Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler (60 page)

151    
Hans-Erich Voss:
In 1942, as commander of the heavy cruiser
Prinz Eugen
, Voss had been handpicked by Joseph Goebbels to act as the navy’s representative in Hitler’s inner circle. He was wounded in the bomb attempt on Hitler’s life at the Rastenburg Wolf’s Lair headquarters on July 20, 1944.

151    
Villa Winter:
Robert H. Whealey,
Hitler and Spain: The Nazi Role in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1989).

152    
Hermann Fegelein:
When Anni Winter—Hitler’s housekeeper at his Munich apartment at Prinzregentenplatz 16—was interrogated in Nuremberg on November 6, 1945, she spoke scathingly about both Bormann—whom she described as a brutal, heartless cynic—and Fegelein. She suggested that the latter had an affair with Eva Braun. Cornell University Law Library, “Frau Anni Winter,” in Donovan Nuremberg Trial collection, Subdivision 8/Hitler, section 8.02 German (English translation available); see
http://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/donovan/show.asp?id=567&query=
.

152    
“In the city as a whole”:
Beevor,
Berlin
.

152    
Wilhelm Mohnke:
Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting,
Hitler’s Last General: The Case Against Wilhelm Mohnke
(London: Bantam Press, 1989). The term
Begleit
is translated here as “escort.” Identifying exact units is complicated by parallel titles. The original Führer Begleit Bataillon was composed of men from two elite units, the army’s Wachregiment Berlin and the air force’s Regiment Hermann Göring. This was later expanded, and most of its elements were transferred to the fighting front, although a company remained. The SS-Begleit Kommando des Führers was the handpicked team of bodyguards directly responsible for Hitler’s day-to-day safety and providing his valets and orderlies, which in 1945 numbered about 140 officers and men commanded by SS-Untersturmführer Franz Schädle.

154    
Oskar Schäfer:
http://www.ritterkreuztraeger-1939-45.de/Waffen-SS/S/Schaefer-Oskar.htm
. He had volunteered in 1938 and fought as an infantryman with the SS Regiment “Deutschland” before being transferred into the 5th SS Armored Division “Wiking” in 1943 and becoming a tank soldier.

154    
Fegelein’s capture:
Joachim Fest,
Inside Hitler’s Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004); see also William B. Breuer,
Feuding Allies: The Private Wars of the High Command
(Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 2007).

154    
Peter Högl:
Anton Joachimsthaler,
The Last Days of Hitler: The Legends, the Evidence, the Truth
(London: Arms & Armour Press, 1999).

155    
interview with Fegelein’s father:
Kenneth D. Alford and Theodore P. Savas,
Nazi Millionaires: The Allied Search for Hidden SS Gold
(Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2002).

156    
“A lone pilot was standing by in the shadows”:
O’Donnell,
Bunker
.

156    
“myth of Fegelein’s execution”:
Ibid.

156    
“light concrete panel”:
Time
magazine, “As Long As I Live …”

157    
“deceived even those quite close to him”:
Facial analysis by Alf Linney, professor of medical physics, University College London, commissioned by the authors, August 2010. The leading British expert on facial identification, Prof. Linney is regularly consulted by the Metropolitan Police as an expert witness. Professor Linney has proven scientifically that the man depicted in frames from Walter Frentz’s footage of the Hitler Youth presentation on March 20 is not Adolf Hitler. (The presentation did not take place, as frequently claimed, on April 20—the film was released as a newsreel on March 22.)

157    
“later be found on the floor”:
Time
magazine, “As Long As I Live …”; Maj. Nikitine mentioned the charred note.

157    
“fitted perfectly”:
www.mp44.nl/equipment/gas_mask.htm
.

159    
Ilse Braun:
United Press, Warsaw, “Hitler Escaped in U-Boat, Says German Pilot,” December 12, 1947, published in the
St. Petersburg Times
, December 13, 1947,
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=fyNPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=504DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4293,888260&dq=hitler-escaped-in-u-boat-says-german-pilot&hl=en
. For her disagreement with Eva, see Beevor,
Berlin
. In his testimony to a Warsaw court in 1947, the pilot Baumgart refers to Eva’s sister as one of the escape party.

159    
Joachim Rumohr:
Axis Biographical Research,
www.geocities.com/~orion47/
. See also The Associated Press, “Flier Claims Hitler Escaped,” Warsaw, December 18, 1947, for the report of Baumgart’s testimony;
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=hSNPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=504DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4258,4339256&dq=baumgart+hitler+warsaw&hl=en
. See also reproduction of this article on page 163 in Chapter 15. Baumgart refers to a General “Rommer” or “Roemer” and his wife being with the escape party. The only Nazi general with a name similar to this was Fegelein’s close friend Rumohr.

159    
Tiger II tanks:
Oskar Shäfer’s testimony; see
http://www.ritterkreuztraeger-1939-45.de/Waffen-SS/S/Schaefer-Oskar.htm
.

Chapter 15: T
HE
F
LIGHT

160    
Kampfgeschwader 200:
Thomas and Ketley,
KG 200
. Officially formed on February 20, 1944, KG 200 had brought together a number of existing sensitive or clandestine Luftwaffe operations—testing and employing captured Allied aircraft, inserting Abwehr agents behind Allied lines, testing “pathfinder” and radar-jamming techniques, flying unconventional bomber missions, and carrying out long-range flights to Japan. Despite its new umbrella identity, KG 200 comprised different groups and squadrons operating from separate bases, and for security reasons they were kept ignorant of each other’s activities. Rechlin was the base for KG 200’s 6th and 7th Squadrons (Staffeln), equipped with “Mistletoe” unconventional bomber aircraft; on March 6, 1945, these, and Hs 293 radio-guided bombs, had been used against Soviet-held bridges on the Oder river. The long-range specialists of KG 200 were the 1st Squadron, based at Finow.

160    
Peter Erich Baumgart:
The Associated Press, “Luftwaffe Pilot Sent to Gaol for Five Years,” Warsaw, August 8, 1949, published in
Canberra Times
, August 9, 1949,
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/690899
.

161    
“Baumgart’s orders were”:
The Associated Press, “Flier Claims Hitler Escaped”; see also note “Baumgart's account,” below.

161    
“just four days earlier”:
The Associated Press, “RAF’s Jets Slash German Airfield,” London, published in the
New York Times
, April 24, 1945,
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40E1FFB3C5F1B7B93C7AB178FD85F418485F9
.

163    
Baumgart’s account:
The Associated Press, “Flier Claims Hitler Escaped.” Baumgart’s trial in Warsaw was covered extensively by international news agencies, which published regular updates. Baumgart had been psychiatrically assessed when he first made his claims about flying Hitler out of Berlin; he was declared sane. When he repeated the claims in court, his trial was adjourned for forty-two days; he was once again sent for psychiatric assessment and again was declared sane. According to research carried out by Holocaust groups concerning Auschwitz, the pilot was released in December 1951 after serving three years of his five-year sentence. Nothing is ever heard of him again.

164    
Friedrich von Angelotty-Mackensen:
Interrogation of Friedrich Arthur Rene Lotta von Angelotty-Mackensen, Nuremberg Palace of Justice, March 18, 1948 (Gumberg Library Digital Collections of Duquesne University, “Musmanno Collection—Interrogation of Hitler Associates”). See also
http://digital.library.duq.edu/cdm-musmanno
; see also The Associated Press, Stockholm, May 8, 1945. Mackensen’s three-hour interrogation by Michael Musmanno, one of the American jurists, is rambling, and he repeatedly confuses dates. Mackensen was by then using a wheelchair, having suffered a broken spine in a forced landing in southern Sweden on May 8 after his attempted flight to Malaga, Spain (his was one of eleven German aircraft that were shot down or force-landed that day during such attempts). He had recovered consciousness in a hospital at POW Camp 404 in Marseille, France, on May 16. Throughout his interrogation Mackensen states that he had been delirious for much of his time on the ground in Berlin and Denmark. Although it was dismissed as “fantastic” by Musmanno, close reading of Mackensen’s story reveals details that coincide with Baumgart’s account. Mackensen, too, seems to have vanished from sight after the war.

164    
“20,000 reichsmarks”:
The Associated Press, December 19, 1947.

164    
“message canister”:
Interrogation of Angelotty-Mackensen.

164    
Werner Baumbach:
Werner Baumbach,
Broken Swastika: The Defeat of the Luftwaffe
(Munich: Pflaum, 1949; London: Robert Hale, 1960). Baumbach never explains why he was at Travemünde on April 29, but his diary notes speak for themselves. He went to Argentina after the war, working on aviation projects and becoming a friend of Col. Perón. He eventually died in a crash while flying an Argentine-bought British Avro Lancaster bomber over the Andes on October 20, 1953.

164    
Blohm & Voss Bv 222:
Nick Fielding,
Sunday Times
, London, December 28, 2003,
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=39672
. Reporter Nick Fielding’s interview with a ninety-three-year-old former German navigator, Capt. Ernst Koenig, described a plan to evacuate Nazi leaders “to Greenland” by flying boat. Koenig stated that he had just finished preparing two of the Bv 222s for the escape flight when they were attacked on the water by Allied aircraft and destroyed. “We had another in the workshop, and that, too, was made ready. It required a lot of work, but it was done, and once again stores arrived for loading on board.” KG 200 is known to have included the Bv 222 among its thirty-two different types of Axis and Allied aircraft. With a payload of some 34.5 tons (nearly three times that of the Ju 290), the flying boat could carry ninety-two fully equipped troops, at a speed of 240 miles per hour. It could stay aloft for up to twenty-eight hours, making it ideal for long-distance flights.