Page 30 - All About History - Issue 186-19

At first, Hitler would only sleep in the bunker, assassinating him. Surrounded by doctors, his he received was via visitors, through the bunker’s
ascending from it in the afternoons for his daily condition continued to deteriorate. His personal telephone exchange, or from the radio, where he
top-level military conference in the Chancellery. physician Karl Brandt, an SS officer responsible now increasingly tuned in to hear the BBC – a
There, surrounded by his senior officers, he would for the T4 euthanasia murder programme, was crime he had decreed as punishable by death in
be briefed on the latest developments at the fronts: increasingly sidelined by another SS doctor, the Third Reich.
the west, east and Italy. The news was bad – the Ludwig Stumpfegger, and his sinister boss
Red Army’s Vistula offensive had been launched Theodor Morrell. Morbidly obese, and with an
on 12 January and was advancing steadily west. unsavoury reputation as a quack, Morrell exerted
On 2 February the Soviets reached the River growing influence over the dictator, treating him Life in the bunker was safer than in the much-
Oder, just 43 miles from Berlin itself. Less than with a plethora of over 70 different substances bombed city above, but was pretty grim
a fortnight later, the remnants of the Budapest including methamphetamine, cocaine and opioids. nonetheless. Being below the water table, damp
garrison surrendered the city, and Saxony’s After another injection – he would sometimes have was a real problem, with condensation dripping
architectural jewel – Dresden – was fire-bombed 20 or so a day – the Nazi dictator would declare down the concrete walls. Diesel generators
by the RAF and reduced to ashes. March brought himself refreshed and revitalised, but his long- provided electrical power and light, as well as
more of the same: Hitler ordered a major offensive term health and judgement were falling apart. operating the pumps needed to stop the place
in Hungary to try and safeguard its desperately With Berlin being bombed almost daily during from slowly flooding. The air was fetid and
needed oil fields – to no avail, the Germans lost March, Hitler moved his conferences from the dank, with inadequate ventilation leading to an
thousands of men and hundreds of Panzers and Chancellery down into the bunker and rarely atmosphere of claustrophobia and confinement,
achieved nothing. Over in the west, John W ventured above ground – only occasionally worsened by the constant humming of the
Leonard’s US 9th Armoured Division reached the walking his beloved Alsatian bitch Blondi in the generators that caused headaches and nausea
Rhine at Remagen to find the massive Ludendorff Chancellery garden. His connection to the outside among many of the staff. Those staff included
Bridge intact – capturing it, the Anglo-Americans world was now tenuous at best. The only news a number of secretaries like Traudl Junge and
now entered the heart of Nazi Germany.
Montgomery crossed to the north a fortnight later,
and within days Walter Model’s Army Group B
(Heeresgruppe B) was surrounded in the Ruhr
Pocket. The Allies’ spring offensive in Italy cracked
the front there and forced the Germans into a
headlong retreat.

By now Hitler’s physical and mental health were
under massive strain. The Chief of the Army’s
General Staff, Heinz Guderian, was shocked at
his appearance: “The whole left side of his body
trembled… He walked awkwardly, stooped more
than ever, and his gestures were both jerky and
slow. He had to have a chair pushed beneath him
when he wanted to sit down.” Always prone to
violent mood swings, his ranting and bursts of
temper became more pronounced. An operation
back in September to remove a polyp from
his vocal chords had damaged his voice, and
his hearing hadn’t fully recovered from the 20
July 1944 bomb blast that almost succeeded in

In one of the last ever photographs
Hitler was furious taken of him, Adolf Hitler gives
when the counter- bravery awards to teenaged
attack he’d ordered members of the Hitler Youth
didn’t take place

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