Hitler's Last Day: Minute by Minute: The hidden story of an SS family in wartime Germany by Emma Craigie, Jonathan Mayo Page B
Authors: Emma Craigie, Jonathan Mayo
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liberated. Years later he recalled the welcome he received: ‘Having been treated in Nazi capture like every other Allied officer, I walked down the gangplank towards a white US army sergeant on the dock, who informed us “Whites to the right, niggers to the left.”’
About 9.00am/10.00am UK time
Medical student Michael Hargrave is waiting on the runway at Down Ampney aerodrome by the Dakota transport plane that’s due to take him and other volunteers to Germany to help the sick at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Overnight snow has been brushed from the wings by the ground crew, the student’sluggage is on board and Hargrave is drying his wet gloves on the tail of the plane.
In central Berlin there’s a sudden lull in the sound of artillery fire. Several Hitler Youth runners arrive in Boldt and von Loringhoven’s office in the upper bunker to report that the Russians are advancing with tanks and infantry towards the Reich Chancellery buildings. For days Boldt and von Loringhoven have been trying to work out how they can get themselves sent out on a combat mission. They have decided that this is their best hope of survival. It is clear that time is running out. Boldt feels sick with tension. The silence of the guns unnerves him.
On the outskirts of Berlin, Yelena Rzhevskaya is attempting to interrogate a ‘tongue’ – as the Russians call their informants – a 15-year-old Hitler Youth with ‘bloodshot eyes and cracked lips’. Rzhevskaya is with the Russian 3rd Shock Army’s SMERSH intelligence detachment. She’s a German speaker working as an intelligence interpreter. The detachment has just received instructions to make their way to the government district and head for the Reich Chancellery. Their orders are to take Hitler alive, but Rzhevskaya is confused and frustrated as information is ‘scarce and self-contradictory and unreliable’. They aren’t even sure that Hitler is in Berlin. The ‘tongue’ isn’t talking and Rzhevskaya concludes that he knows nothing: ‘He is sitting here looking around but not understanding anything. Just a boy.’
Claus Sellier and his fellow Mountain Artillery lieutenant Fritz have met for breakfast at the Hotel Gasthaus Zum Brau, the onetime regional army headquarters. They are enjoying hot coffee and fresh rolls, but their mood is sombre. Claus is thinking of his three best friends at school – the group of them had beennicknamed the Four Musketeers. Now the others are dead – two died in Russia, one was shot down over the Atlantic.
‘What do you think we should do now?’ he says to Fritz.
‘We’ll go to Traunstein and deliver the last package,’ Fritz replies, then adds bitterly, ‘Do you think Hitler knows that his generals have jumped ship? What are we going to tell Hitler if he calls here? “Yes, Sir,
Mein Führer Hitler
. No, sir,
Mein Führer!
Everybody at your headquarters has gone. It’s over, sir! You should go too!”’
The two men laugh, and then head to their rooms to pack.
‘S-3 to all battalions. Upon capture of Dachau, post airtight guard and allow no one to enter or leave.’
9.15am
Corporal Bert Ruffle of the Rifle Brigade has been a POW since he was captured at Dunkirk on 26th May 1940. He’s a prisoner in Stalag IV-C, an all-British camp near Wistritz in the Sudetenland, and like hundreds of others, Ruffle is forced to work constructing the
Sudentenlandische-Treibstoff-Werke
– an oil refinery. The refinery has taken four years to build and is almost ready to start production. Ruffle never works very hard as he doesn’t see why he should aid the German war effort.
Normally they’re woken up by a guard bursting into their hut at 4am, but today Ruffle and his friend Frank Talbot of the Queen Victoria Rifles have a more pleasant job. They have been selected to go to the nearby town of Brüx to collect some building material for one of the foremen at the refinery. From the back of their lorry, they can see that the town has been
About 9.00am/10.00am UK time
Medical student Michael Hargrave is waiting on the runway at Down Ampney aerodrome by the Dakota transport plane that’s due to take him and other volunteers to Germany to help the sick at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Overnight snow has been brushed from the wings by the ground crew, the student’sluggage is on board and Hargrave is drying his wet gloves on the tail of the plane.
In central Berlin there’s a sudden lull in the sound of artillery fire. Several Hitler Youth runners arrive in Boldt and von Loringhoven’s office in the upper bunker to report that the Russians are advancing with tanks and infantry towards the Reich Chancellery buildings. For days Boldt and von Loringhoven have been trying to work out how they can get themselves sent out on a combat mission. They have decided that this is their best hope of survival. It is clear that time is running out. Boldt feels sick with tension. The silence of the guns unnerves him.
On the outskirts of Berlin, Yelena Rzhevskaya is attempting to interrogate a ‘tongue’ – as the Russians call their informants – a 15-year-old Hitler Youth with ‘bloodshot eyes and cracked lips’. Rzhevskaya is with the Russian 3rd Shock Army’s SMERSH intelligence detachment. She’s a German speaker working as an intelligence interpreter. The detachment has just received instructions to make their way to the government district and head for the Reich Chancellery. Their orders are to take Hitler alive, but Rzhevskaya is confused and frustrated as information is ‘scarce and self-contradictory and unreliable’. They aren’t even sure that Hitler is in Berlin. The ‘tongue’ isn’t talking and Rzhevskaya concludes that he knows nothing: ‘He is sitting here looking around but not understanding anything. Just a boy.’
Claus Sellier and his fellow Mountain Artillery lieutenant Fritz have met for breakfast at the Hotel Gasthaus Zum Brau, the onetime regional army headquarters. They are enjoying hot coffee and fresh rolls, but their mood is sombre. Claus is thinking of his three best friends at school – the group of them had beennicknamed the Four Musketeers. Now the others are dead – two died in Russia, one was shot down over the Atlantic.
‘What do you think we should do now?’ he says to Fritz.
‘We’ll go to Traunstein and deliver the last package,’ Fritz replies, then adds bitterly, ‘Do you think Hitler knows that his generals have jumped ship? What are we going to tell Hitler if he calls here? “Yes, Sir,
Mein Führer Hitler
. No, sir,
Mein Führer!
Everybody at your headquarters has gone. It’s over, sir! You should go too!”’
The two men laugh, and then head to their rooms to pack.
‘S-3 to all battalions. Upon capture of Dachau, post airtight guard and allow no one to enter or leave.’
9.15am
Corporal Bert Ruffle of the Rifle Brigade has been a POW since he was captured at Dunkirk on 26th May 1940. He’s a prisoner in Stalag IV-C, an all-British camp near Wistritz in the Sudetenland, and like hundreds of others, Ruffle is forced to work constructing the
Sudentenlandische-Treibstoff-Werke
– an oil refinery. The refinery has taken four years to build and is almost ready to start production. Ruffle never works very hard as he doesn’t see why he should aid the German war effort.
Normally they’re woken up by a guard bursting into their hut at 4am, but today Ruffle and his friend Frank Talbot of the Queen Victoria Rifles have a more pleasant job. They have been selected to go to the nearby town of Brüx to collect some building material for one of the foremen at the refinery. From the back of their lorry, they can see that the town has been
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