Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler

by Simon Dunstan

  134 Hitler’s “Nero Decree”: William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (New York: Touchstone, 1959). Hitler was utterly merciless toward a German people that he believed had failed him. In a conversation with Albert Speer, he stated: “If the war is lost, the nation perishes. This fate is inevitable. There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue a most primitive existence. On the contrary, it will be wiser to destroy those things ourselves because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger Eastern nation. Besides, those who remain after the battle are only the inferior ones, for the good ones have been killed.” Not everyone agreed with the Führer’s monstrous nihilism; some tried to countermand the Nero Decree, including Albert Speer and many in the Wehrmacht. Foreseeing this opposition, Hitler declared in the decree that “All directives opposing this are invalid.” Bormann saw Speer’s disobedience as an opportunity to have him dragged before a court-martial but was unsuccessful. Enough of Bormann’s gauleiters followed his orders to make his threat to the Allied agents credible, including gauleiter August Eigruber of Oberdonau, who ensured that bombs were placed in the Altaussee art repository so that it did not “fall into the hands of Bolsheviks or International Jewry.” Ironically, Hitler’s Nero Decree was a remarkably similar concept to the Morgenthau Plan for reducing Germany to pastoral status.

  135 Bormann’s letter to his wife: Sayer and Botting, Nazi Gold.

  136 “Kaiseroda potassium mine”: Greg Bradsher, “Nazi Gold: The Merkers Mine Treasure,” Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives and Records Administration 31, no. 1 (1999).

  136 “134 repositories”: Whetton, Hitler’s Fortune.

  136 “Do Not Drop”: Edsel, Monuments Men. Oddly, the stencils on the crates were misspelled: they should have read stürzen, not stürtzen.

  137 “one of the most important intelligence hauls”: The National Archives, Kew, London; File ADM 223/214.

  137 Allied seizures of Nazi assets and recovery of loot: see notes, passim. In the final week of the war, numerous Allied Special Forces units descended on selected sites across the length and breadth of the Third Reich. In the north, 30 Advance Unit stormed into the port of Kiel ahead of the frontline troops to acquire the secrets of sophisticated U-boat designs and high-speed underwater propulsion devices. To the south, they captured Nazi V-2 rocket engineers and many tons of ballistic missile data and plans that formed the basis for the development of ICBMs during the Cold War and the race to the moon. Further east, a TICOM unit reached Hitler’s home at Berchtesgaden to seize the latest secure encoding machines that allowed the Nazi high command to communicate in total secrecy. Later, they discovered German interception equipment that was capable of decrypting Soviet radio traffic: a vital tool in the coming Cold War. Fifty miles east of Berchtesgaden, several Special Forces detachments, including OSS and British Special Operations Executive teams, code-named Historian, landed at Altaussee to secure Hitler’s fabulous hoard of artworks buried a mile below the surface of the earth in the labyrinthine Kaiser Josef salt mine before they were blown to smithereens by Bormann’s fanatical henchman, Gauleiter Adolf Eigruber. Among the hoard were 15 Rembrandts, 23 Bruegels, two Vermeers, 15 Canalettos, 15 Tintorettos, 8 Tiepolos, 4 Titians, and 2 da Vincis as well as sublime sculptures such as Michelangelo’s Madonna of Bruges. Days later, the Monuments Men arrived with the first American troops to retrieve all the priceless artifacts before the area became part of the Soviet zone of occupation.

  137 “the Führer flew into a rage”: von Hassell et al., Alliance of Enemies.

  137 “cement submarine”: Blaine Taylor, Hitler’s Headquarters: From Beer Hall to Bunker 1920–1945 (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2007). SS Capt. Helmut Beermann of the SS Begleit Kommando des Führers—Hitler’s personal bodyguard—gave a graphic description of life underground: “The whole atmosphere down there was … like being stranded in a cement submarine, or buried alive in some charnel house. People who work in diving bells probably feel less cramped. It was dank and dusty.… The ventilation could now be warm and sultry, now cold and clammy.… Then there [were] the fetid odors of boots, sweaty woolen uniforms and acrid coal-tar disinfectant. Toward the end, when the drainage packed in, it was as pleasant as working in a public urinal.”

  139 “Führer’s only unquestionably trusted deputy”: von Lang, Bormann.

  139 “useless as a bolt-hole”: Farago, Aftermath.

  139 “Bormann Bunker”: Sayer and Botting, Nazi Gold.

  140 “Ernst is still looking out for Ernst”: Manning, Martin Bormann.

  140 “war criminals fleeing justice”: Sayer and Botting, Nazi Gold. Kaltenbrunner was captured by the Allies on May 12, 1945 (see note for Chapter 12, “Villa Kerry,” page 304), condemned by the Nuremberg International Tribunal, and hanged on October 16, 1946.

  140 “highest priority signals”: von Hassell et al., Alliance of Enemies.

  140 “ceasefire came into effect in northern Italy”: On April 27, 1945, Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were captured by Italian communist partisans; the next day they were shot dead and their bodies mutilated before being strung up by the feet on the forecourt of a gas station on the Piazzale Loreto in Milan. The news of his ally’s gruesome fate was a significant factor in Hitler’s late decision to flee from Berlin.

  140 “The Führer is dead”: Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall 1945 (London: Viking, 2002).

  141 “Where is Adolf Hitler?”: O’Donnell, The Bunker (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978.) O’Donnell interviewed Johannes Hentschel, who recalled the senior doctor well. Her fluency in German was impressive: “die Klamotten” is typical Berlin slang for “duds” or “party clothes” and not found in the average German language schoolbook.

  141 “an identifiable corpse”: The Soviet authorities instituted a thorough investigation, code-named Operation Myth, of the events in the Führerbunker during the final days of the Third Reich and the supposed death of Adolf Hitler. All the surviving captured eyewitnesses from the bunker were subject to intense, prolonged interrogation by the NKVD/MVD. An interim report was completed in late 1946 but it did not satisfy Joseph Stalin. A more comprehensive investigation was then undertaken, resulting in The Hitler Book, which was submitted to Stalin on December 29, 1949. The Soviet leader read the 413-page report and, after appending some annotations, locked the single copy of the file in his desk drawer, where it remained until his death in March 1953.

  141 “fascist trick”: Beevor, Berlin.

  Chapter 14: THE BUNKER

  146 “general layout of the Führerbunker”: After the Battle magazine, “The Reich Chancellery and the Berlin Bunker Then and Now,” 61 (1988).

  147 “emergency exit”: Seidler and Zeigart, Hitler’s Secret Headquarters; see also “Politicization of the Construction Industry 1933–1945,” pp. 3–4, from the history section of Hochtief website http://www.hochtief.com/hochtief_en/97.jtml; also http://berliner-unterwelten.de/fuehrer-bunker.328.1.html. The escape tunnel’s exit into the U-bahn near Mohrenstrasse is still there, although the Chancellery buildings were finally destroyed in 1950 and the Führerbunker in 1989.

  150 “speaking as if”: Time magazine, “As Long As I Live …,” May 28, 1945, quoting a Berlin dispatch dated May 1, 1945, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,775644,00.html. This dispatch was based on an interview with Maj. Ivan Nikitine, who is believed to have been the deputy commander of the SMERSH team from 3rd Shock Army, which had entered the bunker immediately after the first assault troops and interrogated many of the captured survivors. Nikitine reported that, under questioning, Germans who had told of Hitler’s death “twisted their stories, clashed in detail,” and finally admitted that no one had actually seen the Führer die.

  150 “powerful and dangerous men”: On two points the description of the scene on April 27 is problematic. One is trivial: the eyewitness was described by a n
onexistent rank, “SS-Untergruppenführer.” However, a number of members of the SS-Begleit Kommando des Führers holding the rank of SS-Untersturmführer (second lieutenant) were present in the bunker. More puzzlingly, the original Time article has Bormann entering with Heinrich Himmler, not Müller. On May 1, Maj. Nikitine’s interrogatee might not have known that Himmler had left Berlin months earlier, retiring to a sanatorium on March 13; or it may simply have been a slip of the tongue—hardly impossible, under SMERSH questioning. In any case, Müller, always one of the least visible members of the hierarchy, would have been unknown by sight to a junior officer. Under U.S. interrogation, Erich Kempka, head of the motor pool in the Chancellery, said that he had never seen Müller and was even uncertain of his exact job.

  151 “to secure Hitler’s escape from the capital”: Weidling to Soviet interrogators, 1945. Descent into Nightmare (The Third Reich series) (New York: Time-Life Education, 1992).

  151 “sent and signed the message”: Michael Bar-Zohar, The Avengers (London: Arthur Barker, 1968).

  151 T43 Schlüsselfernschreibmaschine: Josef Langer, “SFM T-43,” online research paper, Vienna, June 2001, http://www.alpenfestung.com/funk_sfm_t_43.htm. See also Jack B. Copeland et al., Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park’s Codebreaking Computers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). The T43 had been in development since before the war, and an earlier version had been on the warship Admiral Graf Spee when it was scuttled off Uruguay in December 1939.

  151 Hans-Erich Voss: In 1942, as commander of the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, Voss had been handpicked by Joseph Goebbels to act as the navy’s representative in Hitler’s inner circle. He was wounded in the bomb attempt on Hitler’s life at the Rastenburg Wolf’s Lair headquarters on July 20, 1944.

  151 Villa Winter: Robert H. Whealey, Hitler and Spain: The Nazi Role in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1989).

  152 Hermann Fegelein: When Anni Winter—Hitler’s housekeeper at his Munich apartment at Prinzregentenplatz 16—was interrogated in Nuremberg on November 6, 1945, she spoke scathingly about both Bormann—whom she described as a brutal, heartless cynic—and Fegelein. She suggested that the latter had an affair with Eva Braun. Cornell University Law Library, “Frau Anni Winter,” in Donovan Nuremberg Trial collection, Subdivision 8/Hitler, section 8.02 German (English translation available); see http://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/donovan/show.asp?id=567&query=.

  152 “In the city as a whole”: Beevor, Berlin.

  152 Wilhelm Mohnke: Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting, Hitler’s Last General: The Case Against Wilhelm Mohnke (London: Bantam Press, 1989). The term Begleit is translated here as “escort.” Identifying exact units is complicated by parallel titles. The original Führer Begleit Bataillon was composed of men from two elite units, the army’s Wachregiment Berlin and the air force’s Regiment Hermann Göring. This was later expanded, and most of its elements were transferred to the fighting front, although a company remained. The SS-Begleit Kommando des Führers was the handpicked team of bodyguards directly responsible for Hitler’s day-to-day safety and providing his valets and orderlies, which in 1945 numbered about 140 officers and men commanded by SS-Untersturmführer Franz Schädle.

  154 Oskar Schäfer: http://www.ritterkreuztraeger-1939-45.de/Waffen-SS/S/Schaefer-Oskar.htm. He had volunteered in 1938 and fought as an infantryman with the SS Regiment “Deutschland” before being transferred into the 5th SS Armored Division “Wiking” in 1943 and becoming a tank soldier.

  154 Fegelein’s capture: Joachim Fest, Inside Hitler’s Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004); see also William B. Breuer, Feuding Allies: The Private Wars of the High Command (Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 2007).

  154 Peter Högl: Anton Joachimsthaler, The Last Days of Hitler: The Legends, the Evidence, the Truth (London: Arms & Armour Press, 1999).

  155 interview with Fegelein’s father: Kenneth D. Alford and Theodore P. Savas, Nazi Millionaires: The Allied Search for Hidden SS Gold (Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2002).

  156 “A lone pilot was standing by in the shadows”: O’Donnell, Bunker.

  156 “myth of Fegelein’s execution”: Ibid.

  156 “light concrete panel”: Time magazine, “As Long As I Live …”

  157 “deceived even those quite close to him”: Facial analysis by Alf Linney, professor of medical physics, University College London, commissioned by the authors, August 2010. The leading British expert on facial identification, Prof. Linney is regularly consulted by the Metropolitan Police as an expert witness. Professor Linney has proven scientifically that the man depicted in frames from Walter Frentz’s footage of the Hitler Youth presentation on March 20 is not Adolf Hitler. (The presentation did not take place, as frequently claimed, on April 20—the film was released as a newsreel on March 22.)

  157 “later be found on the floor”: Time magazine, “As Long As I Live …”; Maj. Nikitine mentioned the charred note.

  157 “fitted perfectly”: www.mp44.nl/equipment/gas_mask.htm.

  159 Ilse Braun: United Press, Warsaw, “Hitler Escaped in U-Boat, Says German Pilot,” December 12, 1947, published in the St. Petersburg Times, December 13, 1947, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=fyNPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=504DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4293,888260&dq=hitler-escaped-in-u-boat-says-german-pilot&hl=en. For her disagreement with Eva, see Beevor, Berlin. In his testimony to a Warsaw court in 1947, the pilot Baumgart refers to Eva’s sister as one of the escape party.

  159 Joachim Rumohr: Axis Biographical Research, www.geocities.com/~orion47/. See also The Associated Press, “Flier Claims Hitler Escaped,” Warsaw, December 18, 1947, for the report of Baumgart’s testimony; http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=hSNPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=504DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4258,4339256&dq=baumgart+hitler+warsaw&hl=en. See also reproduction of this article on page 163 in Chapter 15. Baumgart refers to a General “Rommer” or “Roemer” and his wife being with the escape party. The only Nazi general with a name similar to this was Fegelein’s close friend Rumohr.

  159 Tiger II tanks: Oskar Shäfer’s testimony; see http://www.ritterkreuztraeger-1939-45.de/Waffen-SS/S/Schaefer-Oskar.htm.

  Chapter 15: THE FLIGHT

  160 Kampfgeschwader 200: Thomas and Ketley, KG 200. Officially formed on February 20, 1944, KG 200 had brought together a number of existing sensitive or clandestine Luftwaffe operations—testing and employing captured Allied aircraft, inserting Abwehr agents behind Allied lines, testing “pathfinder” and radar-jamming techniques, flying unconventional bomber missions, and carrying out long-range flights to Japan. Despite its new umbrella identity, KG 200 comprised different groups and squadrons operating from separate bases, and for security reasons they were kept ignorant of each other’s activities. Rechlin was the base for KG 200’s 6th and 7th Squadrons (Staffeln), equipped with “Mistletoe” unconventional bomber aircraft; on March 6, 1945, these, and Hs 293 radio-guided bombs, had been used against Soviet-held bridges on the Oder river. The long-range specialists of KG 200 were the 1st Squadron, based at Finow.

  160 Peter Erich Baumgart: The Associated Press, “Luftwaffe Pilot Sent to Gaol for Five Years,” Warsaw, August 8, 1949, published in Canberra Times, August 9, 1949, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/690899.

  161 “Baumgart’s orders were”: The Associated Press, “Flier Claims Hitler Escaped”; see also note “Baumgart's account,” below.

  161 “just four days earlier”: The Associated Press, “RAF’s Jets Slash German Airfield,” London, published in the New York Times, April 24, 1945, http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40E1FFB3C5F1B7B93C7AB178FD85F418485F9.

  163 Baumgart’s account: The Associated Press, “Flier Claims Hitler Escaped.” Baumgart’s trial in Warsaw was covered extensively by international news agencies, which published regular updates. Baumgart had been psychiatrically assessed when he first made his claims about flying Hitler out of Berlin; he was declared sane. When he repeated the claims in court, his trial was adjourned for forty-tw
o days; he was once again sent for psychiatric assessment and again was declared sane. According to research carried out by Holocaust groups concerning Auschwitz, the pilot was released in December 1951 after serving three years of his five-year sentence. Nothing is ever heard of him again.

  164 Friedrich von Angelotty-Mackensen: Interrogation of Friedrich Arthur Rene Lotta von Angelotty-Mackensen, Nuremberg Palace of Justice, March 18, 1948 (Gumberg Library Digital Collections of Duquesne University, “Musmanno Collection—Interrogation of Hitler Associates”). See also http://digital.library.duq.edu/cdm-musmanno; see also The Associated Press, Stockholm, May 8, 1945. Mackensen’s three-hour interrogation by Michael Musmanno, one of the American jurists, is rambling, and he repeatedly confuses dates. Mackensen was by then using a wheelchair, having suffered a broken spine in a forced landing in southern Sweden on May 8 after his attempted flight to Malaga, Spain (his was one of eleven German aircraft that were shot down or force-landed that day during such attempts). He had recovered consciousness in a hospital at POW Camp 404 in Marseille, France, on May 16. Throughout his interrogation Mackensen states that he had been delirious for much of his time on the ground in Berlin and Denmark. Although it was dismissed as “fantastic” by Musmanno, close reading of Mackensen’s story reveals details that coincide with Baumgart’s account. Mackensen, too, seems to have vanished from sight after the war.

  164 “20,000 reichsmarks”: The Associated Press, December 19, 1947.

  164 “message canister”: Interrogation of Angelotty-Mackensen.

  164 Werner Baumbach: Werner Baumbach, Broken Swastika: The Defeat of the Luftwaffe (Munich: Pflaum, 1949; London: Robert Hale, 1960). Baumbach never explains why he was at Travemünde on April 29, but his diary notes speak for themselves. He went to Argentina after the war, working on aviation projects and becoming a friend of Col. Perón. He eventually died in a crash while flying an Argentine-bought British Avro Lancaster bomber over the Andes on October 20, 1953.