Hitler's Final Days in the Bunker

The Blohm & Voss BV222 sea plane had a range of approximately 3,800 miles, well within flying distance from Travemünde [on Germany's northern Baltic coast] to the eastern coast of Greenland. A number of U-Boats operated in Greenland waters and as the giant flying boats used 2-stroke Diesel engines refueling from a U-Boat was perfectly feasible. Also there are upwellings of warm water around Greenland which stay ice free year round suitable for water landings.

Furthermore Enigma signals decoded at Bletchley Park revealed that the Abwehr [German secret service] sailing vessel 'Santa Barbara' was positioned in the mouth of the Orinoco River.

Aerospace Historian, XXXV, No. 2 [Summer/June 1988], debunks the myth of Ju 290 flights to Japan/Manchuria. A Ju-290 could in theory fly one way to Manchuria, and such flights were at one time envisioned, to fly from Odessa and Mielic, carrying aero engines and "special" cargoes out and rare metals and raw rubber and other strategic materials back. The story got started through disinformation provided by a captured German serviceman, Unteroffizer Wolf Baumgart, which was duly recorded in Ninth Air Force A.P.W.I.U. Report 44/1945. As well, research by Günther Ott, the leading authority on the type, has established the careers and fates of all these long range modified aircraft and ascertained that no such flights were actually carried out.

Fernaufklärungsgruppe 5 provided 3 Ju 290s with crews for a planned flight from northern Norway [Banak or Bardufoss] to Manchuria in October 1944. The aircraft were modified in Hamburg to carry a lot of extra fuel by stripping them of excess weight, such as armament. The modification work continued into January 1945, but by that time the Germans had withdrawn from the bases in northern Norway. Accordingly, the flights were never made. In fact, there were no wartime flights made by German aircraft, either Luftwaffe or Lufthansa, to Asia. Only the Italians made one: a S.M. 75 flight to Malaya in summer 1942.

-- Herde, Peter "Der Japanflug: Planung und Verwirklichung einer Flugverbindung zwischen den Achsenmächten und Japan 1942-1945". Pub. 2000. 

The same article also refers to flights by BV222 aircraft in Lufthansa registrations to Sakhalin Island which was then part of Japan.

On 30 April 1945 a large BV222 flying boat was prepared to fly senior VIPs to Greenland to escape.

How I prepared the Nazis plan for great escape to Greenland
Nick Fielding
The Sunday Times - Britain 
December 28, 2003  

A German navigator has described for the first time a daring plan by the Nazis to evacuate their surviving leaders by flying boat to Greenland at the end of the Second World War.

The plan, which was scuppered by the German surrender, would have involved Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Albert Speer, Alfred Jodl and other senior figures taking off from north Germany to continue their struggle from abroad. Hitler himself was determined not to leave Berlin, where he eventually committed suicide.

The Greenland operation has been revealed by Captain Ernst König, 93, who had previously been determined to keep the story secret until after his death. He was persuaded to speak earlier this month by friends in Britain.

The last-ditch mission described by König also involved an attempt to pick up a copy of the Führer's Will from Berlin, but this had to be abandoned because of heavy Russian fire.

König said he had just finished preparing two giant BV-222 seaplanes for the escape flight when the Allies launched an air raid.

The two BV-222s were completely destroyed as they sat on the water said König. The plan was not abandoned, he added.

"We had another in the workshop and that, too, was made ready. It required a lot of work, but it was done and once again stores arrived for loading on board".

Terry Charman, a historian at the Imperial War Museum in London, said he believed König's story was credible and was backed up by incidental details revealed by other Germans. [cf. Albert Speer, "Inside the Third Reich']

"I believe Hitlers architect, Albert Speer, also made mention of an escape attempt to Greenland which was abandoned," said Charman. He added that Colonel Werner Baumbach's KG200, a secret special operations section of the Luftwaffe, was known to use BV-222s and may also have been involved.

König gave his account of the operation from his home in a sheltered housing complex in the north German port of Travemünde, from where the flight was to have begun.

König, who became Travemünde's harbour master after the war, spent his early years as a navigational expert. During the war he worked at a secret seaplane research centre in the town.

"Previously I had been in the merchant marine and studied for my navigational qualifications," said König. "That is why I began working at Travemünde. It was a centre of excellence. We tested all the latest flying boats and equipment".

König was drafted in to improve the Luftwaffe's navigational techniques, which were primitive at the beginning of the war. The centre was connected to the rocket research complex at Peenemünde, further east along the coast.

Among the aircraft tested at the base was the BV-222, one of the biggest flying boats ever built. The plane, built by Blohm und Voss, had a 140ft wingspan, was 36ft high and could carry 92 fully equipped troops at a speed of 240mph. It had a crew of 16 and was defended by an array of machineguns. The plane could stay aloft for up to 28 hours, making it ideal for long-distance flights.

"Only 13 were built." said König. "The first eight or nine were used as transporters to take equipment to north Africa, but the rest were submarine killers. By April 1945 we had just three left at Travemünde".

"Early that month," said König, he had received orders to prepare two of the planes for a long journey. Large quantities of equipment began to arrive at the docks including skis, tents, sledges and supplies of food".

König believes the plan was developed by Hans Baur, Hitlers personal pilot, who later said he had offered to take the Führer anywhere he wanted to go, including Greenland, north Africa or Madagascar. He told a post-war allied interrogator that he could have done this right up to the last day.

Why would Hitler even contemplate going to Madagasgar, Greenland or North Africa? All these places were occupied by the Allies from 1943 onwards. Why did he not just hand himself over to the Allies in Europe instead of flying thousands of miles to do so? 

König described how he had been ordered to make preparations for as many as 30 of the most senior surviving Nazis to be airlifted out including Göring, head of the Luftwaffe, Himmler, chief of the SS and the Gestapo, and Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, Hitlers chosen successor, who led the Third Reich in its final days.

The aim was to pick up the men from an inlet just north of Kiel, where the remnants of the German high command were gathering. They would then embark for Greenland, a Danish territory.

The aircrew had experience flying between Germany and the weather station in Greenland to maintain its supplies.

As the plane used Diesel fuel and a number of submarines operated in Greenland's waters, it would be possible to refuel and easily reach Argentina or even Japan.

Hitler was already trapped in Berlin and determined not to leave, along with his deputy Martin Bormann, who was eventually killed as he tried to slip out of the encircled city.

On the night of 8 April 1945, an allied bombing raid put an end to the first attempt. Two weeks later Hitler told the remaining Nazi leadership that the war was lost and they should make their own arrangements to escape.

According to Klaus Dieter Brodzig, a former pilot and unofficial historian of Germanys seaplane service, once Hitler had killed himself in the basement of the Chancellery in Berlin, a further plan was hatched to send a small BV-138 seaplane to land on the Wannsee lake in Berlin and pick up a copy of his Last Will.

"The flight took place on 1 May, the day after Hitler killed himself," said Brodzig. The pilot took off from Copenhagen but he could not land on the Wannsee because he came under Russian tank fire.

Back in Travemünde, which was caught between advancing British and Soviet forces, the last BV-222 had been made ready, but it was soon too late.

"We were called on to the base on 2 May," said König. "Our commanding officer, Captain Mayerling, called us together. He told us his responsibilities had ended as the war was over, gave us our papers and sent us all home. Then we destroyed the final boat with explosives".

The Blohm & Voss BV238 was a German flying boat [Flugboot] built during World War II. It was the heaviest aircraft ever flown when it first flew in 1944, and was the largest aircraft produced by any of the Axis powers in World War II. The BV 222 was both the largest flying boat and largest sea-based German aircraft to achieve operational status during the war.

The BV 238 V1 bearing the four-letter factory radio code of RO + EZ, first flew in April 1944. Six 1,750 hp Daimler-Benz DB 603 inverted V12 piston engines were used in total, arranged in three forward-facing engine nacelles on each wing.

Destruction

According to American sources, the BV238 was destroyed September 1944 by P-51 Mustangs of the US 361st Fighter Group. The lead Mustang, Detroit Miss, was piloted by Lieutenant Urban "Ben" Drew, and another was piloted by William D. Rogers. Drew was told told after the attack that he had destroyed a BV222 'Wiking'

 

He continued to believe this was the case until he was contacted by the BBC in 1974 for a documentary and told that their research had determined that the aircraft he had destroyed was actually the BV238 V1, undergoing flight tests at the seaplane base at Schaalsee.

German sources, based in part on the testimony of nearby inhabitants and Blohm & Voss employees, claim that the BV238 V1 was discovered by the RAF between 23 April and 26 April 1945.

The Allies were reportedly concerned that Adolf Hitler could use it to escape to South America, and so an attack followed shortly afterwards.

According to the British, the attack happened on 4 May 1945. The aircraft was attacked by Hawker Typhoons, or Hawker Tempests. Their strafing set the engines alight, and the aircraft burnt and sank with only part of a wing remaining above the surface. During the strafing, the back of the flying boat broke and the forward part of the plane sank into the water.

Smaller BV138 flying boats evacuated Niklaus von Below who escaped from Hitler's Bunker before Hitler's suicide.

These aircraft landed at night on Lake Havel and flew VIPs from Peacock island.

It is historically factual that a KG200 unit of Bv138 flying boats did operate to Lake Havel on the night of 2 May 1945 and declassified Enigma signals also refer to orders for these operations. These Bv138 had been operating flights to Lake Havel at night since 25 April 1945. From 25 April onwards troops of the MarSchB 903 [903rd naval infantry battalion] were flown into Berlin via Lake Havel using Bv-138 of 8/KG200 and floatplane versions of the Ju-52 operated by 3./I./TG 1, from the seaplane base at Pütnitz near Ribnitz.

There were few better pilots in the Third Reich than Hanna Reitsch, and none more loyal to its leader, Adolf Hitler.

Her flying skills and fanaticism were fully displayed on the night of 26 April 1945, when Reitsch landed her small Fieseler Storch plane on a makeshift airstrip on the Tiergarten in the centre of war-ravaged Berlin.

Accompanied by General Robert Ritter von Greim, the head of the Luftwaffe, Reitsch made her way to Hitler's Bunker, where she found a scene of chaos.

Drunken Wehrmacht officers caroused with secretaries, while nearby artillery shells provided a rumbling background soundtrack of impending doom.

According to most accounts, Reitsch's mission was little more than an expression of her complete devotion to her Führer.

The Hitler she found in the dying days of the war was not a well man, his gait shuffling, his face lined, his body coursing with a noxious torrent of prescribed drugs.

She expressed a wish to die alongside her ailing hero in an epic scene of Wagnerian drama.

But Hitler insisted that the fight was not over, and that although his body was weak, his will still radiated the same power as it had back in the 1930s.

Hitler informed the 33-year-old pilot that her next task would be the most important she would ever perform - she was going to help him escape.

The Führer told Reitsch that although the battle for Berlin was surely lost, the battle for the hearts and minds of the German people was still not over, and that Nazism would always survive so long as he was still alive.

Four days later, just after 11pm on 30 April, three figures cautiously emerged into the flickering gloom of the Chancellery garden. Two members of the party were female - one was Reitsch, and the other was the newly married Eva Hitler, better known to the world as Eva Braun.

The third figure was wearing the uniform of an army corporal, and his face was divested of its trademark toothbrush moustache.

He carried a Walther PPK 7.65mm pistol, as well as three vials of cyanide - one for each of the group should they be captured by the Russians.

Sidestepping shell holes, burst water mains and corpses, the small party eventually reached Reitsch's small aircraft on the Tiergarten.

Although she had expressed severe misgivings that the aircraft was large enough for three people, Hitler was nevertheless insistent that he take his new wife.

My friend Professor Rick Hillum has kindly shared with me some of his encyclopedic knowledge of WW2 aviation. I bow to Rick, as all of you should...

Thinking about the Storch as a Means of Escape for Hitler

Just as an observation, the Storch could well have taken off with three people as fitted with a 240hp engine, it was well within the lifting capacity of 880lb of luggage and people. Most four seat Cessna’s only have 100hp but will only climb at around 500ft per min. However my only comment is that it would never had reached 20,000ft as suggested by the article as it only had a service ceiling of 17,500 with one persons on board. With three, I would be surprised if it achieved greater than 10,000ft and it would have taken a long time to reach that altitude exposing it to small arms fire for quite a long time until it reached a safe altitude. Despite 240hp the engine was un-supercharged and the power would have dropped like a stone as the aircraft climbed.

The other issue worthy of consideration, would be the need for oxygen for all on board when flying above 10,000ft. Depending on the version being flown would have varied the standard oxygen equipment. Having said that - I would be surprised if the aircraft was fitted with three oxygen masks, let alone have a large enough supply to support three persons for any period of time. The real strength of the Storch was it exceptional short take-off and landing performance [STOL] and I would have thought the concern that Hanna Reitsch would have expressed - was not one of if the aircraft would take off with three persons, but one of would it take off in the available runway.

Further, if such a trip had taken place, I believe that the pilot would have flown low to avoid enemy fighters that would have been undoubtedly patrolling a higher altitudes.

With three persons on board the aircraft would have flown at a speed of around 90mph and had a range of around 240 miles depending on head-wind. It is very feasible therefore that they could have flown directly to Malmo in Sweden without the need to land and refuel. With longer range tanks it could have made it to Norway in one flight; albeit unless the trip planned beforehand, obviously it is unlikely to have been fitted with the non-standard additional fuel tanks.

Certainly technically, the aircraft would have had the lifting capacity with three on board plus an additional fuel tank to have made the trip feasible.

-- Guy Walters

Reitsch was accustomed to dangerous flights, but this journey was like no other. With its extra passenger, the plane only just managed to clear the wreckage of a shattered Panzer halfway down the Tiergarten, and as soon as they were airborne, it seemed as though every Soviet gun opened up on them.

The explosions tossed the Storch around like a feather, and it required all of Reitsch's skill to keep them in the air. Both the Führer and his bride were sick - yet Frau Hitler was still able to crack a quip that not many brides had honeymoons that had started quite like this.

When the plane reached 20,000ft, it settled into a smoother flight, safe from anti-aircraft shells. Hitler peered down to look at the blazing center of his once glorious Reich, and vowed that he would rebuild it twice the size.

From that altitude, the Führer would not have been able to see whether his orders were being carried out faithfully by his valet, Heinz Linge, but he was confident that they would be.

Linge was a loyal servant, and when Hitler had asked him to arrange for the execution of a middle-aged man and a younger woman, and then to dress their corpses in the clothes of Hitler and his wife, he knew Linge would oblige.

He also knew that Linge would make sure that the bodies would be cremated beyond recognition with some 200 liters of petrol - a scarce enough commodity even for the occupants of the Führerbunker.

After a two-hour flight, the plane reached its destination - the coastal town of Travemünde, some 160 miles northwest of Berlin. There, moored in the water, was an enormous six-engine BV 222 flying-boat..

With a range of nearly 4,000 miles, the aircraft was the ideal vehicle to spirit Hitler away from the clutches of his enemies.

Captained by Colonel Werner Baumbach and navigated by Captain Ernst König, the plane took off at a little after four o'clock in the morning, and headed towards the North Sea.

Its destination was Greenland, its icy wastes forming the perfect redoubt from which Hitler could plot the resurgence of his vile creed.

Unlike many Nazis, Hitler had no wish to travel to South America, which he knew would be the first place his pursuers would look.

After 13 hours, the mighty BV222 landed on the near-frozen waters near the village of Ittoqqortoormiit on the eastern coast of Greenland.

The huts of a German weather station on a small island a few miles out to sea constituted, for the time being, the final destination of a man who had unleashed the most destructive conflict in history.

But could such a scenario have happened? Is it possible that Hitler did not commit suicide with his wife in his Bunker on 30 April  - and that he actually escaped?

After all, in the years after the war, doubts about Hitler's death were frequently expressed.

With a lack of firm proof that the dictator had perished, the Russians initially claimed that Hitler was being sheltered by the Americans and the British. 

But it turned out later that many of these early Soviet allegations were part of the deliberate disinformation game which was taking place at the birth of the Cold War  -  it suited Stalin's Propaganda aims to smear the Allies with the idea that they were protecting Hitler. 

However, there were many supposed sightings of the Führer, and the Allies were obliged to take them seriously. 

Some believed that Hitler had escaped on board U-977, a German submarine laden with valuables that had supposedly escaped to Argentina after the war. Although there was no truth in this "submarine route"  -  in fact no ranking Nazis are known to have escaped in such a way  -  there were plenty of other theories. 

In September 1945, both Hitler and his private secretary, Martin Bormann, were reported to have sailed out of Hamburg on a luxury mahogany yacht, and to have hidden in one of the many inlets and islands on the Schleswig-Holstein coast.

Once again, after a thorough investigation by the British, the story was found to be groundless. 

Even the most absurd claims were taken seriously. In October 1945, the British Legation in Copenhagen felt obliged to inform the Foreign Office that a Danish woman had reported that a friend of hers had dreamed that Hitler was disguised as a monk in a monastery in Algeciras in Spain. 

As the supposedly psychic Dane had also had accurate premonitions about RAF raids during the war, the Legation told the head of the German department that the story "might conceivably be of interest to you". It is not known whether any enquiries were made. 

In December that year, the U.S. War Department's Counter Espionage department  -X-2 -  discovered there was a possibility that Hitler had in fact escaped to the Balearic islands.

According to an informant, Hitler had landed by submarine in Majorca, and had holed up at the Hotel Formentor with a group of nuclear scientists. An investigation was launched, and the story was soon found to be yet more nonsense. 

But still the rumours persisted, sometimes abetted by those who should have been more wary.

In April 1947, an American former Intelligence officer, William F. Heimlich, told the Press that he believed Hitler was alive and hiding somewhere in Europe. 

Describing himself as the officer in charge of searching for Hitler at the end of the war, Heimlich declared that Hitler and Martin Bormann "left the air raid Bunker together before the date of their purported deaths and certain persons helped them escape from Berlin". 

Like so many other "experts", Heimlich was unable to furnish evidence to support his story. 

Nevertheless, he did feel confident enough to rubbish other accounts that claimed that Hitler was living in the Antarctic, and that Bormann was living in Cairo. But Heimlich's stories were no more truthful than those he so readily dismissed. 

As the years wore on, theories about Hitler's fate grew increasingly outlandish.

By the 1970s, some cranks were even speculating that Hitler was in fact living on the Moon, biding his time on a Nazi lunar base built in the 1950s.

But even if one casts such rubbish aside, it is important to remember that it was certainly feasible that Hitler could have escaped from his Bunker. 

After all, many senior Nazis had done so, and the escape from Berlin by aircraft, as recounted above, is just one way in which the dictator might have fled. 

So if Hitler had ended up somewhere far-flung such as Greenland, what might he have done? Although Germany was thoroughly controlled by the Allies, there were still plenty of Germans who secretly remained loyal to the Nazi cause. 

Broadcasts by Hitler might have helped to foment a resistance movement. However, without access to a regular supply of arms, it is likely that any uprising would have soon been crushed. Four huge Allied armies occupied the country for decades, after all. 

The Allies, too, would have done their best to find Hitler, knowing that as long as he remained alive, so would Nazism.

And while many Nazis were not tracked down after the war owing to a lack of resources and political will, every effort would, of course, have been expended to hunt Hitler. 

Perhaps this would have forced Hitler to flee reluctantly to South America, where he could at least have been sheltered by the Argentine dictator Juan Perón. However, even there he would have been in danger  -  the prospect of a large bounty offered by the Allies would surely have loosened the tongue of someone in the Nazi community or the Argentine secret police. 

Once Hitler had been found, the Argentine dictator would have come under the most immense international pressure to release his "guest". A mixture of diplomatic sanctions and economic bribes would have forced Perón, who had a weak grip on power, to surrender his charge.

At some point in the early 1950s, Hitler would have been brought to face justice at another Nuremberg trial and he would have been hanged after what would have been the trial of the century. 

Although such a chain of events was certainly feasible, it is a mistake to confuse a possibility for likelihood. The truth is, the notion of Hitler's escape goes against all the evidence. 

The most authoritative investigation of the dictator's death was carried out by the historian and MI6 officer Hugh Trevor-Roper, in which he interviewed many of those who had been present during Hitler's final hours.

Trevor-Roper was able to demonstrate convincingly that Hitler had in fact killed himself, and that his corpse and that of Eva Braun were incinerated. 

As well as Trevor-Roper's account, many of those who served in the Führer Bunker, such as Hanna Reitsch and Heinz Linge, have also published their memoirs, all of which  -  with a few minor discrepancies aside  -  show that Hitler took poison and shot himself with his Walther PPK.

If Hitler had really escaped then all these people would have to be either participants in a massive conspiracy, or wildly mistaken. Both of these alternatives are so unlikely as to be ridiculous. 

But what of the fragment of skull? Can we take the Russians' reassurance that it is genuine at face value? 

In fact, the fragment has been dismissed as evidence on previous occasions, as the bullet hole is not nearly large enough to be the exit hole of a round fired from a Walther PPK at close range. 

And the fire damage is not nearly extensive enough  -  Hitler's body was almost completely burned, and any piece of skull or bone that survived would have been far more burnt than the Moscow fragment. 

In addition, if Hitler did escape, he left the bottom part of his head in Berlin, as charred pieces of his lower and upper jaw were unearthed in the German capital in 1945 and matched to X-rays of Hitler's skull and teeth.

They also matched the details in the testimony left by Hitler's dentist, Hugo Blaschke. However, the jaw fragment has since been hidden away in KGB archives. 

But if the skull fragment is not from Hitler, then who did it belong to? One theory is that it came from Eva Braun, but as she did not die from a gunshot wound, the fragment cannot be hers. The truth is, many thousands were killed in Berlin in 1945, and the fragment could have belonged to any one of them. 

The most likely explanation is that the fragment of skull belonged to yet another victim of the horror that Hitler had created. The only thing that Hitler escaped from was justice. 

-- Guy Walters is the author of "Hunting Evil: The Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped"

In British captivity Hanna Reitsch wrote to her brother. She mentioned on 28 April 1945 as she and Ritter von Greim were departing Berlin on the improvised Tiergarten's East West Axis runway they saw a Ju-52 transport waiting next to the Brandenberg gate with its engines running and a pilot standing beside it. That letter and its contents were read and publicised by her British captors.

Hanna Reitsch recorded in her memoirs that she, with a heavily bandaged General von Greim by her side, flew out of Berlin from the Tiergarten, at dawn on 30 April 1945, according to her 5 December 1945 press interview.  

In testimony to Captain Robert F. Work, Chief Interrogator on 8 October 1945, regarding the "Last Days of Hitler"', the departure from the Bunker is stated as after 1:30 am on 30 April 1945.

James P/. O'Donnell, in bis book "the Bunker" suggested that the Ju-52 was sent by Himmler for Fegelein and others have suggested that Fegelein was tasked to return with Hitler's corpse as proof to the Allies.

O'Donnell cited Speer saying that Baur had serious plans to fly Hitler out on 23, 28 and 29 April 1945. He also quoted Baur himself after the war saying "right up to the last day I could have flown the Führer anywhere in the world".

When Speer and Baur claimed after the war that there were serious plans to fly Hitler out on 28 and 29 April 1945, did they mean on the Ju-52 which had flown in for Fegelein on the evening of 28 April and left again in the morning of 29 April?

Probably not. That Ju-52, according to O'Donnell may have been the ship allocated to Fegelein by Himmler, but it is doubtful that it was known to Baur that it was even parked there as Baur had shut down his tower and thereby recalled its staff earlier that day. After 9:00 pm or thereabouts on 28 April, any pilot of a plane sent by Himmler to fetch Fegelein would have been arrested because Himmler's negotiations with Count Bernadotte became known to Hitler.

Hohenzollerndamm is the name of a wide boulevard in the Wilmersdorf section of southwest Berlin. The nearest wartime airfields were Berlin-Gatow, about 7.5 km WSW of the Boulevard, and Berlin-Tempelhof, about 5 km east of the Boulevard. But both of these airfields could no longer be used after about 22 April as they were under direct Soviet artillery fire and hourly attacks by Soviet fighters and ground attack aircraft. The Germans then began using Berlin's wide boulevards for courier, liaison and med-evac flights, of which there were only a few with these usually being flown at night.

Hans Baur's deputy George Beetz who did not survive the break out from the Chancellery flew in from Rechlin. Berlin was surrounded on 21 April.

On 20 April 1945—Adolf Hitler's 56th birthday—Soviet troops were on the verge of taking Berlin and the Western Allies had already taken several German cities. Hitler's private secretary, Martin Bormann, put into action  "Geheimoperation Serail" [Secret Operation Harem, also called Seraglio], a plan to evacuate  key and favoured members of Hitler's entourage and important files flown out of the encircled Berlin to an Alpine command center near Berchtesgaden - Hitler's retreat in southern Germany.

Ten airplanes flew out from Gatow airfield, the night of 21/22 April  under the overall command of General Hans Baur, Hitler's personal pilot. The final flight out was a Junkers Ju 352 transport plane, piloted by Major Friedrich Gundlfinger—on board were ten heavy chests under the supervision of Hitler's personal valet Sergeant Wilhelm Arndt. The plane crashed into the Heidenholz forest, near the Czechoslovak border.

Some of the more useful parts of Gundlfinger's plane were appropriated by locals before the police and SS cordoned off the crash. When Baur told Hitler what had happened, the German leader expressed grief at the loss of Arndt, one of his most trusted aides, and added: "I entrusted him with extremely valuable documents which would show posterity the truth of my actions!" Apart from this quoted sentence, there is no indication of what was in the boxes. 

In the decades following the war, the possibility of a hidden cache of private papers belonging to Hitler became, according to the journalist Robert Harris, a "tantalizing state of affairs [that] was to provide the perfect scenario for forgery" [ie. "The Hitler Diaries"]

The improvised runway was on the Unter den Linden Ost West Achse from the Brandenburgertor gate to the Victory gate of 1870-1871.

A Deutsche Luft Hansa Focke Wulf FW200B-2 D-ASHH 'Hessen', crashed on high ground 21 April 1945 on a flight to Spain with documents and staff from the Chancellery at Berlin. 

On 23 April 1945 Albert Speer and Col Manfred von Poser flew from Rechlin to Gatow by Fw-190 and from Gatow to Brandenburg Gate in the Tiergarten at Berlin in a pair of Fieseler Storch.

Luftwaffe Gen Karl Koller also flew directly to Berchtesgarden from Berlin on 23 April to visit Göring. Koller began flying a fleet of 15 Ju-52 into Berlin from 23 April onwards.

On 23 April, Luftwaffe Col Niklaus von Below also flew the opposite direction from Göring's side in Bavaria to Berlin to hand deliver Bormann a copy of the signal which Göring sent proposing to assume leadership of the Reich at 10pm that evening.

The argument with between Baur and Speer occurred on Tuesday 24 April 1945. Speer before being flown out protested in his capacity as Berlin's chief planner about Baur desecrating trees for an emergency runway which were lining Unter den Linden. 

Gatow and Kladow airports came under artillery fire from 24 April, but were not closed or captured until 27 April 1945. Tempelhof was captured 25 April and at 1pm that day Bormann learned that Berlin had been encircled by Russian forces, yet it seems Gen Hans Baur was operating a regular airport from the Tiergarten by then. There was an SS controlled unit in the Luftwaffe which operated Ju 52 aircraft. Hanna Reitsch mentioned a Ju 52 in Berlin disgorging twelve SS Wehrmacht troops. The unit was known as Ergänzungsstaffel Erg.St./Fl.Gr. z.b.V. 7.

A massive artillery barrage of Berlin took place on the evening of 27 April and early 28 April. 

James P O'Donnell in his book "The Berlin Bunker," 1979, refers  to a steady shuttle of Storches or trainers from Rechlin after Gatow and Kladow airports closed. 

Hans-Ulrich Rudel and Hanna Reitsch had practiced with a Focke Achgelis Fa 223, which had twin rotors on transverse outriggers, through November and December 1944 making rescue flights to the Tiergarten with this aircraft, but by April 29 the helicopter at Rechlin kept for this task was destroyed by air attacks.
 

Ritter von Greim and Reitsch flew in by Fi-156 'Storch' but flew out on an Arado Ar-96.
 

In "The Fall Of Berlin" by Anthony Read and David Fisher it says that the Luftwaffe pilot who flew Greim and Reitsch from Rechlin to Gatow was the same pilot who had flown Albert Speer to Berlin for his final visit.

"The FW190 had only one passenger seat, but the diminutive Hanna, who stood barely five feet tall, squeezed into the space in the fuselage behind it". The same "warrant officer pilot" [Luftwaffe Feldwebel] landed an Arado 96 training aircraft on the "East-West" axis to fly Greim and Reitsch out again, "setting course for Rechlin air base they flew safely on their way".

-- Anton Joachimsthaler, "The Last Days of Hitler,"1995;

The original German 1951 memoir of Hanna Reitsch is much more elaborate than the later English translation.

Hanna confirms the identity of the pilot, insofar she states that it was the same pilot who flew them from Rechlin to Gatow a couple of days before, and she continues:

“Jetzt mussten wir zu dritt herausfliegen, obwohl die Maschine nur zweisitzig war" [Now the three of us had to fly out together, although the machine only was a two-seater].
 
However, it does not clarify the identity of the pilot.

The name of the pilot -Jürgen Bosser- appears in a Spanish language books only and apparently nowhere else.

 "In the meantime, however, the Fieseler Storch in which both of them [Greim – Reitsch] had flown in from Gatow had been destroyed by shellfire near the Victory Column. A new plane was summoned from Rechlin Airfield".

-- Also Erich Kuby, in his 1978 account, "The Russians and Berlin 1945," says:

"Greim’s Fieseler Storch was now a wreck in the Tiergarten. Luckily a daredevil Luftwaffe pilot [Jürgen Bosser]  had succeeded in bringing a training machine into the city during the night, and now flew Greim and Hanna Reisch out of Berlin and back to Rechlin". 

However, Nikolaus von Below, Hitlers Luftwaffe adjutant, states in his memoir, "At Hitlers Side":

"On 28 April I succeeded, with the greatest difficulty, in getting his [von Greim] Fieseler Storch clear to start, after which Greim and his companion got out of the shambles and reached Rechlin – a very meritable achievement".

According to  Marshal Georgy Zhukov, on 30 April 1945 "....a small plane took off at dawn at the Tiergarten runway with three men and a woman on board".

Zhukov added: "It is also indisputably established that a submarine left Hamburg before the arrival of the British troops, taking several passengers, including a woman".

This theory, according to which Hitler and his wife took a plane from Berlin to Hamburg and then boarded a state-of-the-art submarine type XXI seems probable, Especially since two ships were lost in the South Atlantic after the end of the hostilities and were traveling on the "probable" route of the submarine in which Hitler would have fled.

Finally, to sow even more doubt, it seems necessary to compare the statements of the personnel of the Bunker of Hitler, as to the time and the way Hitler died which has persisted, but also when he was married to Eva Braun and what time he said farewell.

30 April 1945 is contradicted by the concordant testimonies of the nurses of the Bunker, reported by Roger Depley. On 1 May at 10:30 pm, they were all surprised to learn that Hitler wished to bid them farewell, for they thought he had left for several days for an unknown destination. Hitler received them in the company of Professor Ludwig Strumpfegger, his special surgeon. This same collective testimony at the same time invalidates all the declarations that Hitler took his own life on 30 April.

Nor should one forget Dr. Stumpfegger's presence in the Bunker. He came from the camp of Ravensbrück, where he performed experiments on people, including, supposedly, the achievement of "doubles" very successfully.

During the last days of Hitler, the people in the Bunker noticed abnormal behavior in the Führer: He was not talkative, and seemed lethargic or drugged.

On the other hand, the hypothesis of a long-range U-Boot entering the port of Hamburg between the morning of 1 May and the dawn of 4 May can be retained, since the Second British army did not enter the city until the 4th.

Between 25-28 April a number of aircraft of Hitler's personal squadron, "Fliegerstaffel des Führers" commanded by Baur were operated from Rerik, transporting 7th Marine SS Division Skanderbeg into Berlin.

These aircraft included Fw 200 C-4/U1, W. Nr. 0137 "Condor" [CE + IC], the pilot was Capt Joachim Hübner, also Ju-290 (9V + BK), whose pilot was Lt. Wagner and Ju-352 [KT + VJ], piloted by Olt Schultze. Another Fw 200A-0 [S-9] Wk.N. 3099 D-ARHU "Immelmann III" was operated into Berlin during these days piloted by Hauptman Kurt Herzog. Three Ju-52 aircraft were known to be ferrying troops of the 7th Marine SS Division into Berlin. These aircraft were Ju 52/3m fe Wk.N. 4021, Ju 52/3m Wk.N. 4053 D-AHIT, Ju 52/3m Wk.N.4065.

From 26-27 April 1000 sailors of 1.FuMLAbt at Fehrman were flown into Berlin by F.d.F.

Furthermore, Squadron "Mauß" operating Ju-352s from Rostok flew 476 naval troops into Berlin. Oberfeldwebel Paul Kohler operated Ju-352 G6+EX, another Ju-352 G6+RX was operated by StFw Kurt Becker. OltZSee Clemens Zuborg recalled after the war witnessing two Ju-352 unloading about 80 sailors at the Reichs Chancellery.

One of these aircraft received heavy Soviet ground fire stopping two of its three engines and was forced to make a crash landing which miraculously its pilot Herbert Schultz, his crew and passengers all survived. Schultz and his crew are known to have flown out of Berlin on 29 April 1945, making their flight out a day after Reitsch and Greim's the last flight out of Berlin. There is a suggestion that other aircraft got in after this but none waited for passengers to fly out.

[c.f. "Companies Reich Chancellery", by Günther Ott in Jet and Prop 04/95; Verlag Heinz Nickel, Zweibrücken, 1995; "Das bittere Ende der Luftwaffe", [The Bitter End of the German Air Force] by Ulrich Saft; military book publisher in Walsrode, 1992-94; "Schiffsschicksale Ostsee 1945", [Ship fate of the Baltic Sea 1945] by Wolfgang Müller, Köhler's publishing company in Hamburg, 1996: "Gesunken und Verschollen", [Sunk and Lost] by Wolfgang Müller and Reinhard Kramer; Köhler Verlagsgesellschft in Hamburg, 1994-96; "Die letzten Kriegstage; Ostseehäfen 1945", by Heinz Schön [The last days of the war, the Baltic ports in 1945] engine book publishing house in Stuttgart, 1995; "Die deutschen Kriegsschiffe 1815 - 1945" [The German warships 1815 - 1945] Band 8 / 1, by Erich Gröner, Bernard & Gräfe Verlag, Bonn, 19]

"Hitler however had planned to stay expecting his armies to surround the Russians as they attacked Berlin. Hitler's armies however melted away and abandoned him. He made one last attempt to bargain with the Soviets for his own escape through SS LtGen Wilhelm Mohnke under a flag of truce. The Russians rejected a generous offer to surrender all German forces in North Germany and Denmark in return for Hitler's freedom but the Russians refused.

"Mohnke's truce talks with the Russians whilst Berlin was surrounded are scarcely secret. Hitler offered the Soviets the surrender of all forces in Northern Germany and Denmark to Soviet forces on condition that he be allowed to fly to Tokyo. Mohnke was well placed to know these matters as head of Hitler's SS bodyguard in Berlin. He conducted talks with the Soviets. The British were compelled by this to rush north and capture Lüneburg Heath, just southeast of Hamburg, before the Soviets got there.

"Dönitz under Hitler's instructions had already begun the evacuation of German forces from Denmark".  

Source: "The Bormann Brotherhood", Stevenson, William. Corgi Books 1975. Stevenson was a wartime RN intelligence officer contemporary with Cmdr Ian Fleming and freely disclosed in his book his exposure to many top secret Intelligence reports on Hitler.    

Stevenson's book discloses at page 210 that Mohnke revealed a series of secret communications for many months prior to the fall of Berlin, concerning a secret surrender deal.

It is also worth adding that a German nuclear scientist recalled after the war that on 27 April 1945 just days before Germany collapsed, citizens of Munich were being told that the use of an atomic weapon was imminent. Hitler believed to the last that a wonder weapon would save him.

Four questions about the German supposed ownership of an A-bomb:

1. How did the Germans collect the fissible materials needed? In which installations?
2. How come that Ultra, which delivered enough information for the British Scientific Intelligence to know exactly what such ultra-secret weapons as the V-1 and V-2 were as early as 1943, caught absolutely nothing about a German A-bomb project?
3. About "testing": how come the desperate Germans [more exactly, the desperate Hitler] did  not order such a test over Moscow? Or at least over some of the many Soviet troop concentrations in the Eastern Front? Or over London?.
4. The most important one: how come that the Soviets, who captured the most important German atomic research centers [those based at Berlin such as Kaiser Wilhelm Pychics institute, and most if not all of the German sources of Uranium oxide at Silesia and Bohemia], took two full years before producing an A-bomb themselves, having as they had both total "backdoor" access to the Manhattan project secrets, and the access to the most important German atomic research centers and machinery [which they promptly moved to the USSR], all that backed up with a total and absolute priority amongst the Soviet military projects,

With German-held territory shrinking rapidly and the country cut in two, flights reaching Berlin after the fall of the last airport within the city limits [Gatow, 26 April 1945] were "resupply" missions - supplies dropped from transport aircraft and gliders operating from a handful of airfields on the Baltic coast.

There was no concerted effort made to fly high-ranking personalities out of Berlin - among them Adolf Hitler. 

Günther Ott's published articles in "Jet & Prop" magazine during 1995 entitled "Unternehmen Reichskanzlei", however Ott pointed out that no such codeword/operation for these flights existed - it being simply post-war journalistic shorthand for those various ad-hoc attempts to bring in supplies to Berlin for the besieged Bunker occupants and their defenders.

Hitler did have his own "flight" of transport aircraft, the so-called Fliegerstaffel des Führers [or more colloquially 'FdF' - Für den Führer] but this unit was equipped with large multi-engine types including Ju 290s from  FAGr 5, virtually all of which had been effectively grounded for months due to shortages of fuel. Hitler may have been urged by his acolytes to flee to some Alpine "fortress" or other in southern Germany but only a handful of ad-hoc transport flights out of Berlin for high-ranking regime members were possible from mid-April, activity suddenly spurred by the opening of the last Russian offensive against Berlin launched on 16 April 1945.

On 21 April Lt. Herbert Wagner flew 48 passengers from Berlin to Salzburg in a FAGr. 5  Ju 290 A-2 transport [9V+BK], returning to Gatow on the following evening. Hitler's personal transport Fw 200 C-4 coded "TK+CV" flew 12 passengers to Wittstock on 24 April but by now the last remaining airport within the city [Gatow] was coming under heavy Soviet artillery fire.

An important role is played by the Charlottenburger Chaussee - the so-called Ost-West Achse. Hitler had designated this wide and long boulevard in central Berlin as a takeoff and landing strip in his "order for the preparations of the defence of the Reichs capital". But no large multi-engined aircraft could hope to land here. 

By 25 April Gatow was the only airfield within the city boundary that was still in German hands although coming increasingly under Soviet fire. 26 April may have been the last day Gatow saw Luftwaffe aircraft take off. Routes into the city from the airfield had already been cut and the only way into the centre and the Chancellery as Hanna Reitsch and Ritter von Greim discovered was via Fiesler Storch. Their Storch came under Russian fire on the subsequent flight and von Greim was injured. According to Reitsch's own account,  Hitler  ordered them to save themselves late on Sunday 29 April 1945. They had one last chance to flee – a Junkers Ju 52 and an Arado 96 had just landed unscathed on the East-West Axis. Von Greim and Reitsch left the Bunker and climbed aboard a half-track which drove them to the Arado under a night sky that was lit up by countless flashes and explosions. The pilots were waiting – the same Feldwebel who had brought them into Gatow aboard a Focke Wulf 190. This time he had touched down near the Zoo – the strip that was still in German hands amounted to no more than 400 metres in length and was shrinking progressively. The Arado trainer took off under a rain of fire and immediately sought refuge in the banks of cloud and smoke that had shrouded the city for weeks.

The Ju 52 that had 'successfully managed to land' on the Ost-West-Achse that night and then take-off again was apparently flown by one Oberfeldwebel Böhm from II./TGr 3. This was reported by another young Ju 52 pilot from this unit, Uffz. Johannes Lachmund who described events in his 2009 memoir. Although a pilot Lachmund flew on this sortie as a gunner. Lachmund records that this mission was flown from Güstrow to Berlin with five aircraft to evacuate high-ranking personnel from Berlin, including Ritter von Greim. As Lachmund reports, three of the five Ju 52s had to return after missed approaches, chiefly because the visibility was so poor from the heavy smoke from the fires everywhere on the ground. One Ju-52 was shot-down by the Soviets during the approach.

Lachmund mentions discussions via telephone from the 'air traffic control' command-post at the Siegessäule [Berlin's Victory column] between Ofw Böhm and the Bunker in the Reichskanzlei. There was apparently some dispute over the passengers to be flown-out, chiefly because Hanna Reitsch wanted to fly out Ritter von Greim herself at the controls of the Arado Ar-96, and not leave Berlin as a passenger on this Ju-52 flight. Eventually, the Ju 52 boarded only a few other wounded passengers but not the VIPs. Because of damage to the 'runway' from shelling, the Junkers transport had only 400 metres in which to get airborne.  It is worth noting perhaps that Deutsche Lufthansa record the minimum take-off distance for their lighter [unarmoured and unarmed] Ju 52/3m as 500 metres.

-- Johannes Lachmund : "Fliegen ; Mein Traumberuf – bis zu den bitteren Erlebnissen des Krieges", Verlagshaus Monsenstein und Vannerdat OHG Münster,  2009].

One fighter Geschwader charged with escorting senior figures in and out of the smoke-shrouded capital, including Hanna Reitsch and Ritter von Greim, was Jagdgeschwader 4. JG 4 had flown some of its last ground-attack missions of the war around the capital and the area of Neustrelitz on 29 April. Uffz. Manfred Kudell of 8. [Sturm]/JG 4 was one pilot who paid the price, airborne over Berlin at 08:45 that morning:

“Between 14 and 29 April I flew 29 combat sorties over Berlin and its suburbs. These were mostly Jabo ground attack flights but we also flew plenty of Schlachtflieger escort missions over the Kremmen-Nauen sector in an attempt to slow the encirclement of the capital. Over Berlin itself we generally ran into Yak fighters. During the last days we flew such a high rate of sorties that there was little time to properly plan them, which meant that they were mostly ineffectual. I was airborne – with my Schwarm – on 29 April. My Fw 190 carried a 250kg bomb and I had orders to target Soviet tanks heading for the Chancellery. There was little hope of us successfully carrying out this mission given the huge pall of smoke that shrouded the city – it was impossible to make out anything on the ground clearly. In fact only those pilots – such as myself – who knew the city and could pick out landmarks to navigate by were dispatched. Each pilot was assigned to attack a street in the vicinity of the Reichs Chancellery. My objective was Stresemannstrasse. Airborne from Rechlin, we swept in over the Reichskanzlei at roof-top height. We had no radio or visual contact with each other and Berlin was one huge cloud of smoke. We had no idea where our own troops were. We dropped our ordnance and turned onto a northerly heading in an attempt to reach Rechlin. As I came out through the clouds of smoke I was immediately set upon by Soviet fighters and despite my desperate manoeuvres, had to bale out at 3,000 metres..I landed – badly burnt – in the midst of street fighting. I was captured by Russian soldiers.." [translated from Vol II of Erik Mombeeck's history of JG 4 " Storming the Bombers"].

Some of the 'final flights' often referred to in the literature did occur - bv BV 138 seaplane operations from Lake Havel. Others did not - the air transport of large numbers of Kriegsmarine- and SS- infantry by land aircraft to Berlin 26-27 April referred to in statements by Dönitz and Jodl. They were planned, but they did not take place. Researchers have found no evidence to substantiate this. [see "Jet & Prop" 2/1996].

From "German Naval Infantry in the Defense of Berlin"
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
October 2010

Sailors in Berlin

The plan

It started all with an phone-call. In the KTB of the OKM, with the date of 24 April 1945 at 24:00 hrs, it is recorded as follows:

Kpt z.S. ASSMANN informed the OKM via phone about a Führerbefehl. Hitler given the order to VAdm VOß to transport some battalions of the Kriegsmarine, fully equipped with all kind of infantry weapons, to Berlin. He wished the sailors to join the defense of Berlin.

The plan was for two battalions of sailors from 1. SStR to be air-lifted into Berlin already the next night [25/26 April]. The units thus had to march immediately to distant air-fields.

- The so-called alarm battalion from Stralsund had to march to the seaplane base at Pütnitz near of Ribnitz, from where 175 men were to be flown with the 3./I./TG 1, which was equipped with a floatplane version of the Ju 52, and to Tutow, from where another 288 men were to be flown with Ju 352‘s of the Squadron "Mauß".

- Another alarm battalion from Rostock, with 476 men, had to march to the local air-field [this navy unit is unknown].

The following night [26/27  April], it was planned to transport a regiment from the island of Fehmarn, with some 1000 men, to Berlin from the airport of Rerik [sailors were part of the 1.FuMLAbt].

It seems, as GrAdm Dönitz wished to co-operate. He mobilized the 1.SStR in Stralsund and the 1.FuMLAbt on Fehmarn. These were also the "bravest" of his men, he would send to Berlin for the personal protection of the "beloved" Führer. The highest elite of a supreme-commander, was the impression of Hitler his Bunker under the Reichskanzlei.

1. SStR in Berlin

1.SStR [1. Schiffstamm-Regiment], which was the 1st naval instruction regiment, CO was Kpt z.S. Herbert Zollenkopg, consisted of:

- 1.SStA [1. Schiffstamm-Abteilung], the 1st naval instruction battalion, CO was KKpt Wolfgang Dittmers, stationed on Dänholm
- 2.SStA [2. Schiffstamm-Abteilung], the 2nd naval instruction battalion, CO was KKpt Franz Mayerhöffe, stationed in Flensburg-Mürwick
- 3.SStA [3. Schiffstamm-Abteilung), the 3rd naval instruction battalion, CO was FKpt Richard Steffen, stationed on the Schwedenschanze. At this time, this batallion was already mobilized as MarSchB 903(903rd naval infantry battalion]. It was almost completely unarmed, except some carbines for the ranks, and very few submachine-guns for some officers. More about this battalion later.
- 4.SStA [4th Schiffstamm-Abteilung], the 4th naval instruction batallion, CO was KKpt Herbert Banzhaf, stationed from February of 1945 in Flensburg-Mürwick.
- SSS 'Gorch Fock', CO was Kptl Wilhelm Kahle.

The 1.SStR was augmented in manpower, as it wasn‘t only the Crew I/45 drafted, but also the Crew IV/45 was called to equip. It seems the Kriegsmarine had drafted these men to prevent them from being mowed down at the front, a process commonly known as "Heldenklau" [Heldenklau/Operation Heldenklau was catchy black humor Landser slang to describe the efforts by the High Command to replace the enormous and steadily increasing losses suffered by the Heer, especially on the Eastern front, during the last year of the war by combing the personnel of the rear [also derisively called "Etappenhengste", or Home Front Studs, by the frontline soldiers] for men capable of carrying and firing a rifle or Panzerfaust. Literally translated, the word means something like "grabbing the heroes" [Held = hero, klauen = slang word for stehlen, meaning to steal].

Around noon on 25 April 1945, there was the issuing of orders for the Operation "Berlin" or "Reichskanzlei". There they stood, not veterans with fighting experience of some years, but young, untrained soldiers of the 1927 – 1929 age group.

After the distribution of food, ammunition and weapons [mostly captured guns], hand-grenades, Panzerfäuste and some Panzerschrecks, they had to wait for transport. Many of them were from the special navy training course for HF-technology "Tegetthoff".

CO of this alarm-battalion was the recently decorated Kptlt Franz Kuhlmann. The officer corps of this battalion was a mix of officers of the entire 1.SStR. On the evening some busses and lorries transported part of them to Pütnitz. It remains unknown if they were transported to Berlin by the floatplane versions of the Ju-52 aircraft.

The rest of the unit arrived at the Tutow air-field at 22:00 hrs. Due to attacks of the Russian "Nähmaschinen" ['Sewing machines] – Landser slang for the slow-flying Soviet observation plane [max. speed 93mph], the Polikarpov Po-2 bi-plane, whose motor sounded like a sewing machine from the distance; it was regarded as a real nuisance, because it would sometimes also drop small fragmentation bombs that caused death or injury to the Landsers on the ground. To get even, they would fire their rifles at them, often bringing one down in the process. It looked like the transport flights would have to be postponed.

Once again there was a phone call from Berlin, Gfm Keitel pointed out the importance of this airlift. So, Mjr Mauß, CO of the "Großraumtransportstaffel" [large capacity transport squadron] , made all clearance for the commencement of the airlift. With great difficulty 5 or 6 Ju 352's were cleared to take-off. There had been a of loss of 5 planes [4 Ju 352‘s and 1 Ar 232] the night before [24/25 April] on a supply operation for the encircled 9th Army.

Between 01:35 hrs and 02:35 hrs on 26 April all left Tutow. The aim was to land at the Berlin airport Gatow, as the Tempelhof airport wasn‘t available as of 23 April, due to heavy Russian attacks, and it fell to them the following night.

It seems each Ju 352 carried 40 soldiers, which is their maximum troop capacity. At least one Ju 352 had in addition 4 t of Panzerfäuste and Panzerschrecks. 40 soldiers and 4 t of ammunition means, that the aircraft was close to the maximum load of this type of plane

OFw Herbert Schulz [G6 + .X] was the first to take-off from Tutow, as he received the landing permission in Gatow. His plane came under heavy attack from all types of weapons. With only one engine it was not possible to fly a full loaden Ju 352. OFw Schulz tried to make an emergency landing, but crash-landed. Somehow, the entire crew managed to escape the explosion of 4 of the Panzerfäuste. On 29 of April they returned to their squadron, which was stationed in Großenbrode at this time. Nothing is known about the fate of the 40 soldiers from this Ju 352.

StFw Kurt Becker (G6 + RX] was not succesfull in landing at the Gatow airport, because of heavy anti-aircraft fire, he decided to return to Tutow, where he landed a 03:00 hrs. These soldiers, including the acting CO of the 1st coy, Kptlt Brandt, were relieved of the fights in Berlin.

A further Ju 352 [G6 + .X] couldn‘t land in Gatow, due to heavy machine gun fire from the ground. The plane was hit in the landing gear and in the cockpit, however no crew or troops were wounded. To avoid an emergency landing on the small airport of Tutow – which could have lead to a stoppage of all air-lifts in Tutow- he made an emergency landing near Barth. The plane was destroyed, but again no one was injured.

OFw Paul Köhler [G6 + EX] left Tutow at 02:35 hrs, but needed almost two hours to land in Berlin-Gatow at 04:25 hrs. Maybe he had tried to land in Berlin-Staaken, according to an officer of the navy. After 20 minutes on ground he took off for Tutow, where he landed a 05:40.

In the literature about the battle of Berlin, whenever some reference is written about the German Kriegsmarine-sailors in Berlin, the numbers mentioned are far too high. According to a NCO, his plane was the last one landing in Gatow. In a wood near the airport his group of sailors joined up with another 40 sailors.

According to Olt z.S. Clemens Zuborg, an Olt of the reserve and then adjutant in the staff of the alarm-battalion, mentioned the landing of 2 Ju 352‘s and the arrival of about 80, maybe 100 sailors, in the Reichskanzlei, which they had to defend.Kptl Franz Kuhlmann wrote in his memoirs about his meeting with Adolf Hitler:

"At this date, I didn‘t know in which bad health Hitler was. I never thought that the signs of breaking up and the feelings of doom would led to such a chaos to the hierarchy of orders".

All officers of the unit survived the Battle of Berlin, except one, Lt z.S. BÖING who was killed in the garden of the Reichskanzlei by a mortar grenade.

There are many hints, of the landing of sailors [and other soldiers] on the so called "Ost-West-Achse". However no exact confirming source is available.

1. FuMLAbt in Berlin

On 25 April 1945 there was a issuing of an order, in which the CO of the 1.FuMLAbt, FKpt albert Bormann [a brother of the Reichsleiter] tried to enlist volunteers for Berlin. He stressed that they had the duty of the close, personal protection of the Führer.

During 26 April 1945 the first soldiers of the FuMLAbt were transported by MFP [German LTC's] from Puttgarden/Isle of Fehmarn to near the airport Rerik. On arriving at Rerik, they found that there were no aircraft available. They were ordered to sleep in a nearby hangar/shed. However at 22:00 hrs new orders were given. New groups of sailors were created at random. One witness said, one reduced coy marched to the airport. At the airport no "normal" transport planes were waiting for them, however there were aircraft of the F.d.F. [Personal Squadron of the Führer].

At least 3 planes were waiting:

- a Fw-200 'Condor' [CE + IC], the pilot was Hptm Joachim Hübner,
- a Ju-290 [9V + BK], the pilot was Lt Wagner,
- a Ju-352 [KT + VJ], piloted by Olt Schultze

Some sources say there could have been one other planes involved in this operation:

- a second Fw-200 "Condor", the pilot was Hptm Kurt Herzog or Fw Bauer.

Hübner's Fw-200 was the first to be loaded and to be clear to take-off. In his aircraft were 17 sailors. The 14 leather-chairs inside the aircraft were covered for protection by strips of canvas. The last 3 sailors sat on boxes of Panzerfäuste. The highest rank among the sailors was a NCO, OFm [OBtsM] Julius Langhals.

The 'Condor' was in a height of 120 meters, as it was hit by anti-aircraft fire. One of the right engines was burning, the pilot tried to make an emergency landing, but crashed into a house in Wilhelmshorst. 12 of the 17 survived, two because Russians transported them into a hospital, another two were hidden in Wilhelmshorst by civilians, and eight hid themselves in a nearby wood.

Coming near to Berlin, the surviving soldiers saw red flares, so another plane was hit by heavy anti-air fire and had to fly away for an emergency landing. A sailor of this unknown plane, said after the war, that they landed in Rerik again after 1 hour, because two engines stopped working, after these were hit by anti-aircraft fire.

But Lt Wagner wrote in his after-flight report, he had to abort his flight with his Ju-290 after 15 minutes due a malfunction of engine No. 3. He landed back again in Rerik at 23:30 hrs, with 50 sailors on board. Also two sailors on board of Wagner‘s Ju-290 mentioned, they were never hit by anti-aircraft fire, and returned with three engines to Rerik after a short time.

So another plane with four engines [maybe the Fw-200 of Hptm Herzog/Fw Bauer]
was involved in this operation.

Olt Schultze started with his Ju-352 at 23:40 hrs from Rerik. The airport Berlin-Gatow was under heavy Russian artillery fire, as he tried to land. At 01:00 hrs, after two attempts to land in vain, he succeeded in his third try. On board were some 40 sailors. They were used to defend the airport just a few minutes after landing. One officer, Lt z.S. Horst Thiele, was last seen in a machine-gun position.

Schultze had to wait for about 36 minutes in Gatow, as he got the order to transport 25 wounded soldiers out of Berlin. His plane was the last to leave Gatow, as all other planes [maybe II./TG 4] didn‘t wait for wounded soldiers.

2. The MarSchB 903

As earlier mentioned, 3. SStA of the 1. SStR had already been mobilized by late April, and was known as MarSchB 903. CO was FKpt Richard Steffen. It was organized into 4 – 5 coys with 500 petty officers, and almost unarmed (except carbines for ranks and NCO‘s and some sub machine-guns for the officers).

On 24 April 1945 in Nauen, just a few kilometers from the Russian forces, FKpt Steffen was ordered by an unknown Kpt z.S. [maybe Kpt z.S. Assmamm?] to wait for coming trucks, to be transported to Berlin. The trucks didn‘t come, so the battalion marched to Wustershausen, as Döberitz had just been occupied by the Red Army. On the next day in Wustershausen, they were stopped by a General and military police. Steffen was – this times in very harsh words – ordered back again to Berlin. He refused to lead his almost unarmed battalion to Berlin, as well armed Russian forces were on the route back to Berlin.

So, in Wustershausen 50 or 60 petty officers of the MarSchB 903, which volunteered to fight in Berlin – mostly coming from Berlin themselves – got properly armed with the help of the military police. With them, a platoon of recruits of the 3.MarInfDiv, were transported in the direction of Berlin. CO of this reduced coy with two platoons was an unknown Olt z.S..

On the way to Berlin they came under heavy Russian artillery fire. They dug in, and held their position for 3 days until the 28 April. Then they got the order to retreat to Strodehne. The CO of the recruit platoon, OFhr z.S. Walter Northoff wrote in his memoirs: "The village was full of a small rest of an Wehrmacht‘s unit. This unit had only sub-altern officers [Lt‘s and Olt's] and NCO‘s, CO was Obstlt v.d. Bottlemberg. He was a very impressive man, commanding a Regimental group within the Divisional group "von Hake". He issued our coy the order to hold a bridgehead on the eastside of the Havel, as a corps and several thousands of refugees were retreating in our rear. He promised we would be rescued by pioneer‘s boats. In the next morning [30 April], we were transported back. After that, our coy became part of the vortex of general dissolving".

On 27 April the other 450 sailors of this battalion got more weapons and closed the road leading from Waren to Güstrow for one day. After this day this battalion vanished in the general retreat.

3. Other sailors in the battle

There were also small boats of the Kriegsmarine on the River/Lake Havel around Berlin. These were captured boats of the former Polish Vistula Flotilla. At least the former Polish patrol vessel KU-30 is mentioned to have been in action on the River/Lake Havel.

Also possible could be, that the navy-soldiers of the Marine-Verbindungs-Kommando [navy liaison command] beim Führer [VAdm Voß] were part Kriegsmarine battle-group in Berlin.

Various German specialists have written articles on the subject of final flights into and out of Berlin during late April 1945, but none are so far-fetched as to detail any multi-engine flight into Berlin after 26 April when Berlin-Gatow effectively ceased to operate. With the loss of Flughafen Gatow the Heinkel He 111s of II./KG 4 were reduced to dropping supply canisters at low level. The crew of Lt. von der Heide flew four resupply sorties in He 111 H-20 coded 5J+IM from Tutow during the night of 26-27 April and again during the night of 28-29 April 1945. Two final sorties were flown from Rerik on the Baltic coast during the night of 29-30 April and 30 April - 1 May 1945, Cargoes on all sorties were five VAB or Versorgungsabwurfbehälter [resupply canister]. Similar sorties are detailed in the Flugbuch of Lt. Hermann Stärke flying He 111 H-20 5J+KP. The sortie flown by this pilot at 01:44 on the morning of 1 May 1945 from Lübeck-Blankensee may have been the last flight ever undertaken by the Luftwaffe over Berlin according to Georg Schlaug in "Jet & Prop" 2/96. Elsewhere KG 4 was flying resupply operations for the 9th Army encircled some 20 km south of Berlin - the last of these was flown on the night of 27/28 April -  He 111s of III./KG 4 dropped canisters at low level in the teeth of heavy ground fire.

While the Luftwaffe did attempt to use the East-West Axis as a landing site for container [Behälter] drops any attempts to land large transport aircraft on the Ost-West-Achse after 26 April - if they were made - are almost certain to have failed. Indeed there are pictures depicting a wrecked Ju-52 that apparently crashed on take off  from the East West Axis on 26 April 1945.

In his Flugbericht Lt. Hermann Stärke related that his sortie over Berlin was fraught with difficulty due to the concentrated flak, the updraughts from the huge fires, the smoke, a lack of oxygen at low level which caused engines to misfire and fail, and the almost impossible task of navigating over the city. Georg Schlaug in his "Jet & Prop" article on Berlin tranport flights April/May 1945  [“Das Abgeworfene muß blitzartig an die Brennpunkte heran!”  "Jet & Prop", 2/1996 1.Teil] reports that following urgent radio messages from the Bunker transmitted during the afternoon of 27 April 1945 - " Luftlandemöglichkeit auf der Ost-West Achse muss mit allen Mitteln versucht werden " - a landing attempt with all available means must be attempted on the East-West Axis - attempts to land gliders on the East-West Axis also met such heavy fire that every such landing attempt was defeated. In part two of his article Schlaug records that a Feldwebel  Heinz Schäfer witnessed two DFS 230 gliders departing Tarnewitz on the afternoon of 29 April 1945. These gliders had arrived the previous evening departing Rostock Marinenehe to Tarnewitz towed by a Heinkel He 111 of 3./TGr. 30. Interestingly Schäfer was shown the glider pilots Einsatzbefehl [mission orders]: "Gruppe bereithalten, Führer aus Berlin befreien".

Ths begs one question of course;  what was the point of these last desperate attempts to reach central Berlin, if not to prolong for a short while longer the lives of those in the Bunker including that of the Machthaber - Adolf Hitler.

According to Schlaug the likelihood that such flights took place is slim even so. As it was over the final days of April virtually the only supplies getting into Berlin were being dropped by faster single engine fighters; the Fw 190s of SG 1 had for example flown many re-supply missions to the besieged fortresses of Küstrin on the Oder and Breslau during March 1945, escorted by the Bf 109s of I./JG 52 and were likely to have flown similar sorties over Berlin. One Bunker witness Rittmeister Gerhard Boldt records that an unknown Gruppe of Bf 109s dropped containers [Versorgungsbomben - supply bombs] over the centre of Berlin on the morning of 26 April 1945 but that few of them could be recovered. These may have been in fact the Fw 190s of SG 1 under Maj. Arthur Pipan, which were in Gatow up to 26 April 1945 before moving to Mecklenburg to fly Schlacht missions. One of the last attempts to drop supplies into Berlin was flown by III./ KG 200 during the night of 30 April /01 May 1945 from Lübeck-Blankensee when some 30 Fw 190s were airborne according to pilot Werner Mende. Each 190 was carrying a Versorgungsabwurfbehälter [resupply canister] equipped with a Lastfallschirm [cargo parachute]. It was on this flight that Gruppenkommandeur Maj. Helmut Viedebantt crashed and died when his chute deployed prematurely and wrapped itself around the aircraft's tailplane.

1 May 1945 Berlin-Wannsee Sortie

Oberst Joachim Helbig at the time was acting Kdr. of I./LG 1. He was co-located at the time with Stab/14. Fliegerdivision in billets at Schwerin-Zippendorf and it was the Fl.Div. Kdr., Gen.Maj. Fürst von Reuß, who gave him the order. 10 Fiesler Störche were made ready at Schwerin-Görries airfield and a mission scheduled for dusk on 30 April. Helbig changed the time to after 0100 hours on 1 May because of the masses of Soviet aircraft that were operating over Berlin during daylight hours. The mission was "......to land in Berlin-Wannsee on the Potsdamer Chaussee in the direction of Potsdam-Glienicker Bridge to pick up important documents, orders, papers and probably two VIP 'couriers' and fly them out". The Störche had been fitted with auxiliary fuel tanks and flame dampeners on both sides of the engines. At the final briefing at 1900 hrs., General der Flieger Fiebig showed up to announce the death of the Führer the day before and to inform each of the 10 pilots that they were free to decide once over the landing area whether to complete the mission or not, provided at least two of the Fi 156s did land and pick up the two VIP 'couriers'. Fiebig gave the go-ahead for a take-off time of 22:00 hrs.

On arriving over the landing area, the Störche were met with intense light AA fire coming from Russian batteries around the S-Bahnhof Wannsee, smouldering fires and a thick, foggy haze over the Potsdamer Chaussee that only worsened as Helbig and the other pilots circled over Wannsee at 250 – 700 meters for almost two hours. Landing was impossible. One by one, the Störche broke off due to fuel considerations and headed back toward Schwerin. None had landed.

One can speculate who ordered the mission and who the two VIP "couriers" were. Hitler had ordered Bormann to escape with his Last Will and Testament.

Dönitz did not confirm receipt of Hitler's Last Will and Testament -as he did not get it- and it is known Hitler was waiting on it arriving at its destination before killing himself. Dönitz also did not reply to the first telegram from Berlin informing him he had succeeded Hitler as Führer. Therefore the flight may have been to deliver a second copy of the Last Will and Testament and its couriers.

There is a lot of evidence that Hugh Trevor-Roper's and the Soviets' account of events on the 29 and 30 April are wrong; and there is anecdotal evidence that Hitler was alive as late as the evening of the 1 May.

Source:
Taghon, Peter. "Die Geschichte des Lehrgeschwaders 1: Dokumentation über Aufstellung, Ausrüstung, Einsatz und Ende eines Kampfgeschwaders der Luftwaffe, Zusammengestellt aus Kriegstagebüchern, Dokumenten und Berichten".
Band 1: 1936 – 1942 [Zweibrücken, 2004].
Band 2: 1942 – 1945 [Zweibrücken, 2004].

An editorial in "Zig Zag," Santiago, Chile, 16 January 1948, states that on 30 April 1945, Flight Captain Peter Baumgart took Adolf Hitler, his wife Eva Braun, as well as a few loyal friends by plane from Tempelhof Airport to Tondern in Denmark [still German controlled]. From Tondern, they took another plane to Kristiansund in Norway [also German controlled]. From there they joined a Submarine convoy.

Peter Baumgart, allegedly a Luftwaffe pilot with 128 kills over Crete, Italy, North Africa and the Eastern front. Also an Iron Cross Holder.
Appears to have also held SS rank.
Born in South Africa in 1915 , arrived in Germany 1935.
Possibly flying with KG 200 in April 1945
Sentenced in Warsaw in 1948 to five years imprisonment for being a member of the SS.

"At Midnight on 27 April 1945 Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun, and her brother in-law SS General Hermann Fegelein slipped away from the hell of the Führerbunker through a secret tunnel in Hitler’s personal quarters in the devastated Reich Chancellory to the Berlin Underground. They were replaced by doubles chosen by Reichsleiter Martin Bormann and his close associate SS-General Heinrich "Gestapo" Müller.

"Hitler and his party walked through the Underground tunnels to the exit at Fehrbelliner Strasse. Waiting for them on the cleared roadway of the Hohenzollerndamm was a Ju 52 transport aircraft piloted by SS Captain Peter Baumgart of the secretive Luftwaffe Unit KG 200. The group flew to Tønder in Denmark, where the party took a second Ju 52 to the Luftwaffe base at Travemünde. Changing planes again the party boarded a long-range Ju 252 and flew to the Spanish Military base at Reus, 80 kms south of Barcelona, in Spain.

"General Franco supplied a further aircraft, in Spanish markings, to fly the party to Fuerteventura on the Canary Islands, where 24 hours later they boarded U 518 under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Hans Werner Offermann".

German submarine U-518, a Type IXC U-Boat, was sunk northwest of the Azores on 24 April 1945 by hedgehog rounds from 'USS Carter' and 'USS Neal A. Scott'. There were no survivors.

--Gerrard Williams and Simon Dunstan, "Grey Wolf – The Escape of Adolf Hitler"

During the Nuremberg War Trials he was doubted and sent to an asylum for psychological evaluation because he maintained that he was the man who facilitated Hitler’s escape.  The asylum concluded that this man was very sane and he still maintained his story to his death. 

The war crimes tribunal simply passed him off as a “lunatic” even though their own psychiatrists had testified he was not insane at all.  Why was this man's testimony not believed?

Luftwaffe Pilot Sent to Gaol For Five Years
The Canberra Times
9 February 1949

WARSAW, Tuesday. Captain Peter Baumgart, a former Luftwaffe pilot, was sentenced to five years for being a member of the S.S., a crime which is punishable by death.

He told the tribunal that he was bom 'in 'South Africa but in 1935 he renounced British citizemship. He was the holder of the Iron Cross and other decorations.

Baumgart said that just before the fall of Berlin he flew Hitler and Eva Braun to Denmark, where they joined a submarine.

The plane made a forced landing at Magdeburg, but, upon Hitler's insistence, he flew the [following day through an artilery barrage to the Danish shore. Hitler "shook hands" with' him and gave him a cheque for 20,000 Marks.

One of the judges reminded Baumgart that Allied Intelligence reports showed that Hitler and Eva Braun killed themselves on 3 May 1945 [sic], but Baumgart stuck lo his story, adding that, Hitler was "not  the kind of man to take his own life".

Maintains Hitler Escaped to Denmark
The Advocate
February 9, 1949  

LONDON, Tuesday. - Captain Peter Baumgart, a former German Luftwaffe pilot, who insisted that he flew Hitler and Eva Braun to Denmark shortly before the fall of Berlin, was today sentenced by a tribunal of three Polish judges to imprisonment for five years for being a member of the S.S.

Baumgart told the tribunal that he was born in South-West Africa, but renounced British citizenship in 1935. He claimed he had shot down 128 Allied aircraft in Crete, Italy, North Africa and the Eastern Front, and was the holder of the Iron Cross and other decorations.

He added that on 25 May 25, 1945 [sic], shortly before the fall of Berlin, Hitler suddenly summoned him and ordered him to fly to Denmark.

Hitler, Eva Braun and a German general, with others, boarded his plane in Berlin, and it took off for Denmark. The plane made a forced landing at Magdeburg, but, upon Hitler's insistence, he flew the following day through an artillery barrage to the Danish shore.

They landed about 44 miles from the Eiter River in a field. Hitler shook hands with him, gave him a cheque for 20,000 Marks, and ordered him to return to Berlin immediately. Baumgart added that he believed Hitler and his party had boarded a submarine.

According to period newspaper accounts, the pilot—Baumgart—was briefly imprisoned in Poland after the war, released in 1951, and “never heard of again”.

However, Baumgart after his release from  Polish prison surfaced in the form of a TWA passenger manifest. According to it, Baumgart flew from Europe to New York before catching a flight for Washington, D.C., within weeks of his 1951 parole.

Baumgart's claim to have flown the Hitler entourage to Denmark, the first stop on their trip to Argentina, would be separately corroborated by the testimony of a German prisoner of war, Friedrich Argelotty-Mackensen. The transcript of Mackensen’s interrogation by U.S. Admiral Michael Musmanno records a sighting of Hitler speaking to wounded German soldiers at an airfield, in Tønder, Denmark, three days before he was supposed to have died in Berlin

Musmanno: “Who had command of the plane?”

Mackensen: “Well, of course, I have no idea. I only know that in one of the planes in which Hitler was, that this plane was being flown or piloted by a certain Captain Baumgart. I was lying in the grass and then I was being picked up again. I was carried to some certain place around the plane. Then somebody set me down. All the others were standing there already. Somebody put a knapsack under my head and then Hitler was standing there and… one moment now. Now, now, at the crucial point! Hitler has said that Admiral Dönitz is now in supreme command of the German army and Admiral Dönitz will enter into unconditional surrender with the Western powers. He is not authorized to surrender to the Eastern powers".

-- Interrogation of Friedrich Arthur Rene Lotta von Angelotty-Mackensen, Nuremberg Palace of Justice, 18 March 1948 [Gumberg Library Digital Collections of Duquesne University, "Musmanno Collection—Interrogation of Hitler Associates"].

Mackensen’s three-hour interrogation by Michael Musmanno, is rambling, and he repeatedly confuses dates. He was by then using a wheelchair, having suffered a broken spine in a forced landing in southern Sweden on 8 May 1945 after his attempted flight to Malaga, Spain [his was one of eleven German aircraft that were shot down or force-landed that day during such attempts]. He had recovered consciousness in a hospital at POW Camp 404 in Marseille, France, on 16 May.

Throughout his interrogation Mackensen states that he had been delirious for much of his time on the ground in Berlin and Denmark. Although it was dismissed as "fantastic" by Musmanno, close reading of Mackensen’s story reveals details that coincide with Baumgart’s account. Mackensen, too, seems to have vanished from sight after the war.

There was a newspaper report about 12 days before the above interrogation:

Léon Degrelle was a Walloon Belgian politician, who founded Rexism and later joined the Waffen SS, becoming a leader of the 28th SS Freiwilligen Panzergrenadeir Division Wallonie. which were front-line troops in the fight against the Soviet Union.

Degrelle was awarded the Knight's Cross by Hitler in February 1944.

Degrelle later claimed Hitler told him:

"You are truly unique in history. You are a political leader who fights like a soldier. If I had a son, I would want him to be like you."

Six months later Degrelle was awarded the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, as were seven other non-Germans.

Degrelle was promoted directly to SS-Brigadeführer and Generalmajor der Waffen-SS by Heinrich Himmler on 2 May 1945; an entry to this effect appears in his Soldbuch, however this promotion cannot be considered official as Himmler had been stripped of all SS and Party posts by Führer order on 28 April 1945.

After Germany's defeat, Léon Degrelle fled first to Denmark and eventually to Norway, where on 7 May he was flown to Spain.

On 18 June 1945,  the Dutch newspaper "Vrije Stemmen" reported:

Hitler is Alive!

Léon Degrelle, the leader of the Belgian Nazis, said in San Sebastian to a Spaniard that Hitler would still be alive. The same source states that Degrelle claims to have seen the Führer the day before the Russians arrived in Berlin. Degrelle was convinced that Hitler would not fight to death or commit suicide, but rather carry out a plan to flee, which was strictly kept secret. According to this same source, the Führer  gave Degrelle permission to take a plane to Oslo, and from there to flee to Spain with the Gauleiter of the city  [Josef Terboven] according to a fixed plan. Terboven did not want to flee, but would commit suicide, Degrelle said. Despite that decision, the Gauleiter allowed  Degrelle  to leave Norway with five Germans, in a plane that would take them to the beach of San Sebastiaan.

This article was published just weeks after the war and Degrelle had just arrived in Spain, were he was protected by the Franco regime. If Degrelle spoke speak the truth then where did Hitler go?

According to an article about Degrelle's flight to Spain published in "Revista Española de Historia Militar" of October 2004, Degrelle was in the plane with SS-Hauptsturmführer Robert du Welz, who had been his  orderly since 8 August 1941, and the four members of the crew: Albert Duhinger [pilot], Gerhard Stride [mechanic], Georg Kubel and Benno Epner. The plane, an He-111 H.23, was Albert Speer's personal plane and this was the usual crew.

The plane ran out of fuel, and Degrelle was severely wounded in a crash-landing  into the sea on a beach in  Donostia-San Sebastián in northern Spain on 8 May 1945. He was rescued from the sea and  taken to a Spanish hospital.

The government of Franco in Spain initially refused to hand Degrelle over to the Allies [or extradite him to Belgium] by citing his health condition. After further international pressures, Francisco Franco permitted his escape from hospital, while handing over a look-alike; in the meanwhile, José Finat y Escrivá de Romaní helped Degrelle obtain false papers. In 1954, in order to ensure his stay, Spain granted him Spanish citizenship under the name José León Ramírez Reina.

Hitler may have Died in Wreck
The Sun [Sydney, NSW] 
Special Service
13 April 1952

LONDON - A wrecked submarine in the Baltic Sea has caused British Intelligence to resume inquiries into the possibility that Hitler did not die a martyr in the Berlin Chancellery in 1945. It has also caused Intelligence officers to resume inquiry into the myth that Hitler's Deputy, Martin Bormam is alive arid ready to lead a new Nazi Germany.

The new inquiries began four days ago when a depth charge blew open the hull of the sunken submarine. RAF bombers sank the submarine on 4 May 1945, in Lillebaelt Sound, between Jutland and Funen in the Kattegat, at the mouth of the Baltic.

A Danish scrap metal firm fired the depth charge which blew the submarine open. In the submarine the scrap firm's chief diver reported finding several skeletons. He said the U-Boat was obviously on an escaping, and not a combat mission, as the torpedo tubes were stuffed with tinned meat, soup and sausages, and he could find no ammunition, not even small arms. The Rations were vastly in excess of a normal long-range submarine's requirements on a long mission; they were sufficient to take the submarine and its passengers perhaps as far as Japan and certainly as far as South America.

Police at nearby Fredericia [Denmark] are trying to establish the identity of the skeletons. A dental examination, Allied Intelligence officers believe, can provide conclusive evidence on whether these skeletons include those of Hitler and Eva Braun, or Bormann. Such scientific proof that Hitler and his wife did not die in Berlin would have major and enduring political effects. For it would show that Hitler deserted a sinking ship, and did not die like a hero. And the myth of Bormann leading a new Germany would die. The submarine located and blown open this week is one of seven which the RAF sank in the same raid. All were sailing northward — that is, away from Germany — when attacked.

It is recalled that Captain Peter Baumgart, a former Luftwaffe pilot, whom a Warsaw court sentenced to five years' gaol in 1949, claimed in evidence that he flew Hitler and some friends to Denmark on 28 April 1945.

He said the party included a woman whom he believed to be Eva Braun. He also said that he landed in Denmark about 44 miles from the River Eiter. There Hitler shook hands with him and handed him a cheque for £6500. Hitler and his party then boarded a submarine.

History Today
Paul Preston
7 July 1997

An eleven page document recently discovered in the archives of Spain's Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores lists more than one hundred active Nazis provided with asylum and new identities at the end of the Second World War. This merely confirms Spain's fervently pro-Axis role during the war. What comes as more of a surprise is the assertion recently by "The Times" Madrid correspondent that "The disclosure will excite historians and biographers of Francisco Franco, most of whom believed that El Caudillo kept a scrupulous distance from the seamier side of Hitler's wartime enterprise". The correspondent's view is shared only by fervent partisans and hagiographers of the Spanish dictator.

Having won the Spanish Civil War with the assistance of Hitler and Mussolini, Franco was convinced of the invincibility of the Axis war machine. From the spring of 1939 until the fall of France a year later, he ordered frequent troop manoeuvres near the French border in Morocco and around Gibraltar by way of immobilising Allied forces. Detailed plans for artillery bombardments of Gibraltar drawn up on Franco's direct orders have recently been published in Spain. Immediately after the defeat of France, Franco seized Tangier, made threatening demands for territory in French Morocco and formally offered to join the German war effort. Having no need of another impecunious Mediterranean ally, Hitler curtly brushed aside the offer. However, reviewing his options, he met the Caudillo on 23 October 1940 at Hendaye near the French-Spanish border. More inclined to leave the Vichy French to guard their own empire, the Führer had to endure hours of Franco's dogged attempts to persuade him to bankroll Spanish belligerence.

In 1940 and throughout the war, Hitler remained convinced, as he told the Italian Foreign Minister, Galeazzo Ciano, that Spanish intervention "would cost more than it was worth". It was Franco's good fortune that Hitler did not want his help. Nevertheless, Franco's enthusiasm for the German cause never waivered. He provided the Germans with facilities for submarine refueling, aircraft reconnaissance and Intelligence gathering. The range of U-Boats able to refuel at Spanish ports on her Western coast, in Morocco and the Canary Islands was thereby extended far into the South Atlantic. The Caudillo supplied their war industries with strategic war materials, most notably the tungsten that was crucial for armoured plating and armour-piercing shells. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, he sent the Blue Division to fight alongside the Germans on the Eastern Front. Nearly 50,000 Falangist volunteers and Spanish regular army officers fought for Hitler. German observation posts, radio interception stations and radar installations were maintained in Spain until the end of the war. The Germans particularly valued the complex trading deception whereby Spain provided an outlet from the British blockade by exporting material to Germany and replacing it by imports from Argentina.

Right to the end, Franco hoped against hope that the defeat of Hitler might be avoided. In late 1944, he devoured optimistic predictions that the Germans were falling back merely to lure the Allied invaders to their doom. He then pinned his hopes on German bombers being able to reach New York, on German use of the atomic bomb and on secret weapons including cosmic rays. In the spring of 1945, the last German garrisons in the South of France were supplied with food and ammunition from Spanish ports on the Bay of Biscay. Nazi officials were being given certificates of Spanish nationality referred to in the recently rediscovered documentation. The Francoist press played down the horrors of the Holocaust as the unavoidable consequence of wartime disorganization. Major figures of the regime called at the German Embassy to express their condolences for the death of the Führer.

Franco allegedly said on 3 May 1945:

"Adolf Hitler son of the Catholic Church died while defending Christianity. It is therefore understandable that words cannot be found to lament over his death, when so many were found to exalt his life. Over his mortal remains stands his victorious figure. With the palm of the martyr, God gives Hitler the laurels of Victory".

Kriegsmarine U-Boats in Spain and Portugal during WW II

Millions watched the famous movie by Wolfgang Petersen from 1981 "Das Boot" and saw the replenishment of U-96 by the German merchant vessel 'Weser' in the Spanish port of Vigo at the end of 1941.

Deriving from that, many reports have come up, including several myths, about the use of Spanish or Portuguese ports and territorial waters by Kriegsmarine U-Boats in World War II, either as a planned action or caused accidently due to the operational situation. Top myths are the stories about alleged even underground and underwater replenishment facilities for German U-Boats established at the Spanish Islands of Mallorca and Fuerteventura.

Both, Spain under the regime of General Francesco Franco and Portugal under the government of António de Oliveira Salazar  declared their countries to be neutral in WW II, although with varying degrees of actual political behavior. On 4 September 1939 Spain declared its "strict neutrality", which changed from being a pro-German "non-belligerant party" after the truce between Germany and France on 22 June 1940, to change again to executing "vigilant neutrality" but benevolent vis-á-vis the Allies at the latest in January 1944, when allied military successes became more and more frequent [starting with the allied landing "Operation Torch" in French Northern Africa on 08 November 1942].

On 16 September 1940 Spanish Foreign Minister Serrano Suñer travelled to Berlin and on 23 October 1940 there was even a meeting between Franco and Hitler at the village of Hendaye at the Franco-Spanish border. Both meeting did not lead to any progress convincing the Spanish to enter the war on the side of the Axis Powers. Until 1944 Spain remained with its standing of "selective co-operation".

On 12/13 February 1941 Franco met Mussolini at Bordighera, which also did not achieve a general change of the position of Spain vis-á-vis the Axis Powers. The German Reich on the other side did not go beyond initial plans for marching into Spain, including the strategically important Canary Islands and Gibraltar. Thus, the replenishment of German warships, in particular U-Boats, in Spanish ports during the first years of war demonstrated an open cooperation by the Franco regime, which became more and more restrictive, and, at the end of 1944, to eventually change to strict denial of any call by German U-Boats in Spanish ports.

Portugal under Salazar declared itself to be neutral at the outbreak of WW II, including its Atlantic group of islands Madeira, Azores and Cape Verdes. Although showing a political nearness to the neighboring Spain under Franco Portugal never demonstrated any visible military support of German U-Boat operations throughout WW II, not even forms of benevolent tolerance of replenishment maneuvers in Portuguese ports and water, as Spain did. Yet, the Cap Verdes and above all, the Azores, were of significant military-strategic importance at the same time for the Axis Powers as well as the Allies, namely to cut respectively maintain resupply and reinforcement traffic across the Atlantic Ocean.

Other than Spain, the initially strictly neutral position of Portugal soon changed to active support of the Allies, a remarkable example for that was the reception of some 2.000 evacuees from British Gibraltar at Madeira in 1940. Already in July 1941 the Portuguese Air Force executed long range maritime patrol flights with aircraft given by Britain from Lajes Air Base at the Azores to monitoring German U-Boat activities against Allied shipping. And, negotiations led to agreements of 17 August 1943 and 28 November 1944 allowing British and US-American Air Force units to make use of two Air Bases and Allied warships to call as a routine at two ports at the Azores.

The Iberian peninsula and the overseas territories of its states gained greater attention among the political and military leadership of the German Reich only in connection with the conduct of the war at sea in the Atlantic, enhanced by the growing requirements for the support of the Axis-Partner Italy in the Mediterranean. With regard to Portugal the neutrality of the country was respected in principle, only its Atlantic islands received some interest, but did not go beyond initial ideas and have not seen any political and military activities. With regard to Spain things were different, since it was thought to be able to build on the significant support provided for Franco during the Spanish Civil War.

This led to years of political endeavors to convince Franco to entry the war at the side of the Axis powers, at least to reach some degree of active military cooperation. Neither Hitler nor Mussolini ware able to induce Franco to enter the war. Consequently, the importance of the Iberian peninsula and some of the overseas territories of both states led to certain deliberations and initial plans, e.g.the “Führer”-Directive No. 18 of 12 November 1940, or the campaign planning for “Operation Felix” and “Operation Isabella”, aiming at reaching some selected occupation by the German Armed Forces to support the conduct of war against the Allies in the Atlantic and Mediterranean region. However, this was given up in the Spring of 1941, when the focus of German political and military activities shifted to the conduct of war in the East.
 
The neutrality declared by Spain and Portugal has been underlined in Standing Orders and other directives of the B.d.U. explicitly at the outbreak of war. Notwithstanding, in the case of Spain there were clear expectations for logistic support in Spanish ports of U-Boat operations given the special relations to the country after the massive support of Franco during the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939. Therefore, already before the war certain negotiations had started, which eventually led to the establishment of a restricted system of depots with fuel and rations in the ports of El Ferrol, Vigo and Cadiz, however, considerable concerns with regard to the re-supply of these depots remained.

To enable the support capacities envisaged in Spain during the early years of the war it was reached to station German merchant vessels as supply ship in those three Spanish ports, a similar arrangement was agreed later at Las Palmas at the Canary Islands. The B.d.U. took these supply facilities clearly into account for its operational planning of U-Boat employments. In the case of Portugal no plans by the B.d.U. became known yet with regard to the supply of its U-Boats in the country and its overseas territories.

There are four categories [replenishments, emergency repairs, special missions, abandoning of U-Boats by their crews and internment], when and under what circumstances Kriegsmarine U-boats actually have penetrated Spanish and Portuguese waters and ports.

A number of regular replenishment maneuvers for U-Boats were carried out between 1940 and 1942 using German merchant vessels in Spanish ports [more exact: at anchorages]. For this purpose a number of German merchant vessels were re-deployed to selected Spanish ports before the outbreak of war, among others the 'Thalia' [1,122 GRT], 'Bessel' [1,878 GRT], 'Max Albrecht' [5,824 GRT], 'Corrientes' [4,656 BRT] and for some time the 'Charlotte Schliemann' [7,747 GRT].

In literature about U-Boat replenishment in Spanish ports often the 'Corrientes' [Codename="Lima"] and 'Charlotte Schliemann' [Codename="Culebra"] are mixed up, as both vessels were in the port of Las Palmas for some time together. There are at least 23 cases of scheduled U-Boat replenishment in Spanish ports documented. In contrast, only two cases of intentional penetration of Portuguese territorial waters at the Cape Verdes Islands are documented.

Deliberate use of Spanish and Portuguese waters and ports by Kriegsmarine U-Boats for replenishment purposes can be observed in Spain only, given its policy of tolerated co-operation, i.e. tolerating replenishments of U-Boats by German merchant vessels in Spanish ports/waters. However, this can be observed generally only up to the end of 1942, with a minimum of 23 of such replenishment maneuvers. Beyond that there were only a few cases of active support of German U-Boats exclusively by Spanish authorities and facilities documented.

After 1942 there were only situation-related emergency penetrations of Spanish waters and ports, up to scuttling of stricken U-Boats by their crews in Spanish waters as a result of combat actions at sea.

Concerning Portugal, no form of co-operation in support of German U-Boat operation can be identified throughout WW II. However, there were few cases of circumstantial use of Portuguese waters by German U-Boats. The replenishment maneuvers documented prove that the alleged support facilities at Fuerteventura and Mallorca are mere phantasy. In the case of Mallorca even simplest geographic calculations are sufficient enough to establish that neither logistically nor operationally any additional support facility for German U-Boats besides the existing bases in the Mediterranean would have been necessary.

With that, the myths about secret or even open support of Kriegsmarine U-Boats in WW II, at least for some time, in Spanish or Portuguese ports and waters can be answered rather definite. Moreover, those few cases of replenishment maneuvers documented in Spanish ports and waters were rather insignificant for the operational freedom of U-Boats during the first years of the war at sea, and can be, therefore, neglected in the overall strategic assessment.

What If Hitler Escaped?

Possibly the most newsworthy discovery to come out of the JFK assassination documents released last week is the confirmation that, as late as the mid-1950s, the CIA considered the possibility that Adolf Hitler had survived the war and escaped to South America.

The McClatchy newspapers reported on a few documents that provide evidence the CIA was investigating information that Hitler might have made his way to Colombia, and included a 1954 photograph of a man purported to be the ex-Führer. An unnamed informant said he had been in contact with a former member of the SS [the armed wing of the Nazi Party], Phillip Citroen, who further claimed Hitler moved to Argentina the following year.

While the documents show the CIA was skeptical, even at the time, the agency took the information seriously enough to look into it. However, the matter appears to have been dropped by the end of 1955.

Most likely, the escape to South America never happened. After all, this was Hitler, and secrets like that don’t tend to stay hidden for very long, let alone for three-quarters of a century. The historical consensus is that Hitler committed suicide in 1945 as Russian troops closed in on his Berlin bunker, and that is almost certainly what happened.

But suppose for a moment it were true. Say Hitler managed to live in hiding to age 75, which would have been 1964, with the world none the wiser.

He would have seen his Nazi party forbidden in Germany, its symbols outlawed and “Mein Kampf” banned. Hitler would have seen how quickly most Germans turned their back on his movement and his Reich as the Allies’ comprehensive “denazification” program took hold. At the start of 1945, Nazis still ruled Germany, and everyone of any importance was a party member. A year later, there was nary an open Nazi to be found.

Hitler would have lived to see his adopted country divided between a Soviet-dominated, communist east and a free, democratic and prosperous west, with consequences lasting far beyond those he would live to observe. He would have seen Berlin physically divided by a wall in 1961, and U.S. troops based in in the western half of his adopted homeland to defend it against any threat from the Soviet Union, which had thwarted and ultimately reversed Hitler’s eastward expansion.

He would have seen his own name and likeness become the very embodiment of evil in popular culture. He would see himself depicted as a monster in countless films, books and broadcasts. The vehemence with which he was globally despised would continue to grow with the discoveries of the magnitude of the Holocaust, despite the wartime cover-up efforts by the Nazi regime. Even his given name, once so common in German-speaking countries as to be completely unremarkable, practically vanished by the early 1950s.

Hitler would have watched from afar as a Jewish state was proclaimed in Palestine. In 1960 he would have seen its agents kidnap his accomplice Adolf Eichmann from Argentina, where he had assumed a false identity, and bring him to Jerusalem to stand trial for his crimes the following year. Eichmann was hanged in 1962. Whatever sycophants surrounded Hitler in his hiding place would have already long since known that their fuhrer looked after himself, as he would have presumably done while 22 of his chief supporters faced justice in Nuremburg.

A peaceful death in exile would not have been a fitting end. For that, Hitler would need to have been brought to account for his horrific crimes. But an escape to South America to watch all of this as a powerless observer would not have been a comfortable or satisfying end, either.

Hitler probably did not escape. But if he had, it might not be so much worse than the alternative. The man who once saw himself as the savior of his people might have lived long enough to know that he failed, and that his country and the world considered themselves far better off without him.