We were encountering conflicting accounts every step of the way, but there was one almost casual remark Kunz made that we could not ignore. He said that Goebbels’ wife, telling him about Hitler’s suicide, did not add anything definite about how he had done it but, ‘There were rumours,’ Dr Kunz told us, ‘that his body was to be cremated in the garden of the Reich Chancellery.’
‘Who exactly did you hear that from?’ Colonel Gorbushin asked. ‘I heard it from Rattenhuber, the SS Obergruppenführer responsible for security at the Führer’s headquarters. He said, “The Führer has left us alone, and now we have to drag his body upstairs.”’
On that day, 4 May, we had no more authoritative testimony than this information from the head of Hitler’s bodyguard, communicated to us by Dr Kunz.
I am snowed under with documents. There are reports from locations where there is fighting, orders issued by the command post of Mohnke’s brigade, which was defending the Reich Chancellery, radio-telegrams.
In Goebbels’ rooms we find in two suitcases, besides his diaries, several screenplays sent to him by their authors; and a huge album, an anniversary gift from Nazi Party comrades for his fortieth birthday. It contains sheets of photographs, reproducing page after page of Goebbels’ manuscript The Little ABC of the National Socialist.
It was difficult to work in the underground complex itself, where the electricity supply failed periodically, and I spent many hours analysing documents in one of the halls of the Reich Chancellery. It was the reception hall where people waited for Hitler to appear, I think, or some other. I am not sure exactly. (I had trouble working out the layout of the Reich Chancellery.) Everything seemed to have been overturned. Perhaps this was where the SS security guards had made their last stand; also, the army had passed this way, and had no reason to respect the furnishings in the grand rooms of the headquarters of Nazism.
Tables had been knocked over, glass lampshades smashed, chairs had been overturned and their seats ripped open. Everywhere were shards of glass from the windows. I still remember the special floor of this room, entirely covered by a velvety grey velour, now trampled and torn by Red Army boots. The reconnaissance squads were bringing in sackfuls of documents and dumping them on that special flooring.
In Goebbels’ rooms we also found several files in a suitcase that contained Magda Goebbels’ personal papers. What did she bring with her when she moved to the underground complex on 22 April from her house on Göringstrasse? There were inventories of the furnishings in the country house in Lanke, and in the castle in Schwanenwerder, which had been built by the time of the war with the Soviet Union. Everything was listed: fittings, cabinets with silver, dinner services and figurines. Nothing was overlooked: every ashtray, every cushion in the innumerable rooms, every last handkerchief of Dr Goebbels and its place in the linen cupboard, every toilet paper holder. And so from one room to the next, in the main building and the outbuildings: bedrooms, offices, children’s and adjutants’ bedrooms, guest rooms, halls, vestibules, stairs, corridors, terraces, servants’ rooms, and cinemas. An inventory of Goebbels’ wardrobe. Eightyseven bottles of assorted wines.
There were bills detailing the cost of furnishing the castle, about which Goebbels writes enthusiastically in his diary, and sundry department store bills going back as far as 1939 and addressed to Magda Goebbels. Inventories of the children’s clothing, individually for each one of them. All their dresses, coats, hats, shoes, ski suits and underwear are listed. Items that are new, and items handed down from the eldest daughter to the second in seniority, from the second to the third, and so on. And items that, for the present, were being held in reserve. A certificate awarded to her as a participant in the Olympic Games, signed by the Führer.
There was also a paper, sent to Magda Goebbels, stamped with the seal of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and signed by one of the Party leaders of the Berlin district. It contained the forecasts of a fortuneteller. He predicted in April 1942 there would be a parachute landing of Allied forces on the coast of France in early June 1942 and that fierce battles would follow. These would be at their fiercest in August 1944. In mid-June of that year, the prophecy continued, the Germans would use a new aerial weapon which would cause untold destruction, especially in England. This would lead to domestic political difficulties in Britain that would hamper the further advance of the Allies.
Fierce fighting against the invading troops would last from August until November 1944, but in early November the Allies would suffer their greatest defeat in the entire war. In April 1945, Germany would be ready to redirect all its strike force to the Eastern Front, and after fifteen months Russia would finally be conquered by Germany. Communism would be eradicated, the Jews driven out, and Russia would break down into smaller states.
In summer 1946, German submarines would be equipped with a new and terrifying weapon with the aid of which, in the course of August 1946, the remnants of the British and American fleets would be destroyed.
On one of the folders Magda Goebbels had written ‘Harald als Gefangener’. Harald as a prisoner. This refers to her eldest son, from her first marriage. Four years before Goebbels had written in his diary, ‘Magda is extremely happy about the award for Harald, which can be considered a done deed’ (14 June 1941). The file contains everything relating to him since the moment he was captured. The first sheet relates the circumstances of his capture. They are being described by a non-commissioned officer reporting to his commander. The report was forwarded to Dr Goebbels. His stepson was last seen during fighting in an African village. Then there is a letter written by Harald from his American captivity. He writes that he is being well treated. There are photographs. Harald in front of flower beds. Greetings on ‘German Mothers’ Day’.
This all provided atmosphere, pictures of events, but no direct clues as to what had happened to Hitler.
The Bormann folder contained an important document, a radio-telegram Bormann had sent from the Reich Chancellery shelter to his adjutant.[1]
22 April 45.
To Hummel. Obersalzberg.
Proposed relocation overseas and south agreed.
What did that mean?
Bormann was evidently preparing a hideaway for himself far beyond the borders of Germany. And here is how matters stood beyond the borders of his diary, which I also found was in the archive. If I had had Martin Bormann’s notebook-cum-diary in front of me then, I would have read the following in the last entries:
Sunday 29 April.
A second day begins with a hurricane of gunfire. During the night of 28 April the foreign press reported Himmler’s offer of surrender. Marriage of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun. The Führer dictates his political and personal will.
The traitors Jodl, Himmler and the generals have abandoned us to the Bolsheviks!
Again a hurricane of gunfire!
According to an enemy report, the Americans have burst into Munich!…
30 April 45.
Adolf Hitler 
Eva H.
Next to their names Bormann had drawn an inverted runic cross, an emblem of death.
If we had been able to read that at the time, we would have had important confirmation that Hitler had died on 30 April, but we did not have sight of the diary. It was found in the street by reconnaissance agents of our neighbouring army and we did not get to see it. Admittedly, the peculiar circumstances in which the diary was found would probably not have allowed us then, at the preliminary stage of inspecting it, to trust it uncritically: it could have been a forgery, planted for us to find. Now, however, we can say with complete confidence that this is the genuine diary of Martin Bormann, which he dropped while trying to break through the ring of Soviet troops as a member of Mohnke’s group, probably when he was fatally injured.[1]
1
Bormann’s radio-telegrams to Munich and Obersalzberg were filed in the Council of Ministers Archive folder No. 151.
1
Bormann evidently poisoned himself during the escape attempt in order to avoid capture. Tr.