Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

147. Joachimsthaler, 202. Keitel, 368, has another version, for which there is no other evidence and is presumably a distortion from memory: ‘No further hope of relief of Berlin and reopening of access from west; suggest break-out via Potsdam to Wenck; alternatively flight of Führer to southern region.’ The effect of the telegram seems to have been to reinvoke accusations of betrayal, now even in Keitel. (See Trevor-Roper, 228–9 (though the original text for Bormann’s cable to Dönitz does not survive and Trevor-Roper gives no source).)

148. Amtsgericht Laufen, Verfahren des Amtsgerichts Berchtesgaden zur Todeserklärung bzw. Feststellung der Todeszeit von Adolf Hitler, testimony of Erwin Jakubeck, 23 November 1954; Michael A. Musmanno Collection, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, interview with Gertraud Junge, 7 February 1948, FF25, Fols.38, 41; Joachimsthaler, 201–4, 217; Trevor-Roper, 227 and 275 (where the leave-taking is misdated to 29 April). One guard later testified that he had witnessed a farewell ceremony for Hitler’s close entourage during the night of 29–30 April. (Joachimsthaler, 201 (Kölz testimony)). He must have been confusing this with the farewell gathering of around twenty to twenty-five mainly servants and guards. Hitler bade farewell to his ‘householdz’ only shortly before his suicide, next afternoon.

149. Joachimsthaler, 206.

150. ‘Der Endkampf in Berlin’, Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau, 12/I (1962), 118, 169–70.

151. Joachimsthaler, 210–15 (with justifiable criticisms of Kempka’s reliability); Kempka, 90–92. In his testimony of 20 June 1945, Kempka stated that Günsche had telephoned about 2.30p.m., telling him to come to the Führer bunker and to bring 200 litres of petrol (David Irving Microfilm Collection (Microform Academic Publishers, East Ardsley, Wakefield), Third Reich Documents, Group 7/13, ‘Erklärung von Herrn Erich Kempka über die letzten Tage Hitlers’).

152. Junge, often inaccurate with detail, recollected (IfZ, ED 100, Irving-Sammlung, Traudl Junge Memoirs, Fol.159; Galante, 20) that Eva Braun wore a black dress trimmed with pink roses, one that Hitler especially liked. Linge and Günsche, two of the first to enter the suicide scene, both mentioned independently that she wore a blue dress with white trimmings. (Amtsgericht Laufen, Verfahren des Amtsgerichts Berchtesgaden zur Todeserklärung bzw. Feststellung der Todeszeit von Adolf Hitler, testimony of Heinz Linge, 8–10 February 1956, Bl.6; testimony of Otto Günsche, 19–21 June 1956, Bl.5; Joachimsthaler, 230, 232.)

153. Amtsgericht Laufen, Verfahren des Amtsgerichts Berchtesgaden zur Todeserklärung bzw. Feststellung der Todeszeit von Adolf Hitler, testimony of Heinz Linge, Bl.4–5; testimony of Otto Günsche, 19–21 June 1956, Bl.3–5; testimony of Gertraud Junge, Bl.5; Joachimsthaler, 217–19, 221–2 (Junge, Christian, Jakubeck, Linge, and, especially, Günsche testimony); PRO, WO208/3791, Fol. 192, Interrogation report on Gerda Christian, 2 April 1946; Michael A. Musmanno Collection, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, interview with Gertraud Junge, 7 February 1948, FF25, Fols.45–8; IfZ, ED 100, Irving-Sammlung, Traudl Junge Memoirs, Fols.158–9; Galante, 20–22 (Junge, Günsche); Linge, Bis zum Untergang, 284–6 (with inaccuracies, and see Joachimsthaler, 222–4 for Linge’s unreliability as a witness); Günsche testimony in James P. O’Donnell and Uwe Bahnsen, Die Katakombe. Das Ende in der Reichskanzlei, Stuttgart, 1975, 210 (also in Galante, 21–2); Library of Congress, Washington, Toland Tapes, C–64, interview with Gerda Daranowski Christian, 26 July 1971. Reuth, 608; Trevor-Roper, 230. Kempka, 90, has Eva Braun present at the lunch. He himself was not present; those who were — Traudl Junge and Gerda Daranowski Christian — independently commented on Eva Braun’s absence. Baur, 191–2, and 1955 testimony in Joachimsthaler, 225–6, is unreliable in detail.

154. Amtsgericht Laufen, Verfahren des Amtsgerichts Berchtesgaden zur Todeserklärung bzw. Feststellung der Todeszeit von Adolf Hitler, testimony of Otto Günsche, Bl.4; Galante, 22 (Günsche). He had been told to wait ten minutes before entering.

155. Amtsgericht Laufen, Verfahren des Amtsgerichts Berchtesgaden zur Todeserklärung bzw. Feststellung der Todeszeit von Adolf Hitler, testimony of Otto Günsche, 19–21 June 1956, Bl.5; testimony of Heinz Linge, 8–10 February 1956, Bl.5; Joachimsthaler, 230, 232 (Linge, Günsche); testimony of Gertraud Junge, 24 February 1954, Bl.5; Michael A. Musmanno Collection, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, interview with Gertraud Junge, 7 February 1948, FF25, Fols.47–8; IfZ, ED 100, Irving-Sammlung, Traudl Junge Memoirs, Fol.159; Galante, 21 (Junge).