew up the document Wagner expected the ceremony would be completed before midnight and he dated it �
�28 April 1945’. He now handwrites ‘29’ on top of the ‘28’. Then he passes the pen to Hitler as the first named and the first to sign.
The two words ‘Adolf’ and ‘Hitler’, side by side and far apart, both slope steeply downward. ‘Adolf’ is diminished to three zigzag lines with a cross, representing the horizontal of the ‘f’, on the lowest line. ‘Hitler’ is more ornate, beginning with a complex loop, but the following letters are tightly compacted.
Eva Braun’s signature is in tidy schoolgirl italics. She automatically begins her surname with the letter B, then crosses it out and signs, ‘Eva Hitler, geb (née) Braun’. Goebbels and Bormann then sign as official witnesses. Goebbels uses the title Dr, and like Eva writes neatly in the correct place. Martin Bormann’s signature is a big confident illegible scrawl. The final signature, ‘WWagner’, is easy to read.
‘How I love him! What a fellow! Then he speaks. How small am I! He gives me his photograph. With a greeting to the Rhine-land. Heil Hitler! I want Hitler to be my friend. His photograph is on my desk.’
The witnesses to the marriage are the only two senior Nazis who have stayed with Hitler in the bunker. They have been locked in a battle for primacy of position since 1933. Both are ruthlessly ambitious. Witnessing Hitler’s marriage and facing death at his side is their final reward.
Goebbels is not a medical doctor but uses the title he earned by completing a doctoral thesis about 19th-century Romantic literature at the University of Heidelberg in 1921. A very short, thin, dark-haired man with a deformed foot, Goebbels was mockingly known as ‘our little doctor’ by those in Hitler’s circle who conformed to the strapping blonde Aryan ideal which his propaganda promoted.
As Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels has been instrumental in creating the myth of the Führer, the great leader who will save the nation, whom he has frequently presented in biblical terms, calling Hitler ‘holy and untouchable’ and even anticipating his death in Christ-like imagery: ‘An hour may come when the mob rages around you and roars, “Crucify him!” Then we shall stand firm as iron and shout and sing “Hosanna!”’
Goebbels’ personal relationship with Hitler is intense. In 1926 Goebbels demanded that ‘the petty bourgeois Adolf Hitler’ be expelled from the National Socialist Party. But three weeks later Hitler embraced him publicly and Goebbels swept away his previous objections to Hitler’s views on communism, foreign policy and private property. His private diary takes on a homoerotic charge, and an adolescent tone: ‘How I love him! What a fellow! Then he speaks. How small am I! He gives me his photograph. With a greeting to the Rhineland. Heil Hitler! I want Hitler to be my friend. His photograph is on my desk.’ Hitler initially rewards this enthusiastic little man with promotion, but later cools. Hitler never allows any of his inner circle to feel secure in their position.
Martin Bormann is the Führer’s private secretary. His name is largely unknown to the public but as the person who controls communication between Hitler and the rest of the world he is arguably the most powerful person in the country, in some ways more powerful than the Führer. In the isolation of the bunker he decides what information Hitler gets, and who is allowed to communicate with the leader. He controls Hitler’s finances. Among Hitler’s entourage he is nicknamed the ‘Brown Eminence’ and is widely loathed. Eva certainly detests him. She has always felt herself in competition with him for Hitler’s attention and has resented the fact that he is the person who gives her an allowance and to whom she has to go if she incurs extra expenses. He is a short, overweight, graceless man who understands the power of secrecy. He has never courted publicity and has always worked as a functionary. The only time he has ever come to the public’s attention was in 1923 when, together with Rudolf Höss, who went on to become Commandant of Auschwitz, he was arrested for the murder of his elementary school teacher Walther Kadow. Kadow moved in the same far-right circles and was suspected of having betrayed a colleague. Höss and Bormann lured him into a forest where they beat him with maple saplings until he collapsed. They then slit his throat and finally shot him in the head. Höss was sentenced to ten years’ hard labour, Bormann to one year in prison. On the grounds that it was impossible to decide whether Kadow had died from the beating, the throat-slitting or the shooting, both were found guilty of manslaughter rather than murder.
For the last four years Bormann has stayed constantly at Hitler’s side, keeping the same unconventional hours, present but silent. His ability to listen matches Hitler’s ability to speak. He is ruthlessly efficient and always carries a notebook which he whips out whenever the Führer expresses an opinion or even hints at an instruction.
1.25am
Landing safely at Rechlin airfield, 150km north of Berlin, an emotional Hanna Reitsch is exhilarated by the successful flight. Robert Ritter von Greim, pale with pain, immediately addresses the handful of staff who remain at the airfield and gives the order for all aircraft to support the relief of Berlin. His words are pointless. The airport has been devastated by Allied bombing. The few planes that are left will make no difference.
1.30am
After the marriage ceremony in the Führerbunker, the couple go back to their private rooms for champagne, tea and sandwiches with their senior staff. Hitler goes briefly to check on Traudl Junge’s progress with typing the testaments, then joins the party. He turns down the champagne but, most unusually, as he is normally teetotal, he accepts a small glass of Hungarian wine, sweetened with sugar. Walther Wagner stays for 20 minutes. He has a glass of champagne and a liverwurst sausage, and then sets off back to his Home Guard post in a wine cellar on Unter den Linden. He will be shot in the head two days later, caught in the crossfire of a street battle.
Hitler’s valet, Heinz Linge, is struck by Eva’s composure. He congratulates her as ‘Frau Hitler’ and her eyes light up. For a moment she lays her hand on his forearm and smiles.
Hitler’s mind is still on his political testament; he sends both Martin Bormann and Joseph Goebbels away from the party, at different moments, to add more names to the list of appointments which Traudl Junge is still typing. Junge is tired and very frustrated by the constant changes.
It really makes no odds to us if we kill someone.
Heinrich Himmler
Three hundred kilometres away, in his headquarters in the police station in Lübeck near the Baltic coast, Heinrich Himmler is poring over astrological charts with the astrologer Walther Wulff and Walter Schellenberg, the SS head of foreign intelligence.
As soon as Himmler heard that news of his attempts to start peace negotiations with the Allies had become public, he summoned Schellenberg, who had been involved in setting up the meetings with the Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte.
As Schellenberg wrote later, ‘I realised that my position with Himmler would now be so difficult that I should have to face the fact that I might be liquidated.’
In order to protect himself, Schellenberg decided to take Walther Wulff with him to meet Himmler. He knew that the deposed SS chief could never resist having his horoscope read and he hoped that Wulff would be able to keep Himmler calm.
Himmler is chewing on a fat cigar. He smells strongly of brandy and is sweating and shaking and close to tears. He is terrified that he could be arrested or simply shot on Hitler’s orders at any moment. Schellenberg and Wulff are equally tense. Wulff has spent time imprisoned by the Gestapo. He has agreed to help Schellenberg but he is anxious not to aggravate the SS chief with his predictions. As agreed with Schellenberg in advance, Wulff tells Himmler that the stars suggest the best course of action is to send Schellenberg back to Count Bernadotte in Sweden. Schellenberg is committed to trying to rescue the talks about talks. Studying the charts, Himmler finally agrees that Schellenberg can discuss the ending of the German occupation of Scandinavia with Bernadotte.
Himmler’s biggest concern is what the charts have to say about his personal future and that of his mistress, Hedwig Potthas, and his children. He has no idea what to do and keeps asking Wulff whet
her he should kill himself, or whether he could have a future. He asks Wulff to explain how safe various countries are, in astrological terms. Should he flee, for example, to Czechoslovakia? Wulff advises that the charts aren’t looking good for Czechoslovakia. It is the position of the stars, rather than the position of the Russian army approaching the Czech capital that concerns Himmler. He eventually decides that he will remain in Lübeck but that Schellenberg should travel to Denmark rather than Sweden. With enormous relief, Schellenberg rushes off to pack.
Schellenberg’s nervousness that he might be ‘liquidated’ is based on the fact that Himmler holds it a virtue to overcome any feelings of compassion which might prevent one from carrying out an execution. Addressing SS officials at a secret meeting in 1943, he explained, ‘Most of you here know what it means when 100 corpses lie next to each other, when there are 500 or when there are 1,000. To have endured this and at the same time to have remained a decent person – with exceptions due to human weaknesses – has made us tough, and is a glorious chapter that has not and will not be spoken of.’
2.30am
In Villabassa in the Italian Alps, British MI6 agent Sigismund Payne-Best is sitting in his bedroom in the Hotel Bachmann waiting for news. Telephone contact has been made with German army units still fighting in the hills around Villabassa. Payne-Best had sent a message to the German area commander saying that he must come to their assistance – if the Prominente are executed by the SS, the Commander would be held responsible by the Allies when the war is won, for allowing such a blatant war crime to take place.