Hitler's Last Day: Minute By Minute Part 10

Gentlemen, Bravely you have come here to the prison gate. We have gone keeping your prisoner safely with Nipponese knights.h.i.+p. Afterwards we may meet again at the front somewhere. Then let us fight bravely each other. (We had kept the gate's keys in the gate room.) Nipponese Army.

Rangoon.

29th April, 1945.

To the whole captured persons of Rangoon Jail. According to the Nippon military order, we hereby give you liberty and admit to leave this place at your will. Regarding food and other materials kept in the compound, we give you permission to consume them as far as your necessity is concerned.

We hope that we shall have an opportunity to meet you again at battlefield of somewhere.

We shall continue our war effort eternally in order to get the emanc.i.p.ation of all Asiatic races.

Haruo Ito.

Chief Officer of Rangoon Branch Jail.

The j.a.panese were told to defend Rangoon to the last man, but decided to flee the city, as they knew British forces were only days away. It is a bold act of disobedience as today is Emperor Hirohito's birthday.

About 3.00pm/11.00pm Okinawa Time.

In the toilets opposite the switchboard, the Fuhrer's beloved Alsatian, Blondi, is trembling as her handler, Sergeant Fritz Tornow, holds her nose and forces her jaw open. One of the Reich Chancellery doctors, Werner Haase, crushes a cyanide capsule inside her mouth with a pair of pliers. Blondi falls sideways, 'as if struck by lightening'.

Tornow can't hide his distress from the Fuhrer who comes, very briefly, to inspect the body. Hitler wants to see for himself that the cyanide which the treacherous Himmler has provided does actually work. The telephonist, Rochus Misch, is overwhelmed by the poison's smell of bitter almonds and rushes out of the switchboard room to the cellar of the new Reich Chancellery to get away from it.

Tornow carries Blondi's body up to the Chancellery gardens, where he buries it. He comes back down for Wulf and the four other puppies. Following orders, he takes them to the garden and shoots them before burying them with their mother.

In one of the network of caves under Shuri Castle on the j.a.panese island of Okinawa, General Cho has been addressing his fellow commanding officers. He has outlined his plan to smash the American forces that invaded the island on 1st April. If the Americans secure Okinawa, then the invasion of j.a.pan will be next. The generals have been drinking plenty of sake all evening. A vote is taken and Cho's plan is unanimously adopted. They decide that the fightback will begin on 4th May.

Orders are issued to the j.a.panese soldiers on Okinawa that they must 'display a combined strength. Each soldier will kill at least one American devil'. The j.a.panese fail to repulse the Americans, and almost all the defenders die, but by the time the island is lost they have inflicted very heavy casualties over 7,500 GIs killed and over 36,000 wounded. The Americans will conclude that an invasion of j.a.pan would be equally b.l.o.o.d.y. The atomic option to end the war becomes more appealing for President Truman.

On 22nd June, the day Okinawa surrenders to the Americans, General Cho and General Us.h.i.+jima (who is in overall command of the j.a.panese forces on the island) kneel on a white sheet on a ledge overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Wearing their full dress uniform, including medals and swords, they unfasten their tunics; Us.h.i.+jima then takes a dagger from a waiting staff officer and stabs himself in the stomach. Cho does the same. He leaves a handwritten note: 'I depart without regret, shame, or obligations.'

At Stalag IV-C in the Sudetenland, British POWs Bert Ruffle and Frank Talbot are enjoying a German beer together with their mates Terence 'Lofty' Whitney (Royal Navy), Harry 'Shoe' Smith and Bunny Humphries (both Rifle Brigade). They are amazed that the guard let them hang onto the crate of beer that they found in Brux, having been sent to pick up building materials. The POWs have noticed a change of att.i.tude in the guards they know that the war is almost over. Some of them have been spotted with civilian clothing on under their uniforms.

Later that day Ruffle writes in his diary: 'There is not so much shouting and telling us to hurry up all the time, and if we worked or not made no difference to them. Yes, there was a wind of change!'

Lieutenant Claus Sellier is standing by the side of an Autobahn close to the Austrian border in the German Alps. He is shocked by what he sees nothing but lines of filthy stranded trucks in both directions, and slumped in the fields around are groups of weary-looking soldiers. They have no petrol and nowhere to go. Claus turns to Fritz and says, 'Let's get away from here. Let's find a farm and stay overnight and rest. None of this makes sense to me anymore.'

He recalled later, 'The once formidable German military machine was a dying corpse, struggling, but barely alive.'

3.30pm.

A convoy of three cars carrying a group of young aristocratic friends, and laden with rice, flour and tinned goods, is travelling through the Austrian Alps, heading for Moosham Castle, the family home of the Count and Countess Wilczek. The Count and Countess's daughter, Sisi Wilczek, is one of the pa.s.sengers in the front car, sitting with her handbag and a s...o...b..x on her lap. Until the beginning of April, Sisi had been living in the family palace in Vienna and working as a nurse. On 3rd April she managed to catch the last train to leave Vienna before the arrival of the Russian forces. She gathered all the family's remaining cash several million marks and several million Czech kronen and stuffed them into the s...o...b..x which she has clung to for the last three and a half weeks. She is now only hours from her destination. The young people in the convoy were on the edges of the 1944 plot to kill Hitler and have seen many of their friends executed for their involvement.

Shortly after pa.s.sing through the town of Bad Aussee, Sisi and her companions realise that there is no sign of the third car. They pull over and decide to get out and stretch their legs while they wait for it to catch up. Eventually the third car arrives and the convoy continues slowly up the mountain road. After about four miles Sisi suddenly shrieks. She has left her handbag and the s...o...b..x on the roadside where they stopped.

The front car turns back, while the others wait. They reach the spot and to Sisi's huge relief, she immediately spots the s...o...b..x on the side of the road, but there is no sign of her handbag. They decide to drive a bit further to see if they can find the person who has taken it and soon catch up with two women riding bicycles. Sisi's handbag is dangling from one of the handlebars. There's an unpleasant altercation as the women insist the handbag is theirs and threaten to call the police. But Sisi is not going to leave without it. When the car turns around and heads back to join the others, Sisi has her family fortune and her handbag safely on her lap.

Geoffrey c.o.x is driving through the streets of Mestre, a suburb of mainland Venice. There are thousands on the streets to welcome the Allied troops but it's the girls that c.o.x notices most: they are sunburned and, as he wrote later, had 'greeting and invitation in their eyes... The Italian men greeted us warmly enough, with relief and with thanks, but in the eyes of the girls there was something akin to ecstasy'.

What Geoffrey c.o.x witnessed was seen across western Europe by the liberating forces. A Dutch woman wrote about seeing a Canadian tank for the first time on the streets of the Hague: 'All the blood drained from my body, and I thought: there comes our liberation. And as the tank came nearer, I lost my breath and the soldier stood up he was like a saint.'

4.00pm/11.00am EWT/9.30pm Burmese time.

President Truman is with his wife and daughter at the Foundry Methodist Church in Was.h.i.+ngton. Their pew is draped in black and surmounted with a black cross in memory of President Roosevelt. Truman is feeling uncomfortable about all the attention he is getting in the church. He feels as if he is distracting the congregation from their wors.h.i.+p.

In Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, the poet W.H. Auden is in the throes of packing. He is about to leave America and travel on a US military pa.s.sport to Germany. He has been recruited by the US Strategic Bombing Survey to a team tasked with surveying the effects of Allied bombing on German morale. Auden is originally from Birmingham, England, but controversially moved to the United States in January 1939, timing that many of his friends and readers saw as a betrayal of Britain. He is a fluent German speaker, having lived in Berlin from 1928 to 1929. Although he is gay he is in fact married to a German woman, Erika Mann, the daughter of the German writer Thomas Mann. The couple married in 1935 to enable Erika to gain British citizens.h.i.+p and escape the n.a.z.is. The person Auden really considers himself married to is the American poet Chester Kallman, who is currently watching him attempting to pack. Kallman tells friends that the scene looked 'as though a mythical beast had gotten drunk and wandered through s.h.i.+tting books and soiled s.h.i.+rts'.

In Rangoon jail, the prisoners are celebrating by drinking tea, with sugar they've found in the j.a.panese stores. But the concern now is how to stop the Allies bombing the jail they may not realise that there are POWs in Rangoon.

In the green room in the Reich Chancellery, Joseph Goebbels and his family are at a farewell party for some of the Hitler Youth who have worked for him. About 40 people have gathered, including some staff and patients from the emergency hospital. Everyone is served pea soup and the Goebbels children are pa.s.sed from lap to lap. After the meal the Hitler Youth sing some of their songs. Goebbels asks for some of the old n.a.z.i fighting songs. He listens with tears running down his cheeks. Then his children gather around the table and start singing to the accompaniment of a young soldier playing an accordion: The Blue Dragoons, they are riding.

With drum and fife through the gate,

Fanfares accompany them,

Ringing to the hills above.

The children, who are very practised singers, go through their repertoire of German folk songs and lullabies. Staff Lieutenant Franz Kuhlmann, who had been brought along by another officer, is very struck by the ghostly, unreal atmosphere. He later recalled that it felt as if everyone in the room knew that 'this was a farewell for ever, the end of a world for which millions had fought and shed their blood, and that all the sacrifices had been in vain'.

Kids are kids all over the world except in Hitler's Germany. Sure they're lovable, but ten years ago the Jerry that got your buddy was lovable too. It's tough to do, but make the kids realise now that war doesn't pay; they may remember when they start thinking about the next war!

US Armed Forces Radio.

About 4.30pm.

In the hills above the chaos of the Bavarian Autobahn, the young German lieutenants Claus Sellier and his friend Fritz are standing outside a barn beside a picturesque farmhouse. They know there are people inside the barn as the door was shut as they approached.

'Don't be afraid,' Claus calls, 'we're pa.s.sing through and we would like to sleep in your barn.'

Silence.

'We'll help you with repairs around the house.'

The barn door opens slowly and the two soldiers see the frightened face of a young girl. She then slams the door shut. Claus gives their names and their ranks. After a while the door opens and the girl appears with three younger girls holding onto her skirt. She tells them that her name is Barbara and that she's 15, and she introduces her two sisters and a cousin. Their fathers are away fighting in the war, and her mother died four months ago.

'Come into the house. I've just finished baking bread,' Barbara says.

'And I helped make cookies!' adds the cousin.

5.00pm.

The light is beginning to fade when Johannmeier, Lorenz and Zander, the Hitler testament couriers, reach Pichelsdorf Bridge over the River Havel. A battalion of Hitler Youth volunteers are holding up the bridge in the hope that General Wenck's 12th Army will soon cross it and relieve the centre of Berlin. The three men are exhausted by a traumatic journey through the ruins of Berlin, pa.s.sing huddled women and children, and exhausted soldiers hiding in burned-out houses. They have succeeded in getting through three lines of Russian soldiers: one at the Victory Column in the Tiergarten, the second at the Berlin Zoo station and the third just before Pichelsdorf. They squeeze into the battalion commander's small concrete bunker and sleep.

5.15pm/6.15pm UK time.

Bletchley Park intercepts a message from Karl Hermann Frank, the notoriously violent head of the police in Prague and Reich Minister for Bohemia and Moravia. It is addressed to Heinrich Himmler. Frank wants to know what to do if 'something happens to the Fuhrer'. He demands to be informed immediately of any developments. Prague is one of the last major European cities still under n.a.z.i control. Frank is trying to retain power, but at the same time anxious to evacuate key German personnel before the Russians arrive. He shares Himmler's hope that it may be possible to negotiate a peace with the Allies and join forces to defeat the Russians.

About 5.30pm.

At the labour camp in the abandoned theatre in the German town of Triptis, Nina Markovna's 17th birthday celebrations continue. She is sitting on her bunk trying out chewing gum for the first time. Nina has seen the Americans chewing constantly and so wants to try it herself. All her American admirers are here. Bob, who'd brought a leather suitcase full of sweets, cognac and food, is sitting next to Mike on the next bunk.

'What's next?' Jack asks.

Nina spits out the chewing gum and points to a can with a picture of a pineapple on its label. Bob opens the can.

'It's not the whole fruit. It's just the juice squeezed out of it. Try it!'

Nina has her first fruit juice.

She then moves on to peanut b.u.t.ter. With a spoon she devours a whole jar. The three Americans and her brother Slava are watching wide-eyed and with some concern. Bob gives the remaining two jars to Slava.

'Take it. Hide it from her!'

About 6.00pm/7.00pm UK time.

The officers who have escaped from the Fuhrerbunker, Boldt, Weiss and von Loringhoven, reach the underground shelter at Berlin Zoo Station, having made their way past two lines of Russian soldiers, dodging gunfire and leaping over sh.e.l.l craters and decaying bodies. When they get to the Zeiss-Planetarium they decide to go inside to rest. It has taken the three men four hours to scramble along a distance that would normally be a 30-minute walk. They lie down, exhausted and gaze up at the artificial sky of the domed planetarium roof. Beyond it, visible through a sh.e.l.l hole, they can see the real, darkening sky.

In Bletchley Park a message to Hitler is intercepted. It is another telegram from Karl Hermann Frank in Prague. Heinrich Himmler is copied in. The message reads: 'My Fuhrer, 'In view of the latest Reich situation, I request immediate reply giving freedom of action in domestic and foreign policy for Bohemia and Moravia in order still to exploit all possible opportunities for the rescue of Germans here from Bolshevism.'

6.15pm.

In Berlin, Yelena Rzhevskaya of the Russian SMERSH intelligence unit is interviewing a German nurse. The woman has been caught trying to break through the Russian lines to get home to her mother. She has discarded her uniform cap but is otherwise still dressed as a nurse. She admits she has been working in an emergency hospital in the Reich Chancellery cellars. She tells Rzhevskaya that people there said that Hitler was 'in the bas.e.m.e.nt'.

Yelena Rzhevskaya and her colleagues waste no time. They follow the route of the Soviet tanks towards the Reich Chancellery, pa.s.sing through broken barricades and driving over rubble-filled ditches in an American jeep. As they approach the centre of the city the air thickens with acrid fumes, smoke and dust. Rzhevskaya feels the grit on her teeth.

6.30pm.

In northern Italy under the shadow of the Alps, the 2nd New Zealand Division has ground to a halt on the banks of the River Piave. As the troops get comfortable for the night, engineers are building a bridge so that the advance to Trieste can continue. (They are calculating the width of the river based on the information supplied by Geoffrey c.o.x's aerial intelligence team who have always proved themselves to be accurate.) A short while ago, c.o.x saw a milestone saying that Trieste is only 125 kilometres away. Their orders are to get to the city before Marshal t.i.to's Yugoslav forces. t.i.to, who has fought with the Allies, is desperate to seize the port and make it part of a new Yugoslavia.