But my expectations are not fulfilled. In tones of indifference, almost mechanically, the Führer comes out with the explanations, accusations and demands that I, the German people and the whole world know already. I look up in surprise as Hitler names the members of the new government. I really don’t understand what’s going on. If all is lost, if Germany is destroyed, if National Socialism is dead for ever, and the Führer himself can see no way out but suicide, what are the men he is appointing to government posts supposed to do? I can hardly grasp it. Hitler goes on speaking, scarcely looking up. He pauses for a brief moment, and then begins dictating his private will. And now I discover that he is going to marry Eva Braun before they are united in death. I fleetingly remember what Eva said, about the tears we’d shed today. But I can’t summon up any tears. The Führer lists his legacies, but here, suddenly, he does mention the possibility that there may be no German state left after his death. Then the dictation is over. He moves away from the table on which he has been leaning all this time, as if for support, and suddenly there is an exhausted, hunted expression in his eyes. ‘Type that out for me at once in triplicate and then bring it in to me.’ There is something urgent in his voice, and I realize, to my surprise, that this last, most important, most crucial document written by Hitler is to go out into the world without any corrections or thorough revision. Every letter of birthday wishes to some Gauleiter, artist, etc., was polished up, improved, revised◦– but now Hitler has no time for any of that.
The Führer returns to his party, which will soon be a wedding party. As for me, I sit in the waiting-room outside Goebbels’ room and type out the last page in the history of the Third Reich. Meanwhile the conference room has been turned into a registry office, a registrar fetched from the nearby front has married the Hitlers, Eva has begun to write her surname with a B when signing the register, and has had to have it pointed out that her new name begins with H. And now the wedding party is sitting in Hitler’s room. What will they raise their champagne glasses to? Happiness for the newly married couple?
The Führer is impatient to see what I have typed. He keeps coming back into my room, looking to see how far I’ve got, he says nothing but just casts restless glances at what remains of my shorthand, and then goes out again.
Suddenly Goebbels bursts in. I look at his agitated face, which is white as chalk. Tears are running down his cheeks. He speaks to me because there’s no one else around to whom he can pour out his heart. His usually clear voice is stifled by tears and shaking. ‘The Führer wants me to leave Berlin, Frau Junge! I am to take up a leading post in the new government. But I can’t leave Berlin, I cannot leave the Führer’s side! I am Gauleiter of Berlin, and my place is here. If the Führer is dead my life is pointless. And he says to me, “Goebbels, I didn’t expect you to disobey my last order too…” The Führer has made so many decisions too late◦– why make this last one too early?’ he asks despairingly.
Then he too dictates me his testament, to be added as an appendix to the Führer’s. For the first time in his life, it says, he is not going to carry out an order by the Führer because he cannot leave his place in Berlin at the Führer’s side. In later times, an example of loyalty will be more valuable than a life preserved… And he too tells the world that he and his whole family prefer death to life in a Germany without National Socialism.
I type both documents as fast as I can. My fingers work mechanically, and I am amazed to see that they make hardly any typing errors. Bormann, Goebbels and the Führer himself keep coming in to see if I’ve finished yet. They make me nervous and delay the work. Finally they almost tear the last sheet out of my typewriter, go back into the conference room, sign the three copies, and that very night they are sent off by courier in different directions. Colonel von Below, Heinz Lorenz and Bormann’s colleague Zander take Hitler’s last will and testament out of Berlin.[110]
With that, Hitler’s life is really over. Now he just wants to wait for confirmation that at least one of the documents has reached its destination. Any moment now we expect the Russians to storm our bunker, so close do the sounds of war seem to be. All our dogs are dead. The dog-walker has done his duty and shot our beloved pets before they can be torn to pieces up in the park by an enemy grenade or bomb.
Any of the guards or soldiers who have to go out in the open now are gambling with their lives. Some of our people have already been wounded. The leader of the escort commando has been shot in the leg and can’t move for pain.
Almost no one stops to think of the five blonde little girls and the dark-haired boy still playing in their room, enjoying life. Their mother has now told them it’s possible they may all have to be inoculated. When there are so many people living together in a small space you have to take precautions against disease. They understand that, and they’re not afraid.
29 April. We’re trapped here, we just sit waiting.
30 April begins like the days that went before it. The hours drag slowly by. No one knows just how to address Eva Braun now. The adjutants and orderlies stammer in embarrassment when they have to speak to the ‘gnaüdiges Fräulein’. ‘You may safely call me Frau Hitler, ’ she says, smiling.
She asks me into her room because she can’t spend the whole time alone with her thoughts. We talk about something, anything, to distract ourselves. Suddenly she opens her wardrobe. There hangs the beautiful silver fox fur she loved so much. ‘Frau Junge, I’d like to give you this coat as a goodbye present,’ she says. ‘I always liked to have well-dressed ladies around me◦– I want you to have it now and enjoy wearing it.’ I thank her with all my heart, much moved. I am even glad to have it although I’ve no idea how, where and when I can wear it. Then we eat lunch with Hitler. The same conversation as yesterday, the day before yesterday, for many days past: a banquet of death under the mask of cheerful calm and composure. We rise from the table, Eva Braun goes to her room, and Frau Christian and I look for somewhere to smoke a cigarette in peace. I find a vacant armchair in the servants’ room, next to the open door to Hitler’s corridor. Hitler is probably in his room. I don’t know who is with him. Then Günsche comes up to me. ‘Come on, the Führer wants to say goodbye.’ I rise and go out into the corridor. Linge fetches the others. Fräulein Manziarly, Frau Christian, I vaguely realize there are other people there too. But all I really see is the figure of the Führer. He comes very slowly out of his room, stooping more than ever, stands in the open doorway and shakes hands with everyone. I feel his right hand warm in mine, he looks at me but he isn’t seeing me. He seems to be far away. He says something to me, but I don’t hear it. I didn’t take in his last words. The moment we’ve been waiting for has come now, and I am frozen and scarcely notice what’s going on around me. Only when Eva Braun comes over to me is the spell broken a little. She smiles and embraces me. ‘Please do try to get out. You may yet make your way through. And give Bavaria my love,’ she says, smiling but with a sob in her voice. She is wearing the Führer’s favourite dress, the black one with the roses at the neckline, and her hair is washed and beautifully done. Like that, she follows the Führer into his room◦– and to her death. The heavy iron door closes.
110
Hitler’s Luftwaffe adjutant Colonel von Below was to take one copy of the testament to Wilhelm Keitel, Heinz Lorenz was taking the second to the ‘Brown House’ in Munich, and Wilhelm Zander was taking the third to Karl Dönitz.