Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler Part 5

Throughout these delicate negotiations, Dulles kept Washington informed via Gen. Donovan at OSS headquarters, but from there, news of the contacts was quickly pa.s.sed to the suspicious Soviets. There were several Soviet spies in the OSS, including Maj. Duncan Chaplin Lee, a counterintelligence officer and legal adviser to Donovan, and Halperin, head of research and a.n.a.lysis in the Latin America division. Fearing a separate peace, incensed Stalin cabled Roosevelt and Churchill: The Germans have on the Eastern Front 147 divisions. They could without harm to their cause take from the Eastern Front 1520 divisions and shift them to the aid of their troops on the Western Front. However, the Germans did not do it and are not doing it. They continue to fight savagely for some unknown junction, Zemlianitsa in Czechoslovakia, which they need as much as a dead man needs poultices-but they surrender without resistance such important towns in Central Germany as Osnabruck, Mannheim, and Ka.s.sel. Don't you agree that such behavior by the Germans is more than strange, [it is] incomprehensible?

Both Roosevelt and Churchill angrily rejected the Soviet leader's implications, but the damage was done. Roosevelt finally recognized the threat posed by Stalin and the Soviet Union just two days before his death. This episode was, essentially, the beginning of the Cold War.

Stalin now refused to endorse the agreed separation pact of Austria and Germany to allow the former to become once again an independent state. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff expressly forbade the continuation of the talks with Wolff. Intelligence about these contacts had reached Bormann, and SS and Police Gen. Kaltenbrunner also ordered that such negotiations cease immediately-he and Bormann did not wish to jeopardize their own agenda.

A FELLOW AUSTRIAN, ERNST KALTENBRUNNER had joined Hitler's inner circle following the July bomb attempt, when as chief of the Reich Main Security Office he took charge of the investigations leading to the arrest and execution of the plotters and the imprisonment of their families. The fearful retribution exacted by the tall, cadaverous, scar-faced Kaltenbrunner earned him much favor with the Fuhrer. In December 1944, he was granted the parallel rank of General of the Waffen-SS (important in that it gave him military as well as police authority) and the Gold Party Badge. On April 18, 1945, he was appointed commander in chief of the German forces in southern Europe.

Kaltenbrunner's adjutant, the former SD intelligence officer Maj. Wilhelm Hottl, had already pa.s.sed information to Allen Dulles concerning the creation of the National Redoubt (see Chapter 10). Hottl renewed the connection with the OSS in February 1945 through an Austrian friend of his, Friedrich Westen-a dubious businessman who had profited from expropriations of Jewish property and from slave labor. Both wished to ingratiate themselves with the Americans (though not at the expense of offending Kaltenbrunner and, by extension, Martin Bormann), and the stories they told soon became even more misleading and devious.

During early 1944, when Hottl was in Budapest organizing the transportation of Hungary's Jewish population to the extermination camps, he had become friendly with Col. arpad Toldi, Hungary's commissioner for Jewish affairs. Now, a year later, Toldi was in charge of the "Gold Train." This was laden with Hungary's national treasures, including the crown jewels, precious metals, gems, paintings, and large quant.i.ties of currency, much of it stolen from Hungary's Jews. The train-whose value was put at $350 million (approximately $6 billion today)-was destined for Berlin and was moving westward to escape the advance of the Red Army. As it pa.s.sed through Austria, Hottl advised Kaltenbrunner of its presence, whereupon the train was stopped near Schnann in the Tyrol and many especially valuable crates were offloaded onto trucks. The contents and the whereabouts of those crates remain unknown to this day. Ostensibly, Hottl was instructed to use the Gold Train as a bargaining chip with the OSS in an attempt to arrange a separate truce for Austria like the deal that was under discussion in Italy.

Yet again, Dulles sent an intermediary-this time a senior OSS officer named Edgeworth M. Leslie-for the first meetings with Hottl on the Swiss-Austrian border. In his debrief to Dulles, Leslie reported that Hottl "is of course dangerous": He is a fanatical anti-Russian and for this reason we cannot very well collaborate with him ... without informing the Russians.... But I see no reason why we should not use him in the furtherance of [common] interests ... namely the hastening of the end of the resistance in Austria by the disruption of the [Redoubt].... To avoid any accusation that we are working with a n.a.z.i reactionary ... I believe that we should keep our contact with him as indirect as possible.

Believing that Hottl was a conduit to Kaltenbrunner, Dulles agreed: "This type requires utmost caution." Concurring, Gen. Donovan advised, "I am convinced [that Hottl] is the right hand of Kaltenbrunner and a key contact to develop."

During these early meetings, Hottl revealed more details about the National Redoubt. He also stated that a n.a.z.i guerrilla movement known as Wehrwolf (Werewolf) had been organized over the past two years, with access to hidden arms dumps, explosives, and ample funds. They could muster some 100,000 committed SS soldiers and fanatical Hitler Youth under the command of another Austrian, SS Lt. Col. Otto Skorzeny-an old friend of Kaltenbrunner's and Hitler's favorite leader of Special Forces, whose impressive reputation was well known to the Allies. These "details" were actually disinformation created by Bormann, but they succeeded admirably in causing consternation at SHAEF, particularly to Gen. Eisenhower. As his chief of staff, Gen. Bedell Smith, stated, "We had every reason to believe the n.a.z.is intended to make their last stand among the crags."

SINCE THE BREAKOUT FROM NORMANDY, Gen. Eisenhower had pursued a measured strategy whereby the disparate Allied armies, under their often fractious and compet.i.tive commanders, advanced on a broad front. Although ponderous, this plan was politically astute and in tune with the moderate capabilities of conscript armies. Ma.s.sed firepower, inexhaustible logistics, and overwhelming air support were the answer to superior German tactical performance on the battlefield. Only once did Eisenhower deviate from this strategy, when a failure of Allied logistics halted the broad advance and he accepted the bold plan for Operation Market Garden-the attempted airborne thrust deep into Holland. If it had succeeded, then a rapid advance eastward across the north German plains would have brought Berlin within reach. The capture of the enemy's capital city and the triumphal parade through its streets following victory has always been the ultimate ambition of all great commanders. But Eisenhower's ambitions were maturing and he had every reason-both humanitarian and pragmatic-to shrink from the prospect of losing 100,000 GIs during a prolonged and bitter street battle for Berlin.

Over days of brooding, Eisenhower revised his strategy for the campaign in Europe. On the afternoon of March 28, 1945, he declared his intentions in three cables. One was a personal message to Joseph Stalin-the only occasion during the war when Eisenhower communicated directly with the Soviet leader. The second was to Gen. Marshall in Washington, and the third was to Field Marshal Montgomery, commander in chief of the British-Canadian 21st Army Group in northern Germany. Against vehement protests from some of his generals-particularly Patton and Montgomery, who each wished to lead an a.s.sault on Berlin-Eisenhower stated that the main thrust of his armies was to be southeastward toward Bavaria, Austria, and the supposed National Redoubt. Berlin was to be left to the Red Army. Eisenhower was seeking valuable military plunder, not empty glory.

THE GERMAN ARMY crumbled before the might of the Allies, who rushed to take not just the territory of the former Reich but its art, industrial secrets, and scientists.

BY NOW, THE SWISS AUTHORITIES were becoming increasingly disconcerted by the number of n.a.z.i emissaries and fugitives trying to cross into Switzerland, many of whom were being held by Swiss border guards. The Swiss indicated to Allen Dulles that it would be desirable if his talks could be conducted more discreetly and preferably not on their territory. They were not trying to be obstructive but they wished to maintain the facade of neutrality to the last. Their greatest fear remained a flood of refugees descending on Switzerland, so an early resolution to the war was their chief priority.

As always, Dulles had an elegant solution. Due to a historical anomaly on the maps dating back to 1798, the Italian enclave of Campione d'Italia on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Lugano was totally surrounded by Swiss territory, with only water access from Italy. During the dark night of January 28, 1945, about twenty OSS agents invaded Campione-at that date the sovereign territory of Mussolini's rump Italian Socialist Republic-and claimed it for the Allies. The six Carabinieri policemen defending the enclave offered no resistance. Thereafter, the Swiss authorities could turn a blind eye to OSS activities in Campione, so long as they were discreet. From the enclave OSS agents were infiltrated into Italy and, in March and April 1945, Campione became the venue for feverish negotiations during Operation Sunrise.

Meanwhile, other members of the n.a.z.i hierarchy were trying to save their own skins by opening negotiations with the Western Allies. It remained the dearest dream of Heinrich Himmler to construct an anti-Soviet coalition or, at the least, a truce in the West that would allow the n.a.z.is to continue the struggle against the Bolshevik hordes. This baffling delusion was shared by Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and by Himmler's trusted subordinate, SS Gen. Walter Sch.e.l.lenberg, the chief of the SD foreign intelligence department. All three tried to seek peace through contacts in both Switzerland and Sweden. In January 1945, Sch.e.l.lenberg was in Switzerland trying to cut a deal with the former federal president of Switzerland, Jean-Marie Musy. While there, he pa.s.sed word through Gen. Henri Guisan, chief of staff of the Swiss army, that he wished to contact Allen Dulles, but this came to nothing. In March, Ribbentrop was seeking a separate peace with the British through the Swedish banker Marcus Wallenberg, whose business interests had prospered so greatly through trading with the n.a.z.is. Himmler sought a similar agreement through the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte. As an inducement, some 17,000 mainly Scandinavian prisoners in Germany's concentration camps were returned to their homelands in convoys of "White Buses" in a Red Cross humanitarian mission. In return for a prompt peace in the West, Himmler was willing to spare and release the 400,000 Jews remaining in Germany and to this end he ordered the evacuation and destruction of the extermination camps in the east; in the aftermath, however, an estimated quarter million camp survivors lost their lives while being herded westward on freezing death marches. There were conditions to Himmler's proposals, not the least of which was a demand for an a.s.surance that no black occupation troops would be allowed to enter Germany, in the interests of "racial hygiene."

The Western Allies were not interested in the deluded Himmler's grisly deals or in a separate peace. They wanted unconditional surrender and the spoils of war. In particular, they wanted n.a.z.i weapons technology, gold, and loot. (It was Allied policy to restore gold to its rightful owners as well as looted art, but in fact this rest.i.tution took many years and some spoliated art has still not been returned to its rightful owners to this day; many museums across the world have artifacts of dubious origin from the n.a.z.i era that do not bear too close a scrutiny as to their provenance.) Martin Bormann was willing to give the Western Allies what they wanted-in exchange for the survival of Adolf Hitler, himself, and a small coterie of the "mountain people."

THE HUNGARIAN GOLD TRAIN arrived on April 8, 1945, within the confines of the so-called National Redoubt at Werfen in the Salzach valley, where it was hidden from Allied aircraft in a tunnel. SS Maj. Hottl, now code-named "Alperg" by the OSS, revealed the existence of the train during further discussions with Edgeworth M. Leslie. He also imparted information concerning the whereabouts of other repositories of n.a.z.i treasure hidden across Germany and, just as importantly, reinforced the proposal of SS Gen. Wolff to return the treasures of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence-looted artworks were now an inducement in any deal. A radiotelephone link was established between the OSS in Bern and the Austrian SS faction under Gen. Kaltenbrunner centered on the Villa Kerry, his home at Altaussee in the heart of the Bavarian Alps. Bormann now had a direct line of communication to Allen Dulles via Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Operation Crossword.

During the second half of April 1945, events in this shadowy endgame of the European war accelerated day by day. On the fourteenth, Allen Dulles met Gen. Donovan at the Ritz Hotel in Paris to explain his conduct over the peace overtures from the n.a.z.i hierarchy. "Wild Bill" Donovan was anxious to return to Washington in the wake of Roosevelt's death, to befriend the new president and cement the position of the OSS. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were furious with Dulles and the OSS following the acrimonious exchange of cables between Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill concerning Operation Sunrise/Crossword. William J. Casey (later director of the CIA from 1981 to 1987) was present at the Ritz meeting and observed that "Dulles fidgeted in his chair, alternately outraged and embarra.s.sed.... Bluntly put, all h.e.l.l broke loose." Dulles protested that as yet nothing concrete had emerged from his discussions with SS Gen. Wolff and that everything could still be plausibly denied as far as the Soviets were concerned. Even so, Donovan closed down Sunrise/Crossword negotiations for the time being, but allowed the negotiations with Ernst Kaltenbrunner to continue since the White House was not yet aware of them. As Dulles ruefully commented about the situation: "It is easy to start a war but difficult to stop one." Donovan and Dulles decided to keep knowledge of the Kaltenbrunner talks between themselves, as security had become inexcusably lax. Too many interested parties were aware of the various putative peace plans emanating from the n.a.z.i hierarchy via Switzerland or Sweden-including the Soviet spy Kim Philby, who later recalled, "The air was opaque with mutual suspicions of separate peace feelers."

Chapter 13.

"WO BIST ADOLF HITLER?"

ON APRIL 20, 1945, HITLER'S ENTOURAGE dutifully celebrated his fifty-sixth birthday, but it was hardly an auspicious occasion. Himmler and Goring were present at the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin to mark the event, but both quickly left the capital, never to return. Goring departed for Berchtesgaden in Bavaria to supervise the arrival of his art collection in eight railroad cars from Carinhall, though there were few suitable places left to hide it.

The Western Allies were now racing eastward across Germany toward their rendezvous with the Red Army on the Elbe and Mulde rivers. Montgomery's 21st Army Group had turned northeastward and was advancing toward Oldenburg, Bremen, and Hamburg. On their right, William H. Simpson's U.S. Ninth Army and Courtney Hodges's First Army had reached the Elbe at Magdeburg and the Mulde beyond Leipzig. Patton's Third Army had swung southeastward, forging ahead for the Czech border. Any defended village that surrendered promptly was spared; those that did not were utterly destroyed, to become "Third Army Memorials"-stark reminders that Patton's men had pa.s.sed this way. To speed the advance, mayors of towns that had been captured or destroyed were often sent ahead with the leading U.S. reconnaissance units to persuade recalcitrant or dilatory officials that a display of white flags and sheets on every house was in the inhabitants' best interests. To Patton's south and inside his wheeling movement, Alexander Patch's Seventh Army had just reached Nuremberg. To the south again, Jean de Lattre's French First Army had reached the outskirts of Stuttgart and was heading for the Danube and Austria. The Obersalzberg, the top n.a.z.is' retreat in the Bavarian Alps, would soon be cut off from northern Germany and from Berlin in particular.

For Bormann the situation was becoming critical, since the Soviets were about to surround Berlin, with Red Army troops extending pincers forward from the north and south. As yet, the Fuhrer was refusing to leave the capital and Bormann's carefully laid plans for Aktion Feuerland were in danger of collapsing. Aircraft of the Fliegerstaffel (flying squadron) des Fuhrers-Hitler's personal air transport unit-were standing by at the Berlin airports of Gatow and Tempelhof to fly him to Bavaria, Spain, or elsewhere. But they would soon be within range of Soviet artillery guns. Similarly, long-range flying boats of Kampfgeschwader 200-the Luftwaffe's special missions wing-were ready to fly the Fuhrer even further, from a base at Travemunde on the Baltic coast. Seaplanes were even stationed by night on Lake Havel, ready to fly the n.a.z.i hierarchy out of Berlin at a moment's notice. The Ost-West-Asche (East-West-Axis boulevard)-between the Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Monument, in the heart of the city-had been cleared as a makeshift runway.

On April 20, Bormann inst.i.tuted Operation Seraglio or Harem, whereby many government staff and records, including Hitler's private papers, were dispatched to Bavaria. That night ten transport aircraft were a.s.sembled at Gatow for evacuation to Munich. Nine arrived safely but the tenth crashed into the Heidenholz Forest while flying at treetop level and disintegrated. Many of Hitler's personal papers were consumed in the burning wreckage. At that stage it was intended that the Fuhrer and his entourage would fly south two days later, on April 22.

MEANWHILE, ALLEN DULLES RESUMED the Operation Sunrise negotiations with SS Gen. Wolff, despite Donovan's recent orders to cease the mission. On April 23, Karl Wolff indicated to Dulles that he now had full powers to order the surrender of all German troops in Italy after discussions in Berlin with Hitler and Bormann on April 1819. On April 24, both Kaltenbrunner and SS Lt. Col. Hans Helmut von Hummel flew south to Austria to take over the negotiations of Crossword from Hottl. Helmut von Hummel was Bormann's adjutant responsible for maintaining the records of all the Fuhrer's looted art holdings and the locations where they were hidden. The most important of these repositories was at Altaussee, close to Kaltenbrunner's home, where an old salt mine now contained the vast majority of Hitler's art collection; this h.o.a.rd was to be a major factor in any deal with Dulles.

Events were now moving at such speed that the two originally separate sets of negotiations under Sunrise/Crossword-with Wolff and with Kaltenbrunner-were inextricably linked. On April 26, Hottl reported to Kaltenbrunner on the results of another visit to Switzerland, at which he had agreed with the OSS officer Edgeworth M. Leslie to arrange a personal meeting between Dulles and Kaltenbrunner at Feldkirch in Austria, close to the Swiss border. Dulles realized that Hottl was purely a stooge and that much of his information concerning the National Redoubt was highly suspect. Dulles knew that Austria could not surrender in the same manner as Italy had in September 1943. Despite the formation of a provisional government that month, the country remained an integral part of the German Reich. Whatever emerged from these talks, the sands were running out for Austria, since the Red Army tanks of the 3rd Ukrainian Front were advancing rapidly westward after the capture of Vienna. There had to be an ulterior motive for Kalten-brunner to be negotiating-and that was explained by Martin Bormann's proposals.

(Italics are used in the following section to identify conclusions based on deductive research; see Chapter 16 for further discussion.) In Bormann's characteristic style-the carrot and the stick-Kaltenbrunner and Hummel indicated to Dulles that Bormann was willing to provide the Allies, as an inducement or "carrot," with information as to the whereabouts of all the n.a.z.is' looted art. It would be handed over intact, together with the remainder of the national treasure of Germany, including its gold deposits, currency reserves, bearer bonds, and industrial patents-except, of course, for the substantial part of this treasure that Bormann had already secreted abroad. An additional and supremely attractive carrot was Bormann's undertaking to deliver to the Allies examples of the most modern weapons technology together with the whereabouts of the designers, such as Wernher von Braun and his V-2 team, and the nuclear scientists of the Uranium Club. Furthermore, the ceasefire in Italy would be ratified immediately. But what was the desired price for such treasures? A blind eye turned to the escape of Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun, Martin Bormann, Heinrich "Gestapo" Muller, Hermann Fegelein, and Ernst Kaltenbrunner. The rest of the n.a.z.i hierarchy were to be abandoned to their fate.

The "stick" was simple. Germany now claimed to be capable of bombarding the eastern seaboard of the United States with weapons of ma.s.s destruction; considerable effort had been invested in selling this disinformation to U.S. intelligence agencies, with some success (see Chapter 16). These weapons incorporated warheads armed with the most toxic nerve agents ever devised, sarin and tabun. In addition, many repositories of artworks hidden in deep mine shafts would be destroyed with explosives and buried forever. A high proportion of the greatest works of art produced during centuries of Western civilization was now held hostage, and this threat was entirely credible following Hitler's "Nero Decree" of March 19. Officially t.i.tled "Demolitions on Reich Territory," this decree ordered the utter destruction of all German industrial infrastructure and technology; although not included in the official order, it also implied the destruction of cultural a.s.sets and the elimination of any key personnel who might be useful to the Allied powers.

The decision lay with the Allies, but the clock was ticking. On the previous day, April 25, the city of Berlin had been surrounded by the Red Army, and troops from Gen. Ivan Konev's army group had made contact with GIs from Hodges's U.S. First Army on the Elbe River. Germany was cut in half by a broad belt of Allied-occupied territory, with only the extreme north and south still under n.a.z.i control.

THE LARGEST DAYLIGHT RAID ON BERLIN so far had been launched on February 3, 1945. In total, 937 Flying Fortresses dropped 2,298 tons of bombs, killing thousands of people and inflicting ma.s.sive damage on the city, including the government quarter.

Among the other government buildings. .h.i.t that day were the Reich Chancellery on the corner of Wilhelmstra.s.se and Voss-Stra.s.se, where Bormann's office was badly damaged; the Gestapo headquarters on Prinz Albrechtstra.s.se and the Reichsbank on Hausvogteiplatz were virtually demolished by a string of bombs. In a letter to his wife on February 4, Bormann wrote: I have just taken refuge in my secretary's office which is the only room in the place that has some temporary windows. Yesterday's raid was very heavy. The Reich Chancellery garden is an amazing sight-deep craters, fallen trees, and the paths obliterated by a ma.s.s of rubble and rubbish. The Fuhrer's residence [in the Old Reich Chancellery] was badly hit several times. The New Reich Chancellery was also hit several times, and is not usable for the time being. The Party Chancellery buildings [offices on the upper floor of the central block of the New Reich Chancellery], too, are a sorry sight. Telephone communications are still very inadequate and the Fuhrer's residence and Party Chancellery still have no connection with the outside world.

To crown everything, in this so-called Government Quarter, the light, power and water supply is still lacking! We have a water cart standing in front of the Reich Chancellery and that is our only water supply for cooking and washing up! And the worst thing of all is the water closets. These commando pigs [the SS bodyguards] use them constantly and not one of them even thinks of taking a bucket of water with him to flush the place. From this evening I am apparently to have a room in the bunker in which to work and sleep.

By the middle of February, Hitler and his entourage-including Bormann-had been forced to take up permanent residence in the Fuhrerbunker.

The president of the Reichsbank, Dr. Walter Funk, decided to transfer the bulk of the bank's cash and gold reserves to safety outside of Berlin. The treasure was shipped to Merkers in Thuringia, two hundred miles southwest of the capital. There, bullion and currency with a value of about $238 million were deposited deep underground in the Kaiseroda pota.s.sium mine, alongside a huge cache of artworks. This was but one of 134 repositories dotted across the Third Reich under the control of Martin Bormann. In accordance with Hitler's Nero Decree of March 19, many of them were now rigged with high explosives to prevent their falling into the hands of the Allies. In the salt mines at Altaussee were the most valuable pieces in Hitler's collection, including Michelangelo's Bruges Madonna, Jan van Eyck's Adoration of the Mystic Lamb or Ghent Altarpiece, and many other priceless treasures. Among the innumerable crates were eight that were marked Vorsicht-Marmor-nicht sturtzen (Attention-Marble-Do Not Drop). Placed underground between April 10 and 13, these contained not statues but half-ton Luftwaffe aerial bombs. Also primed for destruction was the acc.u.mulation of most of the artworks looted from France and the Low Countries, now stored in the fairytale castle of Neuschwanstein in Bavaria. Nothing was intended to survive the coming Gotterdammerung of the Third Reich.

AMONG THE ALLIED TROOPS POISED to deny the n.a.z.is the chance to destroy their secrets were Cdr. Fleming's Red Indians of 30 Advance Unit. Intelligence on where to search was now flooding in from the OSS office in Bern, thanks to the dialogue between Dulles and Bormann. The unit's Team 4, under Lt. Cdr. Patrick Dalzel-Job, began driving northward between Bremen on the Weser River and Hamburg on the Elbe. Their task was to capture the latest U-boat technology.

Surging ahead of 21st Army Group, Team 4 of 30 AU was the first Allied unit to enter the major port of Bremen. They accepted the surrender of the city by the mayor some twenty-four hours before the arrival of conventional forces, and a small detachment of Royal Marines captured sixteen U-boats. Further south, Lt. Cdr. Jim Glanville's Team 55 set off on April 14 for Schloss Tambach near Bad Sulza in Thuringia, where they captured the complete records of the Kriegsmarine from 1850 up to the end of 1944, including all the logs of U-boats and surface ships. These archives were of immense value to Allied naval authorities and were judged to be one of the most important intelligence hauls of the entire war. Meanwhile, after their success locating the uranium ore for the Alsos Mission, Team 5 under the command of Lt. James Lambie was searching the Harz Mountains for the underground V-2 a.s.sembly facility at Nordhausen, following instructions from SHAEF to capture doc.u.mentation and personnel connected with the ballistic missile program. The Monuments Men were also hard on the heels of the combat troops, on their way to safeguard the major caches of artworks hidden across Germany, including the castle of Neuschwanstein in Bavaria, which was saved from destruction on May 4, 1945, and with it the treasures of France and the Low Countries.

THROUGHOUT APRIL 1945, BORMANN pursued his plans for Aktion Feuerland with ruthless efficiency. It was time to tie up loose ends, of which one of the most outstanding was Adm. Wilhelm Canaris, now held in Flossenburg concentration camp. Canaris knew far too much about the site of the refuge that Bormann had prepared for Hitler in Argentina and about a major staging post for the Fuhrer's journey between Europe and South America. On April 5, Ernst Kaltenbrunner presented Hitler with some highly incriminating evidence against Canaris. The Fuhrer flew into a rage and signed the admiral's death warrant. He was hanged in humiliating circ.u.mstances on April 9.

In the detached netherworld of the Fuhrerbunker-dubbed the "cement submarine" by many of the staff working there-Hitler was living the claustrophobic life of a U-boat captain on the ocean floor, with little sense of time or reality of actual events in the world above. The Fuhrer had always been subject to mood swings, but his rages became more frequent as the military situation deteriorated inexorably and he was confronted with the self-deluding futility of the orders he had been issuing. At a military situation conference on Sunday, April 22, attended by Bormann, the Fuhrer exploded in a fit of unrestrained fury. For the first time he declared openly that the war was lost and announced repeatedly that he would die in Berlin. Bormann insisted that this was the time to fly south to the Obersalzberg to finalize the Fuhrer's personal affairs before fleeing in accordance with the preparations made for Aktion Feuerland, but Joseph Goebbels persuaded Hitler otherwise; Goebbels saw it as their duty to die among the ruins of their city. Gen. Jodl pointed out that Germany still had armies in the field theoretically within reach of Berlin-Field Marshal Ferdinand Schorner's remnant of Army Group Center and Gen. Walther Wenck's Twelfth Army. The Fuhrer became vague about the military steps to be taken, but repeated that he was determined to remain in Berlin to the last.

Frustrated, Bormann nevertheless continued juggling the possilities that remained open to him. That night, he sent a telex to Goring at the Obersalzberg indicating that the Fuhrer was indisposed. It was a trap and Goring fell straight into it. On the following day he sent a telegram to the Fuhrerbunker stating that if he did not hear instructions to the contrary, he would a.s.sume full command of the Reich from 10:00 p.m. that night, in accordance with his responsibility as designated successor to Hitler. Bormann immediately informed the Fuhrer, urging the need to annul the decree of succession as Goring was obviously staging a coup. At first, Hitler demurred. Bormann then sent Goring a telex accusing him of treacherous behavior but also stating that no further action would be taken if he resigned from all his many offices of state. Within an hour, Goring's resignation was on the Fuhrer's desk. This was seen as confirmation of his treachery, and the SS detachment at the Obersalzberg was ordered to place the Reichsmarschall under house arrest.

With Goring sidelined, Bormann turned his attention to ousting Himmler. It was time for him to use his ace in the hole. He had known from late March 1945 that Himmler had begun negotiations with the Allies in Stockholm. His close friend Gen. Fegelein, Himmler's representative in the bunker, had kept him well informed. The Reichsleiter had prepared a detailed dossier detailing Himmler's treachery, which he would present to Hitler. Bormann had achieved his ultimate ambition-to destroy all competing candidates for the power and influence of being the Fuhrer's only unquestionably trusted deputy. It was something of a Pyrrhic victory, though, since on April 25 the Red Army completed its encirclement of Berlin and the Obersalzberg was comprehensively bombed by the Lancasters of No. 617 Squadron RAF, thereby rendering it useless as a bolt-hole during any planned escape to the south. The rush for the shelters probably saved Goring's life, since his SS guards were on the point of executing him when the sirens sounded. The confirmation of Bormann's total victory in the intrigues of the n.a.z.i court came on April 26, when Hitler promoted Gen. Robert Ritter von Greim to the rank of field marshal and appointed him commander in chief of the Luftwaffe. Bormann must have been ecstatic over Hitler's first order to Ritter von Greim: he was to fly to Karl Donitz's headquarters at Plon and arrest Heinrich Himmler for treason. This was impossible, however, since Ritter von Greim had been badly wounded earlier that day by Red Army gunfire shortly before landing in Berlin in a plane piloted by the daredevil aviatrix Hanna Reitsch.

ALTHOUGH THE BULK OF THE REICHSBANK'S HOLDINGS had been transferred to the Kaiseroda mine at Merkers, much still remained in Berlin, ostensibly to pay the city's Wehrmacht defenders in cash. At a meeting between the Fuhrer, Dr. Funk, and Bormann on April 9, it had been decided to transfer the remaining gold and currency reserves of the Reichsbank to Bavaria. They were to be transported to the so-called "Bormann Bunker" in Munich, by road in a convoy of six Opel Blitz trucks and by two special trains code-named Adler and Dohle-"Eagle" and "Jackdaw." The trains and trucks left Berlin on April 14 but took almost two weeks to arrive in Bavaria, due to the devastated road and rail networks and the chronic lack of gasoline.

Following the Operation Seraglio/Harem exodus of nonessential personnel from the Fuhrerbunker on April 22, Bormann instructed SS Gen. Kaltenbrunner to fly south in order to pursue Allen Dulles's Operation Crossword. Kaltenbrunner decided that he should make his own arrangements for survival rather than relying solely upon Aktion Feuerland. In his capacity as head of the RSHA, he ordered SS Gen. Josef s.p.a.cil to take a party of SS troops to remove everything of value left in the vaults of the Reichsbank-securities, gems, and 23 million gold reichsmarks, worth $9.13 million (approximately $110 million in today's money). One of the last transport planes to get out of the city flew this loot to Salzburg in Austria. From there it was taken by truck to the high Tyrolean town of Rauris and buried on a wooded mountainside nearby.

This largest armed robbery in history soon came to the notice of Martin Bormann, who commented to his confederate, "Gestapo" Muller, Well, Ernst is still looking out for Ernst. It doesn't mean much to the big picture. But find out where he has it taken. When it's buried-and it will probably be in an Austrian lake close to his home-we might want one of our party Gauleiters to watch over it. Kaltenbrunner may never last the war out, and it would be useful to the party later.

In reality, by striking out on his own, Kaltenbrunner had signed his own death warrant, but he was still useful to Bormann as long as the talks with Dulles continued. The Allies recovered less than 10 percent of this enormous booty. The rest was used to finance the various escape networks for n.a.z.i war criminals fleeing justice in the postwar years.

The final authorization for the implementation of Operation Crossword came in the form of three "highest priority signals" from Washington on the morning of April 27, 1945. It took two days for all the various representatives to meet and sign the actual surrender doc.u.ment for the German forces in Italy. In the meantime, Bormann had just barely enough time to activate the final option for Aktion Feuerland (see Chapter 15 and the escape to Tnder). At 2:00 p.m. on May 2, 1945, a simultaneous Allied and German ceasefire came into effect in northern Italy. Five minutes earlier, an eighteen-year-old radio announcer, Richard Beier, made the very last broadcast by Grossdeutscher Rundfunk (Greater German Broadcasting) from its underground studio on Masurenallee in Berlin: "The Fuhrer is dead. Long live the Reich!" But where was. .h.i.tler's body?

THIS WAS THE QUESTION ASKED by the first Soviet troops to enter the Fuhrerbunker at 9:00 that morning. A few days earlier, on April 29, a special detachment of the SMERSH (NKVD counterespionage) element serving with the headquarters of the 3rd Shock Army had been created at Stalin's insistence, specifically to discover the whereabouts of Adolf Hitler, dead or alive. The SMERSH team arrived at the Reich Chancellery moments after its capture by the Red Army. Despite intense pressure from Moscow, its searches proved fruitless. Although the charred bodies of Joseph and Magda Goebbels were quickly found in the sh.e.l.l-torn garden, no evidence for the deaths of Adolf Hitler or Eva Braun was found.

Close behind the a.s.sault troops and NKVD officers, a group of twelve women doctors and their a.s.sistants of the Red Army medical corps were the first to enter the bunker in the early afternoon of May 2. The leader of the group spoke fluent German and asked one of the four people then remaining in the bunker, the electrical machinist Johannes Hentschel, "Wo bist Adolf Hitler? Wo sind die Klamotten?" ("Where is Adolf Hitler? Where are the glad rags?"). She seemed more interested in Eva Braun's clothes than in the fate of the Fuhrer of the Third Reich. The failure to find an identifiable corpse would vex the Soviet authorities for many months, if not years. That day, the Soviet official newspaper Pravda declared, "The announcement of Hitler's death was a fascist trick."

PART III.

THE ESCAPE.

This 1945 photograph shows the New Reich Chancellery devastated after years of bombing and the savagery of the Battle of Berlin. Constructed as the centerpiece of the Thousand-Year Reich, this grandiose building lasted less than a decade. This view shows the Courtyard of Honor with two armored cars parked on the left. These were always on hand in case Hitler needed to escape Berlin in an armored vehicle. In any event, they were not used.

Chapter 14.

THE BUNKER.

THE FuHRERBUNKER, under the rear and the garden of the Old Reich Chancellery building on Wilhelmstra.s.se in the government quarter of Berlin, was built in two phases. The contractor was the Hochtief AG construction company, through its subsidiary the Fuhrerbunkerfensterputzer GmbH-which also built the Berghof, Hitler's Bavarian mountain retreat, as well as his Wolf's Lair in Rastenburg. The initial Fuhrerbunker structure, which later became known as the Vorbunker (ante-bunker), was intended purely as an air raid shelter for Hitler and his staff in the Reichskanzlei (Reich Chancellery). Construction began in 1936 and was usefully obscured by the work on a new reception hall then being built onto the western, rear face of the Old Chancellery. The construction of Albert Speer's ma.s.sive New Chancellery building, fronting onto the Voss-Stra.s.se and adjoining the Old Chancellery in an L-shape to the south, was essentially complete by January 1939. This range of buildings, and the adjacent SS barrack blocks aligned northsouth on Hermann-Goring-Stra.s.se to the west, incorporated from the start two very large complexes of linked underground shelters, working quarters, garages, and tunnels.

On January 18, 1943, in response to the heavier bombs then being used by the Allied air forces, Hitler ordered Speer to extend the shelter under the Old Chancellery by constructing a deeper complex. Under the supervision of the architect Carl Piepenburg, an excavation for this Fuhrerbunker or Hauptbunker (main bunker), code-named "B207," was dug below and to the west of the Vorbunker. The major works were completed in 1943, at a cost of 1.35 million reichsmarks-five times the amount of the original shelter. However, it was not until October 23, 1944, that Dr. Hans Heinrich Lammers, the state secretary of the Reich Chancellery, was able to inform Hitler that the new facility was entirely ready for his use.

The new bunker lay twenty-six feet below the garden of the Old Chancellery and 131 yards north from the New Chancellery building. Two floors deeper than the Vorbunker, the Fuhrerbunker adjoined its west side and was linked to it by a corridor, an airtight compartment, and a staircase down. The new complex had two main means of access: this route from the Vorbunker and another staircase from the far end leading up to the Chancellery garden. The ceiling of the Fuhrerbunker was formed of reinforced concrete that was 11 feet, 3 inches thick; the external walls were up to 13 feet thick, and heavy steel doors closed off the various compartments and corridors. The bunker was built in Berlin's sandy soil below the level of the water table, so pumps were continuously at work to keep the damp at bay. The complex incorporated its own independent water supply and air-filtration plant, and it was lit and heated with electricity generated by a diesel engine of the type used on U-boats.

The general layout of the Fuhrerbunker was a series of rooms leading off each side of a central corridor, divided into outer and inner ranges. The outer range, nearest to the access from the Vorbunker, contained the practical amenities such as machine rooms, stores, showers, and toilets. The inner half of the corridor functioned as a reception and conference s.p.a.ce, and leading off it were telephone and telegraph rooms; a first aid station; quarters for orderlies, valets, and medical personnel; and the Fuhrer's private quarters. Beyond a small refreshment room, these comprised a study, a living room, and Hitler's bedroom and bathroom; from the bathroom a second door led to Eva Braun's bedroom and dressing room. None of these rooms was larger than 140 square feet. Comfortably furnished with items brought down from the Chancellery and with paintings lining the walls, the bunker complex had a kitchen stockpiled with luxury foods and wines. It has been portrayed in movies as a drab, damp, concrete cellar, but while conditions certainly deteriorated in late April 1945, when leaking water and dust from the sh.e.l.led streets above penetrated into the upper parts of the complex, some late visitors to the Fuhrerbunker-such as the pilot Hanna Reitsch-described it as "luxurious."

The bunker's major weakness was that it had never been designed as a Fuhrerhauptquartier, or command headquarters. After the intensity of Allied bombing forced Hitler and his staff to move underground permanently in mid-February 1945, the means of communication were woefully inadequate for keeping in touch with daily developments in the conduct of the war. The telephone exchange, more suited to the needs of a small hotel, was quite incapable of handling the necessary volume of traffic.

Apart from the Vorbunker's above-ground access to the Old Chancellery building, three tunnels provided the upper Vorbunker with underground links. One led north, to the Foreign Office; one crossed the Wilhelmstra.s.se eastward, to the Propaganda Ministry; and one ran south, linking up with the labyrinth of shelters under the New Chancellery. However, the Old Chancellery-a confusing maze of pa.s.sages and staircases, much altered over the years-also had an underground emergency exit to a third, deeper, secret shelter, known to only a select few. Hitler maintained his private quarters in the Old Chancellery throughout the war until forced underground in February 1945. To get to the secret shelter, Hitler did not have to leave his private study: as part of Hochtief's extensive underground works, a tunnel had been built that connected Hitler's quarters directly with the shelter. The tunnel was accessible via a doorway covered by a thin concrete sliding panel hidden beside a bookcase in the study. This tunnel, in turn, was connected to the Berlin underground railway system by a five-hundred-yard pa.s.sageway. The third shelter had been provided with its own water supply, toilet facilities, and storage for food and weapons for up to twelve people for two weeks. Bormann had never really planned for it to be used; it was simply one of the range of options available to get Hitler out of Berlin. But by Friday, April 27, 1945, it was the obvious means of escape to take the Fuhrer away from the devastating sh.e.l.ls that were raining down on the government quarter of Berlin as Soviet troops fought their way in from three directions.

DESIGNED BY HITLER'S favorite architect, Albert Speer, the New Reich Chancellery was to have been the seat of power of the Thousand-Year Reich. During the war as the Allied bomber offensive intensified, the Fuhrerbunker was built to protect Hitler from the increasingly devastating aerial bombs employed by the RAF and USAAF.

IN THE FINAL months of the war, Adolf Hitler retreated to the depths of the Fuhrerbunker beneath the Old Reich Chancellery; Bormann had organized a secret tunnel that allowed the Fuhrer and his select companions to escape via the Berlin subway system to an improvised airstrip and flee to Denmark and onward to Spain and Argentina.

ON THAT DAY, IN THE PRIVATE STUDY in the bunker, Eva Braun was seated at the table, writing; Hitler was fidgeting on the sofa. An SS bodyguard stood to attention at the open doorway. Hitler walked over to him and asked about casualties outside; the dull thud of artillery sh.e.l.ls could be heard and felt even this far underground and through the thick walls. The SS officer recalled that Hitler then appeared to make a decision. Speaking as if to an a.s.sembled audience, the leader of the collapsing Third Reich said that as long as he lived there could never be a hope of conflict between the Western Allies and Russia. But his was a difficult decision: alive, he would be able to lead the German people to final victory-but unless he died, the conditions for that victory could never be achieved. "Germany," he said, "can hope for the future only if the whole world thinks I am dead. I must ..."-his words tailed off.

The mesmerized SS man was brought sharply out of his riveted attention and saluted smartly as two of the half-dozen most powerful and dangerous men in the n.a.z.i hierarchy entered the room: Reichsleiter Martin Bormann and SS and Police Gen. Heinrich "Gestapo" Muller, head of the Secret State Police. The guard was dismissed. Bormann and Muller brought news for Hitler alone, and it shook him to the core: Fegelein had divulged a thorough account of how Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler-the Fuhrer's "loyal Heinrich"-was negotiating with the Allies for the surrender of German forces in the West.

Hitler's fury over Himmler's betrayal left Bormann in an unchallengeable position of influence, but timing was now crucial. There had been opportunities aplenty from April 21 on, but Hitler's refusal to leave earlier had limited Bormann's carefully planned options. Nevertheless, on April 27 and 28 there were still potentially feasible land routes out of Berlin. The army commandant of the Berlin Defense Area, Gen. Helmuth Weidling, offered to use the forty tanks still at his disposal to spearhead an attempted breakout to the west, across the Havel River bridge at Pichelsdorf, to secure Hitler's escape from the capital. But Bormann's planning required that the Fuhrer be flown out, and he needed to be certain of getting Hitler and his party to some location where an aircraft capable of carrying them out of Allied-held Europe could pick them up.

BORMANN HAD RECOGNIZED the inadequacy of the communication system early on. A separate room in the bunker was in use as a telex center, manned by dedicated navy operators with seven machines, three of which were central to the Reichsleiter's plans. Bormann had already sent and signed the message "Agree proposed transfer overseas" to the key operatives along the Fuhrer's planned escape route using the n.a.z.is' still unbroken cipher, designated "Thrasher" by the British. This cipher was employed by Bormann's private communications network built around the top-secret Siemens & Halske encryption machine, the T43 Schlusselfernschreibmaschine (see Chapter 11). Adm. Hans-Erich Voss, Hitler's Kriegsmarine liaison officer, had first brought the Siemens & Halske T43 to Bormann's attention when the latter approached him late in 1944. Bormann needed to establish a totally secure communications network, one that was capable of reaching U-boats at sea and ground stations in Spain and the Canary Islands and that could relay messages across the Atlantic to Buenos Aires. A modified version of the T43 machine was the answer to his needs.

By February 1945, Bormann had taken control of all these adapted machines, and on April 15, Adm. Voss's team had installed three of them with their naval operators in the Fuhrerbunker, where they would continue transmitting until Bormann left the bunker on May 1. At least one machine was with the Abwehr operation in Spain, another at the secret outpost Villa Winter on Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands, and yet another in Buenos Aires. Eight of Adm. Karl Donitz's U-boats also carried these top-secret machines. After April 20, Donitz had six machines waiting for him at in Flensburg, where he moved his headquarters at the end of the war, thus enabling Bormann to relay the final movement and shipment orders to be carried out by remnants of the U-boat fleet based at Kristiansand in Norway. With his communications network set up, Bormann could set about organizing how to get the Fuhrer and his party out of Berlin.

FROM JANUARY TO APRIL 1945, Martin Bormann and his ally "Gestapo" Muller were the gatekeepers controlling all access to Hitler. In drawing up the final escape plans, they were a.s.sisted by Bormann's drinking companion, SS Gen. Hermann Fegelein. Since early 1943, Fegelein had been Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler's liaison officer at the Fuhrer's court and so was party to many secrets. Moreover, as the husband of Eva Braun's sister Gretl, and Eva's close personal friend, Fegelein was one of Hitler's most trusted "mountain people."

The first essential was to identify a practical location from which the Fuhrer could be flown out and to decide how to get him there. The vast Soviet noose was tightening fast, and the defense of central Berlin was becoming increasingly desperate. In the city as a whole, Gen. Weidling had approximately 45,000 soldiers and 40,000 aging men of the Volkssturm (Home Guard), supplemented by the Berlin police force and boys from the Hitler Youth. On April 22, SS Gen. Wilhelm Mohnke-an ultraloyal veteran combat officer of the Waffen-SS-had been personally appointed by Hitler as commander of a battle group to defend the government quarter around the Reichstag building and Chancellery, operating independently of Weidling. This Kampfgruppe (Battle Group) Mohnke had fewer than 2,000 men: about 800 from the SS Guard Battalion "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler"; 600 men from the Reichsfuhrer-SS Escort Battalion (Himmler's bodyguard unit); the Fuhrer Escort Company (a mixed army/air force unit); and various others swept up from replacement depots. In addition, there were supposed to be perhaps 2,000 men of the so-called Adolf Hitler Free Corps, comprising volunteers from all over Germany who had rallied to the Fuhrer's defense, and even a number of secretaries and other female government staff who would also take up arms. With such meager resources, Weidling and Mohnke faced some 1.5 million Red Army troops of Marshal Koniev's 1st Ukrainian Front and Marshal Zhukov's 1st Byelorussian Front.

Although Tempelhof and Gatow airports were already either in Soviet hands or under the Soviet guns, there were still a number of temporary landing strips available. The EastWest Axis along the Unter den Linden boulevard was still in use by light aircraft, but a last-minute troop landing there on April 25, by Junkers Ju 52 transports carrying naval troops to join the garrison, had wrecked several aircraft that had run into sh.e.l.l holes, damaging their landing gear and making further takeoffs impossible. The Ju 52 trimotor was the type most suitable for flying out the Fuhrer and his party; the standard Luftwaffe transport aircraft throughout the war, it was elderly, slow, but extremely robust, could carry up to eighteen pa.s.sengers, and needed a relatively short takeoff and landing run. Fegelein had reconnoitered the remaining viable areas for a pickup; the wide boulevard at Hohenzollerndamm was not perfect, but it was the best available. The underground railway system-the U-bahn-offered a safe route from the government quarter to Fehrbelliner Platz, and from there (so long as the area was still held by German troops) it was a short drive to the proposed landing strip.

NEARLY 5,000 JUNKERS Ju 52s were built from 1932 to 1945 and the Tante Ju would serve on deep into the postwar years. It has a 13-mm (.50-inch) MG 131 machine gun in the dorsal position (not shown).

Crucial to the plan was the most up-to-date intelligence about the situation on the ground, and during his reconnaissance sorties Fegelein had identified an officer whom he trusted to supply it. The twenty-four-year-old SS Lt. Oskar Schafer, a veteran of France and the Eastern Front as a Waffen-SS infantryman, had been wounded several times. Now commissioned as a Panzer officer, he was a.s.signed to SS Heavy Tank Battalion 503, and his Tiger II ("King Tiger") was one of a handful of these 76.9-ton monsters from that unit that were still fighting in the heart of Berlin. Late on April 27, 1945, Schafer and two comrades were summoned to the Reich Chancellery command bunker with orders to report directly to SS Gen. Mohnke for a thorough debriefing on the situation at Fehrbelliner Platz and the Hohenzollerndamm. Mohnke closely questioned Schafer-who had been slightly wounded in action-about the disposition of his troops and the likelihood of a breakthrough by the "Ivans" attacking his positions. Schafer gave as detailed a report as possible: it was his opinion that they could hold the area for no longer than two more days, and the other two officers agreed. After Schafer had had a night's rest, Mohnke awarded him the coveted Knight's Cross, writing the citation into his Soldaten Buch.

"GESTAPO" MuLLER COULD NOW PUT into effect his and Bormann's plans for spiriting the Fuhrer out of Berlin-but first, those who had been chosen to escape had to "die." Fegelein was the first to disappear into the smokescreen of confusion, lies, and cover-ups that would mask the escape of all the main partic.i.p.ants. There would be several versions of Fegelein's death. One stated that SS Lt. Col. Peter Hogl captured him in his Berlin apartment wearing civilian clothes, ready to go on the run with his mistress, variously "identified" as a Hungarian, an Irishwoman married to a Hungarian diplomat, and an Allied secret agent. Fegelein was supposedly carrying quant.i.ties of cash, both German and foreign, and also jewelry, some of which allegedly belonged to Eva Braun (though that was also hearsay). Hogl, a former policeman well known to Heinrich Muller, would be shot in the head while fleeing the bunker and died on May 2, 1945. One SS officer claimed to have shot Fegelein before he made it back to the bunker, while another supposed witness even alleged that Hitler "gunned him down" personally. Most stated that Fegelein had been shot, perhaps after interrogation by Muller, following a summary court-martial presided over by Wilhelm Mohnke-but Mohnke would later deny that the court-martial ever took place.

According to the book n.a.z.i Millionaires, by Kenneth D. Alford and Theodore P. Savas, Walter Hirschfeld-a former SS officer working for the U.S. Counterintelligence Corps in Germany-interviewed Fegelein's father Hans in late September 1945. Hans Fegelein stated to Hirschfeld that "I think I can say with certainty that the Fuhrer is alive. I have received word through a special messenger [an SS Sturmbannfuhrer] ... after his death had already been announced." The courier reportedly relayed the following message from Hermann Fegelein: "The Fuhrer and I are safe and well. Don't worry about me; you will get further word from me, even if it is not for some time." The courier "also said that on the day when the Fuhrer, Hermann, and Eva Braun left Berlin ... there was a sharp counterattack in Berlin in order to win a flying strip where they could take off." Hirschfeld was said to have been dumbfounded: "Many SS officers claim the Fuhrer is dead and his body was burned!" However, Hans Fegelein allegedly a.s.sured him that it was a smokescreen: "They are all trusted and true SS men who have been ordered to make these statements. Keep your eye on South America."

In actuality, Fegelein had flown into Berlin on April 25 on board a Ju 52 put at his disposal by Heinrich Himmler. He went to his apartment and then, while in communication with Bormann and Muller, reconnoitered the temporary landing strip at the Hohenzollerndamm. He would be waiting in the secret escape tunnel to the underground for his sister-in-law and Adolf Hitler. The Ju 52 then returned to its home base at Rechlin, the same airfield Capt. Peter Baumgart is believed to have flown into Berlin from. The same pilot flew the aircraft back into Berlin on April 28.

Hitler's personal pilot, SS Gruppenfuhrer Hans Baur, confirmed that Eva Braun's brother-in-law always flew in a Ju 52, but Baur said he had not seen the landing on the twenty-eighth or had it reported to him. He had accompanied two old flying friends, Hanna Reitsch and Ritter Von Greim, to the temporary landing strip at the Brandenburg gate that same night but denied seeing any Ju 52 on the ground.

However, Reitsch, who flew out of Berlin on the twenty-eighth with the newly appointed head of the air force, Luftwaffe Chief Ritter Von Greim, said that she took off "around midnight" and that just as her Arado AR 96 trainer became airborne they both saw a Junkers-52 transport plane "near the runway.... A lone pilot was standing by in the shadows. He was obviously waiting for somebody." It is possible that Reitsch and Von Greim, flying at roof-height to avoid Soviet fighters, could have seen the escape aircraft on the ground at the Hohenzollerndamm, less than ninety seconds away by air from the Brandenburg Gate airstrip.

Creating the myth of Fegelein's execution was the first of Muller's perfect cover-ups, and it was soon followed by his masterstroke.

(Italics are used in the following section to identify conclusions based on deductive research; see Chapter 16 for further discussion.) JUST AFTER THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT as April 28, 1945, began, while the rest of the occupants of the Fuhrerbunker were trying to get some sleep, Hitler's escape got under way. The Fuhrer, his beloved dog Blondi, Eva Braun, Bormann, Fegelein, and six trusted soldiers from the SS Guard Battalion "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler" slipped quietly away through the Vorbunker and up to his private quarters in the Old Reich Chancellery building. The light concrete panel was slid aside, revealing the secret escape tunnel. At the end of the electrically lit pa.s.sageway, down a slight incline, they entered the wider s.p.a.ce of the third-level bunker. When the party reached the chamber, they found waiting for them two people whom Muller had had brought there from up the tunnel via the underground railway: two doubles-a stand-in for Hitler (probably Gustav Weber) and one for Eva Braun.

GUSTAV WEBER HAD BEEN STANDING IN FOR HITLER since July 20, 1944, when the Fuhrer had been wounded in the bomb attempt on his life at his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg in East Prussia. Hitler had suffered recurrent aftereffects from his injuries; he tired easily, and he was plagued by infected wounds from splinters of the oak table that had protected him from the full force of the blast. (His use of penicillin, taken from Allied troops captured or killed in the D-Day landings, had probably saved his life.) Weber had impersonated Hitler on his last officially photographed appearance, when he handed out medals to members of the Hitler Youth in the Chancellery garden on March 20, 1945. Weber's uncanny resemblance to Hitler deceived even those quite close to him, and on that occasion the Reichsjugendfuhrer (Hitler Youth National Leader) Artur Axman was either taken in or warned to play along. The only thing liable to betray the imposture was that Weber's left hand suffered from occasional bouts of uncontrollable trembling. Bormann had taken Hitler's personal doctor into his confidence, and SS Lt. Col. Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger had treated Weber with some success. Weber was often kept sedated, but his trembling became more noticeable when he was under extreme stress.

Eva Braun's double was simply perfect. Her name is unknown, but she had been trawled from the "stable" of young actresses that Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, the self-appointed "patron of the German cinema," maintained for his own pleasure. The physical similarity was amazing, and after film makeup and hairdressing experts had done their work it was very difficult to tell the two young women apart.

Eva paused in the chamber to dash off a note to tell her parents not to worry if they did not hear from her for a long time. She handed it to Bormann, who pocketed it without a word (its charred remains would later be found on the floor-it was too much of a security risk for Bormann to allow it to be delivered). Bormann then saluted the group, shook Hitler's hand, and led the counterfeit Fuhrer and his soon-to-be bogus bride back up the tunnel to the Fuhrerbunker.

In the anteroom of the third-level chamber, the fugitives donned steel helmets and baggy SS camouflage smocks. Hitler carried slung from his shoulder a cylindrical metal gas mask case; this contained the painting of Frederick the Great that had hung above his desk. Like his dog, this portrait by Anton Graff went everywhere with Hitler, and his final act in the bunker had been to remove the 16 x 11-inch canvas from its oval frame, roll it widthwise, and slide it carefully into the long-model Wehrmacht gas mask canister. It fitted perfectly.

The party entered the U-bahn system near Kaiserhof (today, Mohrenstra.s.se) station. The walls were painted with a phosphor-based green luminous paint, so the flashlights hanging from the soldiers' chests bathed the fugitives in an eerie glow. The tunnel was wet, and in places they had to slosh along ankle-deep in water as they made their way to the junction at Wittenbergplatz and on toward Fehrbelliner Platz. The stumbling four-mile journey took three hours, and they were goaded along not only by the sound of bursting sh.e.l.ls overhead, but also by echoing small-arms fire in the distance-elsewhere in the system, Soviet and German soldiers were fighting in the railway tunnels.

As the group emerged onto the station concourse at Fehrbelliner Platz they were met by Eva's other sister, Ilse, and by Fegelein's close friend SS Gen. Joachim Rumohr and his wife. In January 1945, Ilse had fled Breslau by train to Berlin to avoid the advancing Soviet forces. She had dined with Eva at the Hotel Adlon and-despite furious rows with her sister about the conduct of the war-had remained in the city until her brother-in-law Hermann Fegelein sent a detachment of "Leibstandarte" soldiers to fetch her. As for Joachim Rumohr, this was the second time in three months that he would escape from a ruined capital city just ahead of the Red Army. A former comrade of Fegelein's, Rumohr had been wounded in February 1945 during the b.l.o.o.d.y fall of Budapest. Erroneously reported to have committed suicide on February 11 to avoid capture by the Russians, he had managed to reach the wooded hills northwest of Budapest and from there escaped to Vienna. Now his friendship with Fegelein guaranteed him the chance of another escape, this time with his wife.

When the fugitives reached the main entrance to the Fehrbelliner Platz station, they found three Tiger II tanks and two SdKfz 251 half-track armored personnel carriers waiting to take them on the half-mile drive to the makeshift airstrip on the Hohenzollerndamm.

THE ESCAPEES USED the Berlin U-Bahn system to reach a makeshift airstrip on Hohenzollerndamm where they boarded a Ju 52 piloted by SS Capt. Peter Baumgart.

Chapter 15.

THE FLIGHT.