Hitler. Part 27

It amounted to no more than yet a further repeat of the long empty phrases of the old message. National Socialism alone had given the people the toughness to combat the threat to its very existence of an 'unnatural alliance', 'a diabolical pact between democratic capitalism and Jewish Bolshevism'. The atrocities of Bolshevism 'this Jewish plague' were now being experienced directly in the eastern parts of the Reich. Only 'extreme fanaticism and resolute steadfastness' could ward off the peril of 'this Jewish-Bolshevik annihilation of peoples and its west European and American pimps'. Weakness would and must perish. It was a 'duty to maintain the freedom of the German nation for the future' and the unmistakable attempt to sh.o.r.e up fighting spirit through instilling fear 'not to let German labour be s.h.i.+pped off to Siberia'. Its fanatical hatred for 'the destroyer of mankind' bolstered by the suffering it had endured, National Socialist Germany would continue the fight until 'the historical turning' came about. It would be that year. He ended on a note of pathos. His life had only the value it possessed for the nation. He wanted to share the suffering of the people, and almost regretted that the Berghof had not been bombed, which would have enabled him to share the sense of loss of possessions. (On this, the Allies were ready to oblige a few weeks later.) 'The life left to us,' he declared at the close, 'can serve only one command, that is to make good what the international Jewish criminals and their henchmen have done to our people.'

A poignant commentary was voiced in the routine report of the SD station in Berchtesgaden, where once thousands of 'pilgrims' had poured in to try to catch a glance of the Fuhrer during his stays at the Berghof. 'Among the overwhelming majority of people's comrades,' the report ran, 'the content of the proclamation whistled by like the wind in the empty boughs.'

It was presumably Hitler's sensitivity to his public image that made him refuse Goebbels's request for a press report to sh.o.r.e up morale. He must have been alert to the inevitable derision that would be induced by reports of soldiers many of them by now no more than boys cheering him on a brief visit he and a small entourage had paid on 3 March to troops at Wriezen, some forty miles north-east of Berlin, just behind the Oder front. The news from the eastern front had left Hitler in a depressed mood, the shaking left hand more noticeable than ever, when the Propaganda Minister saw him the following evening. In Pomerania, Soviet tanks had broken through and were now outside Kolberg, on the Baltic. (When the town finally had to be evacuated later in the month, Goebbels suppressed the news because of the blatantly contradictory image of the nationalist epic colour-film he had had made on the town's stand against Napoleon, meant to stir modern-day defiance against the Red Army.) Himmler, the commander of Army Group Vistula, responsible for Pomerania's defence, had taken to his sick-bed suffering, it seems, from nothing worse than a heavy cold on top of overwrought nerves and retreated to the clinic at Hohenlychen, sixty or so miles north of Berlin, for convalescence. Hitler, as always, blamed the General Staff for the debacle. He was still hopeful of blocking the Red Army's advance; Goebbels had his doubts. Further south, the Czech industrial areas were under dire threat. Without them, Goebbels could not see how minimal armaments demands could any longer be met. Hitler hoped they could hold out, there and in Silesia, and inflict serious reverses on the Red Army with a counter-offensive to prove the last of the war beginning on 6 March.

In the west, Hitler was still optimistic about holding the Rhine. In reality, US troops were on the verge of entering Cologne, and only days later would take the bridge at Remagen and secure a foothold across the mighty artery. Goebbels, ready as so often to counter Hitler's instinctive optimism with cautious hints of realism, pointed out that, should the western defences not hold, 'our last political war argument would collapse', since the Anglo-Americans would be able to penetrate to central Germany and would have no interest in any negotiations. The growing crisis in the Alliance remained a straw to clutch at. But Goebbels was aware that Germany might be prostrate before it materialized.

Hitler still thought Stalin more likely than the western powers to show interest in negotiations. Whereas Roosevelt and Churchill would have difficulties with public opinion, Stalin could ignore it in reversing his war-policy overnight. But, as always, Hitler emphasized that the basis of any 'special peace' could only be military success. Pus.h.i.+ng the Soviets back and inflicting heavy losses on them would make them more amenable. A new division of Poland, the return of Hungary and Croatia to German sovereignty, and operational freedom against the West would, Hitler hoped, be the prize. Thereafter, his aim, according to Goebbels, was to 'continue the struggle against England with the most brutal energy'. Britain, he thought, turning on the country that had spurned his earlier advances, was the 'eternal trouble-causer in Europe'. Sweeping it out of the Continent for good would bring Germany at least for a while some peace. Goebbels reflected that the Soviet atrocities were a handicap for Hitler's way forward. But he noted laconically that Europe had once survived the ravages of the Mongols: 'The storms from the east come and go, and Europe has to cope with them.'

Goebbels remained the fervent devotee of Hitler that he had been for twenty years. Though often frustrated and critical behind his leader's back at what he saw as undue reluctance to take measures necessary to radicalize the home front, and weakness in personnel matters particularly the repeated unwillingness to dismiss Goring and Ribbentrop (both of whom he saw as bearing undue responsibility for Germany's plight) Goebbels never ceased to be enthused once more by Hitler after spending time in his company. For Goebbels, Hitler's determination and optimism shone through the 'desolate mood' of the Reich Chancellery. 'If anyone can master the crisis, then he can,' the Propaganda Minister remarked. 'No one else can be found who is anywhere near touching him.'

But, though his personal subordination for the father-figure he had for so long revered remained, even Goebbels was no longer persuaded by Hitler's apparent confidence in turning the tide. He was antic.i.p.ating the end, looking to the history books. Magda and the children would join him and stay in Berlin, come what may, he told Hitler. If the struggle could not be mastered, then at least it had to be sustained with honour, he wrote. He was gripped by Thomas's Carlyle's biography, glorifying the heroism of Frederick the Great, and presented Hitler with a copy. He read out to him the pa.s.sages relating the King's reward for his unbending resolution in circ.u.mstances of mounting despair during the Seven Years War by the sudden and dramatic upturn in his fortunes. Hitler's eyes filled with tears. Hitler, too, was looking to his place in history. 'It must be our ambition,' he told Goebbels on 11 March, 'Heroes' Memorial Day', 'also in our times to set an example for later generations to look to in similar crises and pressures, just as we today have to look to the past heroes of history.' The theme ran through his proclamation to the Wehrmacht that day. He declared it his 'unalterable decision ... to provide the world to come with no worse example than bygone times have left us'. The sentence that followed encapsulated the essence of Hitler's political 'career': 'The year 1918 will therefore not repeat itself.'

IV.

To rule this out, no price even self-destruction was too high. In his characteristic 'either-or' way of thinking, Hitler had invariably posed total destruction as the alternative to the total victory for which he had striven. Inwardly convinced that his enemies were intent on bringing about that total destruction the Morgenthau Plan of 1944, envisaging the reduction of a defeated Germany to the status of an agricultural country with a pre-industrial economy had given sustenance to this belief no measure was for him too radical in the fight for survival. Consistent only with his own warped and peculiar brand of logic, he was prepared to take measures with such far-reaching consequences for the German population that the very survival he claimed to be fighting for was fundamentally threatened. Ultimately, the continued existence of the German people if it showed itself incapable of defeating its enemies was less important to him than the refusal to capitulate.

Few, even of his closest acolytes, were ready to follow this self-destructive urge to the letter. Albert Speer was one of those looking to the future after a lost war. Perhaps the ambitious Speer was still hoping to have some part to play in a Germany without Hitler. At any rate, he knew the war was irredeemably lost. And he was looking to save what could be saved of the economic substance of the country. He had no interest in a Germany going down in a maelstrom of destruction to satisfy the irrational and pointless principle of 'heroic' self-sacrifice rather than capitulation. He knew only too well that the preservation of Germany's material substance for a post-Hitler future had long been the aim of the leading industrialists with whom he had worked so closely. He had hindered the implementation of Hitler's orders for the destruction of French industry. And in recent weeks, he had arranged with Colonel-General Heinrici in Upper Silesia, Field-Marshal Model in the Ruhr (now on the verge of being taken by the western Allies), and Colonel-General Guderian for the entire eastern front that factories, mines, railways, roads, bridges, waterworks, gasworks, power-stations, and other installations vital to the German economy should be spared destruction wherever possible.

On 18 March, Speer pa.s.sed to Below a memorandum he had drafted three days earlier. Below was to choose a favourable moment to hand it to Hitler. The memorandum stated plainly that the final collapse of the German economy would occur within four to eight weeks, after which the war could not be continued. The prime duty of those leading the country must be to do what they could for the civilian population. But detonating bridges, with the consequent major destruction of the transport infrastructure, would signify 'the elimination of all further possibility of existence for the German people'. Speer concluded: 'We have no right, at this stage of the war, to undertake destruction which could affect the existence of the people ... We have the duty of leaving the people every possibility of establis.h.i.+ng a reconstruction in the distant future.'

A strong hint of Hitler's likely response could be gleaned at the military briefing that evening, when the topic arose of evacuation of the local population from the combat zone in the Saar. Despite an almost total lack of transport, Hitler's express order was that the complete evacuation should be undertaken forthwith. Consideration could not be given to the population. A few hours after the briefing ended, just before Speer left for a tour of the threatened areas on the western front, Hitler summoned him. According to Speer's recollection, noted down ten days later, Hitler told him coldly that should the war be lost, the people would also be lost, and that there was no need to take consideration even of its most primitive survival. The German people had proved the weaker in the struggle. Only those who were inferior would remain.

Hitler had promised Speer a written reply to his memorandum. It was not long in coming, and was predictably the opposite of what Speer had recommended. Whatever the cost, in Hitler's view, intact vital installations for industrial production could not be allowed to fall into enemy hands as had happened in Upper Silesia and the Saar. His decree of 19 March, headed 'Destructive Measures on Reich Territory', was consistent with a philosophy by now wholly at odds with Speer's. 'The struggle for the existence of our people,' his decree ran, 'compels the use of all means, also within the territory of the Reich, to weaken the fighting power of our enemy and its further advance. All possibilities of imparting directly or indirectly lasting damage to the striking power of the enemy must be exploited. It is an error to believe that undestroyed or only temporarily disabled transport, communications, industrial, and supplies installations can again be made operational for our own purposes at the recapture of lost territories. The enemy will leave us only scorched earth at its retreat and drop any consideration for the population. I therefore order: 1) All military transport, communications, industrial, and supplies installations as well as material a.s.sets within Reich territory, which the enemy can render usable immediately or within the foreseeable future are to be destroyed. 2) Those responsible for the implementation of this destruction are: military command authorities for all military objects, including transport and communications installations, the Gauleiter and Reich Defence Commissars for all industrial and supplies installations and other material a.s.sets. The troops are to provide the necessary aid to the Gauleiter and Reich Defence Commissars in the implementation of their task ...'

The decree was never put into practice. Though, initially, several Gauleiter prominent among them Gauleiter Friedrich Karl Florian in Dusseldorf were eager to carry out Hitler's orders to the letter, Speer was eventually successful in persuading them of the futility of the intended action. In any case, the Gauleiter agreed that it was in practice impossible to implement the order. Model was one of the front-line military commanders also prepared to cooperate with Speer in keeping destruction of industrial plant to a minimum. By the end of March, with difficulty, Speer had managed to convince Hitler aware though he was of the Armaments Minister's effective sabotage of his order that he should be granted overall responsibility for implementing all measures for destruction. This took the key decisions out of the hands of the Gauleiter, Hitler's key representatives in the regions. It meant, as. .h.i.tler knew, that everything possible would be done to avoid the destruction he had ordered.

The non-implementation of the 'scorched earth' order was the first obvious sign that Hitler's authority was beginning to wane, his writ ceasing to run. 'We're giving out orders in Berlin that in practice no longer arrive lower down, let alone can be implemented,' remarked Goebbels at the end of March. 'I see in that the danger of an extraordinary dwindling of authority.'

Hitler continued to see himself as indispensable. 'If anything happens to me, Germany is lost, since I have no successor,' he told his secretaries. 'He has gone mad, Goring has squandered the sympathies of the German people, and Himmler is rejected by the party,' was his a.s.sessment.

Hitler had been absolutely dismissive of Goring's leaders.h.i.+p qualities in 'turbulent times' in speaking to Goebbels in mid-February 1945. As 'leader of the nation', he was 'utterly unimaginable'. Tirades about the Reich Marshal were commonplace. On one occasion, fists clenched, face flushed with anger, he humiliated Goring in front of all present at a military briefing, threatening to reduce him to the ranks and dissolve the Luftwaffe as a separate branch of the armed forces. Goring could only withdraw to the ante-room and swallow a few gla.s.ses of brandy. But despite regular exposure to Goebbels's vitriol about the Reich Marshal and impa.s.sioned entreaties to dismiss him, Hitler persisted in his view that he had no suitable replacement.

Hitler's att.i.tude towards Himmler had also hardened. His blind fury at the retreat of divisions including that specially named after him, the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler of Sepp Dietrich's 6th Panzer Army in the face of heavy losses and imminent encirclement in bitter fighting on the Danube was directed at Himmler. The Reichsfuhrer-SS was in despair at the breach with Hitler, symbolized in the order he was forced to carry to Dietrich commanding his four Waffen-SS divisions, among them the elite Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, to remove their armlets in disgrace. With Hitler now feeling betrayed even by his own SS commanders, Himmler's waning star sank steeply through his own evident failings as Commander of Army Group Vistula. Hitler held the Reichsfuhrer-SS personally responsible for the failure to block the Soviet advance through Pomerania. He accused him of having immediately fallen under the influence of the General Staff a heinous offence in Hitler's eyes and even of direct disobedience of his orders to build up anti-tank defences in Pomerania. Blaming others as usual, he took the view that Pomerania could have been held if Himmler had followed his orders. He intended, he told Goebbels, to make plain to him at their next meeting that any repet.i.tion would lead to an irreparable breach. Whether the rift was further deepened through rumours abroad in fact, close to the truth linking Himmler's name with peace soundings is unclear. But there was no doubt that Himmler's standing with Hitler had slumped dramatically. The Reichsfuhrer-SS remained, for his part, both dismayed at the rupture in relations, and cautious in the extreme, aware that even now his authority hinged solely on Hitler's continued favour. But after being relieved of his command of Army Group Vistula on 20 March, Himmler increasingly went his own way.

The circle of those Hitler trusted was diminis.h.i.+ng sharply. At the same time, his intolerance of any contradiction of his views had become as good as absolute. The one remaining voice among his generals which had been increasingly outspoken in its criticism was that of Colonel-General Guderian. Where Keitel spoke with so little authority that younger officers scornfully dubbed him the 'Reich Garage Attendant', and Jodl carefully attuned his briefings to Hitler's moods and antic.i.p.ated his wishes, Guderian was terse, pointed, and frank in his remarks. The conflicts, which had mounted since Christmas in their intensity, were ended abruptly at the end of March with Guderian's dismissal. By that time, the final German offensive near Lake Balaton in Hungary, started on 6 March, had failed and the Soviets were marching on the last remaining oil reserves open to Germany; the Red Army had meanwhile cut off Konigsberg in East Prussia, broken through at Oppeln in Upper Silesia, taken Kolberg on the Baltic coast, opened up German defences close to Danzig, and surrounded the SS battalions fiercely defending the strategically important stronghold of Kustrin on the Oder. In the west, outside Guderian's sphere of responsibility, the news was at least as sombre. General Patton's 3rd US Army had taken Darmstadt and reached the river Main; and American tanks had entered the outskirts of Frankfurt. Hitler had not expected the western front to collapse so rapidly. As always, he smelled betrayal. And, characteristically, he was now ready to make Guderian the scapegoat for the dire situation on the eastern front.

Guderian had been expecting a stormy meeting when he arrived at Hitler's bunker on 28 March for the afternoon briefing. He was determined to continue his defence of General Theodor Busse against the accusation that he held responsibility for the failure of his 9th Army to relieve the encircled troops at Kustrin. But Hitler was not prepared to listen. He peremptorily adjourned the meeting, keeping only Keitel and Guderian back. Without demur, the Chief of Staff was told that his health problems demanded he take with immediate effect six weeks' convalescent leave. He was replaced by the more compliant General Hans Krebs.

Reports were by now coming in from Kesselring's headquarters that the western front in the region of Hanau and Frankfurt am Main was showing serious signs of disintegration. White flags were being hoisted; women were embracing American soldiers as they entered; troops, not wanting to fight any longer, were fleeing from any prospect of battle or simply surrendering. Kesselring wanted Hitler to speak without delay to sh.o.r.e up the wavering will to fight. Goebbels agreed. Churchill and Stalin had both spoken to their nations at times of utmost peril. Germany's position was even worse. 'In such a serious situation, the nation cannot remain without an appeal from the highest authority,' Goebbels noted. He telephoned General Burgdorf, Hitler's chief Wehrmacht adjutant, and impressed upon him the need to persuade Hitler to speak to the German people. Next day, walking for an hour among the ruins of the Reich Chancellery garden alongside the bent figure of Hitler, Goebbels tried to exert all his own influence in pleading with him to give a ten- or fifteen-minute radio address. Hitler did not want to speak, however, 'because at present he has nothing positive to offer'. Goebbels did not give up. Hitler finally agreed. But Goebbels's evident scepticism proved justified. A few days later, Hitler again promised to give his speech but only after he had gained a success in the west. He knew he should speak to the people. But the SD had informed him that his previous speech his proclamation on 24 February had been criticized for not saying anything new. And Goebbels acknowledged that, indeed, he had nothing new to offer the people. The Propaganda Minister repeated his hope that Hitler would nevertheless speak to them. 'The people were waiting for at least a slogan,' he urged. But Hitler had by now even run out of propaganda slogans for the people of Germany.

Goebbels remained puzzled and, behind his admiration, irritated and frustrated at Hitler's reluctance to take what the Propaganda Minister regarded as vital, radical steps even at this later hour to change Germany's fortunes. In this, he privately reflected, Frederick the Great had been far more ruthless. Hitler, by contrast, accepted the diagnosis of the problem. But no action followed. He took the setbacks and grave dangers, thought Goebbels, too lightly at least, he pointedly added, in his presence; 'privately, he will certainly think differently.' He was still confident of the split among the Allies he had so long been predicting. 'But it pains me,' Goebbels noted, 'that he is at present not to be moved to do anything to deepen the political crisis in the enemy camp. He doesn't change personnel, either in the Reich government or in the diplomatic service. Goring stays. Ribbentrop stays. All failures apart from the second rank are retained, and it would in my view be so necessary to undertake here in particular a change of personnel because this would be of such decisive importance for the morale of our people. I press and press; but I can't convince the Fuhrer of the necessity of these measures that I put forward.' It was, Goebbels pointed out, 'as if he lived in the clouds'.

Not only Hitler held on to a make-believe world. 'One day, the Reich of our dreams will emerge,' wrote Gerda Bormann to her husband. 'Shall we, I wonder, or our children, live to see it?' 'I have every hope that we shall!' jotted Martin, between the lines. 'In some ways, you know, this reminds me of the "Twilight of the G.o.ds" in the Edda,' Gerda's letter continued. 'The monsters are storming the bridge of the G.o.ds ... the citadel of the G.o.ds crumbles, and all seems lost; and then, suddenly a new citadel rises, more beautiful than ever before ... We are not the first to engage in mortal combat with the powers of the underworld, and that we feel impelled, and are also able, to do so should give us a conviction of ultimate victory.'

An air of unreality also pervaded, in part, the administrative machines of party and state. Though, certainly, the state bureaucracy now mostly removed from Berlin was confronted with the actualities of a lost war in trying to cope with the acute problems of refugees from the east, housing the homeless from bomb-damaged cities, and ensuring that public facilities were kept running, much of what remained of civil administration ma.s.sively hampered through repeated breakdowns in postal and rail communications had little to do with the everyday needs of the population. The sober-minded and long-serving Finance Minister, Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, for instance, completed at the end of March his plans for tax reform criticized by Goebbels (as if they were about to be implemented) for their 'unsocial' emphasis on consumer tax, which would affect the ma.s.s of the population, rather than income tax. That much of the country was by this time under enemy occupation seemed irrelevant.

Meanwhile, Martin Bormann was still working feverishly on restructuring the party to control the new, peacetime Germany that would emerge from the war. And as the Reich shrank, lines of communication disintegrated, and directives became increasingly overtaken by events, he sent more circulars, decrees, and promulgations than ever over 400 in the last four months of the war cascading down to lower functionaries of the party. 'Again a ma.s.s of new decrees and orders pour in from Bormann,' noted Goebbels on 4 April. 'Bormann has made a paper chancellery out of the Party Chancellery. Every day he sends out a mountain of letters and files which Gauleiter at present in the midst of the struggle can in practice not even read. In part, it's a matter of completely useless stuff of no value for the practical struggle.' A party bureaucracy in overdrive poured out regulations on provision of bread grain, small-arms training of women and girls, repair of railways and road communications, eking out additional food from wild vegetables, fruit, and mushrooms, and a host of other issues.

Alongside such miscellanea went the constant demands and exhortations to hold out, whatever the cost. Bormann informed party functionaries on 1 April that summary and draconian punishment for desertion awaited 'any scoundrel ... who does not fight to the last breath'. He detailed functionaries to work with Wehrmacht units in stiffening morale in areas close to the front and to set up quasi-guerrilla organizations such as the 'Freikorps Adolf Hitler' (drawn from the party's functionaries) and the 'Werwolf ' (to be made up largely of Hitler Youth members) to carry on the fight through partisan activity in the occupied areas of the Reich. German propaganda sought to convey the impression to the Allies that they were endangered by an extensively organized underground resistance-movement. In practice, the 'Werwolf 'was of scant military significance, and was mainly a threat, in its arbitrary and vicious retribution, to German citizens revealing any traces of 'defeatism'.

On 15 April Bormann put out a circular to Political Leaders of the Party: 'The Fuhrer expects that you will master every situation in your Gaue, if necessary with lightning speed and extreme brutality ...' Like more and more of his missives, it existed largely on paper. Correspondence to reality was minimal. It was a cla.s.sic ill.u.s.tration of the continuing illusory and despairing belief in the triumph of will alone. But even the unconstrained and arbitrary violence of a regime patently in its death-throes could not contain the open manifestations of disintegration. Ever fewer brown party uniforms were to be seen on the streets. And ever more party functionaries were disappearing into the ether as the enemy approached, looking more to self-preservation than to heroic last stands. 'The behaviour of our Gau and District Leaders in the west has led to a strong drop in confidence among the population,' commented Goebbels. 'As a consequence, the Party is fairly played out in the west.'

During early April, the last German troops pulled out of Hungary. Bratislava fell to the Red Army as it advanced on Vienna. To the north, the German troops cut off in Konigsberg surrendered the city on 9 April. In the west, Allied troops pushed through Westphalia, taking Munster and Hamm. By 10 April, Essen and Hanover were in American hands. The vice was tightening on the Ruhr, Germany's battered industrial heartland. A sudden shaft of optimism penetrated the dense gloom enveloping Hitler's bunker: the news came through of the death on 12 April, at his winter retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia, of one of his greatest adversaries, and linchpin in the unholy coalition of forces against him, President Roosevelt.

Goebbels rang up, elated, to congratulate Hitler. Two weeks earlier, the Propaganda Minister had been given a file of astrological material, including a horoscope of the Fuhrer. It prophesied an improvement in Germany's military position in the second half of April. Goebbels's sole interest in the material, he said, was for propaganda purposes, to give people something to cling on to. It served this purpose now, for the moment, for Hitler. 'Here, read this!' Hitler, looking revitalized and in an excited voice, instructed Speer. 'Here! You never wanted to believe it. Here! ... Here we have the great miracle that I always foretold. Who's right now? The war is not lost. Read it! Roosevelt is dead!' It seemed to him like the hand of Providence yet again. Goebbels, fresh from his reading of Carlyle's biography of Frederick the Great, reminded Hitler of the death of the Czarina Elisabeth that had brought a sudden change of fortune for the Prussian King in the Seven Years War. The artificial coalition enemies aligned against Germany would now break up. History was repeating itself. Whether Hitler was as convinced as he seemed that the hand of Providence had produced the turning-point of the war is uncertain. One close to him in these days, his Luftwaffe adjutant Nicolaus von Below, thought him more sober at the news than Goebbels whose cynical eye was, as always, directed at the possible propaganda advantages.

Even for those who saw him at close quarters, it was difficult to be sure of Hitler's true feelings about the war. Field-Marshal Kesselring, who saw Hitler for the last time on 12 April, the day of Roosevelt's death, later recalled: 'He was still optimistic. How far he was play-acting it is hard to decide. Looking back, I am inclined to think that he was literally obsessed with the idea of some miraculous salvation, that he clung to it like a drowning man to a straw.'

Whether genuine or contrived, Hitler's jubilation did not last long. On 13 April, the news was given to him that Vienna had been taken by the Red Army. The following day, American attacks succeeded in splitting German forces defending the Ruhr. Within three days, the fighting in the Ruhr was over. Field-Marshal Model, a long-standing favourite of Hitler, dissolved his encircled Army Group B rather than offer formal capitulation. It made no difference. Around 325,000 German troops and thirty generals gave themselves up to the Americans on 17 April. Model committed suicide four days later in a wooded area south of Duisburg.

On 15 April, in antic.i.p.ation of a new Soviet offensive which he thought, probably taken in by Stalin's disinformation directed at the western Allies, would first sweep through Saxony to Prague to head off the Americans before tackling Berlin Hitler had issued a 'basic order' for the eventuality that the Reich might be split in two. He set up a supreme commander in effect his military representative to take full responsibility for the defence of the Reich, should communications be broken, in whichever part he himself was not situated. Grand-Admiral Donitz was designated for the northern zone, Field-Marshal Kesselring for the south. The implication was that Hitler was keeping the option open of carrying on the fight from the south, in the fastness of the Bavarian Alps.

On the same day, Hitler issued what would turn out to be his last proclamation to the soldiers on the eastern front. It played heavily on the stories of Soviet atrocities. 'For the last time, the Jewish-Bolshevik mortal enemy has set out with its ma.s.ses on the attack,' it began. 'He is attempting to demolish Germany and to exterminate our people. You soldiers from the East know yourselves in large measure what fate threatens above all German women, girls, and children. While old men and children are murdered, women and girls are denigrated to barrack-wh.o.r.es. The rest are marched off to Siberia.' It went on to alert the troops to the slightest sign of treachery, particularly the long-standing exaggeration of the influence of the National Committee for a Free Germany, established in Moscow by captured German officers troops fighting against them in German uniforms receiving Russian pay. Anyone not known to them ordering a retreat was to be captured and 'if need be immediately dispatched, irrespective of rank'. The proclamation had its climax in the slogan: 'Berlin stays German, Vienna will be German again, and Europe will never be Russian.'

It was to no avail. In the early hours of 16 April, a huge artillery barrage announced the launch of the awaited a.s.sault from the line of the Oder and Neisse rivers by over a million Soviet troops under Marshal Zhukov and Marshal Konev. The German defenders from the 9th Army and, to its south, the 4th Panzer Army fought tenaciously. The Soviets suffered some significant losses. For a few hours, the front held. But the odds were hopeless. During the afternoon, after renewed heavy artillery bombardment, the German line was broken north of Kustrin on the west bank of the Oder. The gap between the 9th Army and the 4th Panzer Army quickly widened. Soviet infantry poured through, rapidly followed by hundreds of tanks, and over the next two days extended and consolidated their hold in the area south of Frankfurt an der Oder. From then on the Oder front caved in completely. There could now be only one outcome. The Red Army drove on over and past the lingering defences. Berlin was directly in its sights.

General Busse's 9th Army was pushed back towards the south of the city. Hitler had ordered Busse to hold a line which his Army Group Commander, Colonel-General Heinrici, had thought exposed the 9th Army to encirclement. Ignoring Hitler's orders, Heinrici nevertheless commanded withdrawal westwards. By that time, only parts of Busse's army could evade imminent encirclement. Meanwhile, the German General Staff was forced to flee from its headquarters in secure bunkers at Zossen to the Wannsee its column of retreating vehicles mistaken by German planes for part of a Soviet unit and attacked from the air as they went. To the north, the forces under Colonel-General Heinrici and SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Felix Steiner were the last barrier to the ever more menacing prospect of encirclement of the city as the Red Army pushed through Eberswalde to Oranienburg. By 20 April, Soviet tanks had reached the outskirts of the capital. That afternoon, Berlin was under fire.

The rumble of artillery fire could be plainly heard from the Reich Chancellery. There, with the Red Army on the doorstep, and to the accompaniment of almost non-stop bombing by Allied planes, leading n.a.z.is gathered for what they knew would be the last time to celebrate Hitler's fifty-sixth birthday, and, in most cases, to say their farewells. It was the start of the last rites for the Third Reich.

28.

Extinction

I.

The atmosphere in the bunker on 20 April 1945, Hitler's fifty-sixth birthday, was more funereal than celebratory. There was no trace of the pomp and circ.u.mstance of earlier years. The gaunt ruins of the Reich Chancellery were themselves a stark reminder, if one was needed, that there was no cause for celebration. Hitler felt this himself. His birthday with the Russians at the gates of Berlin was everything points to this an embarra.s.sment to him, and for all those who were obliged to offer him their birthday greetings.

Traditionally, Hitler's personal staff gathered to be the first to offer their congratulations on the stroke of midnight. This year, Hitler, in depressed mood, had already told his valet, Heinz Linge, that he did not want to receive his household; there were no grounds for congratulation. Linge was ordered to pa.s.s on the message. Predictably, this Fuhrer order was ignored. Waiting in the ante-room, as midnight approached, to offer their formal congratulations were Chief Wehrmacht Adjutant General Wilhelm Burgdorf, Himmler's liaison SS-Gruppenfuhrer Hermann Fegelein (who had recently married Eva Braun's sister, Gretl), the long-serving factotum Julius Schaub, a member of the 'household' since the mid-1920s, Hitler's adjutants NSKK-Oberfuhrer Alwin-Broder Albrecht and SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Otto Gunsche, Ribbentrop's liaison Walther Hewel, and press officer Heinz Lorenz. Hitler, tired and dejected, said Linge should inform them that he had no time to receive them. Only following Fegelein's intercession with his sister-in-law Eva Braun (who had returned to the Reich Chancellery some weeks earlier, announcing she was staying with Hitler, and resisting all attempts to persuade her to leave) did he concede, trudging down the a.s.sembled line of his staff to receive their murmured birthday greetings with a limp handshake and a vacant expression. Further muted, almost embarra.s.sed, congratulations followed from the military leaders attending the first briefing of the day. Afterwards, Hitler drank tea in his study with Eva Braun. It was approaching nine o'clock in the morning before he finally went to bed, only to be disturbed almost immediately by General Burgdorf with the news of a Soviet breakthrough and advance towards Cottbus, some sixty miles south-east of Berlin, on the southern part of the front. Hitler took the news standing in his nights.h.i.+rt at the door of his bedroom, and told Linge he had not slept up to then and to waken him an hour later than normal, at 2 p.m.

After breakfasting, playing with his alsatian puppy for a while, and having Linge administer his cocaine eye-drops, he slowly climbed the steps into the Reich Chancellery park. Waiting with raised arms in the n.a.z.i salute were delegations from the Courland army, from SS units in Berlin, and twenty boys from the Hitler Youth who had distinguished themselves in combat. Was this what Berlin's defence relied upon? one of Hitler's secretaries wondered. Hitler muttered a few words to them, patted one or two on the cheek, and within minutes left them to carry on the fight against Russian tanks.

Bormann, Himmler, Goebbels, Reich Youth Leader Artur Axmann, and Dr Morell were among those in a further line waiting to be received at the door of the Chancellery's Winter Garden. Looking drained and listless, his face ashen, his stoop p.r.o.nounced, Hitler went through the motions of a brief address. Not surprisingly, he was by now incapable of raising spirits. Lunch with Christa Schroeder and senior secretary Johanna Wolf was a depressing affair. Afterwards, he retraced his steps down into the bowels of the earth for the late afternoon briefing. He would not leave the bunker again alive.

By now, most of the leading figures in the Reich at least, those in the Berlin vicinity were a.s.sembled. Goring, Donitz, Keitel, Ribbentrop, Speer, Jodl, Himmler, Kaltenbrunner, the new Chief of Staff General Hans Krebs, and others all presented their greetings. No one spoke of the looming catastrophe. They all swore their undying loyalty. Everyone noticed that Goring had discarded his resplendent silver-grey uniform with gold-braided epaulettes for khaki 'like an American general', as one partic.i.p.ant at the briefing remarked. Hitler pa.s.sed no comment.

The imminent a.s.sault on Berlin dominated the briefing. The news from the southern rim of the city was catastrophic. Goring pointed out that only a single road to the south, through the Bayerischer Wald, was still open; it could be blocked at any moment. His chief of staff, General Karl Koller, added that any later attempt to transfer the High Command of the Wehrmacht by air to new headquarters could be ruled out. Hitler was pressed from all sides to leave at once for Berchtesgaden. He objected that he could not expect his troops to fight the decisive battle for Berlin if he removed himself to safety. Keitel had told Koller before the briefing that Hitler was determined to stay in Berlin. When greeting Hitler, Keitel had murmured words of confidence that he would take urgent decisions before the Reich capital became a battleground. It was a strong hint that Hitler and his entourage should leave for the south while there was still time. Hitler interrupted, saying: 'Keitel, I know what I want. I will fight on in front of, within, or behind Berlin.' Nevertheless, Hitler now seemed indecisive. Increasingly agitated, he declared moments later that he would leave it to fate whether he died in the capital or flew at the last moment to the Obersalzberg.

There was no indecision about Goring. He had sent his wife Emmy and daughter Edda to the safety of the Bavarian mountains more than two months earlier. He had written his will in February. Crate-loads of his looted art treasures from Carinhall, his palatial country residence in the Schorfheide, forty miles north of Berlin, had been s.h.i.+pped south in March. Half a million marks were transferred to his account in Berchtesgaden. By the time he arrived at the Reich Chancellery to pa.s.s on his birthday wishes to Hitler, Carinhall was mined with explosives; his own remaining belongings were packed and loaded on to lorries, ready to go on to the Obersalzberg. Goring lost no time at the end of the briefing session in seeking out a private word with Hitler. It was urgent, said the Reich Marshal, that he go to southern Germany to command the Luftwaffe from there. He needed to leave Berlin that very night. Hitler scarcely seemed to notice. He muttered a few words, shook hands absent-mindedly, and the first paladin of the Reich departed, hurriedly and without fanfare. It seemed to Albert Speer, standing a few feet away, to be a parting of ways that symbolized the imminent end of the Third Reich.

It was the first of numerous departures. Most of those who had come to proffer their birthday greetings to Hitler and make avowals of their undying loyalty were waiting nervously for the moment when they could hasten from the doomed city. Convoys of cars were soon heading out of Berlin north, south, and west, on any roads still open. Donitz left for the north, armed with Hitler's instructions the implementation of the directive five days earlier on division of command should the Reich be geographically split to take over the leaders.h.i.+p in the north and continue the struggle. It was a sign of Donitz's high standing with Hitler on account of his uncompromising support for the stance of fighting to the last, and of hopes for a continuation of the U-boat war, that he was given plenipotentiary powers to issue all relevant orders to state and party, as well as to the Wehrmacht in the northern zone. Himmler, Kaltenbrunner, and Ribbentrop soon followed. Speer left later that night in the direction of Hamburg, without any formal farewell.

Hitler, according to Julius Schaub's post-war testimony, was deeply disappointed at the desire of his paladins to leave the bunker in barely concealed haste. He gave no more than a perfunctory nod of valediction to those who, now that his power was as good as ended, were anxious to save what they could of themselves and their possessions. By this time, most of the army top-bra.s.s had left. And Bormann had already told the remaining government ministers Finance Minister Lutz Graf Schwerin-Krosigk, Transport Minister Julius Dorpmuller, Justice Minister Otto Georg Thierack, Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories (a long redundant post) Alfred Rosenberg, Education Minister Bernhard Rust, and Labour Minister Franz Seldte together with head of the Presidential Chancellery, the old survivor, Otto Meissner, to make hasty preparations to leave for the south, since the road would soon be blocked. Hitler's naval adjutant, Admiral Karl-Jesko von Puttkamer, was dispatched to the Obersalzberg to destroy important papers there. His two older secretaries, Johanna Wolf and Christa Schroeder, were summoned to his study that evening and told to be ready to leave for the Berghof within the hour. Four days earlier, he had told them in confident tones: 'Berlin will stay German. We must just gain time.' Now, he said, the situation had changed so much in the past four days, that he had to break up his staff.

The scene in the courtyard of the Reich Chancellery was near-chaotic as vehicles were stuffed with bags and suitcases, the rumble of artillery a reminder of how close the Red Army was as the cars hurried through the night, through clouds of smoke billowing from burning buildings, past shadowy ruins and Volkssturm men setting up street barricades, to waiting aeroplanes. During the following three nights, some twenty flights were made from Gatow and Staaken aerodromes in Berlin, taking most of Hitler's staff to Berchtesgaden.

Late in the evening, the remaining adjutants, secretaries, and his young Austrian diet cook, Constanze Manziarly, gathered in his room for a drink with Hitler and Eva Braun. There was no talk here of the war. Hitler's youngest secretary, Traudl Junge, had been shocked to hear him admit for the first time in her presence earlier that day that he no longer believed in victory. He He might be ready to go under; her own life, she felt, had barely begun. Once Hitler early for him had retired to his room, she was glad to join Eva Braun, and other bunker 'inmates', even including Bormann and Morell, in an 'unofficial' party in the old living room on the first floor of Hitler's apartment in the Reich Chancellery. In the ghostly surrounds of a room stripped of almost all its former splendour, with the gramophone scratching out the only record they could find a smaltzy pre-war hit called 'Red Roses Bring You Happiness' they laughed, danced, and drank champagne, trying to enjoy an hour or two of escapism, before a nearby explosion sharply jolted them back to reality. might be ready to go under; her own life, she felt, had barely begun. Once Hitler early for him had retired to his room, she was glad to join Eva Braun, and other bunker 'inmates', even including Bormann and Morell, in an 'unofficial' party in the old living room on the first floor of Hitler's apartment in the Reich Chancellery. In the ghostly surrounds of a room stripped of almost all its former splendour, with the gramophone scratching out the only record they could find a smaltzy pre-war hit called 'Red Roses Bring You Happiness' they laughed, danced, and drank champagne, trying to enjoy an hour or two of escapism, before a nearby explosion sharply jolted them back to reality.

When Hitler was awakened at 9.30 next morning, it was to the news that the centre of Berlin was under artillery fire. He was at first incredulous, immediately demanding information from Karl Koller, Luftwaffe chief of staff, on the position of the Soviet artillery battery. An observation post at Berlin's zoo provided the answer: the battery was no more than eight miles away in the suburb of Marzahn. The dragnet was closing fast. The information scarcely helped to calm Hitler's increasingly volatile moods. As the day wore on, he seemed increasingly like a man at the end of his tether, nerves ragged, under intense strain, close to breaking point. Irrational reactions when a frenzy of almost hysterically barked-out orders proved impossible to implement, or demands for information impossible to supply, point in this direction.

Soon he was on the telephone again to Koller, this time demanding figures of German planes in action in the south of city. Communications failures meant Koller was unable to provide them. Hitler rang once more, this time wanting to know why the jets based near Prague had not been operational the previous day. Koller explained that enemy fighters had attacked the airfields so persistently that the jets had been unable to take off. 'Then we don't need the jets any more. The Luftwaffe is superfluous,' Hitler had replied in fury. 'The entire Luftwaffe leaders.h.i.+p should be hanged straight away!'

II.

The drowning man clutched at yet another straw. The Soviets had extended their lines so far to the north-east of Berlin that it opened up the chance, thought Hitler and Chief of Staff Krebs, for the Panzer Corps led by SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Felix Steiner to launch a counter-attack with good chances of success. A flurry of telephone calls with more than a hint of near-hysteria a.s.signed a motley variety of remaining units, including naval and Luftwaffe forces untrained in ground warfare and without heavy armour, to Steiner's command. 'Every commander withholding forces has forfeited his life within five hours,' Hitler screamed at Koller. 'The commanders must know that. You yourself guarantee with your head that the last man is deployed.' Any retreat to the west was strictly forbidden to Steiner's forces. Officers unwilling to obey were to be shot immediately. 'On the success of your a.s.signment depends the fate of the German capital,' Hitler told Steiner adding that the commander's life also hinged on the execution of the order. At the same time, Busse's 9th Army, to the south of Berlin, was ordered to restabilize and reinforce the defensive line from Konigswusterhausen to Cottbus. In addition, aided by a northward push of parts of Schorner's Army Group Centre, still doggedly fighting in the vicinity of Elsterwerda, around sixty miles south of Berlin, it was to attack and cut off Konev's tank forces that had broken through to their rear. It was an illusory hope. But Hitler's false optimism was still being pandered to by some of the generals. His mood visibly brightened after hearing upbeat reports from his most recent field-marshal, Schorner (who had been promoted on 5 April), and from General Wenck about the chances of his newly constructed 12th Army attacking American forces on the Elbe.

Colonel-General Heinrici, Commander of Army Group Vistula, was not one of the eternal optimists who played to Hitler's constant need for good news. He warned of encirclement if the 9th Army were not pulled back. He threatened resignation if Hitler persisted in his orders. But Hitler did persist; and Heinrici did not resign. The general had implied to Speer days earlier that Berlin would be taken without serious resistance. This thinking was anathema to Hitler. He told Jodl on the day his orders to Steiner and to the 9th Army went out: 'I will fight as long as I have a single soldier. When the last soldier deserts me, I will shoot myself.' Late that night, he still exuded confidence in Steiner's attack. When Koller told him of the inadequacies of the Luftwaffe troops he had been compelled to supply to Steiner's forces, Hitler replied: 'You will see. The Russians will suffer the greatest defeat, the bloodiest defeat in their history before the gates of the city of Berlin.'

It was bravado. Two hours earlier, Dr Morell had found him drained and dejected in his study. The doctor and his medications, however little efficacious in an objective sense, had been for years an important psychological prop for Hitler. Now, Morell wanted to give him a harmless further dose of glucose. Without any forewarning, Hitler reacted in an uncontrollable outburst, accusing Morell of wanting to drug him with morphine. He knew, he said, that the generals wanted to have him drugged so that they could s.h.i.+p him off to Berchtesgaden. 'Do you take me for a madman?' Hitler railed. Threatening to have him shot, he furiously dismissed the quivering doctor.

The storm had been brewing for days. It burst on the afternoon of 22 April, during the briefing that began at 3.30 p.m. Even as the briefing began, Hitler looked haggard, stony-faced, though extremely agitated, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. He twice left the room to go to his private quarters. Then, as dismaying news came through that Soviet troops had broken the inner defence cordon and were within Berlin's northern suburbs, Hitler was finally told after a frantic series of telephone calls had elicited contradictory information that Steiner's attack, which he had impatiently awaited all morning, had not taken place after all. At this, he seemed to snap. He ordered everyone out of the briefing room, apart from Keitel, Jodl, Krebs, and Burgdorf. Even for those who had long experience of Hitler's furious outbursts, the tirade which thundered through the bunker for the next half an hour was a shock. One who witnessed it reported that evening: 'Something broke inside me today that I still can't grasp.' Hitler screamed that he had been betrayed by all those he had trusted. He railed at the long-standing treachery of the army. Now, even the SS was lying to him: after Sepp Dietrich's failure in Hungary, Steiner had not attacked. The troops would not fight, he ranted, the anti-tank defences were down. As Jodl added, he also knew that munitions and fuel would shortly run out.

Hitler slumped into his chair. The storm subsided. His voice fell to practically a whimper. The war was lost, he sobbed. It was the first time any of his small audience had heard him admit it. They were dumbstruck. He had therefore determined to stay in Berlin, he went on, and to lead the defence of the city. He was physically incapable of fighting himself, and ran the risk of falling wounded into the hands of the enemy. So he would at the last moment shoot himself. All prevailed upon him to change his mind. He should leave Berlin forthwith and move his headquarters to Berchtesgaden. The troops should be withdrawn from the western front and deployed in the east. Hitler replied that everything was falling apart anyway. He could not do that. Goring could do it. Someone objected that no soldier would fight for the Reich Marshal. 'What does it mean: fight!' asked Hitler. 'There's not much more to fight for, and if it's a matter of negotiations the Reich Marshal can do that better than I can.'

At this, Hitler, his face a deathly pallor, left the briefing room and retreated to his own quarters. He sent for his remaining secretaries, Gerda Christian and Traudl Junge, and his dietician, Constanze Manziarly. Eva Braun was also present as he told his staff they should get ready; a plane would take them south in an hour. 'It's all lost,' he said, 'hopelessly lost.' Somewhat to their own surprise, his secretaries found themselves rejecting the offer to leave and telling Hitler that they would stay with him in the bunker. Eva Braun had already told Hitler she was not leaving.

Urgent telephone calls were meanwhile put through from Donitz and Himmler. Neither could persuade him to change his mind. Ribbentrop arrived. He was not even allowed to see Hitler. Goebbels was also present. Hitler, highly disturbed, had telephoned him around five o'clock, raving about treachery, betrayal, and cowardice. Goebbels hurried as fast as he could to the bunker, and spoke a while alone with Hitler. He was able to calm him down. Goebbels emerged to announce that on the Fuhrer's orders, he, his wife, and his children would be moving into the bunker and living there from now on. For the Propaganda Minister, Hitler's decision was the logical consequence of his consistent stance; he saw it in full pathos as a historic deed which determined the heroic end in Berlin of a latter-day Siegfried, betrayed by all around him.

For hard-headed military men like Karl Koller, the perspective was very different: Hitler was abandoning the German people at the time of their greatest need; he had renounced his responsibility to armed forces, state, and people at the most critical moment; it was dereliction of duty worse than many offences for which draconian retribution had been meted out.

There were indeed serious practical considerations following from Hitler's hysterical behaviour. He had simply said he was staying in Berlin. The others should leave and go where they wanted. He had no further orders for the Wehrmacht. But he was still supreme commander. Who was now to give orders? Berlin was doomed for certain within a few days. So where were Wehrmacht Headquarters to be? How could forces simply be withdrawn from the western front without any armistice negotiations? After fruitless pleading with Hitler, Keitel decided to travel to the headquarters of General Wenck's 12th Army. Hitler had finally agreed to sign an order to Wenck to abandon his previous operational plans defending against the Americans on the Elbe and march on Berlin, linking up with the remnants of the 9th Army, still fighting to the south of the city. The aim was to cut off enemy forces to the south-west of the capital, drive forward 'and liberate again the Reich capital where the Fuhrer resides, trusting in his soldiers'. Wenck's army had been hastily put together at the beginning of April. It was inadequately armed; its panzer support was weak; and many of its troops were poorly trained. They were outnumbered by the Soviet troops facing them, and possessed only a quarter of the weaponry. What Wenck was supposed to do in the unlikely event of breaking through to the centre of Berlin other than bringing out Hitler, if need be by force (as Keitel later put it) was left entirely unclear.

Hitler, his equilibrium now temporarily restored, was solicitous enough to make sure that Keitel was well fed before he set out on his journey. Jodl was meanwhile to take steps to ensure that part of the High Command of the Wehrmacht was immediately transferred to Berchtesgaden, while the remainder would be moved to the barracks at Krampnitz, near Potsdam. Hitler's overall direction would remain intact, maintained through telephone links to Krampnitz and Berchtesgaden. The regular briefings would continue, though with reduced personnel.

Meanwhile, Hitler had ordered Schaub to burn all the papers and doc.u.ments in his private safe in the bunker. He was afterwards instructed to do the same in Munich and at the Berghof. After a perfunctory farewell from the master he had served for twenty years, he left Berlin and flew south. The bunker company had by now shrunk. Those left behind consoled themselves with drink. They referred to the bunker as 'the mortuary' and its inmates as 'a show house of living corpses'. Their main topic of conversation was when and how to commit suicide.

Remarkably, Hitler had regained his composure by the next morning. He was still venting anger at troops that seemed to have evaporated into thin air. 'It's so disgraceful,' he fumed. 'When you think about it all, why still live!' But Keitel's news about his meeting with Wenck had provided yet another glimmer of hope. Hitler ordered all available troops, however ill-equipped, to be added to Wenck's army. Donitz had already been cabled the previous evening to have all available sailors as the most urgent priority, overriding all naval concerns, flown to Berlin to join the 'German battle of fate' in the Reich capital. Telegrams were also dispatched to Himmler, and to Luftwaffe high command to send their remaining reserves to aid the reinforcement of Berlin. 'The enemy knows I'm here,' Hitler added, referring to Goebbels's proclamation to the Berlin people that day, telling them that the Fuhrer would remain in the city to lead its defence. They would concentrate all their efforts on taking the capital as soon as possible. But that, thought Hitler, gave him a chance to lure them into the trap of Wenck's army. Krebs reckoned they still had four days. 'In four days the business has to be decided,' agreed Hitler.

That afternoon, Albert Speer arrived back in the bunker. He had had a tortuous ten-hour journey to cover less than 200 miles from Hamburg. He had quickly given up an attempt to drive along roads choked with refugees desperate to leave Berlin by any route still open, and flew first to the airfield at Rechlin in Mecklenburg, then on to Gatow aerodrome in the west of Berlin. There, he picked up a Fieseler Storch light aircraft, eventually navigating a landing on the East-West Axis approaching the Brandenburg Gate, the wide boulevard on which he had triumphantly paraded six years earlier during Hitler's fiftieth birthday celebrations, now, its lamp-posts removed, converted into a makes.h.i.+ft landing-strip. For weeks, Speer had been working with industrialists and generals to sabotage Hitler's 'scorched earth' orders. Only two days earlier, in Hamburg, he had recorded an address never, in the event, broadcast, and probably made with more than one eye on embellis.h.i.+ng his own prospects in a world after Hitler urging an end to the pointless destruction. But despite the growing alienation, Speer could still not break free of Hitler. The emotional bonds remained strong. After his unsung departure on the evening of Hitler's birthday, the former Armaments Minister felt unhappy at ending their special relations.h.i.+p without an appropriate farewell. That was the reason for his wholly unnecessary, extremely hazardous flight back into the cauldron.

On his way to Hitler's room in the bunker, he encountered Bormann. Not anxious to end his own days in the bunker catacombs, the Secretary to the Fuhrer implored Speer to use his influence to persuade Hitler to leave for the south. It was still just possible. In a few more hours it would be too late. Speer gave a non-committal reply. He was then ushered in to see Hitler, who, as Bormann had foreseen, lost no time in asking Speer's opinion whether he should stay in Berlin or fly to Berchtesgaden. Speer did not hesitate. It would be better to end his life as Fuhrer in the Reich capital than in his 'weekend house', he said. Hitler looked tired, apathetic, resigned, burnt out. He had decided to stay in Berlin, he murmured. He had just wanted to hear Speer's opinion. As the previous day, he said he would not fight. There was the danger that he would be captured alive. He was also anxious to avoid his body falling into the hands of his enemy to be displayed as a trophy. So he had given orders to have his body burnt. Eva Braun would die alongside him. 'Believe me, Speer,' he added, 'it will be easy to end my life. A brief moment, and I am freed from everything, released from this miserable existence.'

Minutes later, in the briefing by now a far smaller affair, over much more quickly, and, because of communications difficulties, often lacking precise, up-to-date intelligence Hitler, immediately after speaking of his imminent death and cremation, was again trying to exude optimism. Only now did Speer realize how much of an act the role of Fuhrer had always been.

All at once, there was a commotion in the corridor. Bormann hurried in with a telegram for Hitler. It was from Goring. The report of the momentous meeting the previous day, which Koller had personally flown to Berchtesgaden to deliver verbally, had placed the Reich Marshal in a quandary. Koller had helped persuade a hesitant Goring that, through his actions, Hitler had in effect given up the leaders.h.i.+p of state and Wehrmacht. As a consequence, the edict of 29 June 1941, nominating Goring as his successor in the event of his incapacity to act, ought to come into force. Goring was still unsure. He could not be certain that Hitler had not changed his mind; and he worried about the influence of his arch-enemy, Bormann. Eventually, Koller suggested sending a telegram. Goring agreed. Koller, advised by Lammers, drafted its careful wording, cautiously stipulating that, had Goring not heard by ten o'clock that evening, he would presume that the terms of the succession law would come into operation, and that he would take over the entire leaders.h.i.+p of the Reich. He would take immediate steps, he told Koller, to surrender to the western powers, though not to the Russians.

His telegram to Hitler (with a copy to Below, the Luftwaffe adjutant still in the bunker) gave no inkling of disloyalty. But, as Goring had feared, Bormann was immediately at work to place the worst possible construction upon it. Hitler seemed at first unconcerned, or apathetic. But when Bormann produced another telegram from Goring, summoning Ribbentrop to see him immediately, should he have received no other directive from Hitler or himself by midnight, it was an easy matter to invoke the spectre of treachery once more. Bormann was pus.h.i.+ng at an open door. For months, Goebbels (and Bormann himself ) had been the most prominent among those urging Hitler to dismiss Goring, portrayed as an incompetent, corrupt, drug-taking sybarite, single-handedly responsible for the debacle of the Luftwaffe and the air-superiority of the Allies, which they saw as so decisive for Germany's plight. Given Hitler's extreme volatility, as the events of