1945, the thirteenth day of May, Berlin
We, the undersigned… with the participation of identification witness Mengershausen, Harry, have this day inspected the burial site of the bodies of Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler and his wife…
Inspection of the location indicated by identification witness Mengershausen established the truthfulness of his testimony… The testimony of identification witness Mengershausen was confirmed as true all the more because on 4 May 1945 we had removed from the crater he indicated the burnt bodies of a man and a woman and two poisoned dogs, which were identified by other identification witnesses as those of Hitler and his wife, Ifa [sic] Braun, his former personal secretary.
A rough survey of the location where the bodies of Hitler and his wife were discovered and photographic images of the locations indicated by identification witness Mengershausen are appended to this report.
As witness this report compiled in the city of Berlin, Reich Chancellery.
The document was signed by Lieutenant Colonel Klimenko, Senior Lieutenant Katyshev, Guards Major Gabelok, photojournalist Junior Lieutenant Kalashnikov, and Privates Oleynik, Churakov, Navash and Myalkin.
A copy of this document was mailed to me by Ivan Klimenko when he heard my book was being prepared for publication. He also wrote,
I brought this report containing Mengershausen’s testimony to the army counterintelligence department, which is where I saw you.
This concluded the work of the Smersh department of the corps. Everything else was undertaken by the army and front headquarters.
Major Bystrov interrogated Mengershausen and I translated. We were sitting on logs in the courtyard. Mengershausen told us,
On 30 April I was guarding the Reich Chancellery, patrolling the corridor where the kitchen and green dining room are situated. Additionally, I was monitoring the garden because at a distance of 80 metres from the green dining room was the Führer’s bomb shelter.
Patrolling the corridor and approaching the kitchen, I met someone I knew to be the Führer’s orderly, Bauer, who was going to the kitchen. He told me that Hitler had shot himself in his bunker. I enquired as to the whereabouts of the Führer’s wife, and Bauer told me she too was lying dead in the bunker, but he did not know whether she had poisoned or shot herself.
I talked to Bauer for only a few minutes: he was hurrying to the kitchen. In the kitchen food was being cooked for Hitler’s entourage. He returned shortly afterwards to the bunker.
I did not believe Bauer’s report of the death of Hitler and his wife and continued to patrol my area.
Not more than one hour after meeting Bauer, as I came out to a terrace situated 60–80 metres from the bunker, I suddenly saw the personal adjutant, Sturmbannführer Günsche, and Hitler’s valet, Sturmbannführer Linge, carrying the body of Hitler from the emergency exit of the bunker and placing it 2 metres from the exit. They went back and a few minutes later brought out Eva Braun, who was dead, and whom they put in the same place. Some way from the bodies there were two twenty-kilogram cans of petrol, Günsche and Linge began to pour petrol over the bodies and set fire to them.
Major Bystrov enquired whether any of the other guards had seen the bodies of Hitler and Braun being burned. Mengershausen did not know for sure. ‘Of all the security guards I was the closest to Hitler’s bunker at that time.’ He bent down and began to outline a map of the garden on the ground with a piece of wood.
Thus we found our missing link: somebody involved in or who had witnessed the actual cremation, who would have been so helpful in the first phase of our mission, when we were hunting Hitler. We went into the house with Mengershausen and wrote down everything he had told us.
From his post Mengershausen had been able to see only Günsche and Linge but, shielded by the bunker, hiding from the shellfire, Goebbels, Bormann and the others were observing the burning of the bodies. Nearby, a battle was raging; the Reich Chancellery was under intense bombardment. The wailing of shells, the crash of explosions throwing up columns of soil, the smashing and whistling of flying window glass. The buffeting wind disturbed the clothing on the bodies. The fire flared up and then died down as the petrol burned off. More petrol was poured over them and again ignited.
Then what did Mengershausen do? He escaped, acting on his own initiative and without waiting for new orders. ‘That same day, 30 April, I changed into civilian clothing and hid in a cellar.’ He was wearing a raincoat that was too short for him and obviously belonged to somebody else. His long arms protruded from the sleeves. Major Bystrov handed him a photograph of the Reich Chancellery garden. I translated, ‘Tell me what you see in this photo.’
This is a photo of the emergency exit from Hitler’s bomb shelter. I know this place well and can show you where the bodies of Hitler and his wife Braun were burned, and also the place where they were buried.
With one cross I am indicating on the photo where the bodies of Hitler and Braun were burned, with two crosses the place where they were buried, and with three crosses the emergency exit from Hitler’s bunker.
The next time I saw that photo with Mengershausen’s crosses on it was in the Council of Ministers Archive.
I was told later at front headquarters that SS officer Mengershausen, when he was taken there, told them in his written testimony that he not only watched the Führer being cremated but was also involved in it himself. What exactly that consisted of I did not hear at the time, and found nothing he had written about it among the archive documents. But then, in a manuscript written by his superior, Rattenhuber, I read,
The bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun did not burn well, and I went downstairs to arrange for more fuel to be sent. When I came back up, the bodies had already been sprinkled with a little soil. The sentry Mengershausen told me it was impossible to stand at his post because of the intolerable smell and that he, together with another SS soldier, had, on the instructions of Günsche, pushed them into a pit where Hitler’s poisoned dog lay.
Going on to describe the behaviour of those in the shelter, who set about preparing to escape the moment they became aware of the Führer’s death, Rattenhuber once more mentions Mengershausen.
I was startled by the cold calculation of SS guard Mengershausen, who made his way into Hitler’s office and removed a gold badge from the Führer’s tunic, which was draped over a chair, hoping that ‘They’ll pay a good price for this relic in America.’
Mengershausen’s testimony was the missing link we had needed in order to produce an evidence-based reconstruction of the last hours of Hitler’s life and the exact nature of his death. It was time to summarize. Reports that Hitler had been positively identified went first to front headquarters, and from there to the top.
The people involved in this investigation had a sense of great personal responsibility to obtain irrefutable evidence, recognizing only too well that a lack of clarity about Hitler’s death would be harmful. It could only facilitate his intention of disappearing without a trace, turning into a myth, and thereby fuelling the fanaticism and galvanizing the Führer’s adherents. Nazism was very centred on Hitler personally, and the peoples of the USSR, who had put everything they had into winning the victory over Nazism, had an inalienable right to know that the last full stop had been written in this history.