Hitler's Last Day: Minute By Minute Part 7

11.30am.

In the Italian Alpine village of Villaba.s.sa, the SS guards who have been holding British Secret Service agent Captain Sigismund Payne-Best and the other Prominente prisoners are staring at two machine guns belonging to a small unit of German army infantry. The infantry have arrived to protect the Prominente from the SS who have orders to execute the prisoners today. Thanks to the efforts of Payne-Best, the German army Commander knows that if they are killed, the Allies, now only a few miles away, will hold them responsible.

The SS start talking among themselves about what they should do. Payne-Best walks up to Lieutenant Bader, the SS officer in charge. The two men have met before Bader is a member of a Gestapo execution squad which moved round the various concentration camps where Payne-Best was being held.

'Throw down your arms or else those machine guns will go off,' Payne-Best says. To his amazement Bader and the SS troops do what they're told and drop their sub-machine guns on the ground. Watching the scene have been a number of Italian civilians, who immediately s.n.a.t.c.h up the weapons. Bader pleads with Payne-Best to use his influence to let him have some petrol so he and his men can leave Villaba.s.sa.

But the SS truck never leaves the square. Denied petrol, Bader and his men decide to walk to the town of Bozen about 60 miles away. En route they are attacked by Italian partisans and a number of them are hanged from telegraph poles by the road. In their abandoned truck in Villaba.s.sa are 300 Red Cross parcels intended for prisoners in Dachau, which the SS had stolen.

'Sometimes I think, with horror, that in her heart that child saw through the pretence of the grown-ups.'

11.45am.

Underneath the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, the six children of Joseph and Magda Goebbels are playing in the corridor of the upper bunker. Most of them are excited to be there. They call the bunker a 'cave'. They feel completely safe from the bombs as they wait for the victory their parents have promised. They have made friends with some of the people working here. Misch, the gentle giant at the switchboard, is a particular favourite and they have made up a rhyme about him which the four-year-old, Heide, sings every time they see him: 'Misch, Misch du bist ein Fisch!'

In the words of Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge, who has been helping to look after them, 'They were charming, well brought-up, natural-mannered children. They knew nothing of the fate awaiting them, and the adults did all they could to keep them unaware of it... Only the oldest, Helga, sometimes had a sad, knowing expression in her big brown eyes. She was the quietest, and sometimes I think, with horror, that in her heart that child saw through the pretence of the grown-ups.'

11.50am.

The three couriers of Hitler's testaments, Lorenz, Zander and Johannmeier, finally leave the bunker. They have stuffed their pockets with food from the breakfast trolley but have no money or papers. All morning they have been discussing possible routes. They will travel together until they get past the Russian encirclement. Johannmeier is instructed to then make his way to General Schorner in Czechoslovakia; Zander is to head for Admiral Donitz's headquarters in Plon and Lorenz is to go with him with the ultimate aim of flying to Munich to the n.a.z.i Party headquarters. If any of the couriers fail to get to their destination their orders are to aim for British and American territory, which is now about 50 kilometres to the west. There is a strong belief in Germany that the Allies treat prisoners better than the Russians do. At least there is no Siberia in the west.

They leave through the underground garages below the Reich Chancellery building. Johannmeier leads the way along Hermann-Goringstra.s.se, with the help of a young soldier called Hummerich. They check each road crossing is safe from snipers and beckon Lorenz and Zander with hand signals. The wide street is lined with ruined houses and the road is blocked by debris.

Midday/7.00am EWT (Eastern War Time).

Lieutenant Colonel Felix L. Sparks has given the task of liberating Dachau concentration camp to I Company a reserve unit. The rest of his regiment is heading towards Munich to take part in the capture of the city as planned. Sparks has been told that the concentration camp is a 'politically sensitive area', so he is travelling with I Company in his jeep. They are now only about a mile east of Dachau.

'I don't know what the h.e.l.l we're running into,' Sparks told I Company Commander Lieutenant Bill Walsh, 'I'll give you an extra machine gun platoon. A heavy weapons company will go with you.' Twenty-five-year-old Walsh knows nothing about concentration camps. He a.s.sumes they are POW camps, full of Allied soldiers. He'd once seen a POW camp in New York State full of German prisoners; he guesses it might look like that.

Unaware that they've narrowly escaped being executed by the SS, 120 of the Prominente prisoners are a.s.sembled in the dining room of the Hotel Bachmann. Standing on one of the tables are British secret agent Captain Payne-Best and fellow prisoner Colonel Bogislav von Bonin. They tell the expectant prisoners von Bonin in German and then Payne-Best in English and French that they are free. But they add that they must stay close to their hotels as it is rumoured that there are still armed SS men around, and the war is not yet over.

Payne-Best tells them that they are all to be taken by the local partisans to the safety of a hotel higher in the Alps. It can be accessed only via a single-track road that is easily guarded; there they will wait for the Allies to arrive.

Payne-Best discovers something strange. He can speak French without difficulty, but English is an effort. During his five and a half years of imprisonment he has tried to speak only German and so it's hard to recall the correct English words and phrases. Also, for some reason his false teeth made by the Sachsenhausen dentist make speaking English hard but are no trouble when he is speaking in French and German.

President Truman is sitting at his desk in Blair House, a large Georgian property just over the road from the White House. His study is quiet no one else is up. Truman, his wife Bess and their daughter Margaret moved here a couple of days after the death of President Roosevelt on 12th April; they plan to move into the White House once the redecoration and cleaning they've ordered has finished. (In fact it will soon be discovered that the building is structurally unsound, and so the Trumans don't move in until 1952). The President is writing a letter to his mother and sister, who live in Missouri; he conscientiously writes to them every week. The new President is finding the intrusion of the press into his family life especially irksome.

'Dear Mamma and Mary, 'I hope you haven't been bothered too much. It is a terrible and I mean terrible nuisance to be kin to the President of the United States. Reporters have been haunting every relative I ever heard of... A guard has to go with Bess and Margaret everywhere they go and they don't like it. They spend a lot of time trying to beat the game, but it can't be done. In a country as big as this one there are necessarily a lot of nuts and people with peculiar ideas...'

Although Truman doesn't like press intrusion, he tolerates the weekly press conferences, even when the questions are wide-ranging (in his first press conference he was asked about the new Polish government but also his views on the disposal of synthetic rubber plants).

After leaving his farm to fight in the First World War, Truman opened a haberdashery in Kansas that soon went bust. That and his inexperience in foreign affairs has led to a certain amount of sn.o.bbery about him in Was.h.i.+ngton. Alistair Cooke was at that first press conference, and before they went in, the other reporters were saying they ought to be gentle with Truman, as he would probably 'fumble it'. They were in for a surprise. Cooke said later, 'We staggered out after taking a drubbing from a sergeant-major. He always knew what he wanted. He might have failed as a haberdasher, but he plainly had no intention of failing as a president.'

Roosevelt's death, despite his long-term health problems, came as a shock to the nation and to the Vice President. Truman wrote later, 'I had hurried to the White House to see the President, and when I arrived, I discovered I was the President...' He had only been Vice President for 82 days.

On 25th April the United States Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson came to see President Truman to tell him something that had been kept secret from him as Vice President that the war with j.a.pan could soon be over.

'Within four months, we shall in all probability have completed the most terrible weapon known in human history, one bomb of which could destroy a whole city.'

On 29th July Truman will authorise the dropping of the atomic bomb on the j.a.panese city of Hiros.h.i.+ma.

During his term as Vice President, Truman met with Roosevelt privately only twice. He knew very little about what had been decided at Yalta, in fact, he wrote later, the President never spoke to him about 'the war, about foreign affairs or what he had in mind for peace after the war'. But Truman is a shrewd man and a keen student of history he has examined the lives of many great war leaders, from Hannibal to Robert E. Lee. Truman once boasted he'd read every book in his home-town library.

12.15pm/1.15pm UK time.

Intelligence officer Major Geoffrey c.o.x is getting ready to move out of Padua. Around him, other members of the 2nd New Zealand Division are loading up their trucks. News has arrived that the route to Venice, 30 miles away, is almost secure. The plan to capture the city is codenamed Operation Merlin.

For the past few days the New Zealanders have driven through villages where girls have thrown flowers and blossom as they pa.s.sed. It is a small reward for the tough slog through Italy in the past few months. They feel that they are the forgotten army their battles rarely knock news of the advances in northern Europe from the front pages. Some of the jeeps of the 2nd New Zealand Division have 'D-Day Dodgers' scrawled on the side in chalk the unfair nickname that some have given them back home.

Most of the troops in the Italian campaign feel unfairly maligned. On 3rd May 1945 Major Neil Margerison will write to his fiancee from Italy, 'People in England don't understand the conditions which have prevailed in Italy. They think that we have been disgustingly slow about the job, and that any propaganda regarding the difficult terrain and terrible weather are an official excuse for our procrastinations.... Chaps serving in Italy are "good time boys" or "D.D.D.s" (D-Day Dodgers). Chaps who have returned from overseas service in the Med. (4 years) take a back place to the chaps who are serving in France and receiving leave every six months...'

On the BBC Home Service, Lieutenant J. Trenaman is presenting one of a series of 15-minute programmes called Teaching Soldiers to Read.

The BBC has a policy both on the Home Service and on the Forces Programme to educate and inform servicemen, as well as to provide entertainment. One such innovation is a round-table discussion called The Brains Trust (its name taken from Roosevelt's nickname for his circle of advisors) that tackles such varied questions as 'What is democracy?' and 'What is a sneeze?' It began in 1940 on the Forces Programme but proved so popular it's repeated on the Home Service. By 1945 it has an audience of 12 million. One factory worker wrote in his diary: 'The favourite topic on Mondays seems to be the previous day's Brains Trust. Hardly anyone ever confesses that he didn't hear it, or if they do, take care to give adequate reason for so doing.'

'Give my regards to Wenck. Tell him to hurry or it will be too late.'

12.30pm/8.30pm Okinawa time.

'Mein Fuhrer,' General Krebs begins, 'there are three young officers who are keen to try and break out of Berlin and make contact with General Wenck so that they can update him on the situation here and support the speedy attack of the 12th Army on the capital.'

There is a silence of several seconds before Hitler replies. He seems weary. It has been a difficult situation conference. All the reports are extremely discouraging.

'Who are these officers?'

Krebs gives him their names.

'Who are Boldt, Weiss and von Loringhoven? Send them in.'

Standing at the back of the conference room, the Luftwaffe adjutant Nicolaus von Below listens carefully to what follows. Like these young officers he is desperate to find a way to survive. With the telephone lines down he has no means of contacting his pregnant wife and children on the Baltic coast.

The three officers file in and von Loringhoven sets out the plan. He is surprised how calm the Fuhrer seems. He points out their possible route options on the large map laid out on the table. The second option involves travelling down the River Havel. Hitler immediately prefers it.

Von Loringhoven elaborates, 'Once we reach Pichelsdorf Bridge we will take a rowing boat and row up the River Havel, between the Russian lines as far as Wannsee Lake.'

Hitler interrupts, 'Bormann, supply these officers with a motor boat, otherwise they will never get through.'

Boldt feels a rush of panic. If the mission depends on Bormann obtaining a motor boat in the current circ.u.mstances it will never take place. But no one is supposed to contradict the Fuhrer. Boldt has to risk it: 'Mein Fuhrer, we will get hold of a motor boat ourselves and deaden the noise. I'm convinced that we will get through.'

Hitler slowly stands up again. He shakes the three officers by the hand. 'Give my regards to Wenck. Tell him to hurry or it will be too late.'

On the island of Okinawa, the commander of the j.a.panese forces General Mitsuru Us.h.i.+jima has called his staff together in a s.p.a.cious cave 100 feet beneath ancient Shuri Castle, the headquarters of his 32nd Army. On 1st April, Easter Sunday, US forces launched a ma.s.sive amphibious a.s.sault on the south of the island 1,200 vessels landed over 170,000 soldiers. General Us.h.i.+jima has 77,000 j.a.panese and 24,000 Okinawan auxiliaries to fight them, and so far, in slow, b.l.o.o.d.y battles reminiscent of the First World War, they have succeeded in holding the Americans back.

General Us.h.i.+jima's Chief of Staff General Cho is holding forth: 'We must mount a ma.s.sive counter-attack while we still have the strength! In a few weeks attrition will have eaten away at our forces, and we will be too weak to take the offensive. We must strike now and destroy the Americans, even at the risk of losing our whole army!'

General Cho is famous for his hard drinking and his extreme views. In the 1930s he advocated holding the Emperor at knife-point until he introduced military rule in j.a.pan. Facing Cho at the meeting is the man responsible for the strategy for the defence of Okinawa, Colonel Yahara. He guessed exactly where the Americans would land and had prepared an impressive line of defensive fortifications, with Shuri Castle at its centre. He has no time for Cho's fiery rhetoric.

'The Americans have suffered great losses... but it would be folly to attack, because to break through the American lines on the high ground would demand much greater forces than we possess. Therefore, the army must continue its current operations, calmy recognising its final destiny, for annihilation is inevitable, no matter what is done.'

Cho is unimpressed and starts to outline an audacious plan.

12.35pm.

The Sherman tanks of the US 14th Armoured Division are cras.h.i.+ng through the ten-foot-high wire fence of Stalag VII-A at Moosburg outside Munich. The tanks are immediately swamped by emotional POWs. An American Air Corps lieutenant kisses a Sherman, saying, 'G.o.d d.a.m.n, do I love the ground forces!' A bearded paratrooper climbs onto a tank and kisses its crew commander, tears running down his cheeks. 'You d.a.m.ned b.l.o.o.d.y Yanks, I love you!' a tall Australian shouts, throwing his arms around a shocked jeep driver. One member of a tank crew recognises his brother among the POWs. British Major Elliott Viney a prisoner for nearly five years writes in his diary, 'AMERICANS HERE.'

Another British officer wrote optimistically in his diary later that day, 'G.o.d bless the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds... after five years, free at last. May be home next Sunday.'

A few hours later General George Patton will arrive and point to the swastika flying from the camp's flagpole, and yell: 'I want that son-of-b.i.t.c.h cut down, and the man that cuts it down, I want him to wipe his a.s.s with it!'

In the last few weeks conditions in the camp, built for only 10,000, have become extremely harsh. There are now 80,000 prisoners in Moosburg. A long trench had been dug as a latrine and hundreds were suffering from dysentery. Most of the guards have fled.

In the five years since the British POWs like Elliott Viney and Bert Ruffle were captured, there have been many changes to the Allied armies. One group of RAF prisoners failed to recognise the uniform of their British liberators, and had hidden in a tree for hours until they heard their accents. Elsewhere, reporter Alan Moorehead overheard a POW say in awe, 'So that's what a jeep looks like!'

About 12.45pm.

Bert Ruffle and Frank Talbot have finished the job in Brux. Instead of the usual work building the oil refinery, they were sent with a camp guard to pick up some materials for one of the refinery foremen. Next to them in the truck, under a tarpaulin, is a crate of beer they discovered in Brux they are taking some surrept.i.tious swigs. The guard spots them, but says nothing. The men offer him a bottle.

1.00pm.

I Company is marching through the town of Dachau. The soldiers are impressed it is well kept with neat flower beds, cobbled streets, numerous small shops and a pretty river. Above the houses is an old castle. There had been a short firefight on the outskirts of the town but little else in terms of opposition. White sheets are hanging out of windows the town has surrendered.

Some soldiers are following a railway line that leads out of the town.

'That's the closest I've been to a free man on our side for more than four months.'

About 1.00pm/6.30pm Burmese time.

Royal Australian Air Force Wing Commander Lionel 'Bill' Hudson is lying in the cell he shares with 20 others in Rangoon jail in Burma, listening to a commotion by the main gate. He's half asleep and can't be bothered to investigate what's going on. This morning there had been the regular tenko (roll call) at 6.45, followed by a Sunday service, and then Hudson had headed back to his cell to have a nap it's been a hot week in Rangoon.

It has been a strange few days. There have been explosions and fires to the east of Rangoon. The j.a.panese guards lit their own fire in the jail compound and started burning papers and what looked to the POWs to be medical records. Four days ago at 9.30 in the evening an Allied aircraft flew low over the jail. 'That's the closest I've been to a free man on our side for more than four months,' Hudson confided to his diary later. Then the following day 200 of the fittest POWs were led away by some of the j.a.panese guards to an unspecified destination. Hudson asked why he was being left behind (he is the nominal leader of the Allied servicemen in the camp). 'You troublemaker,' one guard replied. Hudson fears that the 200 men will be used as hostages in negotiations with the advancing British and Australian forces.