He had rendered us a great service in taking us from Eicken to Blaschke’s surgery, but had contributed nothing to the actual identification, because we had thanked him and then seen no more of him.
During the time the student was with us, he could easily have worked out why we so needed to track down Hitler’s dentists and his dental history. But then, just when this unexpected, titillating adventure into which the young man had been plunged was approaching its culmination, the curtain had fallen and the actors were lost to view.
On the way to the Reich Chancellery, Käthe Heusermann told me she used to travel with Blaschke to Berchtesgaden, where her patient was Eva Braun. In Berlin the existence of Hitler’s mistress was meticulously concealed until the very last days; there were constant statements to the effect that the Führer did not smoke, did not drink, held aloof from earthly gratifications and devoted himself only to serving the people. That was the cornerstone of all the propaganda.
We parked the car and the three of us walked in silence down the as yet uncleared, deserted Wilhelmstrasse. On a round advertising pillar there was pasted the order of the Soviet commandant of Berlin, General Berzarin, printed on orange paper.
Once more the Reich Chancellery, pockmarked by shells and bullets, blackened with soot, its walls breached in places, a long, straggling building with a single balcony, its architecture an expression of the ‘single will of Germany’ which, in the person of the Führer, would appear on the balcony during Nazi celebrations. Above the entrance, in bas-relief, was the Nazi emblem: a spreadeagle clutching a swastika in its talons. Within a few days this bronze had been hacked down and transported to Moscow, to the Armed Forces Museum, where it can be seen to this day. The sentry did ground his rifle, but barred our way – he had been ordered not to let anyone pass without a special permit from the commandant of Berlin.
Gorbushin whipped out his pistol and pushed the sentry aside. The man was taken aback: he would have had every right to shoot. But we needed to get in.
We opened the heavy oak door. To the right was the assembly halclass="underline" the door had been torn off its hinges, chandeliers had fallen to the floor. To the left was the gentle descent to the bomb shelter. Hitler had worked here until 21 April, when our artillery fired a volley of shells into the centre of Berlin and he moved to the Führerbunker.
We passed through the vaulted vestibule and down two flights of stairs, with one dim torch between the three of us. It was dark, deserted and spooky. In the radio studio from which Goebbels broadcast, a Red Army soldier was sleeping with his helmet slipped down over his ear. Only Käthe could find her way around in this Tomb of the Pharaohs. She led us to a boxy little room which, until recently, had been at the disposal of her boss, Dr Blaschke.
The pocket torch faintly picked out in the darkness a dentist’s chair, a couch with an adjustable headrest, and a small desk. There was something on the floor. We picked it up and shone the torch on it. A photo. Käthe recognized the Führer’s deceased Alsatian being taken for a walk by his adjutant. It was damp and there was a musty smell.
We searched through a box with a card index, looked in the desk and a locker. With Heusermann’s help we found the X-rays of Hitler’s teeth and his dental records. We were lucky, incredibly lucky, that the hurricane which had blown through the underground complex a few days ago had left this nook untouched. We found gold crowns which, according to Käthe, had been made for Hitler although, as she admitted in her memoirs written many years later, here she was slightly overdoing it: the crowns were in fact for one of the secretaries. She was understandably anxious to stay on the right side of us. Fortunately those crowns did not figure again in the investigation.
Suddenly, from the depths of the corridor, we heard, ‘By the Vol-ga – a stone…’ It was a lonely voice. Some partying soldier was quaffing expensive wines the German generals that he had sent packing had been drinking as they sought to banish despair. The soldier must surely have been written off by his unit, while here he was consoling himself for a seventh day, sleeping, waking, drinking to the glory of Russian arms and the repose of those who never made it to the Reich Chancellery.
We left, taking with us our incredibly important finds, the most miraculous, the most wonderful of which was Käthe Heusermann herself. Through the empty underground corridors a woozy voice echoed, intoxicated by wine, victory and grief: ‘Someone wai-ting alone…’
No sooner had we got into the car than the engine conked out. Driver Sergey lifted the bonnet. We alighted, and found ourselves right at the Brandenburg Gate. I pictured Nazi detachments with flaming torches marching through the six columns of the gate to the Kaiserhof Hotel, where Hitler usually stayed when in Berlin before he came to power. On the hotel balcony the puny figure of Goebbels would try to make himself seen behind the burly backs of his comrades-in-arms. Hitler would raise an arm in salute over the crowd. The torches of future conflagrations, destruction and book burnings flickered, lit by the Nazis and destined ultimately to consume them. It seemed fitting that ‘torchers’ was the name given in the German Army to soldiers whose job it was to set fire to towns and villages as they retreated.
We had driven on a little when suddenly the roar of guns broke the stillness that had reigned for the last few days. My heart sank instantly. What was this? Surely not war again? I did not immediately realize it was a celebratory salute! Above the hideous ruins, above the smoke and dust of battle that had yet to clear, above the grim Reichstag building and the new spring grass, tracer bullets flew skywards and the smoke-laden heavens were lit up by flashes of colour. Heavy artillery boomed, machine guns rattled, submachine guns were fired. Shrapnel clattered down on the cratered roadway. The thunder grew louder and everything around was shaking as it did in time of battle.
We returned to Buch, taking Käthe Heusermann with us. There were no lights burning in the windows of Germans: the vanquished were asleep. The victors, having celebrated all day, quietened down, but none of the wine of victory passed my lips. I just went to bed.
Lovers of crime novels will, perhaps, be disappointed: there were no ambushes, no shots fired from round a corner, no safes were cracked. I will add, to the chagrin of those who prefer legend to the truth, that there were no cunningly disguised doubles.
I told the tale above of the origin of one would-be double. But that male corpse with his darned socks, who was so lovingly filmed for the newsreels, was no double, put in place as a decoy and to facilitate Hitler’s escape, as suggested by later, romanticized accounts. It was just the body of one of the many occupants of the bunker, killed by shrapnel or shot by Hitler as the end approached, and any resemblance to the Führer was mostly the product of the over-excitability of the time.
Other ‘doubles’ popped up, and here is why. Colonel General Berzarin, the commandant of Berlin, promised he would nominate for the award of Hero of the Soviet Union anyone who located Hitler’s corpse. As a result, half a dozen dead ‘Hitlers’ were dragged along to the Commandant’s Office, giving rise to the tale of doubles.
At this crucial stage in our mission, luck was on our side. As always, much was down to chance. Crucial circumstances jostled side-by-side with insignificant developments but, by the same token, the insignificant sometimes proved crucial.