“Mein Führer,” I began, entirely a formality in such a situation but I could tell that he was pleased I had used the address, “the Americans love to make fun of your most famous statement about the Reich that will last one thousand years, as though what we have accomplished now is an immutable status quo.”
He laughed. “I love those Americans. I really do. They believe their own democratic propaganda… so obviously what we tell our people must be what we believe! American credulity is downright refreshing at times, especially after dealing with Russians.”
On the subject of Russians Hitler and I did not always agree, so there was no point in continuing that line of dialogue at this late date. Before he died I desperately wished to ask him some questions that had been haunting me. I could see that his condition was deteriorating. This would be my last opportunity.
The conversation rambled on for a bit, and we again amused ourselves over how Franklin Delano Roosevelt had plagiarized National Socialism’s Twenty-five Points when he issued his own list of economic rights. How fortunate for us that when FDR borrowed other of our policies, he fell flat on his face. War will always be the most effective method for disposing of surplus production, although infinitely more hazardous in a nuclear age. We never thought that FDR could push America into using our approach for armaments production.
Hitler summed up: “Roosevelt fell under the influence of the madman Churchill; that’s what happened!”
“Fortunately our greatest enemy in America was impeached,” I said. The last thing we’d needed was a competing empire-builder with the resources of the North American continent. I still fondly recalled the afternoon the American Congress was presented with evidence that FDR was a traitor on the Pearl Harbor question.
“I’ve never understood why President Dewey didn’t follow FDR’s lead, domestically,” Hitler went on. “They remained in the war, after all. My God, the man even released American-Japanese from those concentration camps and insisted on restitution payments! And this during the worst fighting in the Pacific!”
“That was largely the influence of Vice President Taft,” I reminded Hitler. His remarkable memory had suffered these last years.
“Crazy Americans,” he said, shaking his head. “They are the most unpredictable people on earth. They pay for their soft hearts in racial pollution.”
We moved on into small talk, gossiping about various wives, when that old perceptiveness of the Führer touched me once again. He could tell that I wasn’t speaking my mind. “Joseph, you and I were brothers in Munich,” he said. “I am on my deathbed. Surely you can’t be hesitant to ask me anything. Speak, man. I would talk in my remaining hours.”
And how he could talk. I remember one dinner party for which an invitation was extended to my two eldest daughters, Helga and Hilda. Hitler entertained us with a brilliant monologue on why he hated modern architecture anywhere but factories. He illustrated many of his points about the dehumanizing aspect of giant cities with references to the film Metropolis. Yet despite her great love for the cinema Hilda would not be brought out by his entreaties. Everyone else enjoyed the evening immensely.
On this solemn occasion I asked if he had believed his last speech of encouragement in the final days of the war when it seemed certain that we would be annihilated. Despite his words of stern optimism there was quite literally no way of his knowing that our scientists had at that moment solved the shape-charge problem. Thanks to Otto Hahn and Werner Heisenberg working together, we had developed the atomic bomb first. Different departments had been stupidly fighting over limited supplies of uranium and heavy water. Speer took care of that, and then everything began moving in our direction. After the first plutonium came from a German atomic pile it was a certain principle that we would win.
I still viewed that period as miraculous. If Speer and I had not convinced the army and air force to cease their rivalry for funds, we never would have developed the V-3 in time to deliver those lovely new bombs.
In the small hours of the morning one cannot help but wonder how things might have been different. We’d been granted one advantage when the cross-Channel invasion was delayed in 1943. But 1944 was the real turning point of the war. Hitler hesitated to use the nuclear devices, deeply fearful of the radiation hazards to our side as well as the enemy. If it had not been for the assassination attempt of July 20th, he might not have found the resolve to issue the all-important order: destroy Patton and his Third Army before they become operational, before they invade Europe like a cancer. What a glorious time that was for all of us, as well as my own career. For the Russians there were to be many bombs, and many German deaths among them. It was a small price to stop Marxism cold. Even our concentration camps in the East received a final termination order in the form of the by-now familiar mushroom clouds.
If the damned Allies had agreed to negotiate, all that misery could have been avoided. Killing was dictated by history. Hitler fulfilled Destiny. He never forgave the West for forcing him into a two-front war, when he, the chosen one, was their best protection against the Slavic hordes.
How he’d wanted the British Empire on our side. How he’d punished them for their folly. A remaining V-3 had delivered The Bomb on London, fulfilling a political prophecy of the Führer. He had regretted that; but the premier war criminal of our time, Winston Churchill, had left him no alternative. They started unrestricted bombing of civilians; well, we finished it. Besides, it made up for the failure of Operation Sea Lion.
Right doesn’t guarantee might. The last years of the war taught us that. How had Hitler found the strength to fill us all with hope when there was no reason for anything but despair? Could he really foretell the future?
“Of course not,” he answered. “I had reached the point where I said we would recover at the last second with a secret weapon of invincible might… without believing it at all! It was pure rhetoric. I had lost hope long ago. The timing on that last speech could not have been better. Fate was on our side.”
So at last I knew. Hitler had bluffed us all again. As he had begun, so did he end: the living embodiment of will.
I remembered his exaltation at the films of nuclear destruction. He hadn’t been that excited, I’m told, since he was convinced of the claim for Von Braun’s rockets—and it took a film for that, as well.
At each report of radiation dangers, he had the more feverishly buried himself in the Führerbunker, despite assurances of every expert that Berlin was safe from fallout. Never in my life have I known a man more concerned for his health, more worried about the least bit of a sore throat after a grueling harangue of a speech. And the absurd lengths he went to for his diet, limited even by vegetarian standards. Yet his precautions had brought him to this date, to see himself master of all Europe. Who was in a position to criticize him?
He had a way of making me feel like a giant. “I should have listened to you so much earlier,” he now told me, “when you called for Totalization of War on the homefront. I was too soft on Germany’s womanhood. Why didn’t I listen to you?” Once he complimented a subordinate, he was prone to continue. “It was an inspiration, the way you pushed that morale-boosting joke: ‘If you think the war is bad, wait until you see the peace, should we lose.’” He kept on, remembering to include my handling of the foreign press during Kristalnacht, and finally concluding with his favorite of all my propaganda symbols: “Your idea to use the same railway carriage from the shameful surrender of 1918, to receive France’s surrender in 1940, was the greatest pleasure of my life.” His pleasure was contagious.