Eva stepped out. I didn’t stop her. ‘Look, Magda!’ she exclaimed proudly. ‘I’m outside and the Russians don’t know it.’ At that moment, a shell streaked over the bunker and landed a few hundred meters away. The blast rocked Eva off her feet. I called for her to come back inside.
She did a pirouette around a crater. ‘Death can wait a few minutes.’ She pointed to the tortured earth. ‘That hole may be where we are buried. It’s a bit in the open. I hope they do a good job of concealing our bodies.’
I looked at her incredulously and knew she was losing her mind. She was talking nonsense. I stood near the door to the desolate garden. ‘Come back inside, Eva. It’s too dangerous.’ Another artillery shell streaked overhead, but struck farther away this time.
She hung her head and walked slowly back to me. ‘I guess we must – but let me linger a bit at the door.’
I stood behind her as she craned her neck and viewed the destruction. ‘I have a favor to ask you,’ she said, her face turned away from me. I drew close to her side, so close I could see the sparkle in her eyes as she talked.
‘Adolf and I are to die when the time is right,’ she said. ‘Our bodies are to be burned. The men will take care of that.’ She looked at me and smiled. ‘You’ve been so loyal to us and to the Führer. I want you to make sure we die. I want it to be quick. Adolf agrees there should be someone in the room with us to make sure our orders are carried out. So, dear Magda, you must end the reign of the Third Reich. You must make certain we are dead.’
I grabbed the railing to steady myself I was so stunned by her words. Her request repulsed me, yet gave me a thrill of satisfaction. Hitler would take the easy way out and not answer for his crimes. By committing suicide, he could let blame fall on his generals, the soldiers and the German people for his defeat. He would die a martyr’s death, at least in his eyes. And Eva, who concerned herself with nothing except her blind devotion to the Führer, would join him in their death pact.
Smoke swirled toward the door and the shelling suddenly picked up again. Eva slammed it shut, plunging us both into the bunker’s netherworld. Explosions again rocked the Chancellery garden. One of the blasts shook us violently on the steps.
I turned, ready to descend back into the bunker. Hitler stood at the bottom, attired in a red dressing gown and slippers. He looked up at us without a smile, his face garish and sagging under the glare of a lightbulb. Perhaps he wanted a look at the sun himself. Without acknowledging us, he turned and disappeared down the passageway.
As I watched him, I knew fate had decided the course of my life.
I would kill Adolf Hitler.
CHAPTER 22
Eva came to me about two the next afternoon. Her husband, the secretaries and Cook were having a meal. She had no appetite, she confessed. Her dogs had been killed.
Not long after, we joined staff members in the large conference room. Eva introduced me to Hitler’s pilot, Hans Baur, several generals and Otto Günsche, a member of the Liebstandarte and a personal adjutant, who was at Hitler’s side when the bomb exploded at the Wolf’s Lair. No one recognized me as the wife of Karl Weber, or, if they did, they didn’t care. Goebbels and his wife were in the room as well as Bormann. Much the same happened as the day before, although Hitler did not dispense cyanide.
While these farewells were going on, Eva pulled me aside and led me to the sitting room between Hitler’s study and bedroom. Here, Eva said, they would end their brief marriage. On a table lay two cyanide capsules and two pistols. An open bottle of champagne and two glasses also sat upon it.
‘Stay here,’ she said. ‘We’ll be back soon.’
I sat on the couch, running my fingers over its flowered pattern. As the minutes dragged by, I got up and looked at the paintings in the study and sitting room. Eva had left the connecting door ajar. The room had been rifled through and most of Hitler’s papers and books were missing. I assumed they had been destroyed by a staff member. I returned to the sitting room and sat again on the couch. I picked up one of the pistols and studied it. I read the engraving on the weapon, a Walther 7.65mm. I assumed it was loaded. The cyanide in their copper capsules sat nearby.
The door to the study opened and Eva came into the room. She was wearing her blue dress from the morning. She collapsed on the couch and wiped tears from her cheeks. She looked at me with an uneasy smile and poured a glass of champagne. She took a sip and said, ‘It’s so hard to say good-bye, Magda.’ She rested the glass next to her on the couch. ‘Interruptions, always interruptions. Now we can’t even die without being interrupted. My life with Adolf has been one of constant delay. “Duty calls, my dear Eva. Perhaps next month, perhaps next year.” Waiting and waiting for what? A consummation that never happened. For years, he couldn’t make love to a woman because the Führer was too important. Germany was his mistress. Now that we’re married, it’s too late. He’s not physically able.’ She laughed and took another drink. ‘I shouldn’t tell you these things, but I guess it doesn’t matter. If you record my words for history, they will ask, “Who was Eva Braun?” No one will believe a word I said.’
I started to answer, but we heard someone enter in the study. Eva held a finger to her lips. I recognized the voices as those of Magda Goebbels and Hitler.
‘You must leave Berlin!’ Magda pleaded hysterically. ‘If you die, we will die also – the children as well. There will be no life in Germany without you.’
‘Nothing you can say will dissuade me,’ Hitler said. His tone was flat, complacent. ‘You have the choice of leaving or staying. Why would you kill your children? Think of what you’re doing. I must end my life here – for Germany’s sake.’
Magda burst into sobs. ‘Then it is over for all of us.’
‘There is nothing more to say,’ Hitler said. ‘Please leave us and attend to your children and husband.’ The door to the study opened and then closed.
My stomach knotted as I thought of the murder of six innocent children, particularly the boy, Helmut, I had met in the hall. Hitler was as responsible for their deaths as he was for any soldier or concentration camp prisoner. I tried to think of a way to keep the children alive, the tragedy in abeyance, but my mind raced with other thoughts as well.
Hitler walked unsteadily into the sitting room and closed the door. He wore his dark uniform jacket with the Iron Cross pinned to his chest. He looked at the floor with sullen eyes and then at me. He walked past and the smell of death filled my nostrils, as if his flesh were already putrefying from decay. His left arm shook as he lowered himself onto the couch.
‘Frau Weber,’ he said. His voice was faint, restrained, a fragment of its former power. ‘Eva has told you why you are here?’
I nodded.
‘Then let’s be on with it. The barbarians are at our door.’
‘I will die first, Adolf,’ Eva said, ‘but for a moment’s pause. Let’s toast to a lifetime in eternity.’
‘Millions will curse me tomorrow, but providence would have it no other way,’ Hitler said. ‘For many years the Fates were on my side. Now I have to face reality. There is no way out except by an honorable death.’
Eva poured champagne for both and they drank. She kissed him on the cheek and said, ‘Good-bye, my love.’ Before I could react she had the capsule in her mouth. The glass crunched between her teeth and a metallic gasp, like the sound of a grate closing, escaped from her lips. Her face contorted and she drew up her legs involuntarily against her chest in pain. The odor of bitter almonds filled the room. She died, frozen on the couch, as if she had suddenly been struck dead by some divine power.
I walked to the table and grabbed both pistols. I pointed one at Hitler’s head and said, ‘I am here to give you an honorable death. You are right – there is no way out.’
Hitler lurched forward but then fell back on the couch.
My body shook so violently I dropped the other weapon near the door. I held the remaining pistol with both hands and steadied my aim. ‘You think you are powerful,
but you are a coward.’
‘I’m far from it.’ He leered at me. ‘Kill me now.’
‘Death can wait. It will not come before I say what millions have known but were afraid to admit. Many, many soldiers, including your closest staff members, have wanted you dead for years. I am sorry that they failed. Perhaps the war would have ended sooner, but there was always the question of who would take your place. The death of one devil could spawn a bigger demon. But Germany no longer has to worry about that.’
He put his fists up to his face and shouted, ‘Traitors, all traitors.’
‘No! You are the traitor. My husband, my mother, perhaps even my father have died because of your false pride, your hollow words. I saw firsthand the horror of your camps. What good was the Reich? It was nothing but an illusion perpetrated for your gain.’
His face flushed and he threw his champagne glass past me. The crystal shattered against the door. ‘What I did, I did for the good of Germany. You are a small-minded traitor like the rest. If the people hadn’t failed me, Germany would have been the most powerful country in the world. I should have you arrested and executed.’
‘Go ahead,’ I said. ‘Shout for the SS. They can’t hear you. I will shoot you between the eyes before you get to the door.’ I smiled and drew closer to him, the pistol still pointed at his head. ‘You think Germans love you. A few may – the bullies you surrounded yourself with: Goebbels, Bormann. But the common people whom you disparage for their lack of courage, the people you supposedly loved, despise you. If you walked into the street now, they would string you up like Mussolini. They would stone you and spit on your corpse.’
He reached for the cyanide capsule. ‘I will hear no more of this.’
I waved the gun at him and swiped the ampoule from his reach. ‘Don’t touch that! It won’t be much longer.’
He withdrew his hand.
‘My husband wanted you dead. He knew, as others did, what suffering you caused for all you deemed as enemies. Those you murdered were honest people, caring people with families who had done nothing wrong other than being named enemies of the Reich. Your Reich. They were less than your vision of what German perfection should be and they died. For, after all, they were the cause of Germany’s problem – sinful, decadent money-grubbers who had ruined us for a thousand years. At least they died with honor. They were so much stronger than you could ever be. I hope those you murdered, those you executed, those innocents who died because of your maniacal dreams, will spit on you beyond the grave. They deserve some measure of revenge. In the beginning, they believed your hollow words. That was before you betrayed their trust – as you crushed them to fulfill your quest for absolute power.’
I leaned close to him because I wanted him to hear my words. ‘You will be despised as the most evil man in history. The mention of Adolf Hitler will bring shame upon this nation – not glory. Your name will be reviled as long as man inhabits earth.’
He bowed his head. ‘Your kind has brought Germany to defeat. Look at the destruction that surrounds us, the deaths on every corner. If the people had stood with me, Germany would have been invincible. Think on that as you return to the ashes.’ He thrust his hand for the capsule and, this time, I did not stop him. He slowly put it between his teeth.
‘For good measure,’ I said, and knelt beside him. I put the pistol to his right temple. ‘There is no way out.’
He bit into the capsule and I pulled the trigger. The blast knocked my hand backward. A hole opened in his head and blood poured from the wound. Hitler slumped on the couch, his eyes still open in death. Then, he fell, his head crashing against the table. My hands, the couch, the carpet and the wall behind him were slick with his blood. Even Eva’s body carried some of the stain of his death. I looked at the crimson flow and marveled that it had been part of him. I was proud I’d killed him. For a few moments, I reveled in the gore around me, as if I had gone mad. The blood didn’t bother me; it would wash away down the sink. But for now, I wanted to feel its warmth as it flowed down my hands. Time was against me, however.
I threw the pistol on the floor in front of him, wiped my hands on my dress and put the other pistol back on the table. I rushed to the door of Eva’s adjoining bedroom because I knew it wouldn’t be long before the others would investigate the gunshot. I sat on her bed until the blood began to dry on my dress. I heard rustlings in the sitting room, but no one came into her bedroom. After an hour or so, I peeked past the door. The bodies were gone. Someone had carried out Hitler’s orders to dispose of his and Eva’s remains.
As I walked back to my quarters, I passed the Goebbels children sitting on the staircase between the upper and lower bunkers. Helmut, who recognized, me, shouted out, ‘Did you hear the shot?’
I shook my head.
‘It was a bull’s-eye.’ He clapped his hands together.
I collapsed against the wall, shaking uncontrollably at the enormity of what I had done. My knees gave way and I slid to the floor in a heap.
One of the older daughters rushed to my side. ‘Don’t,’ she said, and clutched my hands. ‘We’ll be out of here soon. My mother and father said so.’
I sat trembling for several minutes before I managed to say good-bye to the children. I wondered if there was anything I could do, because I feared what lay in store for them.
Cook told me later what happened to Hitler and Eva.
They were carried out, as he had instructed, dumped into a shallow depression, their bodies doused with gasoline and set on fire. The men had little time to make sure the Führer and his bride were never discovered. The shelling continued even as the pallbearers tried to ignite the makeshift grave. Throughout the day and into the evening, a few of the Party faithful renewed their pledge to make sure the bodies were burned into nothingness. Eventually, the disintegrating corpses were covered with earth from the garden – their graves surrounded by rubble, garbage and the detritus of war.
Rumors circulated wildly about what was to come next. Communications had been cut days before, but we knew from firsthand reports the Russians were only a few hundred meters away engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat with the last defenders. Now that Hitler was dead, many of those who’d vowed to stay with him to the end were planning ways to escape. No one wanted to be captured by the enemy. I was told by Baur, Hitler’s pilot, to travel north or west to areas held by the British and the Americans. I didn’t know if this would be easier than Eva’s suggestion to travel south to Munich. However, Bormann and the Goebbels family were still in the bunker. None of us wanted to make a move as long as they controlled the last vestiges of the Reich’s power.
That night I slept fitfully. I’d ended Hitler’s life, something I had dreamed of, but never dared believe would come true. Deep within me, I mourned the loss of my soul. I felt my humanity had been sucked away, and I would be doomed to Hell for being a murderer. My victim’s face came into my head. I had pulled the trigger, the bullet had blasted a hole in his temple, his blood poured forth from the wound. Every time I closed my eyes his face appeared.
I also thought of the Goebbels children and their fate in the bunker.
The next morning, I knocked at Magda Goebbels’s apartment. She and the children slept near me. She opened her door a bit and peered out. Her face was white and cracked like a thin sheet of parchment. She nodded, but her eyes looked as lifeless and dull as a cold, gray sea. I started to speak, but she closed the door. I could not see it, but I heard the sound of a chair being hastily pitched against the knob. I left, quite certain I could not sway any decision she or her husband might make.
All of us waited patiently the afternoon of the first day of May for any word from Goebbels or Bormann. None was forthcoming. We sat in the bunker like stranded fish in a shrinking pond.
That evening, Cook asked me if I would help her deliver food to the Goebbels children. We each took two trays, four in total, and carried them to Magda’s apartment. I had told no one of her deadly threat, not even Cook. Again,
Magda appeared at the door, and when she saw who was outside, she opened it only enough to let Cook hand her the trays.
I spoke hastily as the last one was delivered: ‘I know what you are doing.’
Magda’s eyes blazed for a moment and then softened. ‘My family is none of your concern.’
She attempted to close the door, but I held it open. ‘I know, but please reconsider.’ She put the tray down and stepped outside the door.
‘Keep your voice down,’ she said, and tears swam into her eyes. ‘Now that the Führer is dead life is not worth living.’ She choked with sadness and regret. ‘Everything we stood for is in ruins; everything beautiful, noble and good has been destroyed. Our children deserve better than to live under barbarian rule.’ She pointed to the door. ‘I could not ask for a better ending than to follow in the footsteps of the Führer. Neither could they.’
Cook now understood what was happening and she begged for the children’s lives.
‘Nothing can change my mind,’ Frau Goebbels said, ‘and if I have to use force to carry my plan out, I will. My husband and I have sealed our fates.’ She stepped back inside and closed the door.
That was the last I saw of Magda Goebbels. About three hours later, Cook and I were walking in the lower bunker when we heard shots. Soon a few SS men and orderlies flew down the passageway coming from the emergency exit to the Chancellery garden. I asked what had happened, and one of them told me that Goebbels and his wife had committed suicide. Their bodies had also been set afire in the garden.
Her Hidden Life Page 29
