Hitler's Last Witness (27 page)

The bunker corridor was empty again. Retzbach received me with the words: ‘So, the boss is burning now.' For a moment I had the mental image of my service document flaring up in the flames.

‘Go up there if you like.' He nodded towards the garden exit.

‘No, I'd rather not, you go,' I replied.

‘I'm off then.' Retzbach said that more to himself than to me. As if in a trance he stood, said something to take his leave and went away. I never heard anything from him again.

Hentschel and I sat together by the telephone switchboard. We just sat, not talking, not moving. Paralysed with anxiety. I imagined hearing the tread of the death squad's boots sent below by Gestapo Müller to shoot us. I released the safety catch of my pistol. I do not know how long we sat there, but Müller never came down.

After a while, Günsche joined us and reported quickly on the burning. It had to be done quickly. It was more than just laying out the bodies, pouring petrol over them and lighting it, and it could not be done under permanent artillery fire. One should at least have dug out a small depression, I told Günsche reproachfully. He merely shrugged his shoulders.

Finally, those remaining gathered in the corridor, Mohnke among them, and Goebbels of course. What now? Soon we had a consensus: negotiate with the Russians. We had to connect a line to their field telephones. Linesman Gretz appeared with a giant drum of cable, pointed to two plug points on the junction box and said: ‘Those two connections there – they have to be kept free under all circumstances. Now I'll go over to the Russians.' The Red Army was already in Zimmer-Strasse, not four hundred metres away.

Gretz was accompanied by some men from Mohnke's company. After a while he came back and I put the cable end into one of the free points. ‘The line is dead,' I announced regretfully. Gretz checked it for himself and nodded. ‘I'll go back over to them.'

It was not long before he returned and told me the reason why the first attempt failed: ‘The cable wasn't earthed.' I plugged in the cable again, and this time I heard a Russian voice on the other end. ‘Moment, moment,' I said, and connected the call to General Krebs, who was fluent in Russian. Before the war, he had been the military attaché in Moscow.

Out of curiosity I listened to the entire conversation but understood nothing. I spoke no Russian – something that would soon change. Apparently, Krebs agreed a meeting with the Russian general. After that there was a situation conference, and a long discussion on what was going to be said at the negotiation.

1
Heinrich Müller (1900–1945(?)) was head of Amt IV (Counter-terrorism), RSHA.

*
Linge remembered it differently. ‘As I was passing the lobby doors I smelt the burnt powder of a discharged weapon. I did not want to go in alone. I went to the conference room where some people were gathered around Martin Bormann. I gave Bormann a sign to accompany me to Hitler's study. I opened the door and went in followed by Bormann.' Heinz Linge,
With Hitler to the End
, London 2009, p. 199. The three principal witnesses of the suicides to finish up in Soviet hands – Misch, Linge and Günsche – all disagreed on how the suicides were discovered and by whom, where Hitler was sitting, where the blood, if any, fell and who carried out which body and in what order. It would have been these discrepancies, if repeated to the Soviets, which led to all the tortures inflicted later ‘to get at the truth'. Erich Kempka, who avoided Russian captivity, provided a fourth variation in his book
Die letzten Tage mit Adolf Hitler
, DVG Preussisch Oldendorf, 5th edn 2004, pp. 95, 99) where he had the two bodies actually burning between 1400 and 1930 hrs, starting ninety minutes before the suicides occurred. (TN)

Chapter Fifteen

Negotiations and the Goebbels's Children: 1 May 1945

EARLY THAT MORNING, KREBS
went with some of Mohnke's people to a place
[1]
determined by General Vassili Chuikov.
[2]
Goebbels kept phoning Lieutenant Colonel Johannes Seifert, at the Gau HQ. He was the sector commandant of Zitadelle, under Brigadier Erich Bärenfanger, the commander of defence Zone A, and General Rauch, responsible for defence sector Charlottenburg. My head was spinning. Krebs came back after about four hours. From what I could make out, the Soviets had insisted that the capitulation had to be unconditional. They had no interest in any kind of separate negotiation. Krebs handed over a piece of paper,
[3]
which Goebbels studied indignantly. He would never sign anything of that kind, he shouted, and Bormann, Burgdorf and Krebs agreed. This last chance was therefore gone. For myself I still had a slight hope that Goebbels would let me go. Now that Hitler was dead, according to Hitler's Testament Goebbels was the Reich chancellor and my new boss. There was no doubt that he would choose suicide now that we had the Russians' final decision. Therefore, what use was I here? Around me there were departures and escapes.

It was not Goebbels but Martin Bormann who approached me, however: ‘You stay here. You have still got things to do.' From now on, all talk revolved around breaking out from the Reich Chancellery, which Mohnke was to arrange – but I was not to be included. ‘Light, air, water, telephone and telegraphy – those responsible for these stay behind,' Bormann made clear.

I returned to my workplace. ‘Things to do' there certainly were. Bormann was right. The telephone calls continued to pour in.

Towards five in the afternoon, Frau Goebbels appeared at the telephone switchboard with all six children from the ante-bunker below. She pushed the eldest girl on the only chair, lifted the small ones on the table. Magda Goebbels then began changing one after the other into the same type of long white nightdress. She herself wore a brown dress with white trim hardly contrasting from her pallid face. She combed their hair and caressed the children gently. The nine-year-old Helga was crying. Frau Goebbels spoke softly and seriously with the children but was very tender with them. I sat with my back to her at my switchboard, heard her talking about Uncle Adolf as though he were still alive. I saw the children on the table, out of the corner of my eye. I tried to concentrate on my work and kept the headphones tight over my ears, even when I had no calls.

I knew that this was the final parting of a mother from her children, but I did not want to see it. Frau Goebbels was preparing her children for death. My telephone switchboard was the only place where nobody would bother her. Above in the ante-bunker they were excitedly making up the break-out groups.
[4]
There were civilians running about as well. Not much unsettled me in the sea of horrors except what was going on around me, which defied description. There I sat, until a short while ago the bodyguard of the Führer, Adolf Hitler, but I could not even protect these children.

I busied myself with telephone calls, kept myself facing my switchboard. The whole thing lasted half an hour. Then Frau Goebbels went back to the ante-bunker with the children.

I was still trying to rid myself of the thoughts as to what would happen upstairs next when Goebbels's personal adviser Dr Werner Naumann
*
entered my domain. ‘If he had his way,' he said, indicating Goebbels's room with a thumb, ‘the children wouldn't be here at all.' Naumann was certain that Goebbels wanted to have flown the children out, but had given in to the iron will of his wife.

‘How . . .?' My voice broke, and Naumann understood.

‘Dr Stumpfegger is giving them some sweetened water.'

My chest tightened; I felt ill. My daughter – she was just one year old.

Towards 1900 hrs, Frau Goebbels returned alone from the ante-bunker. She was as pale as the harshly lit wall, her face frozen. Her eyes were red, but as she passed me in the lobby to Goebbels's room I saw that she was not crying. Only when she sat herself at the table did her body begin to tremble lightly. I saw her spread out a hand of cards and put them in order.

When I described this scene to my wife many years later she explained that Magda Goebbels was playing Patience. I did not know that game then. Dr Goebbels arrived and looked at her without speaking. I had calls waiting for him but did not tell him. His children were dead.

How can one murder one's children? How can a mother murder her children? All six? ‘Misch, Misch, you are a fish,' I could still hear their joyful children's voices as they teased me, jumping past. Such lovely kids. How often have I been asked later what I thought when Hitler was dead. Finally, I thought, finally. The most dreadful thing I experienced in the bunker was not
his
death. The worst thing was the killing of these children. I know that I could have done nothing. Nobody could have dissuaded her from her decision. Not the secretaries, not Hanna Reitsch, not Eva, not even her husband. I came to terms with so much – but never with this.

I have been on the receiving end of much ill will for saying that I consider Helga, Hilde, Helmut, Hedda, Holde and Heide Goebbels to have been victims of the Third Reich. I stand by it. Later in captivity I met RSD colleague Hans Hofbeck. He told me that the bodies of the children had been specially laid out. The Russians had rounded up some Berliners from the street and led them past the corpses. The Berlin citizens are then supposed to have thrown stones and spat upon the dead children. Why would they do that?

Eventually, Frau Goebbels rose and went upstairs. Alone, without her husband. That was the last time I saw her.

A short while afterwards I connected a telephone call from Busse to Burgdorf and listened in. Only later did I discover that they were related by marriage. Busse said it looked bad – there would probably be nothing for it but to accept captivity. Burgdorf should greet his wife for him. A week before such a statement would have been dangerous. It must therefore finally be over. After this call I plucked up courage to approach Dr Goebbels: ‘Herr Reich chancellor, you will certainly know that upstairs they are putting together the break-out groups. I request permission to be allowed to join them.' Goebbels nodded: ‘Yes, of course – but not yet. I shall let you know, Misch, when you can go.'

Now we were no more than a small company in the Führerbunker: Goebbels, generals Burgdorf and Krebs, Hentschel, Dr Naumann and myself. Now and again, we were joined by Goebbels's adjutant Günter Schwägermann, the valet Günther Ochs and Dr Stumpfegger. Axmann, who had not been seen for some time recently, had meanwhile reappeared. His uniform was smeared with dirt. He had been reconnoitring escape routes, and apparently this had taken him through many cellar holes. Axmann offered to include me in his break-out group. I had still not been released from duty, however, and Axmann disappeared once more without speaking to me again. Actually, I was quite glad he did so, for there had been a rumour about doing the break-out with a panzer. I had little enthusiasm for the idea. If things went wrong we were likely to be fried in it! The alternatives I was imagining did not promise to be any more pleasant, but forcing a way through the Russians in a panzer was not my thing. I was to rue this decision, for it was the first of a string of bad decisions which led me into the Soviet torture chambers.

I kept looking nervously at Goebbels as he crept through the bunker rooms. Martin Bormann had come by one last time to take his leave of Goebbels and then of myself. He was wearing a hat, a long black leather coat, beneath it a paratrooper's camouflage smock. In his left hand was a briefcase, the right hand he extended to me: ‘You are still needed. You will come afterwards. You know where: Weidendamm bridge.'

‘
Ja, ja
,' I murmured.

He left the bunker with Dr Naumann and Dr Stumpfegger. Goebbels followed them, but turned back after a short while. ‘Any calls for me, Misch?'

‘
Ja
, Herr Reich chancellor. The Gau HQ, General Weidling and a call from Oberstleutnant Seifert,' I replied.

‘Well, nothing much there,' he said, and made a sign of refusal.

I dared to speak to him again about the break-out groups. Again, he comforted me. Over the next few hours I repeated my enquiry several times, each time feeling more worried. I could not leave without official permission from the Reich chancellor. I was stuck with it. My backpack stood below my table. On one of my last visits to my service room I had grabbed it and filled it to the top with crispbread, chocolate and a couple of packs of biscuits from the larder in the ante-bunker. If the time came when I had to look after myself I wanted to be prepared.

Once it finally fell quiet in the bunker – upstairs the break-out must already have begun – generals Burgdorf and Krebs sat talking to each other in the central corridor. Bottles and glasses stood on the table. I picked up a few phrases here and there, but concentrated on my work. Towards 2200 hrs, I received a call for General Krebs, which I put through to the telephone in the corridor. I could hear it ringing from my switchboard. Nobody got up. I asked the caller to hold the line and went out to see where the general was. I had not seen him pass me to leave, and so he could not be far. When I came into the corridor I saw that both of them, Krebs and Burgdorf, were still sitting in the cocktail chairs there. They seemed to be asleep, which I did not find unusual because there was no distinction between day and night and we were all constantly dead tired. One slept when the eyes fell shut from exhaustion. I tapped Krebs lightly on the shoulder to awaken him. ‘Herr general, you are wanted on the telephone.' In mid-sentence I realised the situation – Krebs and Burgdorf were both dead. I was shocked out of my wits. I felt queasy. I had not heard a shot. They must have taken poison not five metres from me. Without checking further, I left in order to inform Goebbels.