Hitler's Final Days in the Bunker

Wilhelm Mohnke was born in Lübeck Germany on 15 March 1911. His father, who shared his name with his son, was a cabinet maker. After his father's death he went to work for a glass and porcelain manufacturer, eventually reaching a management position.

Mohnke joined the NSDAP on 1 September 1931, and the SS two months later.

He was assigned to the Lübeck Trupp, of the 4. SS-Standarte, where he was to stay until January 1932. Mohnke was then transfered to the 22. SS-Standarte in Schwerin, the same unit as Kurt Meyer. On 17 March, personally chosen by Sepp Dietrich, Mohnke became one of the 120 original members of SS-Stabswache Berlin.

It was from this chancellery guard that the Leibstandarte was to grow. Eventually Mohnke took command of 5. Kompanie, in which capacity he served in the Polish campaign. On 21 September he was awarded the Iron Cross second class, the Iron Cross first class was to come just one month later on 8 November.

Mohnke led 5.Kompanie at the outset of the Western campaign, taking over command of II.Bataillon on 28 March after the Bataillon commander was wounded. It was around this time that Mohnke was charged with murder of 80 British prisoners of war of the 48th Division at Wormhoudt.

Monke has never been brought to trail for these allegations, and when the case was reopened in 1988 a Germen prosecutor came to the conclusion that there was insufficient evidences to bring charges.

Four years later, Mohnke's name was again mentioned with war crimes. This time as the commander of 1.SS-Panzerdivision Leibstandarte "Adolf Hiter". Units under his command where charged with the "Malmedy Massacre".

During the 1st SS Panzer Division's advance on 17 December 1944, Joachim Peiper's armored units and half-tracks confronted a lightly armed convoy of about 30 American vehicles at the Baugnez crossroads near Malmedy. 

The troops, mainly elements of the American 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion, were quickly overcome and captured. Along with other American POWs previously captured, they were ordered to stand in a meadow when for unknown reasons the Germans opened fire on the prisoners with machine guns, killing 84 soldiers, and leaving the bodies in the snow.

The survivors were able to reach American lines later that day, and their story spread rapidly throughout the American front lines.

Author Richard Gallagher reported that during the briefing held before the operation, Peiper clearly stated that no quarter should be given nor prisoners taken and that no pity should be shown towards the Belgian civilians.

However, Lieutenant Colonel Hal McCown, commander of the 2nd Battalion 119 Infantry Regiment, testified about the treatment his unit was given after being captured on 21 December by Peiper's Kampfgruppe at Froidcour between La Gleize and Stoumont. McCown said he met Peiper in person and based on his observations, American prisoners were at no time mistreated by the SS and the food given to them was nearly as good as that used by the Germans themselves.

It is also alleged that Mohnke was implicated in the killing of 35 Canadian POWs while with the "Hitlerjugend" at Fountenay-le Pesnel, though he never faced a trial for any conclusion as to any query of involvement.

He commanded the II.Bataillon during the Balkan campaign, where he lost his foot in a Yugoslavian air attack on 6 April 1941. It was the decision of the medics that his leg would need to be amputated, but Mohnke overrode that decision. Still, his wound was so grievous that they were still forced to take his foot. While recuperating he was awarded the German Cross in Gold, on 26 December 1941.

 

The German Cross [Deutsches Kreuz] was instituted by Adolf Hitler on 28 September 1941. It was awarded in two divisions: gold for repeated acts of bravery or achievement in combat; and silver for distinguished non-combat war service. The German Cross in Gold ranked higher than the Iron Cross First Class but below the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, while the German Cross in Silver ranked higher than the War Merit Cross First Class with Swords but below the Knight's Cross of the War Merit Cross with Swords.  Specimen copies of a special grade, the German Cross in Gold with Diamonds, was manufactured in 1942 but this grade was never instituted or bestowed.

Mohnke was commander of the Leibstandarte's replacement battalion from March 1942 till May 1943. Then being "free enough from pain", SS-Obersturmbannführer Kurt Meyer "cajoled" him into taking a command with the 12th SS Panzer Division. This led to commanding the 26th SS Pz-Gren Rgt on 15 September 1943.

The structure of the 26th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment was somewhat unconventional.

Although as a whole the regiment was labeled as Panzergrenadiers, the III Battalion was the only battalion in the regiment that was actually armored. It did, however, have an additional company, designated the 15th Reconnaissance Company, which was outfitted with armored cars. This company helped make the 26th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment a unique fighting force.

 

SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke

SS-Sturmhauptführer 
1 October 1933
SS-Sturmbannführer
1 September 1940
SS-Obersturmbannführer:
21 June 1943
SS-Standartenführer:
21 June 1944
SS-Oberführer
4  November  1944
SS-Brigadeführer
30  January  1945

Note:

Mohnke's rank is Brigadeführer, but Leibstandarte-SS ranks are two grades higher than usual Waffen-SS, so
actually Mohnke is Obergruppenführer.
There are no ranks higher than Brigadeführer in the LSSAH
 

While the 12th SS Panzer Division was fighting to keep the Falaise pocket open, in which the division suffered an estimated 40%-50% casualties, Mohnke withdrew his Kampfgruppe [Battle Group] east of the river Dives. As the situation in Normandy deteriorated for Germany and the front was pushed back to the Seine, Mohnke was one of the few to lead organized resistance on the western bank in order to protect the river crossings there. After hard fighting, Mohnke was awarded the Knight's Cross on 11 July 1944. He led this Kampfgruppe until 31 August, when he replaced the badly wounded Theodor Wisch as commander of the Leibstandarte [LSSAH]. This promotion is the subject of speculation as to why Mohnke was given command of the LSSAH when then SS-Obersturmbannführer Joachim Peiper had more combat experience. Peiper, the youngest regimental commander in the Waffen-SS, was perhaps considered too junior to command a division.

Operation Wacht am Rhein, followed by Operation Nordwind were the final major offensives and last gambles Hitler made on the Western Front. Mohnke, now in command of his home division, led his formation as the spearhead of the entire operation in the Ardennes. Attached to the I SS Panzer Corps, the LSSAH was one of the most elite and highly trained units in the entire German military. The crisis in the Reich meant that the LSSAH had dangerously low amounts of fuel for the vehicles that they depended on to make the division a viable fighting force. On 16 December 1944 the operation began, with Mohnke designating his best colonel, SS-Obersturmbannführer Joachim Peiper, and his Kampfgruppe to lead the push to Antwerp.

By 07:00 on 17 December 1944, Peiper's Kampfgruppe had seized the American fuel dump at Büllingen. At 13:30 that same day, at a crossroads near Malmedy, men from Peiper's combat formation shot and killed at least 68 United States POWs. The Malmedy massacre, as it was to become known, is one of the most infamous killings of the war. Since Kampfgruppe Peiper, the perpetrators of the massacre, were under Mohnke's overall command, there were several accusations that he should be held personally responsible, yet he was never found guilty of the crime. By the evening of 17 December, the leading element of the LSSAH was engaged with the 99th US Division at Stavelot. Mohnke's division was behind their deadline by at least 36 hours by the end of the second day. Progress was further delayed by the retreating troops blowing up important bridges and fuel dumps that Mohnke and Peiper had counted on taking intact.

With each passing day, enemy resistance stiffened and the advance was eventually halted on all fronts. Desperate to keep the assault going, the German High Command ordered that a renewed attack begin on 1 January 1945. Yet this time, the Allies had regrouped their forces and were ready to repulse any attacks launched by the Germans. The operation formally ended on 27 January 1945, and three days later Mohnke was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer. A short while later the LSSAH and 'I SS Panzer Korps' were transferred to Hungary to bolster the crumbling situation there. Mohnke was injured in an air raid where he suffered, among other things, ear damage. He was removed from front-line service and put on the Führer reserve.

 

 

The Last Battle, Berlin, 30 April 1945

Unterscharführer Karl-Heinz Turk of the Schwere SS Panzerabteilung 503, in one of the few remaining Kingtigers, defends the Potsdammer Platzalong with elements of the Müncheberg Division against the rapidly encroaching Soviet forces
 

 

Defence of the Reichstag, Berlin 1  May 1945

On  30 April, Unterscharführer Georg Diers and his crew of tank 314, were ordered to take up a defensive position at the Reichstag buildings.
This was one of only two remaining King Tigers
belonging to Heavy SS Tank Battalion 503 in Berlin.

By that evening they had knocked out about 30 T34's, and the following day led a
successful counterattack against the Kroll Opera House directly opposite the Reichstag. Their efforts though, merely postponed the inevitable and by the end of
the day the order was given to abandon the position and prepare to break out of Berlin

 

Joachim Peiper, commander of the armoured spearhead of 1st SS Panzer Division, in conference with officers of other units under his command.

 

 

Aside from tanks of his own Division, there were also
King Tigers of the 501st Heavy Tank Battalion

 

After recovering from his wounds, Mohnke was personally appointed by Hitler as the [Kommandant] Battle Commander for the defense of the centre government district [Zitadelle sector] which included the Reich Chancellery and Führerbunker. Mohnke's command post was under the Reich Chancellery in the Bunkers therein. He formed Kampfgruppe Mohnke [Battle Group Mohnke] and it was divided into two weak regiments. It was made up of the LSSAH Flak Company, replacements from LSSAH Ausbildungs-und Ersatz Battalion from Spreenhagan (under SS-Standartenführer Günther Anhalt), 600 men from the Begleit-Bataillon Reichsführer-SS, the Führer-Begleit-Kompanie and the core group being the 800 men of the Leibstandarte [LSSAH] SS Guard Battalion [that was assigned to guard the Führer], and 503rd SS Heavy Tank Battalion [Tiger II tanks].

In addition, Mohnke’s Kampfgruppe included elements from SS Panzer Division Nordland, made up of Scandinavian/Baltic volunteers; and also 350 members of the [French] SS Charlemagne Division. These non-German troops, regarded as traitors in their own home countries, had little alternative but to fight to the death.

Although Hitler had appointed General Helmuth Weidling as defense commandant of Berlin, Mohnke remained free of Weidling's command to maintain his defense objectives of the Reich Chancellery and the Führerbunker.

The forces available to Weidling for the city's defence included roughly 45,000 soldiers in several severely depleted German Army and Waffen-SS divisions. These depleted divisions were supplemented by the Berlin police force, boys in the Hitler Youth, and about 40,000 elderly men of the Home Guard [Volkssturm].  Mohnke had over 2,000 men under his direct command. The core group of his fighting men were the 800 of the Leibstandarte [LSSAH] SS Guard Battalion [assigned to guard the Führer]. The Soviets later estimated the number of defenders in Berlin at 180,000, but this was based on the number of German prisoners they captured. The prisoners included many unarmed men in uniform, such as railway officials and members of the Reich Labour Service [Reichsarbeitsdienst].

To the west of the city was the 20th Panzergrenadier Division. To the north was the 9th Fallschirmjäger Division, to the north-east the Panzer Division Müncheberg.To the south-east of the city and to the east of Tempelhof Airport was the SS-Nordland Panzergrenadier Division composed mainly of foreign volunteers.

They faced a superior number of Soviet soldiers. There were approximately 1.5 million Soviet troops allocated for the investment and assault on the Berlin Defence Area.

In April 1945 Mohnke was in the Bunker of the Reichskanzlei where he decorated several officers with the Knights Cross.

Since Mohnke's fighting force was located at the nerve center of the German Third Reich it fell under the heaviest artillery bombardment of the war, which began as a birthday present to Hitler on 20 April 1945. The shelling lasted to the end of hostilities on 8 May 1945. 

Hermann Fegelein was a prominent officer of the Waffen-SS in Nazi Germany, a member of Adolf Hitler's entourage, adjutant to Heinrich Himmler, and brother-in law to Eva Braun through his marriage to her sister, Gretl. However, he supposedly died before Braun married Hitler, and details of his death are controversial.

On the night of 17 April, SS General Fegelein—Himmler’s representative—adroitly informed Hitler that the secret talks between SS General Wolff and Allen Dulles in Switzerland had resulted in principle on terms for an armistice on the Italian front.  The Americans were still talking of unconditional surrender, but that was a minor problem if thereby the enemy alliance could be torn asunder.  At 3pm the Führer sent for Wolff and congratulated him.  “I hear that you and your skill have managed to establish the first official contacts to top Americans.”  He asked Wolff not to leave Berlin until the next evening, to give him time to think it over.  “I am grateful that you’ve succeeded in opening the first doorway to the West and America.  Of course, the terms are very bad—there can be no talk of unconditional surrender, obviously".  But by 5 P.M. his mood had hardened again.  Strolling with Wolff, Kaltenbrunner, and Fegelein in the Chancellery garden, Hitler enlarged on his own hopeful theories.  “I want the front to hold for eight more weeks.  I am waiting for East and West to fall out.  We are going to hold the Italian fortress at all costs, and Berlin too".  This was the message Hitler gave Wolff to pass on to General Heinrich von Vietinghoff, Kesselring’s colorless successor as Commander in Chief in Italy.

From January to April 1945, Martin Bormann controlled access to Hitler's office. Fegelein was on close terms with him. Further, being married to Eva Braun's sister placed him in Hitler's inner circle. After Himmler tried to negotiate a surrender to the western Allies via Count Bernadotte in April 1945  [Himmler falsely claimed leadership of the Reich in his failed attempt to negotiate a peace deal with Eisenhower], Fegelein,  left the Reich Chancellery Bunker complex, after deciding he did not want to "join a suicide pact", and went to his apartment at 4 Bleibtreustrasse [ironically 'Stay Faithful Street'] in Berlin-Charlottenburg. There he changed into civilian clothes, preparing to flee to Sweden or Switzerland, and met up with a woman, possibly his mistress.  

His absence was noted by Hitler and members of the Reichssicherheitsdienst [RSD/Hitler’s personal security force] were sent out to search. On 27 April 1945, he was found by RSD deputy commander SS-Obersturmbannführer Peter Högl at his apartment. The mystery woman in Fegelein's apartment, was believed to be of Irish nationality and married to a high ranking Hungarian diplomat in Admiral Horthy's service. She was believed to be in the pay of the British secret service, named Mata O'Hara [a code name]. Members of Hitler's staff remember her being in the company of Fegelein, but never at the Reichschancellery. It is strongly suspected that Fegelein leaked information to the British via this woman during bedroom activities. The woman cleverly made her escape through a kitchen window on the pretext of getting water for some cognac that Fegelein had offered his "guests". At this point, Högl had no orders to forcibly return Fegelein to the Reichschancellery, so he did not pay much attention to the woman, much to his subsequent regret. Chapter VII of James P. O'Donnell's book "The Bunker" is all about 'The Lady Vanished' or 'Das Leck' [the leak]. Richard Crossman, British M.P. and journalist said in 1955 she should be awarded the Victoria Cross. But she just vanished, and her identity remains a mystery.

Found in Fegelein’s possession were 105.725 Reichsmark, 3185 Swiss Francs, pieces of gold, and jewellery, some of which belonged to Eva and Gretl Braun. Högl also uncovered a briefcase containing documents with evidence of Himmler's attempted peace negotiations with the western Allies.

According to most accounts he was also highly intoxicated when arrested and brought back to the Führerbunker.He was kept in a makeshift cell until the evening of 28 April. That night, Hitler was informed of the BBC broadcast of a Reuters news report about Himmler's attempted negotiations with the western Allies via Count Bernadotte. Hitler flew into a rage about this apparent betrayal and ordered Himmler's arrest. Sensing a connection between Fegelein's disappearance and Himmler's betrayal, Hitler ordered SS-Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller to interrogate Fegelein as to what he knew of Himmler's plans. Thereafter, according to Otto Günsche [Hitler's personal adjutant], Hitler ordered that Fegelein be stripped of all rank and to be transferred to Kampfgruppe "Mohnke" to prove his loyalty in combat. However, Günsche and Bormann expressed their concern to Hitler that Fegelein would only desert again. Hitler then ordered Fegelein court-martialed.

A court-martial was hastily assembled, during which Wilhelm Mohnke, in charge of the defense of the Reichskanzlei, degraded him to SS-Mann, expelled him from the SS, and ordered him returned to his cell.

According to the History Channel Documentary, 'Hitler's End' produced in 2005, Russian Archive documentation seems to indicate that Hitler was not particularly adamant about having Hermann Fegelein shot [as is the popular story], but that it was Günsche who insisted that Fegelein should be shot for desertion. 

Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge—an eye-witness to Bunker events—stated that Braun pleaded with Hitler to spare her brother-in-law and tried to justify Fegelein's behaviour. However, he was taken to the garden of the Reich Chancellery on 28 April, and was "shot like a dog". Rochus Misch, who was the last surviving individual from the Führerbunker, disputed aspects of this account in a 2007 interview with "Der Spiegel". According to Misch, Hitler did not order Fegelein's execution, only his demotion. Misch claimed to know the identity of Fegelein's killer, but refused to reveal his name.

Historical accounts  differ radically. In "The Last Days of Hitler", historian Hugh Trevor-Roper remarked: "The real causes and circumstances of the execution of Fegelein provide one of the few subjects in this book upon which final certainty seems unattainable".

Journalist James Preston O'Donnell ["The Bunker: The History of the Reich Chancellery Group", Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978] discovered in his interviews numerous claims and theories as to what happened to Fegelein, many of which disagreed with each other, and some of which seemed preposterous [i.e., a claim that Hitler himself gunned Fegelein down]. Many claimed he had been shot following a court-martial, and this theory predominated for many years.

While the Battle in Berlin was raging around them, Hitler ordered Mohnke to set up a military tribunal for Hermann Fegelein, in order to try the man for desertion. Mohnke, deciding that the Obergruppenführer deserved a fair trial by other high ranking officers, put together a tribunal consisting of Generals Hans Krebs, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Johann Rattenhuber, and himself.

Years later, Mohnke told O'Donnell  the following::

"I was to preside over it myself...I decided the accused man [Fegelein] deserved trial by high-ranking officers...We set up the court-martial in a room next to my command post...We military judges took our seats at the table with the standard German Army Manual of Courts-Martial before us. No sooner were we seated than defendant Fegelein began acting up in such an outrageous manner that the trial could not even commence. Roaring drunk, with wild, rolling eyes, Fegelein first brazenly challenged the competence of the court. He kept blubbering that he was responsible to Himmler and Himmler alone, not Hitler...He refused to defend himself. The man was in wretched shape - bawling, whining, vomiting, shaking like an aspen leaf... I was now faced with an impossible situation. On the one hand, based on all available evidence, including his own earlier statements, this miserable excuse for an officer was guilty of flagrant desertion... Yet the German Army Manual states clearly that no German soldier can be tried unless he is clearly of sound mind and body, in a condition to hear the evidence against him. I looked up the passage again, to make sure, and consulted with my fellow judges...In my opinion and that of my fellow officers, Hermann Fegelein was in no condition to stand trial, or for that matter to even stand. I closed the proceedings...So I turned Fegelein over to [SS] General Rattenhuber and his security squad. I never saw the man again". 

Many other people in the Bunker argued that Mohnke was lying, that he had in fact had Fegelein killed, and only made the above statement to try and explicate himself from any guilt. This was complicated by the fact that Mohnke was the only survivor of this court martial - Krebs and Burgdorf committed suicide by 2 May. While Rattenhuber survived, O'Donnell was only able to speak with him once before his death, and Rattenhuber did not discuss Fegelein with him. However, as O'Donnell noted, nobody actually saw Fegelein's execution [or, if they did, they weren't talking]. Nonetheless, O'Donnell and many historians, with the evidence at hand, agreed with Mohnke, and have concluded that Fegelein was doomed because of a combination of Himmler's betrayal and suspicions that his mistress was a spy. According to  O'Donnell there were no witnesses to the execution [he had interviewed surviving members of the Bunker entourage and none of them admitted to actually seeing the execution]. And yet in "The Last Days Of Hitler" by Anton Joachimsthaler "SS-Sgt. Rochus Misch spoke of a shooting in a cellar by two members of the RSD".  O'Donnell noted that Hitler held off on his marriage to Eva Braun until after he was satisfied Fegelein was dead - a means of ensuring that he would not have a "traitor" as a brother-in-law.

Hans Fegelein, Hermann's father stated several times after the war that he received packages containing Bundesmarks with notes stating that Hermann was alive and otherwise fine, but had to remain underground. However, the money could have been sent to his father by Fegelein's long time comrade, Albert Faßbender who resumed his lucrative business with his step-father after the war as a chocolatier.

The alternative is that Fegelein did in fact, survive the Bunker. In order for this to have happened, he would have made a deal with Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller. Müller and Fegelein also would have had to convince Johann [Hans] Rattenhuber, who Hitler sent to confirm the death of Fegelein, that he was in fact dead so the Hitler nuptials could take place without the possibility of Fegelein becoming a relative of Hitler by marriage. Fooling Rattenhuber by dressing up a battle death corpse in Fegelein's uniform was possible as there were so many corpses around the general area from the make-shift hospital on the upper floors of the Chancellory.

There's always a chance that the late war events associated with Fegelein were a sham, designed to throw the Allies off his track while he escaped abroad. Glenn Infield investigated this in a chapter of his book "Secrets of the SS", and while it ends up as being unlikely, there's no denying that American intelligence services did spend a while looking into the possibility that Hermann Fegelein was still alive, somewhere. Infield's main source for information on Fegelein seems to be Bormann's diaries.

Next is the possibility that Fegelein was hanged in the Gestapo cellar as theorized by James P O'Donnell. In that case, his corpse would have remained in the Gestapo cellar until the Red Army investigated it in May, 1945. If he was hanged, his tunic would have been removed as was the custom, so there would be nothing distinguishing him as Fegelein. Mohnke states that in the abortive courts martial hearing, Fegelein tore off his collar and/or shoulder pieces from his tunic anyway.

An alternative scenario of Fegelein's death is based on the 1948/49 Soviet NKVD dossier of Hitler written for Josef Stalin. The dossier states that Fegelein was court-martialed on the evening of 28 April, by a court headed by Mohnke, SS-Obersturmbannführer Alfred Krause, and SS-Sturmbannführer Herbert Kaschula. Mohnke and his fellow officers sentenced Fegelein to death. That same evening, Fegelein was shot from behind by a member of the Sicherheitsdienst. Based on this stated chain of events, author Veit Scherzer concluded that Fegelein, according to German law, was deprived of all honours and honorary signs and must therefore be considered a de facto but not de jure recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.

Finally, there is the possibility that as reported by Hanna Reitsch, Fegelein was shot in the Ehrenhof.  His body would have been hastily buried and removed to a mass grave later. A Soviet Newsreel identifed some of the corpses that they recovered, but Fegelein was not among them. A red army enlisted man claimed to have buried him in a makeshift grave around the Chancellery. Reitsch's account differs dramatically with Bunker survivors and it was said to have occurred just two hours before she and von Greim flew out. Reitsch later admitted she did not witness it and it was only rumoured.

In Thomas Fischers: "Die Verteidigung der Reichskanzlei 1945. Kampfkommandant Mohnke berichtet",  Mohnke is also quoted for saying that Fegelein was shot by Rattenhuber's men in the Ehrenhof.

After Berlin capitulated, there were a lot of bodies in the area of the chancellery. Some were stored in a damaged water tower that fell to the ground, some were left as they fell, and a number of suicides if not murders were left in the lower Bunker. If James O'Donnell's account is correct and Fegelein was killed in the Gestapo cellar and not the Ehrenhof as in Hanna Reich's statement, there would have been no great hurry to recover his body. Most accounts of Fegelein's execution also state that at some point before he was killed his medals and/or other insignia was removed from his tunic, possibly by Fegelein himself, and it is doubtful that anyone from the initial red army internment squads would have recognized the significance of a Florian Geyer cuff tab, had Fegelein been wearing a tunic at all when killed.

Something similar may have happened to Gestapo Chief Heinrich Müller. The US National Archives file on him states that his body may or may not have been recovered, but it is uncertain because the internment squad simply was unaware who they were reburying.

In the evening of 26 April, Weidling presented Hitler with a detailed proposal for a breakout from Berlin. When Weidling finished, Hitler shook his head and said: "Your proposal is perfectly all right. But what is the point of it all? I have no intentions of wandering around in the woods. I am staying here and I will fall at the head of my troops. You, for your part, will carry on with your defence".

Around 4 or 4:30pm on 29 April 1945, at a situation conference, Hitler sent for Mohnke, and requested an update on what was happening in Berlin. Mohnke spread out a map of central Berlin and reported that in the north the Russians had moved close to the Weidendammer Bridge; in the east they were at the Lustgarten; in the south, the Russians were at Potsdamer Platz and the Aviation Ministry; and in the west they were in the Tiergarten, somewhere between 170 and 250 feet from the Reich Chancellery. When Hitler asked how much longer Mohnke could hold out, the answer was “At most twenty to twenty-four hours, my Führer, no longer".

-- Fest, Joachim, "Inside Hitler’s Bunker. Another source indicates Mohnke replying that with the weapons and ammunition he had, he could hold out for two or three days more. Evidence of the Head of Hitler’s Bodyguard Hans Rattenhuber, Moscow, 20 May 1945 in Vinogradov, V.K.; Pogonyi, J.F.; Teptzov, N.V.,"Hitlers Death: Russia's Last Great Secret".

During the evening of 29 April, Weidling discussed with his divisional commanders the possibity of breaking out to the southwest to link up with Walther Wenck's Army. Wenck's spearhead had reached the village of Ferch on the banks of the Schwielowsee near Potsdam. The breakout was planned to start the next night at 22:00.

Late in the morning of 30 April, with the Soviets less than 500 metres from the Bunker, Hitler had a meeting with Weidling, who informed him that the Berlin garrison would probably run out of ammunition that night. Weidling asked Hitler for permission to break out, a request he had made unsuccessfully before. Hitler did not answer at first, and Weidling went back to his headquarters in the Bendlerblock, where at about 13:00, he received Hitler's permission to try a breakout that night.

Hitler asked Mohnke if his solders could hold out until 8 May. The SS general replied that the Bunker would fall in less than 24 hours. "I now expect a frontal, massed-tank attack tomorrow at dawn, 1 May. You know what 1 May means to Russians". Hitler said, “I know. Let me say that your troops have fought splendidly, and I have no complaints".

About 5 hours later the Führer was dead and his body burned. After returning from Soviet captivity in 1955 General Mohnke hinted that the Führer was hoping to live to May 8-the date Napoleon died in captivity-or exile.

On 30 April, after receiving news of Hitler's suicide, orders were issued that those who could do so were to break out. The plan was to escape from Berlin to the Allies on the western side of the Elbe or to the German Army to the North. Prior to the breakout, Mohnke briefed all commanders [who could be reached] within the Zitadelle sector about the events as to Hitler's death and the planned break out. They split up into ten main groups. It was a "fateful moment" for Brigadeführer Mohnke as he made his way out of the Reich Chancellery on 1 May. He had been the first duty officer of the LSSAH at the building and now was leaving as the last battle commander there. Mohnke's group included: Hitler's secretaries Traudl Junge and Gerda Christian, Borman's secretary Else Krüger, Hitler's dietician Constanze Manziarly, Dr. Ernst-Günther Schenck, Walther Hewel, Hitler’s driver Erich Kempka and various others. Mohnke planned to break out towards the German Army which was positioned in Prinzenallee. The group headed along the subway but their route was blocked so they went above ground and later joined hundreds of other Germans civilians and military personnel who had sought refuge at the Schultheiss-Patzenhofer Brewery on Prinzenallee.

"SS Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke, the last commander of Adolf Hitler's bodyguard, was leading one of three parties escaping the ruins of the Bunker under the Reich Chancellery. The Führer was dead and Mohnke was guiding members of Hitler's military escort and other courtiers through the black subterranean tunnels of the U-Bahn, deep beneath the shattered streets of the city.

"Suddenly the party hit an obstacle. Two railwaymen had locked a tunnel door, as was their duty, once the final train had passed for the day. Despite Mohnke's entreaties, these two senior servants of the Reichsbahn refused to budge. They had their orders.

"Mohnke was a veteran of six years fighting, had been twice wounded and had won the Knight's Cross. But, rather than drawing his pistol and forcing the railwaymen to open the door, he ordered the party to retrace its steps down the tunnel. Not long afterward, they surrendered to the Russians".

-- Kempka, Erich, "Die letzten Tage mit Adolf Hitler" [The Last Days with Adolf Hitler], Preussisch-Oldendorf, 1981. An English edition of the book was published in 2010 by Frontline Books, under the title "I was Hitler's Chauffeur: The Memoirs of Erich Kempka"

Mohnke had 10 years in the Soviet Gulag to contemplate his inability to persuade the railwaymen to obey common sense rather than their orders.

This incident is emblematic of the decisions of millions of Germans, at the front lines and at home, who continued to fight and die as the Third Reich collapsed in the early months of 1945.

British historian Ian Kershaw, the most insightful authority on Hitler and the Third Reich, captures all of this in "The End: Hitler's Germany, 1944-45".

 

Some of the SS personnel, who did not join any of the breakout groups, opted to commit suicide. General Hans Krebs, Deputy Chief of the Army General Staff, and General Wilhelm Burgdorf, the Chief Adjutant to Adolf Hitler, along with SS-Obersturmbannführer [Lieutenant Colonel] Franz Schädle of the SS-Begleitkommando des Führers, stayed behind.

On 5 January 1945, Franz Schädle was appointed commander of the bodyguard unit after the dismissal of Bruno Gesche. By then the SS-Begleitkommando had been expanded and was known as the Führerbegleitkommando [Führer Escort Command; FBK]. He accompanied Hitler and his entourage into the Bunker complex under the Reich Chancellery garden in the central government sector of Berlin. At that time, Schädle appointed FBK member Oberscharführer Rochus Misch to be the Bunker telephone operator. By 23 April 1945, he commanded approximately 30 members of the unit who stood guard therein for Hitler. On 28 April 1945 he was wounded in the leg by shrapnel. It caused him to have to "hobble" around using a crutch. After Hitler committed suicide on the afternoon of 30 April, Schädle was present at Hitler's cremation in the garden of the Reich Chancellery.

Thereafter, orders were issued that those who could do so were to break out. The plan was to escape from Berlin to the Allies on the western side of the Elbe or to the German Army to the North. Those left in the Reich Chancellery and Führerbunker were split up into ten main groups. Rochus Misch stated that Schädle had ordered, that when the time came, he was to join SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke's lead break-out group Misch later recalled that shortly thereafter four fellow FBK guards came down into the Führerbunker carrying an empty stretcher. They wanted to carry Schädle on it during the break-out. Schädle turned them down According to the Bunker's master electro-mechanic Johannes Hentschel, by that time Schädle's leg wound had become gangrenous].

Prior to his suicide, Josef Göbbels finally released Misch from further service as the Bunker telephone operator; he was free to leave. By then Misch and mechanic Hentschel were two of the last people remaining in the Bunker. Misch went upstairs, through the cellars of the Reich Chancellery to where Schädle had his office to report one last time. Misch told Schädle that Göbbels had released him. Schädle told Misch of the route he should take to try to get through the Soviet encirclement of the area. Thereafter, Schädle committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth with a pistol, rather than attempt the break out from the Chancellery to escape from the advancing Red Army. He did not want to endanger the lives of the others in the attempt given the fact he could only walk at a slow pace using a crutch.

Since the field hospital in the Reich Chancellery above needed power and water, Johannes Hentschel, the master electro-mechanic for the Bunker complex, opted to stay even after everyone else had either left or committed suicide.

 

According to Anthony Read and David Fisher in "The Fall of Berlin", Hitler had promoted Lt. Colonel Erich Bärenfänger, who became the youngest army officer in the rank of Generalmajor, on 22 April 1945.

The thirty-year-old Bärenfänger, had received the Iron Cross, 1st and 2nd class, for his action in the Westfeldzug, and the German Cross in gold in December 1941 for his continuously shown bravery.

During the summer of 1942, he took part in the bloody attack of the fortress Sevastopol and received the Knight's Cross. Next summer he added Oak Leaves during the campaign in Terek, and in the winter of 43/44, he was awarded with Swords for his defensive action in Kertsch, recognizing extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership.

On 23 April, Hitler appointed Helmuth Weidling as the commander of the Berlin Defence Area.

Weidling replaced Lieutenant General [Generalleutnant] Helmuth Reymann, Colonel [Oberst] Ernst Käther, and Hitler himself. Reymann had held the position only since 6 March. Starting 22 April, Käther had held the position for less than one day. For a short period of time, Hitler had then taken personal control of Berlin's defences, with Bärenfänger as his Deputy.
 
On 24 April, Bärenfänger was given command of defence sectors A and one day later also command of sector B. He mounted at least two unsuccessful armored attacks northwards up the Schönhauser Allee. The second was on 1 May.

Members of Mohnke's "break out group" saw quite a sight, on the Humbolthain,  thanks to Bärenfänger, according to James P. O'Donnell, in "The Bunker".

On 1 May, the group left the Führerbunker. As they made their escape, there before them they saw a "host" of new Tiger II tanks and "artillery pieces" arrayed around the Flak tower as if "on parade". Bärenfänger was allegedly seated in the turret cupola of one of the Tigers thus arrayed.

It is believed that Bärenfänger died by his own hand, along with his wife and his brother-in-law, in Berlin in early May 1945 to avoid capture by the Russians.  

On 2 May 1945, General Weidling issued an order calling for the complete surrender of all German forces still in Berlin. e groups kept up pockets of resistance throughout the city and did not surrender until 8 May 1945. 

 

After Hitler's suicide on 30 April 1945, Göbbels assumed Hitler's role as Chancellor. On 1 May, Goebbels dictated a letter to Soviet Army General Vasily Chuikov, commander of the Soviet 8th Guards Army, commanding the Soviet forces in central Berlin, requesting a temporary ceasefire and ordered General Krebs to deliver it.

Krebs and Colonel Theodor von Dufving, Helmuth Weidling's Chief of Staff, under a white flag, went to see Chuikov, who was surprised by their appearance shortly before 4:00 a.m.
 
Krebs, who spoke Russian, informed Chuikov that Hitler and Eva Braun, his wife, had killed themselves in the Führerbunker. Chuikov, who was not aware that there was a Bunker complex under the Reich Chancellery or that Hitler was married, calmly said that he already knew all of this. Chuikov was not, however, prepared to accept the terms in Göbbels' letter or to negotiate with Krebs. The Soviets were unwilling to accept anything other than unconditional surrender, as it was agreed with the other Allies. Krebs was not authorized by Göbbels to agree to such terms, and so the meeting ended with no agreement. According to Traudl Junge, Krebs returned to the Bunker looking "worn out, exhausted".

Göbbels decided that further efforts were futile. Göbbels then launched into a tirade berating the generals, reminding them Hitler forbade them to surrender. Ministerialdirektor Hans Fritzsche left the room to take matters into his own hands. He went to his nearby office on Wilhelmplatz and wrote a surrender letter addressed to Soviet Marshall Georgy Zhukov. General Wilhelm Burgdorf followed Fritzsche to his office] There he asked Fritzsche if he intended to surrender Berlin. Fritzsche replied that he was going to do just that. Burgdorf shouted that Hitler had forbidden surrender and as a civilian he had no authority to do so. Burgdorf then pulled his pistol to shoot Fritzsche, but a radio technician "knocked the gun" and the bullet fired hit the ceiling. Several men then hustled Burgdorf out of the office and he returned to the Bunker.

Krebs's surrender of Berlin was thus impeded as long as Göbbels was alive.

At around 8:30 p.m. on 1 May, Göbbels removed this impediment. Shortly after killing their own children, Göbbels and his wife, Magda left the Bunker and walked up to the garden of the Reich Chancellery where they committed suicide.

After Göbbels' death, Krebs became suicidal. The responsibility for surrendering the city fell to General Helmuth Weidling, the commander of the Berlin Defense Area.

On 2 May, with Krebs in no condition to do it himself, Weidling contacted General Chuikov to again discuss surrender. Weidling and Chuikov met and had the following conversation in which Chuikov asked about Krebs:

Chuikov: "You are the commander of the Berlin garrison?"
Weidling: "Yes, I am the commander of the LVI Panzer Corps".
Chuikov: "Where is Krebs?"
Weidling: "I saw him yesterday in the Reich Chancellery. I thought he would commit suicide. At first he [Krebs] criticized me because unofficial capitulation started yesterday. The order regarding capitulation has been issued today".

As the Soviets advanced on the Reich Chancellery, Krebs was last seen by others, including Junge, in the Führerbunker when they left to attempt to escape. Junge relates how she approached Krebs to say goodbye and how he straightened up and smoothed his uniform before greeting her for the last time. 

Sometime in the early morning hours of 2 May, Krebs and Burgdorf committed suicide by gunshot to the head.

 

Knowing that it was impossible to get through the Soviet cordons, Mohnke told the soldiers what the officers already knew — that Adolf Hitler was dead. But he did not tell them that Hitler committed suicide. He took upon himself the responsibility of telling all officers and men that their oath of allegiance was binding only up to the Führer’s death and advised them, to escape capture, at the first chance, even by changing into civilian clothes. Mohnke decided to surrender to the Red Army. However, several of Mohnke's group [including some of the SS personnel] opted to commit suicide. Some groups kept up pockets of resistance throughout the city and did not surrender until 8 May 1945.

 

Around 9 am, 2 May 1945, the first Russian combat troops arrived at the Bunker complex unopposed. They were followed by the Russian search teams of “SMERSH”, equivalent of CIC of the Allieds.

SMERSH [acronym of Spetsyalnye MEtody Razoblacheniya SHpyonov or Special Methods of Spy Detection, but also referred to as SMERt‘ SHpionam; "Death to spies"] was an umbrella name for three independent counterintelligence agencies in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially founded on 14 April 1943.

The Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del [The People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs] abbreviated НКВД [NKVD] soldiers captured more than 50 officers and men who were still there in the Bunker complex, including Johannes Hentschel. Then they found out that the bulk of the Reich Chancellery group had decamped during the night.

Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Klimenko, the leader of one of the search teams found the cadaverous remains of the partly burnt corpses of the Göbbels and filmed them. He immediately sent the remains to the Russians headquarters in Berlin’s Plötzensee Prison.

Another search team found an old oak water tank which contained many dead bodies. They pulled out a particular body that resembled Hitler.

The security personnel in the Bunker, responsible for Hitler’s safety, may have had Gustav Weler, a Doppelgänger or Body-double of Adolf Hitler, to camouflage and help Hitler escape, if Hitler decided to take part in a breakout. But, after Hitler’s death, they would have realized that any double if found would be an embarrassment, and therefore disposed of him by shooting him in the forehead, in an attempt to confuse the Russian troops.

Weler’s body was taken to Lefortovo prison in Moscow, for further investigations, and was laid to rest in its yard.

When Ivan Klimenko returned to the Bunker the next day, 3 May 1945, he found the body resembling Hitler, displayed prominently in the main hall of the Reich Chancellery. Ignoring the darned socks, worn by the dead man, Klimenko assumed the crucial problem of finding Hitler dead or alive had been solved.

Then probing inside the darkened Bunker the Russians found the bodies of many Germans who had committed suicide, including that of General Hans Krebs. The bodies of General Wilhelm Burgdorf and SS-Obersturmbannführer Franz Schädle were never found nor those of Heinrich "Gestapo Müller and Hermann Fegelein, supposedly killed.

The Russians then discovered the bodies of the six Göbbels children lying in their beds in the Vorbunker. They were wearing white nightclothes with the clear mark of cyanide shown on their faces. According to the autopsy the Russians carried out, bruising on the face of 12-year-old Helga Göbbels indicated that she was forced to ingest cyanide.

On the following day, 4 May 1945, Ivan Churakov, a Russian soldier, climbed into a nearby bomb crater strewn with burned paper. He saw some partly burnt furry object and he hollered, “Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, there are legs here.“

They started to dig and pulled from the crater two dead dogs, and digging further they found the burnt bodies of a man and a woman. At first Klimenko did not even think that the two burnt corpses might be that of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun. Since he believed that Hitler’s corpse was already displayed prominently in the Chancellery and only needed to be positively identified, he therefore ordered the newly discovered burnt cadavers to be wrapped in blankets and reburied.

On Saturday, 5 May 1945,  Klimenko while pondering over his finding the burnt bodies of a man and a woman from the burnt crater rushed back and exhumed the two bodies. He transported both bodies to Plötzensee Prison. There he was ordered to send them on to the 496th Field Hospital in Buch, a German locality within the Berlin borough of Pankow.

On 8 May 1945, the Victory in Europe Day [V-E Day], the first preliminary forensic autopsy was performed on both bodies.

According to popular consensus among historians, Hitler killed himself at the close of World War II. But, many unanswered questions, doubts, and uncertainties still linger about his death. Present conspiracy theorists contend that evidence of Adolf Hitler’s suicide is flawed and that he did manage to escape from Germany

The perennial question: "Did Adolf Hitler commit suicide on 30 April 1945?" prompts those with even a modest knowledge of the history of World War II to pursue this issue even further. This question has also served as a catalyst for the prolific output of books and articles by conspiracy theorists.

Many historians claim that Adolf Hitler died of a self-inflicted gunshot while biting a cyanide capsule while Eva Braun committed suicide along with him by ingesting cyanide.

If we accept that Hitler committed suicide April 1945, here again accounts differ about how he died:

• Hitler died from a lethal injection administered by his personal physician Werner Haase.
• Hitler died of a self-inflicted gunshot while biting a cyanide capsule while Eva Braun committed suicide along with him by ingesting cyanide.
• Hitler after shooting his wife Eva Braun swallowed a cyanide capsule and shot himself.

An article written by Yorkshire war reporter Joe Illingworth August 1945 casts doubt on events in the Bunker, claiming that the Russians said there was no "convincing" proof of Hitler’s demise.

Many conspiracy theorists have rejected the accounts of suicide by Hitler as either Soviet Propaganda or an attempted compromise to reconcile the different conclusions. According to every one of the conspiracy theorists, the investigations conducted by the American and Soviet armies at the fall of Berlin led to the only conclusion that Hitler escaped alive and left Germany during the fall of Berlin, most probably on 22 April 1945.

If Hitler escaped from  Germany, then where did he go, and how long did he survive? Some say there is evidence suggesting that Hitler may have fled to Indonesia, where he married and worked at a hospital in Sumbawa. However, the popular consensus among the conspiracy theorists is he fled to Argentina.

 

Following their surrender Mohnke and other senior German officers were treated to a banquet by the Chief of Staff of the 8th Guards Army. He was then handed over to the NKVD. On 9 May 1945, he was flown to Moscow for interrogation and kept in solitary confinement  until 1949 for refusing to talk of Hitler's last days, after being transferred to Lubjanka Prison. 

In a statement for Soviet authorities dated 18 May 1945, Mohnke wrote: "I personally did not see the Führer's body and I don't know what was done to it".

- V. K. Vinogradov et al. [eds], "Hitler's Death: Russia's Last Great Secret from the Files of the KGB", Chaucer Press, London, 2005

Thereafter, Mohnke was transferred again to the to a prison camp for General Officers at Voikovo, 200 miles east of Moscow. He remained in captivity until 10 October 1955.

"During my imprisonment in the Soviet Union, I often heard of an imprisoned Swedish diplomat who had been active in Budapest. The Russian authorities were said to have accused him of espionage for the Germans".

- Quoted in "Raoul Wallenberg: The Mystery Lives on"  by Harvey Rosenfeld - 2005

In February 1949, while still a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union, Theodor von Dufving, the former Chief-of-Staff to General Helmuth Weidling, provided witness statements concerning the Swedish humanitarian Raoul Wallenberg. While travelling to Vorkuta, in the transit camp in Kirov, Dufving had encountered a prisoner with his own special guard and dressed in civilian clothes. The prisoner stated that he was a Swedish diplomat and that he was there "through a great error".

According to Dufving, the man he saw was well-dressed and travelled with a special guard or companion. When Dufving asked the man if he had been with the Swedish Embassy in Berlin, he answered, "No – in Eastern Europe". According to Dufving, the man spoke with an almost perfect German accent. Although he was reading a newspaper in Russian, he told Dufving that he did not know Russian very well.

The Soviet refusal to turn him over to the western Allies was but one tiny act in the political battles of the Cold War.

 

Mohnke was lucky to be appointed as the Battle Commander of the Reich Chancellery and that ultimately led to be captured by the Russians and contributed to the failure to bring him to book for his involvement in battlefield excesses in the west. It transpired that he had vanished into Soviet captivity and not been killed on the fall of Berlin as generally supposed. The Russians denied his existence to the British authorities who were unaware of his existence until reports filtered through that he was alive and living in a Hamburg suburb.

After Konrad Adenauer visited Russia in September 1955, the outcome was the establishing of diplomatic relations between West Germany and Russia. But from this meeting, the last of the German POWs, who the Soviets had deemed to be war criminals, were released between October 1955 and January 1956, as a gesture by Bulganin. Among these prisoners was Mohnke, a prisoner who the Soviets, particularly Stalin had been interested in from the war end to establish beyond all doubt, that "that bastard Hitler was dead"...[as quoted by Stalin]. Stalin remained unconvinced that Hitler was dead and even commissioned a document prepared by Linge and Günsche, later available as "The Hitler Book" which detailed the last days of Hitler and his inner circle within the Hitler Chancellery.     

Following his release, Mohnke worked as a dealer in small trucks and trailers, living in Barsbüttel, West Germany, never having been prosecuted for the atrocities he is alleged to be responsible for. Controversially, he received a pension from the German government for his injuries, a special "victim pension" awarded under the "Social Compensation And Assistance To War Victims" law [Bundesversorgungsgesetz or BVG].

Mohnke was granted immunity from prosecution by US Intelligence services, according to sources who have seen the CIA's files on him, writes Stephen Ward.

According to sources quoted by an ABC television programme broadcast in the United States, Mohnke was debriefed by the CIA on his release. His CIA files show that he provided information on fellow Nazis and SS veterans, in return for money and a guarantee of immunity from prosecution by the Germans or the British.

War crimes trials had ended, and with the advent of the Cold War, the US saw the Soviet Union as the main threat. A former US military Intelligence officer said that by 1955 the Americans were anxious to interview any former senior Nazis leaving Russia, to find which of their colleagues might have become Soviet agents, and to find how much the Russians had learnt about senior ex-Nazis in the West.

Mohnke did not reply to ABC's requests for an interview.

In January 1994 year the German government ruled there was insufficient evidence for a prosecution of Mohnke over the killing of 90 British prisoners in a barn at Wormhoudt, near Dunkirk, in 1940, or for the massacres in 1944 of 130 Canadian prisoners in Normandy and 72 Americans in the German Ardennes offensive.

Despite a campaign, led by the British Member of Parliament Jeff Rooker, to prosecute him for his alleged involvement in war crimes during the early part of the war, Wilhelm Mohnke was able to live out the remainder of his years in peace. Mohnke strongly denied the accusations, telling historian/author Thomas Fischer, "I issued no orders not to take English prisoners or to execute prisoners".

He died in in Barsbüttel-Hamburg on 6 August 2001, at the age of 90. Some other sources place his death in the coastal village of Damp, near Eckernförde in Schleswig-Holstein.

André Hennicke depicted Wilhelm Mohnke in the German film "Der Untergang" [Downfall], about the last days of the Third Reich in Berlin

In the film, Mohnke is shown as a professional and compassionate officer with no hint about his former conduct at Dunkirk or in Normandy. It is true that the film focuses on the events of April 1945 and that his earlier conduct is wholly irrelevant to the subject of the film. Nonetheless, Mohnke's sympathetic portrayal seems at odds with the historical figure. 

The character in the film is a square-jawed heroic figure, who not only concentrates his efforts on acquiring medical care for the wounded under his command, but actually, physically carries a wounded man to safety.

He expresses concern for the wounded and civilian population on more than one occasion in the film, and points out to Dr. Göbbels that the untrained soldiers being thrown into battle in Berlin are being sacrificed needlessly. His attitude towards the enemies he is fighting are never revealed.

Viewers of the film with an understanding of his history have cause to be disappointed with this sympathetic treatment though technically, the character of Mohnke is not inaccurately portrayed.

The film makers have chosen to concentrate -wittingly or unwittingly- on aspects of his character other than his temper and attitudes towards illegal killings.

Certainly the portrayal of Mohnke as a dedicated professional officer is accurate as there could be little argument about the strength of will he possessed.
 

David Cesarani [Research Professor in history at Royal Holloway, University of London] and Professor Peter Longerich [Director of the centre for research on the Holocaust and 20th-century history also at Royal Holloway] wrote the following in the 7 April  2005 edition of "The Guardian" newspaper, in an article entitled "The Massaging of History":

"Most astonishingly, Waffen-SS General Wilhelm Mohnke is depicted as a humanitarian pleading with Hitler to evacuate civilians and arguing with Göebbels against the suicidal deployment of poorly armed militia against the Red Army.

"This is the same Mohnke whose Waffen-SS unit massacred 80 captured British soldiers outside Dunkirk in May 1940. He later led a Waffen-SS regiment in Normandy that murdered more than 60 surrendered Canadian troops.

"In one dramatic encounter, Mohnke protests to Göbbels against the pointless sacrifice of aged militia men. Göbbels retorts that they had consented to Nazi rule and "now their little throats are going to be cut". The effect is to engender contempt for the heartless Nazi Propaganda chief and sympathy for his hapless victims who were hoodwinked into giving their mandate to a gang of murderous thugs.

"However, the scene is invented. The only source is the post-war memoir of Hans Fritzsche, who served in the Nazi Propaganda ministry. Fritzsche claimed to have heard these words at the last Göbbels press conference, not addressed to Mohnke.

"Yet this fabrication goes to the heart of the film's mission, which is to depict the German people as the last victims of Nazism whose true defenders were a band of brave German soldiers, including SS men, who fought until overwhelmed by the Bolshevik hordes".

 

Limited And Conflicting Eyewitness Testimony Points to a Cover-Up

The tiny number of witness sightings of the two bodies were almost all from Hitler’s inner, inner sanctum. If he was going to fake his death and leave his most trusted people behind to execute the plan, these are the people he would have picked.

The two main witnesses were Arthur Axmann, leader of the Hitler Youth, and Erich Kempka, Hitler’s chief bodyguard and chauffeur.

Note Axmann's description of Hitler in his last days in the Bunker – April 22-30 – as a "strangely changed man [who] strode up and down the bunker floor almost ceaselessly and spoke to no one, but ‘he was calm'”.

Remember this is one of the most egotistical, intelligent, charismatic, psychopathic, determined and bold people who ever lived. Famous for his temper…and he just shut up?

Not asking for intelligence reports, so he could know how far away the impending doom was? Resigned to his fate, no last words, no great speeches, just going up and down a line shaking hands with people. This strange, silent behavior is consistent with a double [which we know Hitler definitely had], who would have been told "we will come and get you out soon" rather than "we will come and shoot you and burn your bodies".

The part of the story when Hitler came out and shook hands with everyone and thanked them for their service and said he was going to commit suicide tomorrow and then have his body burned, and handed out poison pills for everyone else to do the same, is also bizarre. It smacks of Jonestown or Heaven’s Gate. This must have been the most public, pre-empted murder-suicide pact in history. Did no-one try to talk him out of it? Couldn’t he have just shaved off the moustache, worn a disguise and fled? And why did Eva have to die?

One report from someone who claims to have seen the bodies in situ says that Eva Braun appeared to have been poisoned. Other eye-witnesses said she was shot through the heart and the left hand side of her dress was red, presumably from blood.

Hitler shot himself through the mouth, but had blood on his temples. This also sounds a little peculiar. Then Eva rested with her head on his shoulder. If she took cyanide, she would be spasming on the floor in an agonizing death, not peacefully snuggling the corpse of someone who just literally blew his brains out.

They covered the faces with blankets so that they couldn’t be identified [all that could be seen was the legs showing uniforms and footwear] then carried them out to the courtyard and burned them in a bomb crater with 50 gallons of gasoline.

The 1949 story “Did Evil Hitler Escape?” by Colonel John Stingo details the sketchy evidence for Hitler’s death. This is based on testimony from Erich Kempka and Kranau:

"Hitler called a final conference around noon of 30 April. Nobody knows what was said.

"Immediately at the conclusion of the conference orders were broadcast throughout the Chancellory that everybody, without exception, should repair to their respective shelters and remain there until further orders

"Shortly afterward Kempka, whose station was in Hitler’s Bunker, heard two shots from the direction of Hitler’s room, and an instant later saw the Führer’s valet Linge and an unknown man carry out a body caved in a grey army blanket

"The head and shoulder were hidden, but the rest of the body was plainly visible – it was clad in Hitler’s uniform.

"A few steps behind appeared Bormann, bearing Eva Braun’s body, which was not covered and was easily recognizable. The left side of her dress appeared to Krempka to be darkened, presumably from blood

"The excavation dig found 2 pink slips with Eva Braun’s initials and several typewritten letters form Hitler to Göbbels. They found no trace whatsoever that any part of the Bunker or garden had been used as a crematorium".

Linge, Hitler’s personal valet has another story again:

That would be the Heinz Linge that told the Wehrmacht surgeon-general, Major-General Walter Schreiber, while he was interned for several years in two Soviet POW camps in Strausberg and Posen and had a chance to speak to him about events in the Bunker, that he "…did not see Hitler, but toward the end noticed two bodies wrapped in carpet being carried out of the Bunker..."

And Kempka later told a different story:

Erich Kempka made a statement to American interrogator George R. Allen, the counterintelligence officer of the 101st Airborne. In it, Kempka gave the Americans their first eyewitness account of any of the events connected with the death of the Führer. He said that on 30 of April—although he felt unable to say that this was the date “with complete sureness” – But he could say that at "precisely" 2.30pm, Günsche called him at the Reich Chancellery garage, asking him to bring five cans of petrol to the Bunker. There Günsche told him that Hitler was dead and that he had been ordered to burn the corpse "so that he would not be exhibited at a Russian freak-show". Kempka said he then helped carry the corpses; while Linge and an orderly whom he did not remember were carrying the corpse of Hitler, he carried the corpse of Eva Hitler. Kempka simply assumed that the corpse he had seen Linge carrying was Hitler’s, for he noticed "the long black trousers and the black shoes which the Führer usually wore with his field-gray uniform jacket".

Axmann says that Göbbels led him into the room, where they surveyed the death scene for 15 minutes before Göbbels sent him to get the blankets. Then Kempka moved the bodies out. Kempka says that he heard two gunshots, and saw two bodies being carried out with blankets on them instantly. And then later he says he didn’t hear any shots, and found out about the deaths at precisely 2:30 at the garage, from Günsche. So basically the two main witnesses who survived have wildly conflicting stories. Axmann says the bodies were covered so that guards in the outer areas couldn’t identify them. The only other witness is a guard from the outer area. Kempka says he could only identify the body by the boots.

Of the witnesses only Göbbels and Axmann saw Hitler dead without a blanket over his face [Axmann says Linge did, Linge says he didn’t]. Göbbels and his six kids supposedly committed suicide the next day with cyanide capsules. Bormann, during his attempted escape, died too.

The story of the last-minute wedding is also quite strange. Apparently Eva was in a celebratory mood afterwards, but everyone else was pretty bummed out about the forthcoming suicides. So they retired early. No last supper.

One of the documents found in the Bunker by the Americans, thanks to assistance from British Intelligence, was Hitler and Eva Braun’s marriage certificate. Firstly, since when does the Ministry of Propaganda issue marriage licenses? Second, what is the point of getting the certificate if you know you are going to die the next day? I can understand wanting to get married before death as a spiritual thing, going to Heaven together…but these people were occultists, not Christians. Why go to the trouble of producing a certificate from a dead regime, when the Bride and Groom are both also going to be dead the next day? It’s almost like they wanted to leave a paper trail that supported the suicide pact narrative.

One of the documents in the FBI Vault mentions sworn testimony from the pilot who flew Hitler and Eva out to Nazi-occupied neutral Denmark on the other side of the Eider River, where they caught another plane. This held up the War Crimes Tribunal for 42 days.

Documents say that Allied Intelligence was satisfied that Hitler died in the Bunker.

However, the British Intelligence report that the military seems to have adopted as gospel, was obviously questioned by both the CIA and FBI since they continued to investigate it for many years. They admit up front that it is "largely based on eyewitness accounts" but they don’t cover any of the problems with the eyewitness testimony. Officially, there were no eyewitnesses to the murder-suicide; just the aftermath.

“Nor is it considered possible that the witnesses were mistaken in respect of Hitler’s body [of the identity of Eva Braun’s body, no doubt is considered possible; not being blanketed she was easily recognized]".

The only witnesses who saw Hitler’s face were Göbbels and Axmann. It is extremely possible that all other witnesses who saw the body could have been mistaken, since the clothes were covered and only his boots and uniform legs were buried. Doubt must also be considered possible with regard to Eva Braun’s body, since both Linge and Kempka reported seeing two bodies carried out wrapped in blankets. The fact that the British Intelligence report is so emphatic on ruling out these quite obvious details suggests a whitewash. It seems like British Intelligence were about the only ones believing Hitler died in the Bunker, which is interesting given all the links between the Royal Family and the Nazis.

Perhaps they just believed what they wanted to believe, because it suited their Propaganda narrative. “War’s over, we’re the winners, time to go home. Hitler died a miserable, broken, wretched loser". The US Colonel who investigated the report was far more skeptical, concluding that no matter how badly burned the bodies were, there would still be some evidence of remains.

A few years ago they did forensic testing on the remains [taken from the site by the Russians] which proved it was not Adolf Hitler. The skull fragment was from someone 5 inches shorter, and a woman. At the time of the World War 2, burned bodies could be identified through dental records – nobody would have ever dreamed of DNA or other modern forensic techniques. Someone reported to be Eva Braun checked in to the hospital for dental X-Rays a short time before the deaths. This may have been Eva’s body double, killed in her stead.

Archaeological digs at the Bunker site did not produce any evidence of the cremation, according to a 1949 report; but charred corpses were found there by the Russians. The remains – later discredited by the skull fragment – were all destroyed. Why?

Both corpses were covered in blankets before being carried out of the apartment. They could only be identified by their footwear. They were taken to the garden outside the Bunker, placed in a bomb crater with their dogs and some identifying trinkets, then doused with 40 or 50 gallons of gasoline and burned. This was a specific plan that Hitler went out of his way to let people know would be going on before he supposedly ended it.

The description of how the bodies were found is all very convenient:

"Several days later, a Soviet soldier found the half-charred bodies of a man and a woman buried inside a shell crater near the Bunker’s emergency exit. He’d noticed the tip of a gray blanket peeking out from the crater, which matched descriptions–produced by interrogating the few aides who remained in the Bunker–of the blanket in which Hitler and Eva Braun’s corpses had been wrapped. The bodies were accompanied by two dogs, later identified as Hitler’s beloved Blondi and one of her pups. Surrounding the dead were several dark-colored medicine phials, pages of handwriting, money, and a metal medallion that read, 'Let me be with you forever'.

It should have been a no-brainer to get a forensic match on those blanket-wrapped corpses. But how come the gray blankets didn’t burn when they had been doused with 50 gallons of gasoline? That sounds like a lot. How come the corpses were only half-charred? 

Perhaps they were fire-proof blankets, so chosen to assist in the later location of the bodies.

This forensic evidence does not in itself prove Hitler escaped. The fact remains that after multiple archaeological digs at the Bunker which have located at least 14 corpses, the  remains of Hitler and Eva Braun have never been found. Just some teeth and some small jaw fragments, which supposedly the Russians have locked up in the KGB archive. A 1972 dig found a body that DNA testing in 1998 proved was Martin Bormann. But any DNA evidence for the Hitlers is still missing after 70 years.

The Russians blocked out the excavations of the Bunker, claiming documents had gone missing. The Western Allies were only able to get into a smaller area of the complex, which was filled with water hampering any investigation.

In May 1945 the Russians declared that Hitler had been poisoned; it’s hard to say how they could have done toxicology on the charred corpses. 

Possibly biting into a cyanide capsule leaves traces in the teeth that don’t get removed by fire.

Supposedly the Russians could positively identify the remains of the pair from their teeth, however there are at least 4 conflicting versions of this story. The Russians found fragments of jaw and teeth amongst 14 charred corpses when they excavated the Bunker site which had been heavily bombed. They managed to track down a dental assistant who had worked on Hitler.  She was able to draw sketches from memory of Hitler’s terrible teeth. He had almost his entire mouth replaced by the end of the war. His dentist Hugo Blaschke was later captured by the Americans, but he never inspected the teeth and jaw fragments. Hitler’s dental records were supposedly removed in the same Börnersdorf Ju-353 plane crash that the discredited "Hitler Diaries" emerged from. Martin Bormann’s secretary Else Krüger was reportedly killed in this plane crash because her baggage was found in the plane. However she lived on and married a British intelligence officer. Several cargo boxes were retrieved from the crash site and removed. The "Hitler Diaries" could have been a limited hangout psy-op to cover the tracks of the escape story with a high-profile hoax.

At the end of his life Hitler only had 5 original teeth, all the others had been replaced with porcelain crowns.

The Russians say that they had an X-Ray in May 1945, when they verified teeth and bone fragments against the previously drawn sketch from memory by the dental assistants. However the dental assistant led them to a mildewed old dental office in Hitler’s Bunker to produce the X-Rays]. Why didn’t his dentist have it? Why did the dentist flee, but the assistant [his fiancée] stay to lead the Russians to this evidence?

Further complicating the story is the evidence chain of the teeth. A young Jewish girl in the Russian Army, Yelena Kagan, from a wealthy Moscow family, was given the teeth in a red jewelry box for safekeeping. She didn’t know where they came from. And then she serendipitously manages to be the one who locates the dental assistant and X-Rays as well, thus proving the whole case that Hitler was dead.

There are other conflicting reports, such as a paper in the "Journal of Dental Problems and Solutions" saying that both Hausermann and dental prosthesist Fritz Echtmann were arrested on 9 May 1945. Hausermann got 10 years in the Gulag and Echtmann got 9. On this same date, Hausermann verified the teeth in a hospital where they were still attached to the cadaver. This added a picture of Hitler’s mandible to the mix.

"On the afternoon of 9 May, the commission handed over a red box to the SMERSH. It contained jawbones and gold bridges from bodies N° 12 and 13 who were suspected to be Hitler’s and Eva Braun’s. This box was handed over to the interpreter.

"The following day, the SMERSH were looking for Hugo Blaschke, his dental prosthetist and his assistant. At the clinic of Kurfürstendamm, they found out that the dentist had left Berlin for Berchtesgaden under the Führer’s command on 19 April. However, they succeeded in taking in the two others for questioning.

"They were asked about the content of the red box which was shown to them. All that they said was immediately recorded before they had the chance to examine the human remains.

"The red box and its content were sent back to the Soviet capital".

In this version of the story, the dental assistant and prosthetist never examined the remains which appeared to have the mandible intact. They were shown the red box and its contents, said “yes that’s Hitler”. Case closed. No mention of the X-Ray. And how big was this box to contain jawbones? Why were these teeth fragments separated from the cadaver[s] in the first place?

If it was Hitler’s double in the Bunker, it would have been easy to take him to the special dental office for X-Rays.

The dental assistant drew a picture of Hitler’s teeth, and then the technician confirmed the picture. According to Dr Mark Benecke:

"The actual identification of Hitler’s remains [and therefore the confirmation of his death based on physical evidence] was published in 1972. It was performed by comparing the teeth of the remains to the dental schemata drawn by Hitler’s dentist".

The picture matched the bone fragments in the red jewellery box, and the X-ray that the dental assistant would later lead the Russians to. Which came first? It seems that with her skills [presumably these are the finest dentists in Germany if not the world] she would be able to draw a sketch from an X-Ray. Why weren’t the X-Rays used in 1972?

Who was interpreting the match of the X-Ray, the teeth, and the fragments? Was it Soviet dental technicians? Or was it actually Hausermann and Echtmann:

"The location of his crowns and a sawn-through upper left bridge matched the teeth in the jewelry box, but Rzhevskaya’s team needed further proof. Hausermann led them to a tiny, mildewed dental office in Hitler’s Bunker, where she produced Hitler’s dental X-rays. The images–the placement of root canal fillings, sites of bone breakdown, and unusual bridges–confirmed that the body found in the rubble outside the chancellery had belonged to Hitler. A dental technician named Fritz Echtmann, who had worked in the same laboratory as Hausermann and created crowns and bridges for both Hitler and Eva Braun, verified the findings".

A double could have had crowns attached and partial sawing and metal bridges put in the same places as Hitler, then X-Rays taken – easily justified to the dupe by saying “you have to look alike”. Note that it’s the guy who made the crowns for Hitler and Eva verifying the findings.

The Nazis exploited "Ratlines", tied to the Vatican which has had a huge presence in South America since the New World was discovered, to smuggle people and valuables out of Europe. More than 9000 high-level Nazis relocated to South America this way. In fact South America was described as a "haven" for Nazis. America got its share, more than 1500 through "Paperclip" which became the guts of NASA and its aerospace industry, as well as MKULTRA. Russia also took a large number of Nazi scientists [7000].

There was a quite famous Nazi pedophile colony in Chile called Colonia Dignidad, since renamed Villa Bavieria.

There are about 50 U-Boats still unaccounted for, which lends credence to the theory that Nazis used them to flee to the ends of the earth. At least two of the U-Boats showed up in South America.

Nietzche’s brother-in-law tried to start an Aryan colony in Paraguay, but committed suicide.

If Hitler was to escape to anywhere, it would make sense that he would go to where the largest number of his people were; and if the Nazis were to escape to anywhere, it would make sense for them to follow the Führer.

Hitler’s Escape to Argentina, is also the subject of a "History Channel" series 'Hunting Hitler', where Bob Baer’s CIA team used sonar, historical maps and cutting-edge technology as well as interviewing a series of alleged witnesses to the crazed dictator’s escape. Hitler easily faked his own death through the use of double, say the team, who add the corpse found by the Russians was actually five inches shorter than Hitler with a smaller skull.