Then I looked into the Führer’s study. This was empty. No one had dared move in here. I thought to myself: ‘Well the Führer will not be working here any more, and my men are not accustomed to living in the open air, and they need accommodation, for the weather is fresh and rainy outside.’
The big windows had been blown out in the last air raid and no one had replaced them, as they would only be damaged again in the nightly raids, but at least one had a roof over one’s head. So I had my men come in, and they managed to fit in with all of their equipment.
Then I searched the big desk and found a box of cigars for visitors, as the Führer smoked as little as I did in those days. There was also a bottle of good Cognac. I sampled it and finished the bottle, not bothering to look for glasses. Then I curled up on the wonderful carpet and slept. A soldier never knows what the next hour will bring. (According to a Soviet general, it later took fifteen men to remove the carpet so as to take it back to Moscow.)
I was rudely woken up during the night. Once I had pushed away the torch shining into my face, (there was no electric light because of the blackout) I saw an SD patrol standing in front of me and talking about shooting me as the senior rank present for desecrating the ‘Almighty’s’ study. The Führer’s study was no doss house, etcetera. I tried to explain to them that I was fully aware of the significance of the room from my previous job in the Reichs Chancellery. We did not want to stay here but would go wherever we were ordered to fight, and that would happen sooner than they, whom one could see wore no decorations and had never been in action, could think.
My men, who had found some more Cognac and were full of bravado, crowded round us and said aggressively that there were only two possible ways of getting us out of here, either to find us better accommodation or to kill us. Neither of the SD ‘heroes’ were in a position to do anything. As they had nothing left to say, I suggested to them that they might like to join us as ammunition carriers, for it would be a shame if the war were to end without them even getting a sniff of powder. I would have a word about this with their chief, Criminal Director Hoegl, I suggested. They were fit enough, I said, having felt their arm muscles. But they did not want to know, and left us muttering threats. But how can one threaten a person already facing certain death?
So we settled down to sleep again. Then early in the morning SS-Lieutenant Puttkamer (a relative of Hitler’s naval adjutant) came in and introduced himself as my company commander. He started giving me a telling off for the way I had treated the SD patrol during the night. I rejected this sharply and said: ‘Unlike myself, you already knew yesterday what your appointment was to be and that you would be responsible for a company. Since you did not show yourself, I had to use my initiative. In case you are unaware of your responsibilities as the commander of a troop, you should know that it is no umbrella that can be left lying about anywhere.’
Thus I made it quite clear between us at the start. As he wore only the Iron Cross Second Class, it was quite obvious to me that he had not been exposed to real fighting before. Perhaps he had been adequately protected by his big-shot relative from having to go to the front, and so had also got a role like this, for there was no such thing as a mortar company in combat. Normally the platoon would be split up in direct support of either the regimental or battalion commander.
He took us down into the cellars, which had meanwhile emptied noticeably, the officials’ families having left during the night. The rooms he showed me were near Mohnke’s command post on Hermann-Göring-Strasse. They filled me with confidence as soon as I saw them, for they were constructed out of reinforced concrete and the partition walls of similar construction supported the ceiling. As an experienced builder, I saw this all with one glance. It would take an enormous shell to break through.
Our company commander occupied a small room down here with his heavily pregnant wife. ‘Good God,’ I thought, ‘is he crazy?’ He had stupidly taken a room with a window next to the outside wall, where the cellar was only one and a half metres below ground. The first shell to explode on the pavement would send splinters straight in. Naturally, I did not tell this superfluous warrior what I thought.
His wife was feeling permanently ill, which was not surprising in her condition, but she had to go on telling everyone about it, while he stood by saying nothing. With her too I had to draw a line, which made me look a unfeeling clot. He even had to sit beside her to comfort her when the shelling started.
After this exchange of words, I moved with my headquarters section into a small room and the rest settled down around. Our predecessors, like ourselves, had left their personal things behind. To my surprise there were a pair of highly polished officer’s jackboots and some passable breeches to go with them. I had not seen such beautiful boots for years, since my father, a master shoemaker, had made me such a pair. In one of them was a holster for a small pistol, a 6.35 Walther, and in the other was a sheath for a stiletto with a needle point and razor-sharp blade. I tried them on and they fitted perfectly. Then I tried walking a few steps in them, which took me out into the cellar passageway. A young woman came toward me with an Alsatian puppy. The puppy leant against one of the shining boots and pissed inside. I kicked him away, which did not please the young woman.
She scolded me and got a sharp response back. Then I noticed that my old company comrade Heinz Jurkewitz, who was now with the Führer bodyguard, was standing behind her, making violent hand signals to me that I could not understand.
I shouted at her: ‘Get your dog out of here and leave us alone!’ Whereupon she put the puppy on the lead and went off with him without a word.
‘For goodness sake, Willi,’ Heinz said to me, ‘what have you done? Do you know who that was?’
‘No, I didn’t know.’
‘That was Fräulein Braun!’
‘It could have been Fräulein Schwarz as far as I am concerned,’ I said. ‘What about it?’
Then he had to tell me confidentially who Fräulein Braun was, and that he had been assigned to her as her bodyguard.
With this explanation I should make it clear that even I who had been on duty in the Reichs Chancellery knew nothing of the existence of this woman. It was a taboo subject and no one talked about it. We were trained to be discreet. Nevertheless, she had been here in the Führerbunker at the Reichs Chancellery since 15 April and had come, against the Führer’s will, to share his fate. She usually lived at the Führer’s mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden. The puppy came from Blondi, the Führer’s Alsatian, and he had given it to Fräulein Braun so that she had something to remind her of him, since he could not come because of the war. When it was time to die, the pup would die too.
Of course I took this hard and asked Heinz to ask my forgiveness for my ignorance, as I had no access to the Führerbunker myself.
After this fiasco I took off the boots and breeches. Like their owner, I had no need for these special boots.
Then the company commander ordered us to go into the Tiergarten and practise with the mortars. This was certainly rather late, but necessary, for the mortars had lain unused in the barracks and now had to augment the fighting strength of two regiments.
So we moved into the Tiergarten and practised setting up and so on. The company commander stood there saying nothing. Whether he knew more about these things than I did, I cannot say. It is best in such circumstances to let the sergeants get on with it, so I left them to it.
The 1st Platoon was commanded by a senior officer cadet[45] I knew from the barracks. This was the last time either I or the company commander was to see him. He was on duty in the barracks as Duty NCO every other day, and strutted around like a peacock, which was enough to set me off teasing him. He still did not have the necessary front decorations to go to officer school, and must therefore have had a powerful patron, as otherwise this would not have been possible. When such similar ‘experts’ came to the front and were set above me, although just a lowly sergeant major, they did not have it easy.
45
6 In the German Army and Waffen-SS potential officers were selected from the ranks and ultimately sent to Officer School before commissioning. In this case a potential officer serving in the ranks with the equivalent of sergeant’s rank (Oberjunker).