That same day, Hitler pulled himself together and announced his decision to stay in Berlin. His motivation for doing so was clear. Hitler had given up all hope of winning the war or securing an acceptable negotiated peace. Flying to Berchtesgaden would only prolong the agony, and he had already said that he would be vulnerable to Allied air attack there. Hitler’s main consideration, though, was narratival. Posterity would never forgive him for an ignominious flight from the Reich capital and a chase across the Alps. In his own mind, at least, he had not fled Rastenburg before the advancing Red Army, but had moved his headquarters west to supervise the offensive in the Ardennes. He told Jodl and Keitel that he should not have left the Wolf’s Lair after all, but should have fallen at his post there. Now he said that he would stay to motivate the defenders of Berlin.246 The war diary of the OKW for that day records that Hitler had decided ‘as far as his person was concerned not to take evasive action towards the south, but to lead the battle in Berlin in person and remain in the Reich Chancellery’.247 His aim was to die heroically as an inspiration to the remaining forces of the Third Reich under his successor, but above all to future generations. Hitler had often spoken of the ‘ruin value’ of buildings,248 and he now proposed to maximize the Ruinenwert of his own body.
On 23 April, Hitler let it be known through Goebbels that he had taken over personal command of the defence of Berlin. ‘The Führer,’ as the war diary of the OKW put it in accordance with the approved narrative, ‘resides in the Reich capital [and] this fact gives the battle for Berlin the character of a battle of European importance.’249 Privately, in Hitler’s presence, Goebbels spelled out the thinking behind the decision to remain in Berlin. ‘If things go well,’ he said, ‘then everything is fine anyway.’ ‘If it doesn’t go well,’ Goebbels continued, ‘and if the Führer were to find an honourable death in Berlin and Europe were to become Bolshevik,’ then ‘in five years at latest, the Führer would be a legendary personality’. ‘National Socialism’, he went on, would become ‘a myth’ and the Führer would be ‘hallowed by his last great action’, so that ‘everything human that they criticize in him today would be swept away with one blow.’250
This strategy shaped Hitler’s ambivalent attitude to his entourage in the last week or so of his life. On the one hand, he had made a number of references to making a final stand surrounded by his generals and trusted party comrades. On the other hand, he wanted the struggle to continue, which required at least some of them to escape Berlin and carry on the fight. What Hitler seems to have had in mind was not a move to partisan warfare–the guerilla force Werwolf was originally an SS initiative in which he showed little interest251–but a longer conventional defence to inspire future generations. The Führer actually ordered Keitel, Jodl and Bormann to head south in order to conduct the ‘overall operations’ from there.252 This explains why Hitler was both personally disappointed at the number of party leaders scrambling to leave the city253 and content to let them depart. He had no intention of taking either them or any of his other followers hostage. On the contrary, Hitler urged those with no useful function–secretaries, cooks and ministers alike–to leave the city.254 He told Morell to go home, get rid of his uniform and ‘act as if you had never known me’.255 Some needed no encouragement. Speer, who was summoned to say goodbye when Hitler heard that he was in the vicinity, did not even get a handshake in a cool parting.256 Others, including Eva Braun and some of the secretaries, refused to leave. So did Keitel, Jodl and Bormann.
Despite his blood-curdling rhetoric, it was not the Führer’s expectation or desire that the defeat of the Third Reich would result in the annihilation of the German people. He fully expected that negotiations would take place after his death,257 told his foreign minister to make sure that the embassies abroad remained in good working order, and gave him permission to go to Nauen, where the last remaining communications centre with contact to the outside world was located;258 he never got there. In his last meeting with Ribbentrop on or shortly after 20 April 1945 Hitler conceded for the first time, at least to him, that the war was lost. He then gave Ribbentrop a list of four points to guide his future discussions with the British. Firstly, that the maintenance of German unity was in Britain’s interest in order to balance the Soviet Union. Secondly, to maintain the European national states if necessary under the mutual guarantee of the great powers. Thirdly, the establishment of a close Anglo-German understanding up to and including a union with the British Empire, if necessary with its capital in London. Fourthly, the preservation of the national elements in Germany because it was on these that Britain and the United States would have to depend to preserve the European balance of power.259 The echoes of Hitler’s earlier rhetoric towards Britain, and indeed Hess’s recent abortive mission, are unmistakable.
The Führer now prepared to defend not merely Berlin, but the Chancellery to the last. He appointed SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke the Kampfkommandant. He gave instructions for his papers to be burned. Walther Wenck’s 12th Army was tasked with the relief of Berlin, and immediately began a forlorn attempt to reach the city.260 Hitler also ordered the entire front against the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ to turn and face the Russians.261 For the first time, the whole German war effort was to be directed against the Bolsheviks. Late on 23 April he radioed Dönitz to send all possible help to Berlin; all other fronts, he stressed, were secondary.262 A day later, he subordinated the OKH under OKW with a view to the ‘continuation of the overall operations’.263 He also gave permission for the backlog of railway wagons to be unloaded where they stood and the equipment distributed to the local army groups.264 He continued to express his hope that the Bolsheviks and the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ would fall out among themselves ‘within the hour’.265 Over the next few days, he fired off a string of further orders, such as a demand for a ‘concentric relief attack on Berlin’, and issued increasingly fantastical instructions for other fronts.266 By now, as some wags pointed out, it was possible to travel between the eastern and western fronts by S-Bahn; truly Hitler was operating on interior lines. The purpose of all these activities and exhortations, which seem delusional in retrospect, was not military, however, but political.
The military situation continued to deteriorate. 25 April 1945 was particularly bad. Koniev’s spearheads met with those of Zhukov. Berlin was surrounded. It was also on that day that the American and Soviet forces met at Torgau, cutting the Reich in half, and that the delegates of the anti-Hitler United Nations coalition assembled at San Francisco to establish a permanent organization. Finally, 25 April 1945 saw the last major RAF operation in Europe when 350 Lancasters–manned by crews from Britain, Australia, Canada, Rhodesia and Poland–appeared over the Obersalzberg. The Berghof itself took three direct hits and was seriously damaged, though not destroyed.267 The bombers missed the Kehlsteinhaus altogether. Göring, who was in residence, was unhurt. Still, the RAF had made an important political and psychological point. Hitler was not safe anywhere. He had now been ‘bombed out’ of two homes.
In the last week of April, Hitler’s hopes for a carefully choreographed death began to unravel.268 On 23 April, he received a telegram from Göring stating that if he received no reply by a certain time, he would assume that Hitler was dead and take over the succession as chancellor in accordance with the decree of 1941. This was almost certainly not a coup, but rather an attempt by Göring to jump the gun in starting negotiations. Hitler seems to have ignored the message and reacted only later on that evening when Göring–who had heard nothing and must have assumed that the Führer was dead or incapacitated–sent Ribbentrop a telegram to the same effect. The Führer responded with a radio message to Göring rescinding his right to the succession and declaring his behaviour ‘a betrayal of my person and of the National Socialist cause’. ‘I enjoy,’ he insisted, ‘full freedom of action,’ adding that he ‘forbade’ Göring from undertaking any ‘further measures’.269 Hitler ordered that Göring be placed under arrest at Berchtesgaden, which was done immediately, b
ut he did not order him shot out of hand. Two days later, Hermann Fegelein went absent without leave from the bunker, though nobody seems to have noticed at first. Soon after, however, Hitler received news that Himmler had been in unauthorized communication with the Western Allies. This was a serious blow both to the Führer personally and to his heroic narrative of a nation and party fighting to the last. Himmler was sacked.270 It was in this context that Fegelein, who appears to have been involved in the Reichsführer’s activities, was hauled back to the bunker and executed, not for desertion but for treason.
Matters came to a head on 28 April 1945. Hitler heard that Mussolini had not only been captured and executed with his mistress Clara Petacci by Italian partisans, but that his body had been desecrated by a mob. One of his secretaries recalls that the news distressed him deeply.271 There was a shortlived rising against the Nazis in Munich.272 The Russians were closing in on the Chancellery. Hitler sent out a series of frantic messages calling for help before it was too late.273 He was now cut off from the outside world, literally, because the communications team in the bunker had left. A breakout was not feasible, at least not for Hitler, given his physical condition. Nor could he, with his shaking arms and legs, hope to go down fighting with a gun in his hands, as he would ideally liked to have done. There was now a real risk that he would be captured alive below ground, or on the run in the ruins or forests. The Führer might then meet the same fate as the Duce, which would have substantially reduced his ‘ruin value’.
Hitler resolved to make an end of it.274 He announced his intention to commit suicide. First he married Eva Braun in a low-key ceremony just before midnight on 28 April, though in the thirty-six hours or so of their marriage he still seems to have referred to her as Fräulein. Then he took his leave of his entourage. Hitler did not insist or even suggest that they follow his example. Instead, Hitler dictated two testaments, a personal and a political one. He was expecting the struggle to continue without him and gave detailed instructions for the fortification of the ‘core fortress Alps’.275 On 29 April, the military position worsened. The British crossed the Elbe at Lauenburg. The Russians inched closer to the Chancellery. Mohnke, the military commander of the Chancellery compound, warned Hitler that he could only hold another day, perhaps two. On 30 April, the US 7th Army occupied Munich. Hitler also received news that Wenck’s offensive had finally petered out.276 There would be no relief force. The Russians were now a few hundred metres from the bunker. That afternoon, between 15.15 and 15.30 Hitler and Mrs Hitler retired to his tiny living room in the bunker. Exactly what happened is not known for sure. It appears that Eva Hitler took poison and that Hitler shot himself immediately after. The two bodies were then taken out and burned in the garden of the Chancellery.277
Late on 1 May, German radio announced his death. ‘The Führer has fallen at the head of the valiant defenders of the imperial capital,’ the report went. ‘Driven by the will to save his people and Europe from Bolshevism,’ it continued, ‘he sacrificed his life.’ ‘This example of “loyalty unto death”,’ the report concluded, ‘is obligatory for all soldiers.’278 As far as the circumstances of his demise were concerned, the statement was figuratively if not literally true. Its real distortion lay in the claim that Hitler had died resisting Bolshevism. Not only had his main enemy throughout been western plutocratic international capitalism, not only had Hitler been more responsible than any other person for bringing the communist juggernaut into the heart of Europe, but his entire strategy, right to the end, was predicated on using the spectre of Bolshevism, even encouraging its growth, to deliver political effect in Germany, Europe and above all Anglo-America.
When Hitler’s testaments were opened they contained some surprises with regard to his personal life, and choices of personnel.279 He distributed his worldly goods to various relatives and friends and explained why he had married Eva Braun. Hitler separated the offices of chancellor, which went to Goebbels, and the presidency, which went to Dönitz. Himmler and Göring were expelled from the party. Karl Hanke was made the new Reichsführer-SS. Bormann became party minister. Schörner was made supreme commander of the army. Saur was made armaments minister, a sure sign that Speer had departed in bad odour.
Their policy content, by contrast, was entirely predictable. Hitler bound the new government over to ‘the strict observance of the racial laws’ and to maintain ‘a merciless resistance against the world-poisoners of the peoples, international Jewry’. He claimed that ‘the sacrifice of our soldiers and my own connection with them into death’ would ‘one day’ provide the ‘seed for the achievement of a true People’s Community’. The choice of Dönitz as president reflected not only the admiral’s strategic salience in the last six months of the war, and his own fanatical National Socialism, but also Hitler’s conviction that he was best placed to inspire the revival of Germany after his own death. This is clear from the praise for which he singled out the navy. ‘May it once again be part of the German officer’s sense of honour,’ he wrote, ‘as is already the case with the navy, that the surrender of a city or a territory is impossible and that the leaders, in particular, must lead from the front in this manner in the loyal fulfilment of duty until death.’
The rest of the document would also have been no surprise to anyone who had followed Hitler’s rhetoric and policy since 1919. He reiterated his view that the war was ‘desired and provoked solely by those international statesmen who were either of Jewish origin or who worked for Jewish interests’. ‘I never wanted,’ Hitler continued, ‘that the first unholy world war’ should have been followed by ‘a second one against Britain or even America.’ He lamented that German cities and cultural treasures had been reduced to ‘ruins’, that millions of adult males had died at the front, and that hundreds of thousands of women and children had been burned in their cities, but reminded his readers that he had ‘left no one in any doubt’ that the ‘real guilty party’–the Jews–‘would have to pay for their guilt’, if ‘by more humane means’. This was an oblique, but unmistakable reference to his mass murder of the Jews in the gas chambers, the guillotine of genocide. Strikingly, this Last Will and Testament made no mention of either communism or the Soviet Union, but inveighed instead against the real villains: ‘international money and finance conspirators’, who treated the ‘peoples of Europe’ like ‘blocks of shares’. He was referring, of course, to the same international capitalists, most of them Jewish, that he had targeted in his first political statements back in 1919. As in the beginning, so at the end.
Conclusion
The life of Adolf Hitler remains perhaps the most extraordinary story in modern history. Coming from a relatively humble background, he rose to dominate much of continental Europe. On the way, Hitler mastered a series of challenges, each of which could have ended his ascent there and then. Periods of disappointment and destitution in Vienna were followed by extremely hazardous service in the First World War. Hitler not only threaded his way through the post-war turbulences, but carved out a niche for the NSDAP in the thicket of competing right-wing nationalist organizations in Munich. He rallied the movement after a disastrous coup attempt, trial and subsequent imprisonment. Hitler then persuaded more and more Germans to vote for him, and manipulated or bullied the coterie around President von Hindenburg into making him chancellor. He revived the German economy, or appeared to do so, eliminated all domestic dissent, and embarked on an unprecedented programme of rearmament. Hitler then greatly enlarged German territory without firing a shot, and in the first two years of war, scored some remarkable military victories. At each stage, things could have gone wrong for him, for example, his personal intervention against Röhm, the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the Munich crisis, the Norway campaign and the audacious attack in the west.
Of course, Hitler benefited from the support, complicity and stupidity of others, and from sheer good luck, at home and abroad. But for the early sponsorship by the Reichswehr, the NSDAP might never have got off the ground. With
out the Depression, Hitler might not have gained the electoral traction which brought him to the threshold of power in 1932. If the old elites had not miscalculated, he might never have been made chancellor. Hitler’s first years in power depended on the collaboration of many institutional actors, who shared a partial identity of aims with him. On the international scene, most statesmen and publics did not recognize the threat he posed until very late in the day. Some regarded Hitler as the best hope against the spread of Bolshevism, others had a sneaking and often very open regard for the way in which he challenged the established order. During the early stages of the Second World War, his enemies were weak or incompetent, or both.
That said, it would be wrong to think that Hitler could have been deterred. His Germany was always sooner or later going to seek Lebensraum, which for him was not a matter of greed but of necessity, though the precise timing remained open for a long time. He was always going to fight the Jews, though not necessarily to exterminate them. Resistance only infuriated him. The May crisis of 1938 doomed the Czechs, the Franco-British guarantee doomed Poland, and the war, or at least the US entry into it, doomed European Jewry. Hitler could certainly have been pre-empted or stopped, if the western powers had been prepared to go to war with him earlier, before he occupied so much of Europe, but we would then never have known what he was capable of.
Hitler’s career was, of course, ultimately a catastrophic failure. None of his objectives were met, and although he appeared to come close to triumph on a number of occasions, in reality the dice were too heavily loaded against him. Hitler knew this very well, but he also believed that even if the chances of success were no more than a few per cent, it was worth the attempt. Refusal even to try to escape the German predicament at the heart of Europe, he argued, would mean guaranteed death without any hope of renewal. A bold strike against the global hegemon, by contrast, might just come off, Hitler hoped, and if it did not, then a glorious choreographed defeat would provide the basis for national regeneration at a later date.
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