Führerbunker Chalkboard

Führerbunker, Berlin. Chalkboard

Hitler moved into the Führerbunker on 16 January 1945. He was joined by his senior staff, including Martin Bormann.  In April 1945, Eva Braun and Joseph Goebbels moved into the Führerbunker while Magda Goebbels and their six children took residence in the upper Vorbunker. Two or three dozen support, medical, and administrative staff were also sheltered there. These included Hitler's secretaries (including Traudl Junge), a nurse named Erna Flegel, and telephone switchboard operator Sergeant Rochus Misch. Early on, Hitler continued to utilize the undamaged wing of the Reich Chancellery, where he held afternoon military conferences in his large study. Afterwards, he would have tea with his secretaries before going back down into the bunker complex for the night. After several weeks of this routine, Hitler seldom left the bunker except for short strolls in the chancellery garden with his dog Blondi.The bunker was crowded and the atmosphere was oppressive; air raids occurred daily.Hitler mostly stayed on the lower level, where it was quieter and he could sleep. Conferences took place for much of the night,often until 05:00.

On 16 April the Red Army started the Battle of Berlin and by 19 April they started to encircle the city. On 20 April, his 56th birthday, Hitler made his last trip to the surface. In the ruined garden of the Reich Chancellery, he awarded the Iron Cross to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth.That afternoon, Berlin was bombarded by Soviet artillery for the first time.

In denial about the dire situation, Hitler placed his hopes on the units commanded by Waffen-SS General Felix Steiner, the Armeeabteilung Steiner ("Army Detachment Steiner"). On 21 April, Hitler ordered Steiner to attack the northern flank of the encircling Soviet salient and ordered the German Ninth Army, south-east of Berlin, to attack northward in a pincer attack.By that evening, Red Army tanks reached the outskirts of Berlin.  At his afternoon situation conference on 22 April, Hitler was told Steiner's forces had not moved. Hitler fell into a tearful rage when he realised that the attack was not going to be carried out. He openly declared for the first time the war was lost—and blamed his generals. He announced he would stay in Berlin until the end and then shoot himself.

On 23 April, Hitler appointed General of the Artillery Helmuth Weidling, commander of the LVI Panzer Corps, as the commander of the Berlin Defense Area, replacing Lieutenant-Colonel (Oberstleutnant) Ernst Kaether. Despite the commands being issued from the Führerbunker, by 25 April the Red Army had consolidated their investment of Berlin, and there was no prospect that the German defence could do anything but delay the city's capture. Hitler summoned Field Marshal Robert Ritter von Greim from Munich to Berlin to take over command of the Luftwaffe from Hermann Göring. Along with his mistress and crack test pilot, Hanna Reitsch, he arrived on 26 April.

On 28 April Hitler learned that Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, who had left Berlin on 20 April, was trying to discuss surrender terms with the Western Allies through Count Folke Bernadotte. Hitler considered this treason. Enraged, he ordered Himmler's arrest and had Hermann Fegelein (Himmler's SS representative at Hitler's HQ in Berlin) shot. On the same day, General Hans Krebs made his last telephone call from the Führerbunker to Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel Chief of German Armed Forces High Command (OKW) in Fürstenberg. Krebs told him that if relief did not arrive within 48 hours, all would be lost. Keitel promised to exert the utmost pressure on Generals Walther Wenck, commander of the Twelfth Army, and Theodor Busse, commander of the Ninth Army. Meanwhile, Hitler's private secretary, Martin Bormann, wired to German Admiral Karl Dönitz: "Reich Chancellery a heap of rubble." He said that the foreign press was reporting fresh acts of treason and "that without exception Schörner, Wenck and the others must give evidence of their loyalty by the quickest relief of the Führer".

That evening, von Greim and Reitsch flew out from Berlin in an Arado Ar 96 trainer. Field Marshal von Greim was ordered to get the Luftwaffe to attack the Soviet forces that had just reached Potsdamerplatz (only a city block from the Führerbunker). During the night of 28 April, General Wenck reported to Keitel that his Twelfth Army had been forced back along the entire front and it was no longer possible for his army to relieve Berlin. Keitel gave Wenck permission to break off the attempt.

After midnight on the night of 28–29 April, Hitler married Eva Braun in a small civil ceremony within the Führerbunker. Hitler then took secretary Traudl Junge to another room and dictated his last will and testament. At approximately 04:00, Hans Krebs, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Goebbels, and Bormann witnessed and signed the documents. Hitler then retired to bed.

Late in the evening of 29 April, Krebs contacted Jodl by radio: "Request immediate report. Firstly of the whereabouts of Wenck's spearheads. Secondly of time intended to attack. Thirdly of the location of the Ninth Army. Fourthly of the precise place in which the Ninth Army will break through. Fifthly of the whereabouts of General Rudolf Holste's spearhead." In the early morning of 30 April, Jodl replied to Krebs: "Firstly, Wenck's spearhead bogged down south of Schwielow Lake. Secondly, Twelfth Army therefore unable to continue attack on Berlin. Thirdly, bulk of Ninth Army surrounded. Fourthly, Holste's Corps on the defensive."

During the morning of 30 April, SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke, commander of the centre (government) district of Berlin, informed Hitler he would be able to hold for less than two days. Later that morning Weidling informed Hitler that the defenders would probably exhaust their ammunition that night and again asked him for permission to break out. At about 13:00 Weidling finally received permission. In the Führerbunker that afternoon, Hitler shot himself and Braun took cyanide. In accordance with Hitler's instructions, the bodies were burned in the garden behind the Reich Chancellery. In accordance with Hitler's last will and testament, Goebbels became the new Head of Government and Chancellor of Germany (Reichskanzler). At 03:15, Reichskanzler Goebbels and Bormann sent a radio message to Dönitz informing him of Hitler's death. In accordance with Hitler's last wishes, Dönitz was appointed as the new President of Germany (Reichspräsident).

At about 04:00 on 1 May, Krebs talked to General Vasily Chuikov, commander of the Soviet 8th Guards Army. Chuikov demanded unconditional surrender of the remaining German forces. Krebs did not have the authority to surrender, so he returned to the bunker. In the late afternoon, Goebbels had his children poisoned. At around 20:30, Goebbels and his wife left the bunker. There are several different accounts on what followed. According to one account, Goebbels shot his wife and then himself. Another account was that they each bit on a cyanide ampule and were given a coup de grâce immediately afterwards. Goebbels' SS adjutant Günther Schwägermann testified in 1948 that the couple walked ahead of him up the stairs and out into the Chancellery garden. He waited in the stairwell and heard the "shots" sound. Schwägermann then walked up the remaining stairs and once outside he saw the lifeless bodies of the couple. Following Joseph Goebbels' prior order, Schwägermann had an SS soldier fire several shots into Goebbels' body, which did not move. The bodies were then doused with petrol, but the remains were only partially burned and not buried.

Weidling had given the order for the survivors to break out to the north-west; the plan got underway at around 23:00. The first group from the Reich Chancellery, led by Mohnke, tried but could not break through the Soviet rings and was captured the next day. Like others from the Führerbunker who were captured, he was interrogated by SMERSH. On the third break-out attempt from the Reich Chancellery, made around 01:00 (2 May), Bormann managed to cross the Spree. Arthur Axmann, who followed the same route, reported seeing Bormann's body a short distance from the Weidendammer bridge.

At 01:00 the Soviet forces picked up a radio message from the LVI Panzer Corps requesting a cease-fire. Down in the Führerbunker, General Krebs and General Burgdorf committed suicide by gunshot to the head. The last defenders in the area of the bunker complex, French SS volunteers of the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French) remained until the early morning. The Soviet forces then captured the Reich Chancellery. General Weidling surrendered with his staff at 6:00 and his meeting with Chuikov ended at 8:23. Johannes Hentschel, the master electro-mechanic for the bunker complex, stayed after everyone else had either committed suicide or left, as the field hospital in the Reich Chancellery above needed power and water. He surrendered to the Red Army as they entered the bunker complex at 09:00 on 2 May. The bodies of Goebbels' six children were discovered on 3 May. They were found in their beds in the Vorbunker, with the clear mark of cyanide shown on their faces.