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one. Scrapids,

1:49

scruffy and often completely exhausted German

1:51

soldiers and officers are laying their

1:53

guns down everywhere in the streets

1:55

and squares and giving themselves up

1:57

in droves as prisoners to our

2:00

troops. The Germans are flying

2:02

white flags on many houses. Right

2:04

at this minute I see two Hitler

2:07

officers walking with lowered banners and no

2:09

guns from a tear -gutten park towards

2:11

the Brandenburg Gate, near which

2:13

their lice A pile of guns

2:16

and crowds of German soldiers and

2:18

officers are standing. That

2:20

was Peter Zavelyov, who's a Red Army soldier,

2:22

writing home to his parents on the 30th

2:24

of April, 1945.

2:29

Welcome to We Have Ways to Make You

2:31

Talk with me, I'm Murray and James Holland

2:33

and our sixth episode of Victory45, Victory in

2:36

Europe, the end of the war in Europe,

2:38

Jim. Yes, yes, it is. And this chapter

2:40

is called The Death of Hitler. Subtitle,

2:42

a single bullet to the head. Yes, we

2:45

just want to make it clear right the

2:47

start of this episode that Hitler killed himself

2:49

in the Führerbunker. Indisputably. Indisputably is

2:51

brains on the sofa, which would have meant

2:53

moving to Argentina, something of a challenge. It

2:56

would have done. It would have done. I

2:58

may have been in a TV series once upon a

3:00

time called Hunting Hitler. Yes. But I was young and

3:03

I needed the money. And

3:07

they offered very generous clothing

3:10

allowance. Fair

3:14

enough. And that's all I'm going to say

3:16

about that. They sound like entirely reasonable. Well,

3:18

the other thing was the other condition was I

3:21

said, I'll only do it if I never have

3:23

to say on screen that I think Hitler didn't

3:25

kill himself in the bunker. And they went, OK,

3:27

we'll work around it. We'll work around. Anyway, so

3:29

what we're going to do with this episode, we're

3:31

going to follow the mayhem in the Fuhrer bunker,

3:33

you know, while the battle for Berlin is raging

3:35

in the kind of last 10 days of Hitler's

3:37

life. Yeah. But we're going to start, I

3:40

think. Going forward, so we'll

3:42

go forward to 10pm on Monday the 30th

3:44

of April. Yeah. And that is the moment

3:46

when a lone Red Army soldier unfurls the

3:49

Soviet hammer and sickle on the northwest corner

3:51

of the Reichstag. Famous picture that was recreated

3:53

a couple of days later. Yes. recreated a

3:55

couple of days later they have to airbrush

3:58

the watches yes because he's got like seven

4:00

watches up his arm well you know why

4:02

not if you're from you know bumble fart

4:04

Soviet Union and you come to I mean

4:06

this is one of the things that the

4:08

Soviet soldiers all say as they get into

4:10

Germany proper why have these people invaded us

4:13

they're rich What was it

4:15

Germany could possibly have wanted from us?

4:17

Very, very good question. You

4:19

know, we're peasant poor in the Soviet Union and

4:21

they've got fridges and they've got... Yeah, I mean,

4:23

what they didn't realise was that rural Germany was

4:25

also peasant poor and didn't have enough tractors and

4:27

wasn't producing enough food and had too many pigs.

4:29

Yeah. That's their problem. But, you know, sort it

4:31

out. You don't

4:33

need to have paid Soviet Union to

4:36

get that one solved. No, you don't.

4:38

Just built some more tractors. and start

4:40

going vegetarian like the furor problem solved

4:42

well do some boring agrarian reform which

4:44

is not as much fun as invading

4:46

actually that's an essay isn't it how

4:48

the second walk could have been avoided

4:50

get some tractors and enforce

4:52

some agrarian reforms don't build tanks build tractors

4:54

i mean it there we are the city

4:57

has been sort of shattered as the two

4:59

soviet armies are burrowed into it haven't they

5:01

basically yes i mean we left the action

5:03

in the last one and kind of you

5:05

know with konyev sort of approaching zossen the

5:07

russian artillery of zhukov starting to kind of

5:09

rain down on the city It's

5:12

also been completely pulverized, of course, by RF

5:14

bombers. But the street battle is about

5:16

to start. But on the 30th of April, it's

5:19

kind of almost over. It's all over,

5:21

bother shouting. Then the Reichstag is, as

5:23

the crow flies, a matter of a

5:26

few hundred yards from the Reich's chancellery.

5:28

It's easy walking distance. I

5:30

mean, basically now, if you go from there, you've

5:32

got the Jewish Memorial, then

5:34

you've got Unterden -Linden, then you've got the

5:36

gate, and then you've got the Reichstag. Yeah,

5:38

it's no distance at all. It's a hop

5:40

and a skip. The Brandenburg Gate, rather. So

5:43

fighting continues after the flag has been raised because

5:45

it's one of those ones where there's sort of,

5:47

you know, Red Army on one level, Germans on

5:49

another level, people in the cellars, you know, etc.

5:52

And it's not until 1am on Tuesday, the

5:55

1st of May that Red Army finally gets

5:57

rid of the last pocket of SS troops

5:59

that have been fighting fanatically around the Reich's

6:01

chancery a little way away and also in

6:03

the area around the Reichstag. And then there's

6:06

a kind of sort of eerie silence. Followed

6:08

by single rifle shot in the

6:11

air and then silence again so

6:13

there's a kind of weird ceasefire

6:15

of sorts. And

6:18

the single shot and the ceasefire

6:20

of sorts is to allow general

6:22

hands crept so is the latest

6:24

chief of the army general staff

6:26

to the ok age to drive

6:28

carefully south through the shattered streets.

6:31

towards a command post of General Vasily

6:33

Chukov. Remember him when he was in

6:35

Stalingrad? Yeah. He arriving in his Jeep?

6:37

Yeah. And then of course, you know,

6:39

he's been the guy who's in charge

6:41

of the main launch attack against the

6:43

Zelo Heights with all the carnage that

6:45

follows. Yeah. Yeah. The Eighth Guards Army

6:47

now holds much of the southern half

6:49

of Berlin, which tells you all you

6:51

need to know about the Konev -Zukov

6:54

fight because the southern half is the

6:56

direction from which Konev was going to

6:58

arrive. Yeah. And obviously, if Hates guards

7:00

armies there, he can't. And Krebs is

7:02

looking for an end, isn't he? He

7:04

wants to call it off now. Yes.

7:06

I mean... You know, two years too

7:08

late, there we are. And Tchaikov's up

7:10

in his command post, which is a

7:12

house in the Schulenbergerung on the western

7:14

side of the Tempelhof airfield. You know,

7:16

they're properly in urban Berlin with their

7:18

headquarters, the Soviets. So it's over if

7:20

you're the Germans. And Krebs

7:22

is, I mean, he's a career soldier, isn't

7:24

he? And as the Germans do so often

7:27

in this very, very last phase of the

7:29

war, they make sure they're immaculately turned out

7:31

for the embarrassing bit, don't they? Yes. He's

7:34

in his leather great coat. He

7:36

has a monocle. Of course. Yeah.

7:40

I mean, if you wear a monocle,

7:42

does that mean you favor one eye

7:44

over the other? How do you pick?

7:46

I don't know. It's just this affectation,

7:48

isn't it? And it just looks ridiculous,

7:50

but they kind of think it gives

7:52

them a certain urbanity. Yeah. An authority.

7:54

An authority. And of course, you know,

7:57

he's been leading an army that's made

7:59

up of kids and old people in

8:01

whatever they're wearing, you know, armbands at

8:03

best for a way of uniform. We

8:06

talked about this yesterday with the sort of obscenity of it

8:08

all, pressing children and old men.

8:10

And then he gets to Tricov's command post at

8:12

the early hours of the morning. Yeah, I just

8:14

love this, you know, Tricov with his silver teeth.

8:16

That's right, exactly. Looking like the peasant he is.

8:19

Couldn't be any more of a contrast, could he?

8:21

And he keeps him waiting till 4am, which of

8:23

course he's going to. Yeah, there's a lot of

8:25

that. And Krebs has been practicing his Russian, but

8:27

he's brought a Latvian SS translator, because that's what

8:30

I mean, what's interesting that it's a Latvian SS

8:32

guy. Good luck to him in the future. Well,

8:34

exactly. I mean, absolutely. I

8:37

mean, a lot of the SS at this stage, in

8:39

the Reich Chancellery, for instance, you know, in this part

8:41

of town, they're Norwegian, aren't they? And French, and there's

8:43

all the sort of European SS in the mix here,

8:45

aren't there? Yeah. Because basically, even the Germans have buggered

8:48

off, thrown in the towel. Yeah. And Krebs

8:50

has been practicing his Russian. And he

8:52

says, you are the first person to

8:54

know that Hitler is dead. Yeah. Outside

8:56

the Furibunker. Yeah. Incredible. And Chikov out

8:58

batting and I just goes, yeah, we

9:00

already need that. Which

9:02

he doesn't. Of course not. Yeah. I mean, it's

9:04

brilliant. I mean, obviously, in the

9:06

last episode, all the stuff about Stalin lying

9:09

about going to Berlin, lying about his intentions,

9:11

lying to his officers about his intentions, lying

9:13

about what he knows the Americans are doing.

9:15

Sounds like the chapter titles in the M.

9:17

Forster novel. Very

9:23

good. Lying to George, yeah. Lying

9:25

to George. So then Krebs obviously,

9:27

because everything has to go up vertically

9:30

in the Soviet Union, he has no

9:32

autonomy. So he calls Zhukov,

9:34

Zhukov immediately sends for his deputy, who's

9:36

Vasily Sokolovsky, to go to Zhukov's command

9:38

post because he doesn't want Zhukov Taking

9:40

any of the glory that's also calling

9:43

on that of course he has to

9:45

ring starlin starlin's asleep and they say

9:47

we can't possibly leave you know wake

9:49

him up and he goes no no

9:51

no you got to wake him up

9:53

you got to wake him up when

9:56

he does wake him up starlin goes.

9:58

Peter, we couldn't take him alive. Yeah.

10:00

Where's Hitler's corpse? Yeah. According to Krebs,

10:02

Zykov tells him his body were burned.

10:04

Yeah. Sticking with the Armando Unici. Yeah,

10:06

yeah, yeah. Tell Sokolowski no negotiations except

10:09

for unconditional capitulation. We've either Krebs or

10:11

any of others of Hitler's lot. And

10:13

don't ring me until the morning if

10:15

there's nothing urgent. It's absolutely ridiculous, isn't

10:17

it? I mean, it's absurd, isn't it?

10:19

Like, don't call me. until the morning

10:22

if there's nothing urgent. Like, it's

10:24

the end of the war, mate. I

10:26

think, you know, the city actually surrenders. It's all

10:28

about who's in charge. That's just how the Soviet

10:30

Union operates, isn't it? It's painful. It is painful.

10:33

It's excruciating. And, you know, there will be a

10:35

contrast with how the Allies deal with things, where

10:37

they just crack on and they have initiative and

10:39

all that sort of thing, which is very interesting.

10:42

Go on, Jim. So, first Chukov,

10:44

then Sokolovsky, when he finally reaches

10:46

8th Guards Army CP, tries to

10:49

pressure Krebs into surrendering the city.

10:51

Krebs is a committed Nazi and,

10:53

you know, takes his ridiculous oaf

10:55

of loyalty to a ludicrous degree,

10:57

refuses to agree anything until the

10:59

Soviets recognize the new government, which

11:01

is now under the command of

11:03

Gross Admiral Karl Dernitz, he of,

11:06

you know, the U -Bert arm

11:08

fame earlier on in the war.

11:11

And so Krebs is just arguing for a

11:13

truce ahead of a formal surrender by Donetsk.

11:15

Yeah. But the Russians go absolutely no way.

11:17

You know, they know perfectly well, they're just

11:19

playing for time. Yeah. And what they're trying

11:21

to do is get as many German troops

11:23

west as possible while they can. And Zukos

11:25

is happy, absolutely none of it. Tell him,

11:27

he told Tchaikovsky, that if Goebbels

11:29

and Boermann don't agree to own conditional

11:31

surrender, we'll blast Berlin into ruins. So

11:36

Krebs is allowed back to the Führerbunker with

11:38

a warning that ceasefire is going to be

11:40

over by 10 .15. That

11:42

same morning, 1st of May 1945. To

11:46

reiterate, this is not the point at which

11:48

Hitler is boarding a submarine for Argentina. We

11:50

just want to make that absolutely clear. He's

11:52

not being airlifted out by Hannah Reich. No,

11:54

because his body has been burned with petrol

11:56

and he would find it very, very difficult

11:58

to get in the limousine. Such spoiler alert.

12:03

I mean, then of course, because they haven't

12:05

heard from the German leadership, the Mast guns

12:07

are the first Belarussian front. And as we

12:09

recorded in the previous episode, there's quite a

12:12

lot of them. Yeah, I mean, it's not

12:14

like the Mast band of the Grenadier Guards

12:16

in the modern era, where that's like sort

12:18

of 45 people. What we're looking at here

12:20

is 16 ,000 guns. Exactly. Start shelling the

12:23

city. And there's two million civilians in Berlin

12:25

still. So it's the first of May and

12:27

the battle for Berlin is still going on.

12:29

Still going? Yeah. But. With

12:31

that beautiful drop color intro as they

12:34

say in journalistic terms let's return and

12:36

i'm always struck by the lofty plans

12:38

that had been for. Back in nineteen

12:41

thirty seven when albert spear is commissioned

12:43

to create a mania with a volkshuller

12:45

to hold a hundred. 80 ,000 people

12:48

and this kind of complete sort of

12:50

urban re -planning that's going to sort

12:52

of outdo housemen in Paris by to

12:55

the tune of kind of, you know,

12:57

25 times bigger. And, you know, it's

12:59

going to be the greatest thing ever.

13:02

And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you

13:04

know, and of course, it's all absolutely

13:06

nonsense. The only bits they make is

13:08

an underpass. which one can still go and see if

13:11

you go down a manhole just into the edge of

13:13

the tear garden. You go down

13:15

there and there is this huge massive concrete

13:17

underpass with no ends. So it's just a

13:19

huge massive concrete cavity with a sort slightly

13:21

sloping down to the bottom where there is

13:23

sort of inevitably a sort of a pool

13:25

of water that's collected over the last 80

13:27

years. And then there is a proving ground

13:30

which is a sort of great big sort

13:32

of concrete heavy thing. to see whether the

13:34

sand of Berlin can take it, which it

13:36

looked like it might do. Whether it could

13:38

take a volts hull or 160 ,000 people

13:40

is another matter. Well, in a building a

13:42

kilometer tall or whatever, I mean, it's completely

13:44

mad. It's absolutely bonkers. And of course, the

13:46

war gets in the way and it never

13:49

really happens. But there is another

13:51

moment, I think, which is probably the zenith

13:53

of Hitler's power, actually. I mean,

13:55

the zenith of his glory, I would say. Yeah,

13:57

years of Hitler, which is the 6th of July

14:00

in 1940, when he's defeated France. You

14:02

know, he's defeated a low country. He's

14:04

defeated Denmark and Norway and Europe, you

14:06

know, and obviously Czechoslovakia and Austria and,

14:08

you know, all the rest of it.

14:10

And it seems like Europe has prostrated

14:12

his feet and he returns back. And

14:14

it's like a sort of old caesarean

14:16

kind of Roman triumph with

14:18

him parading through in his six -wheeled

14:21

Mercedes and Swastikas everywhere and a quarter

14:23

of a million people out on the

14:25

streets cheering and waving and all the

14:28

rest of it. Well, and a sense

14:30

of relief in Germany. A sense of

14:32

relief, yes. And it's a beautiful sunny

14:34

day and everything's shining and the red

14:37

of the Swastikas is sort of the

14:39

blood red of the Swastikas is particularly

14:41

vivid. And it is a Berlin that's

14:44

gleaming and glinting and the modern city

14:46

of culture and arts and shininess and

14:48

excitement and relief and all those things

14:50

you've just said. And yet, you know,

14:53

at the heart of it is total

14:55

kind of malevolence and corruption and all

14:57

the rest of it. And, you know,

15:00

five years on, you know, all of

15:02

that is gone. And this is a

15:05

monochrome place of destruction and darkness and

15:07

all the rest of it. So

15:10

by the 20th of April, which is

15:12

his birthday, a

15:14

fewer birthday. Fjord Gerberts time. I

15:16

think you find this the official

15:19

title. Everyone knows that it's all

15:21

over. Yeah. Except the Fjord who's refusing to give

15:23

it up. And that day the plan is to

15:25

fly the Fjord out of the capital and to

15:27

continue the fight is what's being known as the

15:29

Alpine Redipe. So basically what he's going to do

15:31

he's going to go back to burkus garden go

15:34

back to the burkoff and continue it there because

15:36

after all they've got a rike's chancery and you

15:38

know you still can go and see it it's

15:40

still there in burkus garden the alpine redact is

15:42

a sort triangular area between bad

15:44

rike and hall which is just a

15:47

little bit to the northwest of burkus

15:49

garden burkus garden and saltsberg in austria

15:51

and as you can imagine most of

15:53

the people in the furibunka are absolutely

15:55

overwhelmed with happiness about this there's about

15:58

50 people down there and they've basically

16:00

been permanently housed in concrete ghastly mausoleum.

16:03

since Hitler moves back there in March. Yeah,

16:05

and no one knows it's there and beyond

16:07

the people in there. It's an unknown place,

16:09

isn't it? It is a complete secret. Germans

16:12

don't know where Hitler is. He's disappeared

16:14

from making public announcements, hasn't he, since

16:16

January? And he's essentially invisible

16:19

now. I mean, this is one

16:21

of the things, isn't it? Goebbels spends most of

16:23

the previous year urging Hitler to address the public

16:25

more often and engage with them more often and

16:27

Hitler won't, will he? So he

16:29

knows he can't look him in the eye. thing.

16:32

Yeah. And I don't think he can summon up

16:35

the inspiration himself to kind of, you know, his

16:37

traditional rhetoric is to kind of start somber. Yes.

16:39

With a bad point and end with a kind

16:41

of point of hope. That's his shtick when he

16:44

comes to, you know, oratory. But

16:46

how do you follow that, those rules and

16:48

the current climbs, you know? If he's been

16:50

saying, oh, he's been about wonder weapons to

16:52

try and offer hope. And the Soviets are

16:54

in Berlin now. Forget about it. This bunker

16:56

is part of the rice chancellery complex, isn't

16:58

it? Yes. This enormous kind of huge building

17:00

built by Spear. Yeah. is in the garden

17:03

behind. So the Reich Treasury fronts out onto

17:05

Wostrasse as it is now. And

17:07

it's this big lane that basically dominates the whole

17:09

week. And it's just a Wilhelm Strasse, which is

17:11

where the main ministries are. And then behind it

17:13

is in the gardens with these walled gardens behind

17:16

the right side of it with lots of wire

17:18

at all rest of it is the bunker and

17:20

it's built in two parts of the four bunker

17:22

which is being constructed in nineteen thirty six and

17:24

covers about three hundred square meters. And

17:27

it's got fourteen rooms of ten square meters

17:29

each but then the second part which is

17:31

a little bit lower to go down steps

17:34

into second part. This is strictly speaking the

17:36

Führer bunker. Yeah. And this is built on

17:38

Hitler's orders back in 1943 after the RAF

17:41

bomber command sort of make several raids on

17:43

the capital, you know, in the autumn of

17:45

1943. And this is, yes,

17:47

it's 2 .5 meters deeper and 8 .5

17:49

meters below ground. And it's connected by a

17:52

single staircase. Well, what's interesting about it, isn't

17:54

it? It's that Hitler in public like show,

17:56

doesn't he? So he wants, you know, we're

17:58

talking about the plans for Gamania. They're all

18:00

about great big buildings and great big rooms

18:02

and corridors and sort of like Putin's long

18:05

tables and all that sort of stuff. All

18:07

that stuff, yeah. Privately and the

18:09

Führerbunker really is kind of a private space film.

18:11

It's actually quite Puritan. It's sparse. Yes, there is

18:13

definitely a touch of the Puritan about him. Yeah,

18:15

he hasn't got gold tips in the bathroom and

18:17

all that sort thing. No, it is not Trump.

18:19

No. It's not that kind of sort of you

18:22

know, or Gaddafi. It's not that approach to grandeur.

18:24

He's really Spartan. I think he's feeling beleaguered and

18:26

besieged, and I think there's a touch of the

18:28

kind of the First World War trench bunker about

18:30

it. And I think that's going on in his

18:32

head a little bit. But I think there's also

18:34

in it him going, there's no one know how

18:37

hard this is for me as part of his

18:39

psychology, isn't it? I bear the burden. So look,

18:41

I need to live underground somewhere that's bare walls

18:43

and no frills. You know,

18:45

I'm suffering too, is I think what he's trying

18:47

to sort of tell himself, isn't he? I think

18:49

so. and he is suffering because he's not very

18:51

well and you know it is all going wrong

18:54

but compared to his people as it were you

18:56

know that he's bearing the burden too because he's

18:58

having to hide underground yes he's not con yet

19:00

finish loss at cop bus put it that way

19:02

exactly and there's always self pity in hitler's psychology

19:04

makeup and i think this is a way of

19:06

sort of underlining it for himself yeah so there's

19:09

no parquet flooring there's no wood panels there's no

19:11

grim it's concrete it's gray you

19:13

know, there's ventilators, pumping air in and out, and

19:15

you know, you and I have been to enough

19:17

bunkers, you know, not least those ones in Guernsey,

19:19

where you can see those old ventilators, you know,

19:21

the form, we know what they look like. There's

19:23

a room with, you know, the motors in and

19:26

the pumping air in it. Yeah, it's just horrible.

19:28

And, you know, it's a bit damp. It's

19:31

just a bit miserable, you know, a bit

19:34

fetid. You know, it's grim. Yeah. So he's

19:36

got four rooms for his personal use. And

19:38

that of his mistress. Well, it's no love

19:40

nest, is it? Because he's in there with...

19:43

Oh, my Führer, you're so romantic. You're

19:46

bringing me to the nicest places. I have

19:48

to look after some babies. Yeah,

19:50

exactly. Poor old Eva Brown. Although, I don't

19:52

know. I mean, I... Really? You know, I'm just not getting

19:54

as much sympathy for me. Well, you see, this is the

19:56

thing. I'm sure when she got in... In a way, she's

19:58

a bit like... German, isn't she? I'm sure when she got

20:00

into it, it was lots of fun. I think she remains

20:02

devoted to the end. She does, yeah. It's like someone who's

20:04

a... You know, she's like a moony. You know, she's like

20:06

someone in a cult. You know, she's

20:08

just absolutely, you know, all she

20:10

needed to be was to be denarcified. She could

20:12

have a really good life. Anyway, so

20:14

there's room for Martin Bormann, his secretary, for

20:17

Dr. Theodor Morel, his doctor, Otto

20:20

Gunther, his ADC, and

20:23

Sturmbannfulder Heinz Linger, his valet.

20:26

Everybody else, the secretaries, bodyguards, officers, generals,

20:29

they're in the four bunkers. They're next

20:31

door, yeah. Yes. But even though they're

20:33

in this sort of subterranean concrete crypt,

20:36

they can hear the guns getting closer. And

20:39

on the afternoon the 19th of April, Krebs

20:41

informs Hitler that the Russian tanks have broken

20:43

through to the north of Berlin. Yeah. And

20:45

this prompts one of his eruptions of rage.

20:47

You know, we've all seen downfall and he,

20:49

you know, Bruno Gantz doing his bit. shakey

20:52

hand taking the spectacles off and all the

20:54

rest of it although that scene is still

20:57

to come and he explodes at the competence

20:59

of his generals and so on and clearly

21:01

he says there's only one thing for it

21:03

he would have to take to correct command

21:06

himself and you can just imagine everyone in

21:08

the bunker just going. awful

21:14

i mean the thing about that is also

21:16

the idea that he isn't in direct command

21:18

actually anyway they aren't running everything past him

21:20

anyway and the thing is this i mean

21:23

his birthday it's a special day isn't it

21:25

in the nazi calendar it's a day for

21:27

street parties and well yes but the key

21:29

thing is not only does he say that

21:32

he's all right then i'll have to take

21:34

command myself he also says and by the

21:36

way no fault of flying to bergus garden

21:38

yeah and everyone's just what yeah you know

21:41

i thought we were going Yeah. No, no,

21:43

no. We've got to stay here. So rather

21:45

than celebrating in the beauty in the early,

21:48

you know, the spring of the Bavarian Alps.

21:50

Yeah. Instead, they're staying in

21:52

the kind of fetid tomb of

21:54

the Führerbunker. Which leads Martin Bormand

21:56

to write in his diary on

21:58

the 20th of April 1945. Sadly,

22:00

not exactly a birthday mood. which

22:04

I have to say, you know, I've never been a fan

22:06

of Martin Boorman, but he went up just a sort of

22:08

micro notch. Exactly.

22:11

A grim and sad affair, says

22:14

Hitler's personal pilot, Hans Bauer. You

22:17

know, despite this, because he's a Führer,

22:19

you know, senior Nazis are creeping through.

22:24

Funereal atmosphere rather, to sort of

22:26

say, happy birthday, Führer. So

22:28

Himmler, Göring, Keitel, Dernitz,

22:31

Ribbentrop, they all make appearances, don't they? They

22:33

all pop up, say happy birthday. He probably

22:35

says, thanks very much, you know, rather we

22:38

weren't in the... I mean, it's just the

22:40

strangest thing to be bothered about someone's birthday

22:42

in this situation. Yeah, it's absolutely extraordinary. And,

22:44

you know, he's 56, but he looks 10

22:46

years older. He's shuffling like an old man.

22:48

His back's bent, his left arm afflicted with

22:50

the shakes he can't control. Vivid

22:53

pale eyes, you know, once burned so bright,

22:55

etc. and now sunken deep inside. his forehead

22:58

and, you know, his head and all the

23:00

rest of it. You know, the fear is

23:02

absolutely knackered and he's, as has been much

23:05

written about, Theodore Morrell, his doctor is giving

23:07

him a kind of daily concoction of all

23:09

sorts of unspeakable drugs. So, yeah,

23:13

exactly. And none of them who come in

23:15

stay. No, no, that's interesting. Oh, is that

23:17

the time? I really must be getting my

23:19

phones back. Yeah, happy birthday, see ya. Yeah,

23:21

bye. It's

23:26

quite interesting, isn't it? The Soviets don't control the

23:28

airspace that much because people are flying in and

23:30

out as much as anything else, aren't they, driving

23:32

in and out? Yeah, they're going out from Gatau,

23:34

which is the airfield to the west, and you

23:36

know, you take off to the west and you're

23:38

kind of pretty much safe. Well, not safe, but

23:40

I mean, you know, it's comparatively risk -free at

23:42

this stage. So despite this, Martin Bournemouth is still

23:45

taking upon himself so much of the Fuhrer headquarters

23:47

to Reich's Chancellor in Berkers Gardens. So a number

23:49

of them have gone. Staff paperwork

23:51

and all the rest is being flown out and

23:53

he's still hoping to persuade. Hitler to leave, but

23:55

he's not to be swayed. I mean, it's amazing

23:57

the idea that paperwork, we

24:00

must send the paperwork over. Yeah, on

24:02

a plane. On a plane. You

24:05

know, why? I

24:07

mean, the thing is, though, I mean, for all this,

24:09

there's two a half million civilians stuck in Berlin. They

24:12

aren't being flown out with their paperwork to

24:14

some redoubt. There's only one way to save

24:16

them. Exactly. All this sort of hitlery and

24:18

stuff about will and wonder weapons and hanging

24:21

on and something will turn up and Frederick

24:23

the Great was saved by a turn of

24:25

fate and all that, you know, it's just

24:27

bollocks, isn't it? And if you're German civilian

24:30

in Berlin, the one thing

24:32

these people who are responsible for this situation ought

24:34

to do is simply throw in the towel and

24:36

they won't. It's bononous, isn't it? He counter argues

24:38

to Burma and he says, you know, counterattack might

24:41

prevail. And then he goes, no, you know, counterattack

24:43

will prevail. Yeah. And this will then buy them

24:45

time and, you know, and then something with the

24:47

West and something else might happen and wonder weapons.

24:50

And, you know, but the truth is, you know,

24:52

for Hitler, it's always been all or nothing. It's

24:54

always been 1000 year Reich or Armageddon. There's never

24:56

been any gray areas. completely black and white. It

24:59

always, always has been. Yeah. So,

25:01

you know, overnight and into the

25:03

morning of the 21st of April,

25:05

his birthday being the 25th of

25:07

April, chaos reigns, of course, as

25:09

it becomes increasingly clear that the

25:11

Red Army is out the gate.

25:13

So Joseph Goebbels, the right propaganda

25:15

minister and also the right commissioner

25:17

for Berlin, then announces that no

25:19

man capable of bearing arms was

25:21

permitted to leave the city. RF

25:23

bomber command is over that night,

25:25

the 20th of 21st. 76 mosquitoes

25:27

bringing yet more destruction. Red

25:30

Army troops of Konev's 4th Ukraine in

25:32

front, as we said yesterday in the

25:34

previous episode, have crossed the River Spree.

25:36

Yeah. They're closing in on Zossan. Nightfarmies

25:39

effectively surrounded. 9

25:41

.30 a .m. on the 21st of April.

25:43

That is when the massive Red Army artillery

25:45

barrage. Begins this assault on the city. Yeah,

25:47

this wakes up Hitler who doesn't like an

25:49

early start. You know, you know, it's getting

25:51

up late in the morning, going on into

25:53

the night. And of course, you know, down

25:55

in a bunker, sort of 24 hours, you

25:57

know, it's sort of lost its sort of

26:00

normal sense day and night. It's just one

26:02

long continuous day of which at some point

26:04

you're going to do some sleeping. So this

26:06

wakes him up unshaven and bleary -eyed. What

26:08

is going on? It's like, duh,

26:11

what do you think is going on? Okay,

26:13

one guess, mine, Fuhrer. They're

26:17

guns, they're coming towards us. Well,

26:20

you know, you're that deep underground and the

26:22

guns that far away are waking you up.

26:24

Surely, it's time to face the music. The

26:26

thing is, although the Red Army are like

26:28

completely unstoppable, this doesn't stop him plotting counterattacks

26:31

and looking at maps. Well, and also, you

26:33

know, and Krebs says to him, you know,

26:35

we need to pull back from Zossan at

26:37

this point. You know, Cony of troops were

26:39

almost upon them. Can I do that? And

26:41

he goes, no. Yeah, you

26:43

can't. Yeah. He finally relents just in

26:46

the nick of time at 1pm. And

26:48

literally, the Russians over at Cognitive's forces

26:50

overruns awesome that afternoon, the 21st of

26:52

April. Yeah. I mean, it must

26:54

have been, I mean, it's a pretty short straw,

26:56

isn't it, becoming the new chief of staff at

26:58

this point. I mean, what's Krebs thinking? I know

27:00

he's in the lion arts, but he's thinking the

27:02

pension's great if I just hang on in there

27:04

long enough. I mean, what's the incentive at this

27:06

point? It's very strange. Well, you

27:09

know, and you know, everyone's sort of

27:11

suggesting pulling back. So General Wilhelm Bergdorf,

27:13

who's Hitler's chief adjutant in the fear

27:15

of a suggest with drawing Night Farmy

27:18

to Berlin to help directly defend the

27:20

city and reinforcing it with General Helmut

27:22

Weidling's 56 Panzer Corps. Hitler's

27:24

having none of it. He goes, no, Night

27:26

Farmy is going to restore the

27:28

front on the odor at all

27:30

costs. He looks at his map

27:32

and he realizes that Heinrich, he

27:34

had three SS Germanish Corps in

27:36

reserve. So this force he decides

27:38

could be flung into the defensive

27:41

burden against the northern flank of

27:43

Zoukog's first Belarusian. But unbeknown

27:45

to Hitler, most of the

27:47

Germanish has already been sent to reinforce

27:49

9th Army three days earlier. So

27:52

monks and units hurried to the odor

27:54

was the 11 SS Nordland made up

27:56

mostly of Swedes, Finns, Danes and Norwegians

27:58

from Scandinavia. And the Nordland

28:01

has already suffered 15 ,000 casualties

28:03

in 1945. which obviously is about

28:05

100 % of its strength. So

28:07

it's further reduced getting to the front when

28:10

it gets hammered by Russian Sturmovic ground attack

28:12

aircraft. So basically, it

28:15

is the third SS Gamanish

28:17

corps into a name only.

28:20

But Hitler now rings SS General

28:22

Steiner in person, who's a commander

28:24

of the third SS Gamanish corps.

28:27

And Hitler tells him to counterattack without

28:30

delay. Yeah. You will see. He's told

28:32

Steiner, the Russians will suffer the greatest

28:34

defeat in history before the gates of

28:36

Berlin. And, you know, he's

28:38

expressly forbidden to allow any of his

28:40

troops to fall back west. Yeah. So

28:43

Steiner is so dumbfounded by this, he

28:45

can barely reply. You know,

28:47

because he's only got half strength battalions of

28:49

several hundred men each. Then he's caught. I

28:51

mean literally he's got less than a thousand

28:53

men. Yeah. And Hitler's now telling him to,

28:55

you know, relabeling it in army group and

28:58

telling him to plunge him into the first

29:00

Belarusian front. So minutes later,

29:02

Steiner, when he sort of gathered his

29:04

composure, calls back and speaks to Krebs,

29:06

explaining that what Hitler's demanding is completely

29:08

impossible. And Krebs just repeats the

29:10

orders. Doesn't happen, though. Yeah. Well,

29:12

because of course he can't. Yeah.

29:14

I mean, as these attacks going on, Borman's

29:16

trying to get Hitler to leave, isn't he?

29:19

Yeah. He's saying, you and your senior officers,

29:21

you need to evacuate Berlin immediately. And

29:24

then Hitler, it's quite interesting because he does start to

29:26

sort of buckle, doesn't he? And he says, I'm

29:28

not going anywhere, but anyone who wants to leave

29:30

now is free to do so. You know, leave

29:33

me to it. But the problem

29:35

is, that's easier said than done, isn't it?

29:37

Yeah. There's only four Focke -Wolf condors available

29:39

for the evacuation to Berchtesgaden. And of course,

29:41

how safe is that as an option? How

29:43

many flights will they be able to make

29:45

before Berlin closes down? Yeah. And although there

29:47

are people also not allowed to leave, so

29:49

Bormann and Krebs and Goebbels and all that,

29:51

they're going to stay with the Fuhrer. And

29:54

this thing goes on, the shelling continues,

29:56

and the 22nd, he's woken again early

29:59

at 10 o 'clock in the morning, hold a

30:01

situation conference at four in the afternoon. He asks

30:03

for Steiner's update. Steiner,

30:05

the generals have to go, you know,

30:07

Steiner is counter attack. has not taken

30:10

place. And that is the scene from

30:12

Downfall, isn't it? Yeah, that is the

30:14

scene where the silence and he kind

30:16

of shaky hand takes off his round

30:18

glasses. Steiner, Steiner, which also often is,

30:20

you know, the PlayStation 3 or but

30:22

tariffs. Steiner never realized that so many

30:24

years later he would be so famous.

30:26

Yes. And used as a meme in

30:28

all sorts of extraordinary ways. Steiner. We've

30:31

all seen that scene. But the conclusion

30:33

of it is. You know,

30:35

Hitler saying even the SS goes behind

30:38

my back and deceives me wherever they

30:40

can. Now I shall

30:42

remain in Berlin and die

30:45

here. Yes, the die

30:47

has been cast. Yeah, exactly.

30:49

And we'll take a quick break while Hitler

30:51

polishes his pistol and prepares his cyanide. And

30:54

we'll meet back shortly. If you can't laugh, what

30:57

can you do? Well, it does feel a little

30:59

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32:40

a victory in Europe 1945, and we

32:42

left you with the tantalising possibility that Hitler was about to

32:44

kill himself, and we're not going to fail to deliver on

32:46

that, are we, Jim? We're not, but he's still got a

32:48

week to go. He's still got a week to go, so

32:50

there's a week of this nonsense. I

32:52

mean, it is extraordinary that his

32:55

personality, the power of his personality,

32:57

is able to get people this

32:59

deep into the brink, isn't it?

33:01

It is, because it is a

33:03

week of mounting despair and then

33:05

flashes of... optimism and then anger

33:07

and calm resignation and then totally

33:09

surreal conversations and even more surreal

33:11

events and of portrayals which are

33:13

completely in his head and actual

33:15

portrayals. So, you know, and I

33:18

think this is the point, you know, the

33:20

third right has always been built on the

33:22

very flimsiest of foundations from economy to ideology

33:24

and They have created a fancy world. We've

33:26

talked about this a bit, haven't we in

33:28

the past this sort of fancy world where

33:31

they're just making it all up and making

33:33

up these new rules and all the rest

33:35

of it. But the malevolence, the dodgy ideology,

33:38

the systematic annihilation of Jews,

33:40

you know, accelerating as they

33:42

go towards total defeat. You

33:45

know, these all conspire against the thousand year

33:47

right. I mean, it's just not going to

33:49

happen because the foundations, the plan, the total

33:51

nonsense just mitigates against that. And they all

33:54

reflect the man at the core of it,

33:56

don't they? I mean, the fish has rotted

33:58

completely from the head, hasn't it, in this

34:00

sense? And, you know, the sort of how

34:03

hard can it be attitude of Nazi systems?

34:05

How hard can it be to change the

34:07

world? Well, we need to

34:09

do is have the necessary will. Well,

34:11

it's extremely difficult and will is nothing

34:14

in the face of the opponents they've

34:16

taken on after all. that

34:18

you take on three Imperiums, each larger than your

34:20

own. You can end up in trouble, aren't you?

34:22

Well, the bottom line is that, you know, Third

34:24

Reich's rotten at its core because Hitler's rotten at

34:26

its core and surrounded himself with men equally corrupted

34:28

and equally full of hate, anger and jealousies. You

34:31

know, all sounding wrong, familiar. Yeah. You

34:33

know, they will loathe one another, of

34:35

course they do, because they're all jockeying

34:37

for the attention of the leader. Yeah.

34:39

You know, and jockeying for power. Yeah,

34:41

so Göring has been asked by Jodl,

34:43

who is the chief of operations at

34:45

the OKW, the OKW being the overcommanded

34:47

Wehrmacht, which is the combined general staff

34:50

of which Keitel is head of the

34:52

Wehrmacht. So Göring has been asked by

34:54

Jodl to take over the decision -making

34:56

from Berkesgaden, because Göring's headed down there.

34:58

But Göring then anxiously asked for clarification

35:00

and confirmation. And he gives

35:02

a time limit for a response. But in

35:04

the meantime, Bormund, Absolutely

35:07

loathe scurrying and always has done takes

35:09

the opportunity to both poison Hitler's mind

35:11

against the Reich's marginal and also give

35:13

the Fuhrer a glimmer of hope because

35:15

he points Bournemouth points out that General

35:17

Walter Venk's Army is fighting

35:19

the Allies at the Elba but could

35:21

be urgently brought to Berlin instead. Well,

35:23

no, he can't. That's absolutely nonsense. So

35:25

combined with the retreating 9th Army, Berlin

35:27

might yet be saved. Yeah, this is

35:29

just absolutely ridiculous because by this point

35:31

the Night Farmy is completely surrounded and

35:33

has no hope of being saved. And

35:35

we ended the previous episode with a

35:37

quote from Simonov about the destruction of

35:40

the Night Farmy. So that's not going

35:42

to happen. And Venk can't disengage himself

35:44

from the elbow. And how's he going

35:46

to move that? Because there's any petrol

35:48

vehicles left. But what Boorman doesn't know

35:50

about military matters, he knows about pushing

35:52

the Führer's buttons, doesn't he? Yes. Because

35:54

even now, what he's trying to do

35:56

is deal with his rivalry with Göring

35:58

rather than anything else. And he's using

36:00

this phantom a strategic move to curry

36:02

favor with Hitler. I mean, these people's

36:04

priorities, Jim. That's all I'm going to

36:06

say. Yeah, yeah. It's very odd, isn't

36:08

it? They beg a belief. So Göring

36:11

doesn't get his confirmation. So he has

36:13

planned and has agreed with Yodel and

36:15

announced he's taking over. Bormann then tells

36:17

Hitler this is a terrible betrayal, which

36:19

is a lie that Hitler swallows and

36:21

immediately issues orders for Göring's arrest. Crazy.

36:23

People come and go, you know, so

36:25

planes flying from Gatau to the western

36:27

city. Yeah. Keitel and Yodel

36:29

headed north to join Dernitz on

36:32

the evening of the 23rd of

36:34

April. General Helmut Weidling appears

36:36

in the bunker. So he's the commander

36:38

of the 56th Panzer Corps, part of

36:41

the desiccated and spattered night army. And

36:43

he's been out of communication since the 20th. And

36:45

so Hitler orders his arrest. Yeah. And actually, you

36:47

know, hats off to Weidling. He makes his way

36:50

to the Fuhrer bunker to protest his innocence. And

36:52

for once, you know, he's got Hitler in a

36:54

good mood. Hitler's kind of quite impressed

36:56

by this, rescinds the arrest and probably puts him in

36:58

charge. You know,

37:00

I think I, which would you rather

37:02

have be arrested or take command of

37:04

hit Berlin's defense? But anyway, I mean,

37:06

has that gone according to plan for

37:08

voidling? That's the question. No, not really.

37:10

But anyway, to fulfill this task, he's

37:12

now got less than 100 ,000 Waffen

37:14

SS and Vermont troops, you

37:16

know, old men, teenagers against two and

37:19

a half million Red Army troops flush

37:21

with fuel fire and obviously an immense

37:23

arsenal of weaponry as we've already discussed.

37:26

And then on the 24th, Spear turns up, Albert

37:28

Spear turns up. And this is a very interesting

37:30

encounter, this because we only really have Spear's word

37:33

for what happened, don't we? Which

37:35

after all, Spear, from the moment there

37:37

was, you know, clearly lost, he gets

37:39

working very, very hard on preserving, saving

37:42

his own skin and presenting a version

37:44

of himself that will be digestible. There

37:46

are other accounts of him being there.

37:48

Yeah, but the conversation they have only

37:50

comes from Spear, obviously, because Hitler didn't

37:52

dictate his version of events without his

37:54

brain from Argentina. Let's just make that

37:57

clear. And basically, Borman

37:59

says to Spear, can you please persuade

38:01

Hitler to leave? And

38:03

Spear says... And Borman and Spear hate each

38:05

other as well. No, they love each other,

38:08

because they do. I mean, all of that's

38:10

priced in. And basically, Spear says that he

38:12

says to Hitler, you should stay here and

38:14

end it in Berlin. And Hitler supposedly says,

38:16

You know, I mean, it's very hard to

38:18

know any of the one -on -one conversations

38:21

anyone has with Hitler. And Spear is a

38:23

very unreliable witness. But anyway, Hitler says, believe

38:25

me, Spear, it will be easy to end

38:27

my life. A brief moment, I might feed

38:29

from everything, at least from this miserable existence.

38:32

I don't know. I think that rings true, actually.

38:34

That does sound about right, doesn't it? And then

38:36

Spear then spends the evening drinking champagne with Eva

38:38

Brown, and they've drawn the Moet

38:40

from the Rice Chance Lee Sellers. And

38:43

she's in the sort of end of term mood, isn't

38:45

she? Basically, she says, I've

38:47

devoted my life to the Fuhrer, I'll stay.

38:49

I've returned to stay with him and I'll

38:51

end my life with him too. I

38:54

mean, let's make no mistake, Spirit at one point,

38:56

he's without a doubt Hitler's heir, isn't he? I

38:58

think you can say that firmly. It's certainly a

39:01

big favourite of his. Big favourite, definitely, yeah. You

39:03

know, Hitler says, they say goodbye,

39:05

he gets a limp handshake, you're going then

39:07

goodbye. Spear

39:09

thinks, brilliant, I'm out of here. Fab.

39:13

Bye. Thank you for that.

39:15

Yeah, you're latest. Yeah, completely.

39:18

And then, I mean, the bitter business of the

39:20

Goebbels family, they've decided,

39:23

Joseph Goebbels and his wife, Magda, and

39:25

their four children, they move in. They

39:27

move into the four bunker. And they're

39:30

determined, she's basically saying, life without Hitler,

39:32

Third Reich, I don't want my children

39:34

growing up in that world. But she's terrified of death well. Extraordinary

39:37

and the prospect of what they do about

39:39

is absolutely eating her up. I mean, she

39:42

just in a total Twitter about the whole

39:44

thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Then general overs Robert

39:46

von Grimes, who's the new commandant chief of

39:49

the Luftwaffe and the test pilot Hannah Reich,

39:51

who's, you know, a big fan of the

39:53

Fuhrer von Grimes being needlessly summoned by Hitler

39:55

from, I think he's in up in Penemundar,

39:58

isn't he? Yeah. And Hitler wants to tell

40:00

him face to face that he's in charge

40:02

of Luftwaffe, but there isn't really a Luftwaffe

40:05

anymore. So they only reached a

40:07

bunker by landing a fightless stalk on the

40:09

wrecked gun runway at Gatta, which is now

40:11

kind of basically overrun. Yeah, because it's not

40:14

sort of big sweep across the city. It's

40:16

surrounding it. They are coming from the west,

40:18

but they're surrounding it and then infiltrating. So

40:20

it's kind of like closing in on it.

40:23

Like if you think of Berlin as a

40:25

center, the German defense is getting

40:27

smaller and smaller into the sort of central

40:29

to western side of it. Anyway, Gatta has

40:31

gone. Von Grime is wounded in the

40:33

foot by a bullet fired at them as Ed head

40:35

chopped him to the city. And they

40:37

eventually reached the bunker around 6pm on the

40:40

26th of April. So later that evening Hitler

40:42

tells Wright that she should die along him

40:44

and gives her a file of silence. She's

40:46

like, she burst into tears and

40:48

pleads him to leave. I'll fly you out.

40:51

I'll fly you out. She says, you know,

40:53

which has got conspiracy theories going ever since.

40:55

But he says this is impossible. Yeah, by

40:57

staying, I thought all the troops of the

40:59

country would follow my example and come to

41:02

the aid of the city. I hope they

41:04

would make superhuman efforts to save me and

41:06

thus save my three million compatriots. I mean,

41:08

yeah, it's grand delusion bonkers. Well, and also

41:11

what's beginning to enter into that is the

41:13

idea that Germany isn't up to the task

41:15

he set it that their will isn't good

41:17

enough. I thought they'd follow my brilliant example.

41:19

I mean, what, of hiding? I

41:22

mean, it's just the other thing is that what example

41:24

is he setting here? None. No one knows he's there.

41:26

No one knows where he is. It's the purest fantasy.

41:29

And then the next betrayal, of course, is

41:31

a true one. Is someone who actually does

41:33

do something that... Well, he does want... OK,

41:35

so this is Obergruppenfuhrmann -Hurman -Fegerlein, who is

41:37

Hitler's SS liaison officer, and he is married...

41:39

Essentially, his brother -in -law. Essentially, he's probably

41:41

married Eva Brown's sister Gretel. And the truth

41:44

the matter is that Hitler said anyone who

41:46

wants to leave can leave. So he thinks,

41:48

great, I'll leave it. But he doesn't tell

41:50

anyone. He just does it on the slide.

41:52

That's the big difference. And Hitler

41:54

says that anyone can leave, apart from those who I

41:56

might change my mind about the following day. And

41:59

he's noticed on the 27th of April that

42:01

he's not there. And so Hitler goes, where's

42:03

fake line? I want him back. So Eric

42:05

Kemperker, who's hit the chauffeur. Nose Fager line

42:07

has gone to this flat in Charlottenburg and

42:09

so hurries to fetch him and when he

42:11

gets there he finds him with another woman's

42:13

I'm sort of you know urban head woman

42:16

is wearing city clothes bags packed and a

42:18

stash of money he's also pissed. So

42:20

before heading back with Kempke rings either brawn

42:22

and pleaser to intercede but she doesn't know

42:24

yeah so Fager line is brought back under

42:27

arrest and put in a guarded room until

42:29

he's sobered up. Then comes the news via

42:31

Reuters radio report the Himmler's offered to surrender

42:33

to the allies which he has again an

42:35

act of grand delusion because as though the

42:37

allies are gonna deal with him him the

42:39

head of the SS you know forget it.

42:41

So initially Hitler takes is quite calmly but

42:43

then you know is his way kind of

42:46

broods on it and works himself up into

42:48

a. kind of increased lava. Yeah. You know,

42:50

the refusal of Steiner to counterattack, the flight

42:52

of Fagalline, the news of Himmler, you know,

42:54

as far as he's concerned, it's all add

42:56

up. The SS have betrayed him. This is

42:58

treason, you know. So Himmler's

43:00

out of reach, but Fagalline isn't. He's in

43:02

a cell in the bunker and has now

43:04

sew it up. So he's given a perfunctory

43:07

court marshal by Bergdorf and taken out in

43:09

short. And that's that. Yeah. Good night, Chai.

43:11

Complete summary justice. I mean, the thing is,

43:13

is the Red Army are now in Potsdamerplatz.

43:15

Literally just across the way. You know, a

43:17

few hundred yards. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean,

43:19

the other side of Piccadilly Circus. Yeah, yeah,

43:21

yeah. Leicester Square to Piccadilly Circus, type distance.

43:23

Yeah. I mean, really no distance apart.

43:26

And after Fagerline's been bumped off, Hitler

43:28

gets his valet and stern bun for

43:30

Heinz Linger. And he says, I

43:32

want you to have two blankets ready and enough

43:34

petrol to create two bodies. We're going to do

43:36

it. We're going to kill ourselves. He

43:39

says to Linga, and I want you, what I want you

43:41

to do is once we've done it, take the bodies up

43:43

into the rice chancelly garden and burn them, set fire to

43:45

them. And burn them and make sure you burn them good.

43:47

Yeah. And Linga says, yeah, I've

43:49

all mine, Führer. Yeah. Okay. The problem is he's

43:51

got to find the fuel. That's

43:53

kind of easier said than done at this stage of

43:55

the war. You know when you're completely surrounded by the

43:58

red army even got any fuel anyway. Well and also

44:00

given that if you listen to this podcast for as

44:02

long as we've been doing it the one thing the

44:04

Germans are always short of his fuel and here it

44:06

is. This is the

44:08

moment where they really do need it and

44:10

they haven't got it as ever. Yeah well

44:12

you know they have to go and pull

44:14

for the garages under the right chance ring.

44:17

Siphon it out of your tanks and stuff.

44:19

Siphon out. Yeah. Anyway, obviously the only people

44:22

who actually want to die in the bunker

44:24

are Hitler, Eva Brown and the Goebbels or

44:26

rather Magda and Joseph Goebbels, not their kids.

44:28

You know, and everyone else wants to get

44:30

out and survive. But there's a

44:32

sort of terrible surreal atmosphere in the bunker.

44:36

There's a sort of afternoon tea in the bunker on

44:38

the 28th of April where, you know, everyone was sort

44:40

of talking about what's the best way to commit suicide

44:42

and, you know, it boils down to

44:44

two, you know, bullet to the head or cyanide.

44:46

And then it's agreed that it should just be

44:48

individual preference. But

44:52

before death, there's going to be a wedding.

44:54

Yeah. And Hitler's always been very clear with

44:56

Eva Brown that, you know, he just can't

44:58

marry her because he's already married to the

45:00

German people, the Lucky Volk. I mean, that's

45:02

boy band logic, isn't it? I can't have

45:04

a girlfriend because it'll upset the fans. I

45:07

mean, that's like being in Westlife. Yeah. Very

45:10

strange, horrendous. But anyway, you

45:12

know, it's the end of his life and he feels

45:14

he's now free to do so after all. And he

45:16

knows that she wants this and he is grateful to

45:18

her for her loyalty and all the rest of it.

45:20

She's come back to Berlin to be with him. So.

45:23

They get married in Goebbels and Bournemann

45:25

of witnesses champagne and sandwiches to serve

45:27

for the bride and groom and guests.

45:31

Can you imagine and everyone who

45:33

sees it either agrees she's been

45:35

absolutely radiant and afterwards Heinz Linger

45:37

makes great play of calling her

45:39

Frau Hitler, her eyes lit up.

45:42

She gave me a happy smile and for

45:44

a moment laid her hand on my for

45:46

moment of intimacy. So it's now Sunday the

45:48

of April. Yeah. And Hitler and his new

45:50

wife. are going to be married for barely

45:52

36 hours. Yeah, they're going on a honeymoon

45:54

in hell. It's the truth. That's what it

45:56

comes down to. I mean, you know, let's

45:59

be clear that he doesn't go to South

46:01

America. Hannah Rice doesn't fly him out, although

46:03

she does leave. Yeah. Von Grein managed to

46:05

escape in an Arado 96. on

46:07

the 28th of April. So this is a

46:09

Luftwaffe trainer plane that's been kept on a

46:11

tarpaulin near the Brandenburg Gate. And amazingly, they

46:14

managed to go down the Schalottenburger Juicy, which

46:16

is that long road that goes down with

46:18

the right on the right as you're looking

46:20

west and goes from the Brandenburg Gate. And

46:23

they managed to sweep out, you know, about

46:25

being shot. I mean, that is a miracle.

46:27

Yeah. But anyway, Hitler's still there. And, you

46:29

know, he doesn't shave off his moustache and

46:31

all the rest of it. And it's worth

46:34

first pointing out here that those rumors about

46:36

him being seen in South America, they are

46:38

spread by the post -war Soviet KGB secret

46:40

service purely to wind up the British Americans

46:43

and to test the response. a

46:45

whole point of it. So we'll go, yeah,

46:47

but there are these reports, these CIA reports

46:49

of it. They're just responding to the disinformation

46:51

campaign that the KGB are posting. There's

46:54

nothing more to it than that. Well, and

46:56

they're duly investigated in order to show... Yes,

46:58

and that is what they all conclude. But

47:00

they're investigated for due diligence reasons, not because...

47:02

Yes, and the conclusions of their due diligence

47:04

are that there's nothing in it. Yeah, exactly.

47:07

Exactly. So what the conspiracy theorists always say

47:09

is, look, there's this note from the CIA.

47:11

It's like, yeah, but look what they were

47:13

writing. you know, next Tuesday. Yeah. And

47:15

then you got the complete picture. But there it

47:17

is. Spiritist Ferris obviously doesn't want his theory to

47:20

be deconspired. Disrupted by the

47:22

truth. So he then dictates his last

47:24

will and testament on the 29th. And

47:27

that's, you know, the Jews started it. I did

47:29

what I could. The German people

47:31

have failed to deliver. Turns out maybe

47:33

they're not the master race after all

47:35

because they've failed when I put them

47:37

to the test. It's an absolutely obscene

47:39

document. It's a really, really horrible thing.

47:41

Who it's for? posterity will

47:43

judge me, all that sort of crap. But

47:46

he, you know, he gets that out of his system. And

47:49

the other thing is everyone's armed in case

47:51

the Soviets burst in. That's how close they

47:53

know, you know. And Bournemouth crabs a bug

47:55

off. They're all in a furbunker. They're in

47:57

Hitler's room. So he sleeps fully dressed on

47:59

his bed. And then he speaks to, there's

48:01

a telephone conversation with Weidling, which confirms that

48:03

Berlin is lost, although the fighting continues. And

48:06

then Hitler decides that he needs

48:08

to test the cyanide capsules. He's

48:10

worried that they won't work. So

48:12

he tests them on his dog,

48:14

Blondie. You know, so that's

48:16

that dealt with. Blondie dies in convulsions

48:18

soon after. Yeah. They eat a

48:20

last meal in which Hitler gives a monologue that's

48:23

along the same lines as his political will and

48:25

testimony, which is kind of like, you know, the

48:27

post -war world will in the end come around

48:29

to realizing, you know, I was doing the right

48:32

thing, history eventually, blah, blah, blah. You

48:34

know, in the long term, he thinks

48:36

he'll be treated justly. I mean, it's

48:38

You know, it's just cock, isn't it?

48:41

Yeah, go cock. Yeah. Then

48:43

what happens is Hitler and Eva, they retire

48:45

to kill themselves. Yes. There's a bit of

48:47

debate about the precise time. Yeah. It seems

48:49

likely it's around 315, because there's different reports

48:51

from the various people that survived the bunker

48:53

and there are a lot on them. Yeah.

48:55

They get captured by the Soviets, so they're

48:57

getting interrogated. over and over and over again,

48:59

that all gets written up, then they eventually

49:01

get released from Gulag's 10 years later, they

49:04

kind of write their memoirs. So there are

49:06

a lot of accounts of these days, which

49:08

is why we have such precise details of

49:10

what's going on. And the bottom line is

49:12

though, what's time he kills himself? Who

49:14

cares? I mean, you know, it doesn't really matter. The

49:16

point is, he does. I mean, the

49:19

Soviets make them reenact it. After the war,

49:21

don't they make them reenact the entire thing

49:23

to watch their reactions and, you know, to

49:25

try and divine if they're lying and all this

49:27

sort of thing. Heidt Linger, who's his valet,

49:29

is generally considered to be a pretty reliable

49:31

witness. And Hitler says to him,

49:33

Linger, I'm going to shoot myself now. You know what

49:35

you have to do. I've given the order for the

49:37

breakout. Attach yourself to one of the

49:39

groups and try and get through to the West. And

49:42

then Linger asks him what he should now fight

49:44

for. And Hitler goes, for the

49:46

coming man. Linga Salutes shakes his

49:48

hand closes the door to him. None of

49:50

them hear the shots, but they do smell

49:52

the cordite. And so he

49:54

then calls on Boorman and the two

49:57

men with Gunther following, who's his ADC,

49:59

isn't he? They go into the rooms

50:01

where they find both Eva and Hitler

50:03

dead on the sofa, blood spattered on

50:05

the carpet. So Eva's contorted face shows

50:08

that she's died by cyanide while Hitler

50:10

has put a single bullet through his

50:12

right temple. So personal preference

50:14

as discussed at the table. So

50:17

Borman goes to get help. Linger lays out

50:19

the blankets and places each body onto them

50:21

and wraps the cloth around them. It's

50:24

Borman who carries Eva out of the

50:26

room before Kempke, who's the chauffeur, insists

50:28

on taking her himself because he knows

50:31

how much Eva Brown hated Borman and

50:33

didn't like the idea of him carrying

50:35

her to be cremated. So

50:37

Linger takes Hitler's head and shoulders. Two

50:40

SS bodyguards lift his body. both

50:42

corpses then taken out of the bunker

50:44

and they are laid in a shallow

50:47

depression where there has been a shell

50:49

crater. They douse them with the plenty

50:51

of fuel that the Linger does manage

50:53

to have ready. There's a

50:55

strong wind that whips it up and their first attempts

50:58

to throw a light on the body fails. Russian

51:01

artillery is fundering shells of falling nearby and

51:03

so they're all getting a bit panicky about

51:05

this. So linger hurries back into the bunker

51:07

and makes a thick wick from fuel -soaked

51:09

paper. Back outside, he then lights it and

51:12

throws it onto Hitler's body. And

51:14

linger reckoned that both bodies were still smoldering

51:16

at 7 .30 that evening. The

51:18

problem is that fuel doesn't burn

51:20

at a very high temperature. No,

51:23

no, petrol doesn't. Which is why

51:25

you need coal -fired ovens and,

51:27

you know, or now electricity for...

51:29

crematorium. Yeah. And later the

51:31

carbonized remains are buried at the bottom

51:33

of a shell hole crater the following

51:35

morning and sort of lightly covered with

51:37

soil. So it is now Tuesday the

51:39

1st of May. And

51:42

Magda and Joseph Goebbels have planned to kill

51:44

themselves the previous day, but then they lose

51:46

their nerves. And Magda is just beside herself

51:48

at this point, but both still determined they

51:50

should die. And there's six children should be

51:53

spared the world that would surely follow. So

51:55

the secretary's still in the bunker, plead

51:58

with them to save the kids and,

52:00

you know, and offer to look after

52:02

them. But the parents, you know, having

52:04

none of it, they just think they've

52:06

all got to go. And so six

52:08

PM on the first of May, Hitler's

52:10

physician, his other physician, Dr. Ludwig Stumpfeger.

52:12

And ministers are sleeping draft and cyanide

52:14

to each of them. And having murdered

52:16

the six children, Joseph and Magda then

52:18

take cyanide. They don't shoot themselves, they

52:21

take cyanide. So that bit

52:23

is wrong in the downfall. Yes, where they

52:25

go out and shoot one another, don't they?

52:27

Yeah, that doesn't happen. They take cyanide. Their

52:29

bodies are also taken out and burned with

52:31

the remaining petrol that's left, but there isn't

52:33

enough really. So they do a pretty poor

52:35

job of it. And it makes the discovery

52:37

of their bodies subsequently much easier to do.

52:39

Anyway, around 11 o 'clock that night, the

52:42

breakout of the bunker begins. The survivors

52:44

split themselves up into groups and leave

52:46

at different times. Linger teams up with

52:48

Kempka and they escape the right. Chancellery

52:50

area of our tunnels under the government

52:52

district. Some make it, most don't,

52:54

most get picked up by Red Army troops. So

52:57

Boorman is killed while scampering along the railway tracks near

52:59

the later station in the early hours of the second

53:01

of May. And his body discovered it in sort of

53:03

renovation work, isn't it? Yeah, exactly where a witness saw

53:06

it. So no, he didn't

53:08

go to South America. There was someone

53:10

claiming to be Martin Boorman in South

53:12

America, but it wasn't him. And then

53:15

Weidling finally surrenders the city unconditionally at

53:17

half past eight in the morning on

53:19

Tuesday, May the second. I

53:21

mean, should have done that. fortnight

53:24

sooner, but there we are

53:26

18 months sooner. I mean, anyway, but it's

53:28

not quite the end of the third Reich,

53:30

though, because after all, no, it absolutely isn't.

53:32

And actually, in the next episode, we're going

53:34

to stick largely with the German perspective, the

53:36

ongoing battle for Berlin, because although the battle

53:39

of Berlin is sort of slightly over on

53:41

the second of May, it kind of sort

53:43

of isn't. And there's all the shenanigans about

53:45

what's going on with the surviving German government

53:47

and Dernitz and Wilhelm Keitel. And you've also

53:49

got what's going on in Berlin as the

53:52

Red Army swarms over it and the discovery

53:54

of the bodies and or not discovery of

53:56

the bodies or all the rest of it,

53:58

all of which is quite thrilling. So

54:01

that is what we'll be doing in episode seven in

54:03

our next episode. Yeah. And if you want

54:05

to listen to all these in one delicious slab,

54:07

I mean, if you've got a long drive,

54:09

you're laughing or a long train journey, or

54:11

maybe you want to be alone and listen

54:13

to a story of the end of the

54:15

third race, then you can subscribe on our Apple

54:18

channel, which you'll get everything ad free or better still go

54:20

to our Patreon. We have ways to make you

54:22

talk Patreon. you'll get this, you'll

54:24

get ticket offers on We Ways Fest. The people

54:26

who are patrons, they jump the queue.

54:28

They were offered tickets first. You'll get tidbits, bits

54:30

and pieces from us, a newsletter, what's

54:32

going on with the podcast. And there's

54:35

audio books on there a whole host of

54:37

stuff as we've gone over the years.

54:39

So if you could subscribe to the

54:41

Patreon, that'd be fantastic. Or if you

54:43

just want free, go to our Apple channel.

54:45

And I mentioned the festival. We will see

54:47

you. We hope that We have Ways Fest. V victory,

54:49

putting the fun into funf September,

54:52

September the 12th to the 14th,

54:54

Black Pit Brewery, next door to Silverstone race track.

54:57

We would love to see you

54:59

there, tanks, talks and like -minded, afflicted World War

55:01

idiots. Thanks very much for

55:03

listening. We'll see you soon, Cheerio. Cheerio.