Chapter 197 Chapter Thirty-One Five Minutes After Midnight, or "The Captain Sinks with the Ship" (9)

On the morning of April 29, the Soviet ground forces approached the bunker in three directions, namely from the east, south and north.The encirclement of the dying city tightened as the vanguard of the Soviet army entered the zoo.In the bunker a mile away, Martin Bormann was preparing to hand over Hitler's will and his own personal last words to his successor, Dönitz.To ensure safe delivery, Bormann sent two emissaries: his own personal advisor and Heinz Lorenz.Goebbels wanted to make his last words known to outsiders, and gave Lorenz a copy as well. The third copy of Hitler's will was given by General Burgdorf to the Führer's Army Adjutant.Burgdorf ordered him to hand over the will to Field Marshal Schueiner, the new army commander in chief.The messenger also carried with him Burgdorf's note; it explained that the Führer's will was written "after hearing the fatal news of Himmler's mutiny" and was an "unchangeable decision" of the Führer. It will be made public "as soon as the Führer orders or the Führer's death is confirmed."

Eva didn't get up until noon.One of the guards embarrassedly called her "Miss!" She smiled and said that she would call her "Mrs. Hitler" from now on. She asked Liesel, her maid, to give her wedding ring and nightgown to her friend Herda Schroeder.Then he gave Liesel a ring as a souvenir.After a while, she gave Traudl another favorite, a silver fox fur coat. "I always like people around me to dress well," she said, "take it, I hope it brings you a lot of joy." Traudel was so moved that it occurred to her for a moment how she could wear such a Clothes flee Berlin.

In the bunker, people live like years, and there is not much to do except chatting and smoking.By this time, everyone was smoking openly—Eva included.The Führer seemed unimpressed by the smoke in the room.Finally, at 6 o'clock in the afternoon, he called his personal staff to his study. (The study room is separated from the living room by a red gold velvet curtain).He first announced that Wink could not come.Then he said that, barring some miracle, he and his wife committed suicide together.He distributed the vials of cyanamide to the crowd.As a farewell gift, he told the two secretaries, it was too indecent.Again he praised their courage.Goebbels suspected that the medicine had lost its effectiveness due to the passage of time.Hitler also had suspicions, but of a different nature: the drugs had been supplied by the traitor Himmler.He called in the new surgeon, Ludwig Sturmfeger—the doctor suggested that Hitler's pet dog Blondi should be tested first.Hitler agreed.Later, he suddenly remembered that Stumpfegger was an SS himself, so he sent someone to the bunker hospital to find another doctor.The man dutifully poured the potion into the dog's mouth.Hitler was overjoyed - the dog was drugged to death.

Earlier in the evening, news arrived: Mussolini and his mistress had been killed by Italian partisans and their bodies hung upside down in a petrol station in Milan. "I must not fall into the hands of the enemy, whether in life or in death!" said Hitler. "When I am dead, burn my body so that it will never be discovered!" News from Italy frustrated Hitler; His pain would undoubtedly have been heightened if he had learned that SS General Wolf had just successfully handed over and surrendered the entire German army in Italy to the Allies in secret. At the last meeting of the day, General Wendeling reported on the street fighting in Berlin.The battle was brutal, and there was little hope.Waving a field dispatch—full of optimistic grotesques about Wenk's imminent rescue of Berlin—he said with a heavy heart that his troops were almost out of ammunition.The troops, he charged, were not so stupid that these deceptions only deepened their suffering.Goebbels sternly accused Wendeling of spreading defeat; thus the controversy erupted like a volcano.Bowman came out to mediate, telling both parties to calm down so that Wendelin could continue talking.At the end of the report, Wendelin predicted that the fighting would be over within 24 hours.

Everyone was shocked and fell silent.Hitler feebly asked the commander of the Chancellery district whether, in his opinion, this was really the case.Indeed, he said.Wendelin once again asked to break out.Hitler pointed to the map and said with resignation and sarcasm that, according to reports from foreign radio stations, he had marked the positions of his troops because his own subordinates no longer bothered to report to him; Execution, so any other hope is in vain. When he got up to say goodbye to everyone, Wendelin begged him again to change his mind as soon as possible while the ammunition was not completely exhausted.Hitler murmured something to Krebs, then turned to Wendeling: "I allow a few to break out," he said, but added that surrender was out of the question.Wendelin thought as he walked: What did Hitler mean?Isn't a small number of people breaking through the encirclement a surrender?He sent a telegram to several commanders ordering them all to report to headquarters on Bendlerstrasse the next morning.

After midnight, Hitler said goodbye to about 20 officers and secretaries in the dining room.His eyes are moist; it seems to Jung that he is looking into the distance.People lined up to see him off; he shook hands with each of them, and went down the spiral staircase to his bedroom. Inside the bunker, the barriers for officers and soldiers disappeared.The senior generals chatted casually and affectionately with their junior officers.In the mess hall where the soldiers and guards ate, people danced spontaneously.It was so loud that one of Bowman's guards intervened and told everyone to turn it down.Bowman was drafting a telegram to Dönitz.In the telegram, Bormann complained that all incoming telegrams were "controlled or suppressed or distorted" by Keitel, prompting Dönitz to "immediately and relentlessly fight against all traitors."