His decision to call it quits came on the night of April 28 and in the early hours of the morning of April 29. Shortly before 10 P.M., in the midst of a conversation with Ritter von Greim, Hitler was interrupted by his valet, Heinz Linge. Linge handed him a Reuter’s report that Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler had made contact with the Swedish diplomat Count Bernadotte in order to negotiate a surrender in the West.
The shock that followed this report was more violent than all the emotions of the past week. Hitler had always regarded Göring as opportunistic and corrupt; thus the Reich Marshal’s betrayal came as no surprise. But Himmler had always made loyalty his watchword and prided himself on his incorruptibility. His conduct now signified the breach of a principle. For Hitler it was the gravest imaginable blow. “He raged like a madman,” Hanna Reitsch described the ensuing scene. “He turned purple, and his face was almost unrecognizable.” In contrast to the preceding outbursts, however, this time his strength gave out after a short time, and he withdrew with Goebbels and Bormann for a conversation behind closed doors.
Once more, his single decision brought all the others in its wake. As part of his revenge Hitler had Hermann Fegelein, Himmler’s liaison man, subjected to a short, sharp interrogation, then shot in the chancellery by members of his escort squad. He then sought out Greim and ordered him to attempt to get out of Berlin in order to arrest Himmler. He would not hear of any objections. “A traitor must never be my successor as Führer,” he said. “See to it that he does not!”
Hastily, he had the small conference room prepared for a civil wedding ceremony. A district magistrate named Walter Wagner, who was serving in a nearby militia unit, was fetched and asked to marry the Führer and Eva Braun. Goebbels and Bormann were the witnesses. Because of the special circumstances both parties requested a war wedding, which could be performed without delay. They attested that they were of pure Aryan descent and free of hereditary diseases. The record noted that the applications had been accepted, the banns “examined and found in order.” Then Wagner, according to the record, turned to the parties :
I come herewith to the solemn act of matrimony. In the presence of the above-mentioned witnesses… I ask you, My Leader Adolf Hitler, whether you are willing to enter into matrimony with Miss Eva Braun. If such is the case, I ask you to reply, “Yes.”
Herewith I ask you, Miss Eva Braun, whether you are willing to enter into matrimony with My Leader Adolf Hitler. If such is the case, I ask you too to reply, “Yes.”
Now, since both these engaged persons have stated their willingness to enter into matrimony, I herewith declare the marriage valid before the law.
The participants then signed the document. Hitler’s new wife was so agitated by the circumstances that she began signing her maiden name. Then she crossed out the initial letter B and wrote, “Eva Hitler, née Braun.” The entire party then went together to the private rooms, where the secretaries, Hitler’s diet cook, Frâulein Manzialy, and several of the adjutants had gathered for drinks and melancholy reminiscences of times past.
From this point on, it seems, the direction of events finally slipped from Hitler’s hands. It is likely that he would have wished to stage the concluding act more grandiosely, more disastrously, with a greater display of lofty emotion, style, and terror. Instead, what now took place seemed oddly hapless, improvised, as though in view of the many seemingly miraculous reversals in his life he had up to this very moment never really considered the possibility of an irrevocable end. At any rate, the gruesome idea of having this wedding on the verge of a double suicide, as if he feared nothing so much as “illegitimacy” on his deathbed, marked the beginning of a trivial departure. It demonstrated how spent he was, drained of even his histrionic effects, even though the Wagnerian reminiscence of joining his beloved in death might in his eyes give the procedure a saving note of tragedy. But, henceforth, whatever else might remain associated with his name, his death contributed nothing to mythology. Possibly he was now giving up more than the right to direct the life he had always regarded as a role to be played.
For all its casual character, this marriage represented a significant step. It was not only a gesture of gratitude toward the one living being aside from the dog Blondi who, as Hitler once remarked, remained faithful to him to the last. It was also a definitive act of abdication. As the Führer, he had repeatedly declared, he must not be married. The mythological conception he had of his status could not be reconciled with ordinary human ties. Now he was abandoning this stand, with the implication that he no longer believed in the survival of National Socialism. In fact he did remark to his guests that the cause was done for and would not spring to life again.71 Then he left the group and went into one of the adjacent rooms to dictate his last will.
He produced a political and a private testament. The former was dominated by violent polemics against the Jews, by asseverations of his own innocence, and appeals to the spirit of resistance: “Centuries will pass, but the ruins of our cities and monuments will repeatedly kindle hatred for the race ultimately responsible, who have brought everything down upon us: international Jewry and its accomplices!”
Twenty-five years had passed. He had experienced an unprecedented rise, undreamed-of triumphs and defeats, despairs and downfall, and he himself had remained unchanged. Down to the very phrasing, the ideological passages of the testament might have been taken from the first document of his political career, the letter to Adolf Gemlich in 1919, or from one of his speeches as a young local agitator. The phenomenon of early and total rigidity, of the rejection of all experience, which was so typical of Hitler, was confirmed for the last time in this document.
In a special section he expelled Göring and Himmler from the party and from all of their offices. He named Admiral Dönitz as his successor in the posts of President, Minister of War, and supreme commander of the armed forces. His comment that in the navy the sense of honor still survived, that any thought of surrender was alien to it, was obviously intended to be understood as an injunction to continue the struggle even beyond his death, to ultimate doom. At the same time, he appointed a new government, headed by Goebbels. The document concluded: “Above all I call upon the leaders of the nation and all followers to observe the racial laws scrupulously and to implacably oppose the universal poisoner of all races, international Jewry.”72
His personal testament was considerably shorter. Whereas the political document asserted his claims on history, the personal one expressed the custom’s official’s son who had remained behind all the disguises. It read:
During the years of struggle I did not think I could responsibly undertake to establish a marriage. But now, before the completion of this earthly course, I have decided to take as my wife the girl who after long years of faithful friendship entered this city, already almost besieged, of her own free will, in order to share my fate with me. At her request she is joining me in death as my wife. Death will compensate us for what my work in the service of my people robbed from us both.
All that I own—in so far as it had any value—belongs to the party. If this ceases to exist, to the state; and if the state also is annihilated, no further decision on my part is necessary.
My paintings in the collections I bought over the years were never collected for private purposes, but always only for the expansion of a gallery in my hometown of Linz on the Danube. It would be my heartfelt wish if this bequest could be duly carried out. I appoint as executor of my will my most faithful party comrade, Martin Bormann. He is legally entitled to make all final decisions. He may transfer any personal mementos, or whatever is needed for the maintenance of a modest middle-class standard of living, to my brother and sisters, and particularly to my wife’s mother, and to my faithful associates who are well known to him—principally my old secretaries, Frau Winter, etc., who for many years have sustained me by their work.