Hitler's Last Day: Minute By Minute Part 9

'I'm very sorry I can't give you a better farewell present.'

2.00pm.

Hitler is lunching with Eva Braun and the secretaries. Until the autumn of 1942, shortly after the start of the Battle of Stalingrad, Hitler used to eat with his adjutants, but he found himself put off his food by conversation about what was turning out to be the bloodiest single battle in history. He began to share meals only with women. The secretaries had a rota to make sure that someone was with him for every meal, including tea in the early hours of the morning. They were instructed not to bring difficult issues into the conversation, but today it is. .h.i.tler who raises a difficult subject, which has been preying on his mind.

'I will never fall into the enemy's hands, dead or alive. I am leaving orders for my body to be burned so that no one can ever find it.'

Traudl Junge eats mechanically, without noticing what she is eating, as the conversation turns to the best method of suicide.

Hitler says, matter-of-factly, 'The best way is to shoot yourself in the mouth. Your skull is shattered and you don't notice anything. Death is instantaneous.'

Eva is horrified. 'I want to be a beautiful corpse... I'm going to take poison.'

She shows the secretaries a little bra.s.s box that contains a phial of cyanide, which she keeps in the pocket of her dress.

'I wonder if it hurts very much? I'm so frightened of suffering for a long time... I'm ready to die heroically, but at least I want it to be painless.'

Hitler a.s.sures her that death by cyanide is painless: 'The nervous and respiratory systems are paralysed within seconds.'

Gerda Christian and Traudl Junge exchange glances, and then turn in unison to the Fuhrer. 'Do you have any phials which we could use?' Neither woman is keen to commit suicide, but they believe that the poison could be preferable to capture by the Russians.

The Fuhrer nods. He will make sure that they each get one. 'I'm very sorry I can't give you a better farewell present.'

Nicolaus von Below, who has been waiting in the corridor to speak to the Fuhrer, gets his opportunity after lunch. He asks permission to attempt a breakout.

Hitler is discouraging. 'It is no longer possible to get through the Russian lines.'

Von Below is determined. 'Mein Fuhrer, I believe I will be able to reach General Wenck in the south-west.'

'If you get that far you should head for Admiral Donitz's headquarters in the north. I will give you a written permission. Alles gute.'

Donitz's headquarters is the ideal destination as his wife and children are not far from Plon Castle, along the Baltic coast. Von Below goes to prepare. He decides he will take only the permission, some food and a machine gun.

Thirty-two-year-old British Lieutenant Commander Patrick Dalzel-Job is speeding in his jeep away from the port of Bremen. He is heading towards a vast a.r.s.enal of mines belonging to the German navy, which he believes is hidden in woods nearby it's been completely undetected throughout the war.

Dalzel-Job is a naval intelligence officer with exceptional skills he can navigate midget submarines, dive, parachute, and in 1940 he helped evacuate 5,000 civilians from the Norwegian city of Narvik (for which King Haakon of Norway awarded him the Ridderkors or Knight's Cross). In 1942 Dalzel-Job was back in occupied Norway leading commando raids to a.s.sess the strength of the German forces there.

Now in Germany, Dalzel-Job is a member of the British 30 a.s.sault Unit whose job it is to secure enemy intelligence material before the Germans have time to destroy it and also before Allied troops overrun it (Dalzel-Job wrote later that his own side was 'often the bigger risk to their preservation').

30 a.s.sault Unit (named after the number of their underground office in the Admiralty) are the invention of the deputy to the Director of Naval Intelligence, Ian Fleming, a man who Dalzel-Job finds 'kind, but cold with an eye to the main chance'. They are not Fleming's only invention. T-Force is a unit designed to track down all non-naval intelligence, and are currently still working in Bremen. Dalzel-Job has no time for T-Force. As far as he is concerned they always arrive late and are little more than looters. (Dalzel-Job is tough on looters. A few days ago near Bremen he found that a royal marine had taken two watches from a shop. He made the marine go back and return them to the owner. 'It seemed to me that an army which was supposed to be fighting for a principle could not afford the traditional soldiers' perquisites of looting and rape,' he said later.) 30 a.s.sault Unit are in effect Fleming's own private army, and were so successful in North Africa and Italy that they now have a whole Marine commando unit a.s.signed to them. As a result, the scout cars and jeeps that make up Dalzel-Job's team are carrying as many marines as they can as they race through the north German countryside.

Bremen has been a great success for 30 a.s.sault Unit. Last Thursday, 26th April, Dalzel-Job himself was asked by the Burgomaster to accept the surrender of the city, and he placed the police and all other services at his disposal. But Dalzel-Job was more interested in getting to Bremen's s.h.i.+pyards where he'd heard from German POWs and civilians that there were some of the new and much-feared Type XXI U-boats. Sure enough, in the s.h.i.+pyards he discovered 16 new U-boats and two destroyers. His team worked all through Thursday night sifting through technical data left behind by the naval engineers.

On Friday more British troops arrived, along with the press and army officials. Dalzel-Job recalled, 'When a staff officer arrived from 52nd Division and asked me to sign a receipt for the 16 submarines, it was the last straw. I told the Royal Marines to put up a sign saying the s.h.i.+pyard belonged to 30 a.s.sault Unit.'

They are now getting close to the town of Hesedorf and the naval a.r.s.enal. Dalzel-Job and his team have been travelling across Europe since D-Day and are experts in gathering information from both German soldiers and civilians. He finds that the civilians in particular are often willing to talk 'in the first shock of seeing us arrive'. It's through these contacts that he's established the whereabouts of the valuable a.r.s.enal.

Although Patrick Dalzel-Job was not especially inspired by Ian Fleming, it seems Fleming was inspired by him. Many years later, Fleming told Dalzel-Job that James Bond was in part modelled on him. As soon as the first books came out in the early 1950s, Peter Jemmett, a former member of 30 a.s.sault Unit, recognised Dalzel-Job as the Bond prototype. 'In contrast to a number of people who have claimed that they were James Bond, Patrick has never made any fuss about it,' Jemmett said. Dalzel-Job wrote that Fleming could write witty minutes on operational intelligence reports, 'but was the last person I would have suspected of writing best-sellers.'

About 2.15pm/7.45pm Burmese time/9.15am EWT.

Wing Commander Lionel 'Bill' Hudson is wide awake now from the balcony in his prison block in Rangoon jail he can see a small fire beyond the main gate. The jail is divided into different compounds like spokes in a wheel one for the British and Australian troops; one for the Indians and Gurkhas; and another for captured Chinese. Hudson looks towards the j.a.panese guards' compound and it seems to him suspiciously quiet. He wrote later, 'Some intuition, or was it the extraordinary stillness, told me that something strange was in the air.'

Under the light of a full moon, Hudson walks round the balcony until he comes to the front of the prison block. There is no guard. He decides to wait to see if one appears. It is wise to be cautious even a minor transgression, like failing to bow to a guard, can result in a beating.

Hudson climbs onto the low balcony wall and drops to the ground.

The American military have arrived in Piazzale Loreto in Milan. They're ordering that the bodies of Mussolini and his mistress be taken down from the meat hooks where they've been hanging and delivered to the city morgue so that autopsies can be carried out.

A US army photographer will accompany the bodies to the morgue where he arranges the couple in a macabre embrace for a picture that will be sent around the world.

In Caserta, near Naples, SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Karl Wolff signs the surrender of German forces in Italy just under one million men to the Allies. Lieutenant General Morgan signs on behalf of Field Marshal Alexander. American, Russian and British officers look on in silence.

'Ich habe Schmerzen Schmerzen.'

Geoffrey c.o.x's Venice-bound convoy has stopped for a moment by a small park. A man who is looking very pale and is being helped to walk by his wife and two daughters approaches the New Zealander's jeep.

'This is my first day out of hiding for a year,' he says in Italian. 'A year in a cellar. A year in a cellar. A year in a cellar...' he says again and again.

The convoy moves on and soon comes across the aftermath of a battle that ended only a short time before. c.o.x gets out of his jeep and heads towards a ditch near the road. There he sees a group of about 20 German soldiers lying dead or dying. The partisans have taken their guns.

A middle-aged soldier mouths to c.o.x, 'Ich habe Schmerzen Schmerzen.' 'I'm in pain pain.'

A group of press photographers arrive and start taking pictures; a priest dashes over and starts hearing the German soldiers' mumbled confessions. The photographers ask the priest to s.h.i.+ft position so they can get a shot of him where the light is better. He obliges.

Every day c.o.x sends out an intelligence report for the division. In the report for 23rd April he explained why the Germans continue to fight: 'Even though it is obvious to the vast majority that Germany has lost the war, they are quite prepared to fight on so long as it is the easiest thing to do and so long as there is somebody there to tell them to do it.'

'I hope there is no word or phrase in this outpouring of my heart that unwittingly gives offence.'

President Truman is not having a relaxed Sunday morning. He is reading a cable sent by Churchill to both him and Stalin about the vexed question of Poland. Churchill expresses his 'distress' at the misunderstandings that have arisen about the plans agreed at Yalta for the future of Poland. The British and Americans want a new Polish government to include those politicians who have been in exile in London. Stalin, Churchill suspects, wants the government he's installed in Lublin to be the sole government of Poland. As to Stalin's recent suggestion that Yugoslavia should be the model for Poland, Churchill refuses to accept that, as 'Marshal t.i.to has become a complete dictator'. Churchill goes on to say that, in 1944, the Allies agreed to the PolishRussian border (known as the Curzon Line) and now Stalin should meet his side of the bargain, 'namely the sovereignty, independence and freedom of Poland...' Truman reads the final paragraph of Churchill's cable. He remembers its words for a long time to come.

'There is not much comfort in looking into a future where you [Stalin] and the countries you dominate, plus the Communist parties in many other states, are all drawn up on one side, and those who rally to the English-speaking nations and their a.s.sociates are on the other. It is quite obvious that their quarrel would tear the world to pieces and that all of us leading men on either side who had anything to do with that would be shamed before history... I hope there is no word or phrase in this outpouring of my heart that unwittingly gives offence.'

There is little that Truman can do today. He will wait on developments at the UN Conference in San Francisco when it reconvenes in the afternoon. He begins to get ready to go to church.

This telegram from Churchill was considered by his a.s.sistant private secretary Sir Jock Colville to be 'a final appeal to resolve the Polish impa.s.se'. The Prime Minister had written it on 27th April and sent it to the Foreign Office to be approved, with a note saying, 'Pray consider this very carefully with your experts in the Russian section and make me any suggestions you like. But do not try to mar the symmetry and coherence of the message.'

'You son of a b.i.t.c.h, if you touch another of my men, I'll kill you right here.'

2.15pm.

Felix Sparks has reached the prison compound within the Dachau complex. It is surrounded by a water-filled moat about 15 feet wide, and a ten-foot-high barbed-wire fence. There is a large wrought-iron gate. Above it is a sign saying 'Arbeit Macht Frei' ('Work Sets You Free'). On the other side of the fence are thousands of celebrating prisoners shouting, 'America! America!'

Some others are tearing informers limb from limb. Elsewhere prisoners are hunting down their former guards, some of whom have disguised themselves in camp uniforms, and are beating them to death with shovels.

Flags of the Allied nations are hanging on the perimeter wire. The prisoners had been secretly making them over the past few weeks out of bits of cloth.

Sparks orders his men not to throw food as he fears it will start a fight among the starving prisoners. There are over 30,000 people in Dachau Poles, Russians, Catholic priests and Jews.

Three jeeps pull up by the gate, and in the first Sparks recognises General Henning Linden of the 42nd Infantry Division. He is followed out of the jeep by an attractive woman wearing US army fatigues and a German army jacket. She is Marguerite Higgins of the New York Herald Tribune.

'General, I have a lady reporter here who would like to interview some of the prisoners.'

'She can't go in there,' Sparks replies, 'We're not going to open that gate.' He can see that hundreds of people are pressed against it; his orders are not to let anyone out until they have had medical attention.

'I'll take the responsibility for it,' Linden says.

'General, you're not in your area you're out of your combat zone, and I take my orders from my commanding general.'

As they are talking, Marguerite Higgins jumps out of the jeep and opens the gate. There is chaos as the prisoners surge forward. Sparks orders his men to fire over their heads and to get the gate closed. Shots ring out. Terrified, Higgins runs back to her jeep.

General Linden is furious.

'I'm relieving you of command! I'm taking responsibility,' he yells.

'No, this is not your area, you are not relieving me of my command,' Sparks shouts back. He turns to a soldier and says, 'Private, escort this general and his party out of here.'

The shocked private steps forward towards Linden, who promptly picks up his swagger stick and hits the soldier on the helmet. This is the final straw for Sparks. He recalled later, 'It had already been a long and trying day. I exploded at that point...'

Sparks hauls out his .45 and shouts, 'You son of a b.i.t.c.h, if you touch another of my men, I'll kill you right here!''

Linden sits down in the jeep. Then out of the third vehicle, a battalion commander runs towards Sparks.

'You can't talk to my general like that! I'll see you after the war!'

'You son of a b.i.t.c.h what's the matter with right now?!'

The battalion commander hesitates, then returns to his jeep. As they pull away General Linden shouts at Sparks, 'I'll see you before a general court martial!'

Sparks recalled, 'That was the last thing that was worrying me at that point...'

It is the evil things that we shall be fighting against brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution and against them I am certain that the right will prevail.

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, 3rd September 1939 Marguerite Higgins got her exclusive, although she never did get inside the prison compound. Her harrowing report of the liberation of Dachau will appear in newspapers around the world in two days' time.

Richard Brown, a submarine designer living in Ipswich referred to it in his diary later that day: 'That sort of thing, and we've heard a lot of it, lots of which I haven't recorded because one just doesn't want to, ill.u.s.trates to me what we have been fighting. "Evil things" Chamberlain said... though we didn't know what he meant, we know now and we Britons only just escaped similar horrors.'

2.30pm/3.30pm UK time/8.00pm Burmese time.

At Bletchley Park, Buckinghams.h.i.+re, the centre for the British government's Code and Cypher School, the team intercept a message sent by Heinrich Himmler to Ernst Kaltenbrunner an SS general and the Director of Reich Main Security. The message reads: 'Situation in Berlin very strained. Situation on Eastern Front west of Prenzlau very difficult.

'Reports on the enemy wireless are malicious perversions of a conversation that I had with Bernadotte.

'It is clear that to fight is the only possibility, since the other side is at present absolutely at one against us.

'Equally malicious and untrue is the other a.s.sertion that I with [Werner] Naumann, have prepared a detailed declaration concerning the Fuhrer's death. Naumann is in Berlin. I am outside. We have not spoken to each other for a fortnight.'

Himmler is terrified that he could be arrested and executed on Hitler's orders for having had peace talks with the Swedish Amba.s.sador, Count Bernadotte. He is busy denying to everyone the news reports that these talks have taken place.

In Rangoon jail, there is still no sign of the j.a.panese guards. Bill Hudson is walking cautiously towards the main gate. It looks dark and sinister. There, to his astonishment, he finds two letters attached to it, neatly written in broken English.

Rangoon.

29th April, 1945.