The last moments of the Hitlers

THE LAST MOMENTS of ADOLF and EVA HITLER
Death found the idolized Führer wearing slippers like a petty-bourgeois

Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun were married on the 28th of April
1945 at about 8pm by a civil servant from the Propaganda
Ministry. Martin Bormann and Paul Josef Goebbels were
witnesses of the wedded. Hitler and his bride were married in
the Conference room of Hitler's bunker in Berlin. Hitler was
then a very sick man : his face was ashen, his gaze
wandered. It is a miracle Eva Braun accepted to marry such a
wreck. He was then wearing the crumpled tunic in which he
nowadays laid on his bed all day, he has just pinned on it the
Gold Party Badge, the Iron Cross 1st Class and the Wounded
Medal of the Great War.
Eva Braun too was very pale. She wore a dark-blue silk dress
under a grey fur cape. The ceremony behind close doors
lasted less ten minutes. Bormann opened the door again
when Hitler and Eva were signing the licence : she started
signing her name Braun, realized her mistake, scratched the B
and signed Eva Hitler. Hitler then kissed her hand. That was it.
The Goebbels along with two secretaries, Frau Christian and
Frau Junge, were then invited to a wedding tea in the study.

Adolf Hitler 1889-145 and Eva Braun
1912-1945 died on the 30th of April 1945.
They both committed suicide.

Otto Günsche and Heinz
Linge were the witnesses
of Hitler's last hours (1).

When the wedding tea was over, Hitler summoned Frau Junge (pic to the right) to his study. He
dictated his Will to her. Hitler edited it several times before to order 3 copies to be done for the
final version. In it, he dictated the composition of the new governement : Admoral Dönitz was
going to be his successor as President, not as Führer. Martin Bormann was to remain leader of
the NSDAP with ministerial rank. During the same night, the bunker was under heavy fire from
the Soviets : at around 6am, a firestorm began to rage in the nearby governement district and
shells crashed into the Chancellery and exploded on the roof of the bunker.

In the bunker, the ambiance was gloomy. In the afternoon, there was a rumour that the Russians
were trying to reach the Chancellery through the U-Bahn tunnel, Hitler started to play nervously with
his little dog Wolf (2) to hide his fear. The excitement in the bunker reached its high point,
Goebbels who chain smoked turned totally grey and his wife was weeping profusely.

Around noon on the 29th, Hitler went to the bunker in the Reich old Chancellery. Here he greeted
the secretaries and typists and said softly to them :"Thank you, children" and he went back to the
his bunker in the new Chancellery. Everybody spent the rest of the day and the night waiting for
the Russians to arrive. After midnight, the shelling from the Soviets abated a little. In the hall of the
bunker, Professor Haase (3) was standing with Hitler's dog handler, Sgt Tornow. Hitler had
given Tornow the job of poisoning Blondi, his Alsatian bitch sheperd because he wanted to try the
cyanide on her. Just after midnight, the poison was administered on her. It worked immediately.
Hitler checked on her death, said nothing and left the lavatory where the poison had been given to
the dog.

Traundl Junge, one of Hitler's
secretary, typed in his last Will.
Later, she wrote a book about her
life with the Fuehrer. At the end of
the war, she was raped and was a
"personal prisoner" (4) of a high
ranking Soviet intelligence officer.
She did not mention it in her
Memoirs "Until the final hour".

At that time, the Russian tanks were only 300 meters away from the Chancellery.
Everybody in the bunker still hoped that Hitler would change his mind and decide to leave
the bunker. But the Fuehrer was too afraid to take the risks to be taken alive by the
Russians. During the night of 29 April, he had his regular evening tea with Eva, Frau
Christian, Frau Junge and Fraülein Manziarly, his diet assistant who was the mistress of
one of Hitler's Generals. At 5:00 am they left Hitler with tears in their eyes and Frau Junge
said to Sturmbannführer SS Otto Günsche, Hitler's last personal adjutant,   that the Führer
wanted to shoot himself that day, as he had already announced to his staff in the bunker
since some time.

The rest of the night was spent once more waiting for the Russians. A 8:00 am on 30 April
Hitler dictated to Martin Bormann his last military orders which were completely out of
reality. Orders were transmitted by Bormann to the Battle Group Mohnke (5) to break out of
the government district and join up out of Berlin with beleaguered troops which were trying
to continue some struggle. A 2:00 pm, Bormann rushed out of Hitler's study looking pale
and confused. He went to Otto Günsche and said that Hitler and Eva wanted to bring their
lives to an end that day. Their bodies, he added, were to be drenched in benzene and
burned in the garden of the Chancellery. That was Hitler's categorical order. Under no
circumstances should his body fall into Russian hands.

Bormann asked Günsche to make sure that everything was ready for the burning of the
bodies. Then Günsche called Mohnke and asked him to come to Hitler's bunker. Some
minutes later, SS Oberführer johann Rattenhuber, head of Adolf Hitler's
Reichssicherheitsdienst (RSD),   Hans Baur, Hitler's pilot and his assistant Betz came into
the antechamber to Hitler's study. Hitler came out of his study : his eyes were snuffed out,
his face earthen, his eyes had dark rings. His left hand was shaking more than ever and it
seemed that the tremor had taken the whole body. He only said :"I have ordered that I am
to be burned after my death. Make sure that my order is carreid out to the letter. I will
not have it that they take my body back to Moscow to exhibit in a cabinet of curiosities."

Then Hitler traced a lethargic gesture of fareweel with his right arm and turned round and
disappeared behind the study door where Eva was waiting   for him. Günsche summoned
Erich Kempka, Hitler's chauffeur, to bring ten canisters of benzene to the bunker and to
leave it at the emergency exit to the garden. When all was set, he took up his position by
the antechamber door while he waited for the gunshot. His watch read 3:10pm.
A little later, Eva Braun came out of the study into the antechamber : she looked sad, said
goodbye to Linge, then went to Frau Goebbels who was in her husband's room. A few
minutes later she came back and asked Günsche to tell   Hitler that Frau Goebbels wanted
to see him one more time. Hitler relented to her query, met the Goebbels who tried once
more to convince him to flee berlin. In a hysterical voice, Hitler replied :"No, Doctor, you
know my decision. It is not going to change."    Then he took leave of Magda Goebbels
and went back to his appartment. At the door to the study Linge wanted to say goodbye to
him.

Hitler only answered that he had given orders to break out from Berlin to the West in small
groups. Linge stared at Hitler and asked whom they should be fighting their way out for now
? Surprised Hitler looked at him and said:" For the coming man!". Then he said goodbye
to Linge and Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger, Heinrich Himmler's representative, with a limp
handshake and raised his right arm. Linge and Krüger gave back the Nazi salute, closed
the door to the study and went to the old bunker. Then it was Eva Braun to leave Magda
Goebbels's room : she walked slowly to Hitler's study. A few minutes later, Goebbels
came out and joined Bormann and other Nazi dignitaries in the conference room. Another
minutes and Linge came back from the old bunker. It was just a few minutes before 4:00
pm. As Linge walked past Günsche he just said that he thought it was by now over and
went to the antechamber. Goebbels said :"I think I heard a shot."

There Linge smelled gunpowder, told Bormann about the smell and he opened the door
and Gobbeels and Axmann walked in with Bormann following. Then they saw the following
scene : on the left-hand side of the sofa sat a dead Hitler. Next to him was an as dead Eva
Hitler.

SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke
(1911 – 2001) was one of the
original 120 members of the SS-
Stabswache "Berlin" formed in
March 1933. From those ranks he
was to rise to become one of
German last remaining generals. He
commanded Kampfgruppe Mohnke
and was charged with defending
the Berlin government district,
including the Reichstag during the
Battle of Berlin.

SS-Obersturmbannführer Erich
Kempka (16 September 1910 – 24
January 1975) served as Adolf
Hitler's chauffeur from 1934. He
was member #2803 of the
Allgemeine-SS.

The Führer in slippers

In Hitler's right temple there was a bullet wound the size of a coin and two streams of
blood were running down on his cheek. Günsche assumed that Hitler shot himself
through the mouth. On the carpet, next to his right foot, lay a 7.65mm Walther pistol and
next to his left foot was a 6.35 mm Walther. Hitler was still wearing his grey tunic, a
white shirt with a black tie, black trousers, black socks and black leather slippers (sic).
Eva Hitler had pulled her legs under herself and had poisoned herself with cyanide.

Linge laid Hitler's body on the ground and wrapped him in a blanket. He carried it out to
the garden while Goebbels, Axmann and other dignitaries raised their arm in salute.
Then Kempka emerged from the study carrying Eva's body that strongly smelled of
cyanide. Bormann himself carried Eva Braun's body to the garden. Both corpses were
put down on the ground at the emergency exit because the shelling by the Russians
was too intense to immediately go to the garden. When it abated a little, they drew the
bodies to the Chancellery garden and laid them in the shallow pit graves that had
been dug out by SS members. Bormann, Günsche, Kempka and three others SS
grabbed canisters filled with benzene and poured 200 liters of combustible over the
corpses. Linge ignited a piece of paper and tossed it on the bodies that were instantly
in flames. After a few seconds they all went back in silence to the bunker.

Günsche went to the study room picked up the two Walther pistols, Hitler's famous
dog-whip and joined the others in the conference room to decide what to do next.
Bormann was extremely agitated and only thought about the best way to get out of the
bunker. Goebbels proposed to make contact with the Soviets and to secure a short
cease-fire. Frau Goebbels was sobbing as usual wondering what was going to happen
to herself and her six children Hilde, Helga, Helmut, Holde, Heide and Hedda (all
carried names starting with an H in honour of Hitler). Nevertheless in this moment, she
blamed the Führer for "having done it". Later around 4:00 pm, she asked
Dr.Stumpfegger to kill her children by poisoning their coffee. She waited outside the
room and when the job was done, Dr. Stumpfegger came out of the room, nodded to
her and she fainted. Immediately after, she was taken back to her room by two SS men.

A 5:30 pm. General Weidling (6) turned up in the bunker for the afternoon conference
and was informed of Hitler's death : they decided to ask the Russians for a ceasefire
that was refused. The shelling of the district continued unabated all night.

On the morning of the 1st of May, Goebbels emerged from his room asking Linge
whether he could have prevented Hitler's suicide. Linge laughed at the suggestion. The
Propaganda minister came back to his room and he and his wife shot themselves. His
body was also drenched with benzene and set ablaze by SS men. At around noon,
General Krebs, Deputy Chief of Army General Staff (OKH), returned to the bunker with
the news that the Russians were asking unconditional surrender. It was decided in
the evening to go for a break-out : the garrison was planning to escape that evening.
Some made it, other died : Bormann was seen jumping on a German tank by Axmann
who said later that a hand grenade was thrown on the tank. His body will be dug out
from the Berlin street in the 70s and identified by ADN test.

The last picture of Hitler alive. He is
passing in review a contingent of
Hitler's Youth lead by Artur Axmann. A
large number of them were used during
the battle of Berlin and sent to their
death while Axmann managed after
Hitler's death to flee from Berlin. He
died in his bed in 1996.

NOTES :

(1) Otto Günsche, (1917 – 2003) was a Sturmbannführer in the SS and
a close aide of Adolf Hitler. Günsche was born in Jena in Thuringia. He
was present at the July 20 plot to kill Hitler. As the end of the Third Reich
became imminent, Hitler asked Günsche to ensure that his body would
be burnt after his death. Having done so, Günsche left the Führerbunker
but was captured by Soviet troops encircling the city soon thereafter. He
was imprisoned in Bautzen and released in 1956. He was one of the
main witnesses used by the Russians to establish the exact conditions
of the death of Hitler.
Heinz Linge ( 1913 – 1980) was a valet at German dictator Adolf Hitler's
headquarters. Linge was born in Bremen. He worked as a valet at
Wolfsschanze in Rastenburg and at Hitler's bunker in Berlin in the last
days of the Führer's life, and was Hitler's personal ordinance officer.
Linge was one of the last to leave the bunker and was arrested by the
Red Army, which interrogated him about the circumstances of Hitler's
death. He was released from Soviet captivity in 1955 and died in Bremen
in West Germany.
(2) The little dog "Wolf" was the puppy of Hitler's bitch Blondi. He was
shot in the garden of the Chancellery by a SS member in April 1945 with
other puppies from the same mother. Blondi was poisoned on Hitler's
orders.
(3) Werner Haase (1900 – 1950), German professor of medicine and
SS officer, was one of Adolf Hitler's personal physicians.
In the last days of the fighting in Berlin in late April 1945, Haase, with
Ernst Günther Schenck, was working to save the lives of the many
wounded German soldiers and civilians in the public air-raid shelter
under the Reich Chancellery building in central Berlin, next to the
Führerbunker. Haase was made a Soviet prisoner of war. In June 1945
he was charged with being "a personal doctor of the former
Reichschancellor of Germany, Hitler, and also treated other leaders of
Hitler's government and of the Nazi Party and members of Hitler's SS
guard." The sentence is not recorded. Haase, who suffered from
tuberculosis, died in captivity in November 1950.
(4) Traundl Junge, (1920 – 2002, born Gertraud Humps) was Adolf
Hitler's youngest personal private secretary, from December 1942 to
April 1945. Years after the war, she returned to the public eye with the
release of an autobiography, Until the Final Hour (2002) , which
described the time she worked for Hitler. She was also interviewed for
the 2002 documentary film Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary. This suddenly
brought her much attention and for a few days she was accorded
something approaching global celebrity when, aged 81, she died in a
Munich hospital. She never recovered from her sentiment of guilt and
was never able to forget her past.
(5) SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke (1911 – 2001) was one of the
original 120 members of the SS-Stabswache "Berlin" formed in March
1933. From those ranks he was to rise to become one of German last
remaining generals. He commanded Kampfgruppe Mohnke and was
charged with defending the Berlin government district, including the
Reichstag during the Battle of Berlin.
(6) General Helmuth Weidling (November 2, 1891 – November 17, 1955)
was the last German commander of the Berlin Defense Area during the
final assault by Soviet forces on the city of Berlin.
(7) SMERSH (Death to Spies) was the name of a specialized
counterintelligence department in the Main Intelligence Directorate of the
General Staff GRU of the Soviet Union. Operating under various names
since the beginning of the GRU, it was given its most notorious name
SMERSH during the years immediately preceding World War II. The
direction of SMERSH was to secure the rear of the active Red Army from
partisans, saboteurs, and spies, on the front to investigate and arrest
conspirators and mutineers, "traitors, deserters, spies, and criminal
elements", and support the General Staff's strategic operations by
carrying out global assassination of elements considered subversive to
the military stability of the Red Army.

General Helmuth Weidling (1891 –
1955) was the last German commander
of the Berlin Defense Area during the
final assault by Soviet forces on the city
of Berlin.

On the 4th of May, Soviet secret-services men of the Smersh (7) dug out
the Hitlers' bodies, husband and wife. But as they believed the corpses
laid in the building of the Chancellery they reburied the bodies. The next
day, officers from another Russian secret-service dug up the remains of
Adolf and Eva Hitler. The remains were wrapped in blankets and
smuggled to the Smersh HQ in Berlin-Buch. On the 6th of May, at the
field hospital #496 in Berlin-Buch, an autopsy was made of 11 human
bodies by a medical commission led by Lt-Colonel Shkaravsky : they
were the already identified remains of Gal Krebs, Goebbels and wife, six
children and the presumed remains of Adolf and Eva Hitler.

A dental examination of those two bodies was made on 11 May by Pr
Hugo Blaschke and his technician Käthe Heusermann who stated that
the bodies en question were those of Adolf and Eva Hitler. The Hitlerian
nightmare was over, the cold war could start. More than 11 million
Russian soldiers died during WW2, and about 4 million German
soldiers. WW2 was a conflict to the end between two tyrants : Hitler lost.

Paul Josef Goebbels's charred corpse was also
discovered by the Russians and was subject to autopsy
by pathologists belonging to Smersh (7)
(counter-espionnage).

At the end of the war, Heinz Linge and Otto Günsche
were taken into custody as POWs by the Russians and
interrogated during months to establish the truth about
Hitler's last moments. The Soviets questioned a lot of
other POWs but Linge's and Günsche's testimonies
were considered as the most useful and reliable.
Formerly with the Leibstandarte SS division Adolf Hitler
Linge was Hitler's soldier-servant from 1935 and
personal servant from 1939.
Günsche, born in 1917, entered the Hitler Youth in
1931 and the Leibstandarte SS division Adolf Hitler in
1934, he was a member of the NSDAP since 1933. In
1936, he was a non commissioned officer in the Führer
Escort command. From January to August 1943 he
became Hitler's personal adjutant then was affected to
the Eastern Front Line as a company Commander in the
Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. From February 1944 to April
1945 he was Hitler's personal adjutant again and was
taken prisoner in May 1945 by the Russians.
After years of lengthy interrogations by the Soviet, he
was sentenced in 1950 to 25 years in a labour camp. He
was released in 1955 and delivered to the East
Germans who released him in 1956. He then fled to
West Germany and died in 2003.

At the end of the war Hitler is a complete ruin. Here he
is passing in review a contingent of the Hitler Youth led
by Arthur Axmann who were used to defend Berlin and
some strategic bridges. One of the Youth, a 12 year old
boy was given that day the Iron Cross First Class.
Arthur Axmann stayed in the Hitler's bunker until the
end, then escaped to the West and died in his bed in
1996. He had lost an arm on the Russian front. NB: I
have received a comment on my guest-book of an
individual signing Axmann. This chef d'oeuvre can be
read here.

The picture to the left is the last picture of Hitler alive. He is inspecting
the damages made to the Chancellerie where he retired at the end of
the war that was located at the Voßstraße in Berlin. Next to him stands
his personal adjutant Julius Schaub. It was taken by the still
photographer after Hitler inspected the Hitler-Jugen boys in the
Reichschancellery garden on March 20, 1945.