by David Bishop
A strapping guard in an immaculate uniform emerged from the Reich Chancellery at dusk, crouching low as a bombardment exploded a building down the street. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had a square jaw and brown hair slicked back close to his scalp. He introduced himself as Otto Günsche and thanked the foursome for volunteering to be in the bunker.
"Most of the senior officers are finding any excuse to abandon the Führer now, when he needs them most." He asked to see their orders and identity discs to make certain all was well.
Karl stepped forward and shook Günsche's hand. "Otto, don't you recognise me? It's Karl, Karl Richter. I was with you as part of the Führer's personal guard last summer."
Günsche stared at Karl, his brow furrowing. "My God... Karl? Is that you?"
The two men embraced, old friends reunited.
"What happened? I remember you being called away to meet the Führer, but you never came back. I thought you'd been... Well, I wasn't sure what to think."
"He sent me to Transylvania in August, as bodyguard for a personal envoy to the leader of a local contingent. The Führer suspected the Rumanians were about to betray us but he wanted to make sure the Transylvanians did not go with them."
Günsche stepped back to take another look at Karl. "Judging by the state of you, the trip wasn't a success. You look like you've been through hell these past few months."
The four Panzergrenadiers were covered in blood, dust and dirt, their uniforms as tattered and war-torn as the surrounding buildings. Unfed and unkempt, they resembled scarecrows next to Günsche.
Karl nodded. "These three got me out of Rumania alive. We've been fighting a rearguard action ever since, all the way back here to Berlin."
After checking their documents, Günsche shook each of the three by the hand, thanking them repeatedly for their efforts. As he finished, a shell exploded on a building north of them on the Wilhelmstrasse, and smoke billowed outwards from the wreckage.
"Come, let's get you down into the bunker. You'll need to get yourselves cleaned up and a good meal wouldn't go amiss either."
The proud soldier led them through a maze of corridors and then down into a tunnel, descending into the bowels of Berlin. Eventually they reached the entrance to the Vorbunker where tired sentries waved Günsche and the others past.
"Things have probably changed considerably since you were here last," Günsche said to Karl.
"Have they finished building the Führerbunker then?" Karl asked.
"Not quite, but parts of it are already being used."
After leading them through a guardroom, Günsche stopped in a dining room with long wooden tables and benches lining either side of the concrete chamber. He yelled out and orderlies appeared with platefuls of hot, steaming stew and cutlery for the newcomers. The Panzergrenadiers stared in amazement at the meals. For the likes of Ralf and Gunther, it was years since they had sat down to eat from a plate, let alone with a real knife and fork. The food was a revelation too: a large portion of stew with real meat and chunks of vegetables protruding from the gravy.
Günsche laughed at the expressions on the new arrivals' faces. "Eat, all of you! It's basic fare but you won't starve down here, that much I can promise you. Go on, eat."
Within moments the four men were hungrily shovelling the hot food into their mouths. Günsche watched them, a wry smile on his face. "You're now in the Vorbunker, the front bunker beneath the Diplomat's Hall in the Reich Chancellery. Two years ago it became obvious this space wasn't sufficient for the needs of the Führer and his personal staff, so the Führerbunker was constructed behind it during 1943 and 1944. The entrance to that is through here so this section is sometimes referred to as the Entrance Bunker. You've already seen the guardroom, and there's another of those in this section. Goebbels's wife and six children are also housed in here."
Günsche pointed over his shoulder. "Go through there and you'll eventually come to the Führerbunker. There's a large guardroom at the front, and that leads into a waiting area. We've got a telephone exchange, sick bay, toilets, offices and workrooms for the Führer and his secretaries; conference rooms and private quarters for the Führer and Miss Braun, pretty much everything we need. The bunkers have their own generators to maintain the lighting and power supply, but you'll find matches and candles in every room as a precaution."
Having finished his meal, Ralf pulled out his pipe and began filling it with the last of his tobacco. Günsche urged him to put both items away.
"No smoking in the bunker by orders of the Führer, and count yourself lucky to have had some meat in the stew."
"When do we meet him?" Hans asked. "The Führer gave me a medal during the early months of Operation Barbarossa. I wanted to tell him how much that meant to me."
"There's no guarantee you will meet him," Günsche replied gravely. "The strain of the past few months... They have not been kind to his health. Sometimes, it's as if he had the burden of all Germany upon his shoulders, bearing down upon him. He suffers greatly for us."
When the newcomers had finished eating, Günsche took them away to wash and get into fresh uniforms. As midnight approached, he escorted the four into the Führerbunker, leaving them in a waiting area while he went in search of an official to acknowledge their presence. The quartet remained standing at attention, all too aware of the fact that their supreme commander was perhaps only one or two doors away. The waiting area was a rectangular chamber, but the interior felt narrower than it was due to a block of metal lockers lining one of the longer walls. A set of wooden cabinets stood opposite the lockers, further constricting the space in the centre of the room.
Hans let his eyes rove around the space, taking in the home of the Führer. The walls, floor and ceiling were all grey with lines running horizontally along the surface of the concrete, marking the joins between the wooden boxing that was used to hold the cement in place when the bunker was being constructed. These horizontal ridges made Hans all the more aware of how close the walls and ceiling were, heightening the underground facility's oppressive atmosphere. Stark illumination was provided by bulbs that hung nakedly from the ceiling and by utilitarian fixtures set into the walls. Looking at the lights, Hans was perturbed by how low the ceilings were in the bunker. After so long fighting out in the open, it felt strange to be encased in a concrete cell like this without windows or natural light. He fought back the panic rising in his gut, telling himself not to think about what would happen if the bunker's entrance was blocked by an explosion from outside. They would be entombed down here, buried alive, with no hope of escape or rescue...
Stop it, Hans told himself. Concentrate on what you came here to do. That's all that matters now. The fate of all Germany rests with us in the next few days.
It was Reichsminister Joseph Goebbels who came out of a side door to welcome the new sentries. He limped into the waiting area, his uniform crisp and clean. The gaunt-faced Nazi propaganda master acknowledged the salutes of the Panzergrenadiers before shaking each of them by the hand, his gimlet eyes staring intensely at the newcomers while Günsche introduced them by name. Satisfied by whatever he'd seen within them, Goebbels stepped back and regarded the quartet as a whole.
"These are difficult times for the Fatherland. No matter what happens in the days to come, I will expect utter loyalty from all of you. You must obey without question, fulfilling your oath of honour as soldiers of the glorious Fatherland. Your Führer expects nothing less of you, and neither would the people of Germany. Is that understood?"
The four men saluted, shouting back their response. Moments later a proud, haughty woman walked past them, leading six fresh-faced children deeper into the bunker. A look passed between her and the Reichsminister, a coolness that Hans recognised from when his parents had argued about something. The woman must be Goebbels's wife and those are their children, he realised. God in heaven, who would bring their young into such a place?
Hans felt goose pimples forming on his flesh as Goebbels turned away from him
and the other three. If was as if somebody had just walked over Hans's grave. In that moment he knew not all four of them would get out of the bunker alive. Hans suddenly felt it deep within his bones that coming here had been a terrible mistake, but it was too late to change that. Death was waiting in this place, curled like a serpent in the corner, biding its time before emerging to strike. The four of them had delivered themselves to madmen believing they could change history, and now they were going to pay for that folly. It was monstrous arrogance to believe four Panzergrenadiers could change the course of the war. They were merely pawns in a greater game fate was playing with all humanity.
Day and night quickly ceased to have much meaning inside the bunker. The Panzergrenadiers were split into two pairs, with Hans and Ralf allocated to one shift of sentries while Karl and Gunther joined another. The bunker guards were on permanent rotation, one third of them sleeping while the others remained awake and active, ready to repel the imminent, surely inevitable, attack by the Bolsheviks. Generals came and went from the battlefields around Berlin, their uniforms coated in dust, their faces haunted by the news they brought for the Führer's ears. Personal visitors for Hitler also appeared at the bunker, arriving against all odds in a city under siege. Most left swiftly after private audiences with the Führer or his associates, their eyes downcast and refusing to meet the gaze of those charged with guarding the entranceway.
When not on duty, Hans and Ralf made it their habit to linger around the telephone exchange. This small cellblock was now the communications centre for the Third Reich, with field reports being channelled through the machinery in that cold room. By staying close to the operator the Vollmer brothers were able to hear how the battle for Berlin was progressing. Both men were hungry for news of the Red Army's progress into the city centre, knowing all too well that the end of this fight was the prelude to another, far more terrifying conflict.
The telephone exchange had other merits to recommend it. To one side was the machine room, a deep, noisy chamber holding all the mechanisms that kept the bunker habitable. The underground rooms were well ventilated, but Hans always woke with the stench of despair in his nostrils, as palpable and noxious as fumes from a factory. Besides an engineer, the only people to use the machine room were other guards and the secretarial staff. They snuck inside to smoke furtive cigarettes, staying as far from the door as possible. Bitter gallows humour was the order of the day in the machine room, as the smokers exchanged bleak jokes about what they planned to do after the war. But any laughter was always short-lived, crushed by the noise of the machinery and the knowledge of how little time was left before the war reached its tragic conclusion.
Adjoining the telephone exchange was Traudl Junge's workroom. The Führer's youngest secretary was surprisingly fresh-faced, but she knew as much about what was happening within the bunker as anybody else. Traudl had direct access to Hitler and his lover, Eva Braun. The secretary's time was divided between tasks of great national importance for the Führer and far more mundane duties, such as helping to look after the Goebbels's children.
Junge would not hear anything said against Hitler himself, but she had little time for those in his government who'd fled Berlin to save their own skins. Hans frequently shared a cigarette in the machine room with her and another secretary, Gerda. He was not a smoker by habit, but had survived enough hopeless battles to appreciate the feeling of acrid fumes invading his lungs. Somehow, the pain reminded him that he was still alive. Besides, it enabled him to have the ear of the secretaries. They might not have the official power of the generals who strutted about the bunker, arguing and cursing, but the secretaries were the gatekeepers for anyone wanting access to the Führer.
It was Traudl who got Hans a meeting with Hitler, succumbing to his charms after two days of pestering and gentle persuasion. She finally agreed to mention the possibility to Hitler when next summoned for dictation, but promised nothing more.
"He will see you or he won't," Traudl said. "Even now, he knows his own mind better than any other man I've ever met." She paused, biting her bottom lip. "Perhaps now more than ever..."
Hans waited for her to elaborate, but the young woman turned away, her shoulders slumping beneath some personal burden only she knew about. After she'd disappeared into the Führer's quarters, Hans went in search of Ralf, eager to tell his brother what was happening. He found the former Panzer commander slumped on a wooden chair in the telephone exchange room.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Hans asked, worried by the resignation in Ralf's eyes.
"I was in the toilet, sat in one of the cubicles when some of the generals came in. They'd been drinking, judging by the way their voices were slurring. Those bastards, they couldn't care less what happens to the civilians outside. Apparently the Russian troops are raping their way into the city, and the generals were laughing about it! One of them said anyone stupid enough to stay in Berlin deserved whatever happened to them, as if what's going on outside was the fault of the German people!"
Ralf spat on floor, shaking his head in disgust. "Women and children are being defiled less than a mile from here, and all the generals care about is their legacy... of how history will see them. They're too busy deciding how they'll sneak out of here after the Führer kills himself. I heard one of them say that should be any day now."
Hans mentioned Traudl trying to arrange a meeting for him with Hitler. "Perhaps I can still persuade the Führer to warn those outside about the vampyr. It might not be too late yet..."
Ralf snorted derisively. "You'd do better to put a bullet through that bastard's brain. The sooner he's dead, the sooner the atrocities outside will come to an end. Tens of thousands are dying every day because of that madman. The quicker he dies, the better."
"I have to try," Hans insisted.
"You're wasting your time." Ralf produced a scrap of paper he'd been holding crumpled in hand. He folded the page flat on his left thigh before handing it to Hans. The younger brother glanced at the words on the paper, frowning at what they said.
"Where did you get this?"
"Found it in the corner," Ralf replied, jerking a thumb towards a wire basket on the floor. "Our glorious leader must have dictated it earlier today."
Hans shook his head, unable to believe what he'd read. "This can't be accurate."
"Can't it?"
Hans read the words again, neatly typed with a tired, erratic signature underneath them: "If the war is lost, then it is of no concern to me if the people perish in it. I still would not shed a single tear for them; because they did not deserve any better. Adolf Hitler."
Traudl appeared in the doorway behind Hans. "I've spoken with him. He's very tired, but hearing about your previous encounter seemed to cheer him up a little. The Führer would like to meet you." Her eyes drifted to the crumpled piece of paper in Hans's grasp. A look of utter despair passed between the two of them before she forced a smile.
"If you'd like to follow me, the Führer will see you in his living room..."
Hans was ushered into a small room no larger than the cramped telephone exchange he'd left a few moments before. A sofa was pressed against one wall, a coffee table in front of it. Facing these was a padded armchair and an upright, wooden chair. A pair of black-framed photographs hung on the wall above the sofa, while a wooden bookcase stood to one side with a lamp atop it.
Hans wasn't sure whether he should sit down to wait and Traudl withdrew before he thought to ask her. After a few seconds, a door to his right opened and a small, stooping figure shuffled in. Hans got a glimpse of the adjoining room. Inside was a single bed, a small table beside it with a black telephone on top, and an oxygen cylinder and mask nearby.
"I understand we've met before," the stooped figure said, slowly straightening up.
Hans was shocked to realise the identity of the old man addressing him, to realise that this crumpled figure was the Führer. Adolf Hitler was all but unrecognisable as the towering giant so familiar in newsreels, the lege
ndary leader with the ramrod posture and the aristocratic tilt of the head. Hans had twice been in the Führer's presence: the first time at a Hitler Youth rally in 1935, and six years later at a medal-giving ceremony on foreign soil. A decade ago the Führer had been a godlike figure to twelve year-old Hans, appearing before more than fifty thousand children gathered from across the Fatherland to willingly scream his praise at Nuremberg stadium.
In 1941 Hitler had given Hans a medal for single-handedly wiping out a Russian patrol during the early days of Operation Barbarossa. In fact it had been a company of Constanta's vampyr who'd dealt with the Bolsheviks, but the Rumanians were all too happy for Hans to receive the credit. The young soldier recalled the moment when he came face to face with the Führer then, and how surprised he'd been to discover that he was slightly taller than the Wehrmacht's Supreme Commander. Hans had looked Hitler in the eye and asked how far they should be willing to go to defeat the Red Army, and what means should they be ready to employ for victory?
The Führer had smiled at him, but with cold eyes. "We must win by any means necessary," was the reply.
Constanta had also been present at the ceremony, receiving the Iron Cross. Hitler's eyes had shifted sideways to look at the vampyr leader while answering Hans's question that day, confirming what Hans already suspected: that it was the Führer who sealed a pact with the vampyr for their help in fighting the Soviets. It had been a salutary lesson for the young soldier, setting him on a path that led to the mutiny at Ordzhonikidze. Now, nearly four years later, he was face to face with the Führer once more. So much had happened since then that Hans felt he'd lived a hundred lives in that time. But Hitler looked as if he had lived a hundred lifetimes more, with every moment reflected on his face.
