Hitler's Last Days (26 page)

L
ARGE ARMIES ON THE MOVE
need constant sources of supplies: food, fuel, ammunition, replacement clothing, and medicine. As General Patton planned his march through France and then on to Germany, an essential element was the establishment of a trucking operation. On August 21, 1944, the Red Ball Express was founded. A code name given by the Army Transportation Corps, “red ball” referred to the railroad symbol for express freight.

The supply routes were expected to be clear of civilian traffic, but trucks could not zip along at high speeds. The roads were poor and narrow. Drivers hoped to maintain a speed of twenty-five miles per hour and were instructed to keep sixty yards between trucks. (At that distance, if a bomb fell, perhaps only one or two trucks would be lost.) At night, a blackout was enforced. Trucks could only use “cat eyes,” headlight covers that allowed just a slit of light to shine through.

As many as nine hundred trucks were on the road at the same time, making round trips of fifty-four hours. It was 350 miles to Patton's Third Army from Saint-L
ô
in Normandy. “When General Patton said for you to be there, you were there if you had to drive all day and all night. If those trucks broke down, we'd fix them and they'd run again,” said James D. Rookard, a driver with the Red Ball Express.

Nearly 75 percent of the drivers were African American. Even though most black soldiers were relegated to behind-the-scenes jobs at that time, this unique group was essential to the front lines. During an eighty-two-day mission, the Red Ball drivers delivered 412,193 tons of supplies.

With the reconstruction of French railway lines, the need for the Red Ball Express diminished, and it was disbanded November 16, 1944. However, many of its drivers went on to help Patton turn his Third Army toward Bastogne and the Battle of the Bulge.

Members of the Red Ball Express repair a truck while a crewman keeps watch.
[Army Transportation Museum]

THE EAGLE'S NEST

F
OR THE
F
Ü
HRER'S FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY,
the Nazi government hired four thousand workers to build a mountaintop château. This lavish building, meant for diplomatic receptions as well as Hitler's private enjoyment, rises atop a mountain in the Bavarian Alps. The nearest village, Berchtesgaden, is where Hitler wrote the second volume of his autobiography,
Mein Kampf
, or “My Struggle.” Several of his closest advisers also had homes in the area.

Visitors approached the Eagle's Nest by way of a twisting road passing through five tunnels cut out of the mountain. From the parking area, a tunnel into the rock face led to an elevator that took them up the final four hundred feet. There they might be shown to a dining room that could seat thirty people, eat with silverware engraved with Hitler's initials, and admire a fireplace covered in red marble that had been presented to the F
ü
hrer by his ally Benito Mussolini of Italy. The most frequent visitor to the house was not Hitler, but his mistress, Eva Braun. The F
ü
hrer had an aversion to heights and regularly expressed concerns over the elevator's safety.

American and French soldiers visit the ruins of the Eagle's Nest on May 4, 1945.
[Mary Evans Picture Library]

As the war came to a close, and millions of American and British troops were in Germany, the Eagle's Nest became a popular tourist attraction. As many as three thousand visited each weekday—and three times that many on weekends. Soldiers looted anything they could find to save as souvenirs.

INSIDE HITLER'S BUNKER

A
MERICAN BOMBERS SWEPT OVER
B
ERLIN
on February 3, 1945, in one of hundreds of raids that would level the city. The target this day was the inner city, where government offices and ministries were located. The Reich Chancellery, Hitler's official office and apartment, was in the bombers sights. The damage that day, including the destruction from fire bombs that hit Hitler's apartment, was extensive. But Hitler and his staff had already moved to the bunker below the grounds.

The bunker was originally an air-raid shelter. It had evolved into a two-level warren of conference rooms, bedrooms, a kitchen and dining room, an infirmary, and offices. In one corner of the bunker, rising above the ground level, was an observation tower. Above the bunker, in the park that surrounded the chancellery, antitank guns and mortars kept guard. Between February and April, Hitler would occasionally step out of the bunker to walk Blondi in the park.

The bunker was a bleak place to live and work. The walls were gray concrete; there was very little decoration anywhere except in the anteroom to Hitler's apartment; and the artificial light made everyone look pale and unhealthy. A diesel generator between the floors supplied light, fresh air, water pumps, and heat.

For two and a half months, Hitler's closest advisers lived here, too. Hitler met with his staff in his conference room for hours every day, plotting a potential victory for the Third Reich.

The first level, or Vorbunker, held offices for mapmakers, radio operators, secretaries, as well as bedrooms, an infirmary, and a kitchen and dining room. Down a spiral staircase were Hitler's private quarters and a conference room.

A third area of the complex housed the garage bunker and rooms for drivers.

NAZI CASH, ART, AND STOLEN POSSESSIONS

A
FTER CROSSING THE
R
HINE
R
IVER
in March 1945, Allied soldiers spanned across Germany, fighting their way toward Berlin. They checked every hay barn, small country lane, abandoned house, church, cave, and underground mine for German snipers. They fought to capture each town as they advanced. It was slow, often frightening work that occupied millions of soldiers as the war drew to a close. They also interviewed citizens and workers about the areas they traveled through.

At Merkers, Germany, a town two hundred miles southwest of Berlin, civilians told U.S. soldiers that they had heard about great quantities of gold stored in the salt mine there. This information traveled up the chain of command. The first examination of the mine showed a thick brick wall with a heavy vault door. Permission was given to blast the door open.

Inside was an almost unimaginable scene: rows and rows of gold bars packaged together, bags of currency from many European countries. A partial inventory showed that there were 8,198 bars of gold bullion; fifty-five boxes of crated gold bullion; hundreds of bags of gold items; more than 1,300 bags of gold Reichsmarks, British gold pounds, and French gold francs; 711 bags of American twenty-dollar gold pieces; and hundreds of bags of foreign paper currency.

U.S. soldiers examine Édouard Manet's painting “In the Conservatory” on April 25, 1945. It rests on wheeled carts that moved salt out of the mine when it was in operation.
[National Archives]

The gold had been delivered to the mine for safekeeping once the Allies started carrying out constant bombing sorties, almost leveling the German central bank, the Reichsbank in Berlin. The Germans needed the money to pay soldiers, buy supplies for the vast army, and keep the country's economy stable. Included in the stash were gold and currency looted from banks in Europe during the Nazi drive west.

As the mine and its tunnels were further explored, soldiers discovered bags of personal property taken from victims in the death camps as well as valuable artwork from German museums. It was eventually determined that one-fourth of the holdings of fourteen museums was at the Merkers mine.

General Eisenhower visited the mine on April 12, 1945, with Generals Bradley and Patton. With them were photographers from the Signal Corps and news reporters to document the discovery. Eisenhower decided to move the treasure out of the mine and further to the rear to protect it, to develop a thorough inventory, and to free up the soldiers who were guarding the mine to return to active fighting on the front. Eleven thousand containers traveled by truck to Frankfurt, with constant protection from aircraft.

Treasure was discovered in other caves and mines in the region—in Siegen, Ransbach, and Bernterode. In an old salt mine in Altaussee, Austria, Hitler had stashed artwork stolen from museums, churches, and private homes in his drive across Europe. He had grand plans to build a museum in Linz, Austria, where he had lived as a child, to showcase the art and to stand as a monument to his reign. That stash and its discovery and rescue are explored in the books
The Rape of Europa
by Lynn H. Nicholas and
The Monuments Men
by Robert M. Edsel, and in the subsequent documentary and feature films with the same names. Each tells the story of members of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section of the Allied army, whose job it was to save as much plundered art as possible and to prevent, if possible, the bombing of historic sites.

After the war, some of the monies stolen from European banks were returned to them. It took until 1998 for the commission set up after the war to complete the dispersal of the gold. At the end, there was about sixty million dollars left. The countries that had claims to the money agreed to give it to the Nazi Persecutee Relief Fund, which provides aid to people who were victims of the Nazis.

A U.S. soldier inspects art and other loot stored in a church in Ellingen, Germany, on April 24, 1945.
[National Archives]

CONCENTRATION CAMPS: AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU

T
HE
N
AZIS BUILT TWENTY THOUSAND
camps beginning in 1933. Some were labor camps, where prisoners were held as slaves and forced to work in factory jobs, producing goods for the war effort. Others were POW (prisoner-of-war) camps for captured soldiers. And some were built with the express purpose of exterminating people.

While the term “concentration camp” is widely used to describe the many places where the Nazis tortured and killed their enemies, real and imagined, six facilities—Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek, and Auschwitz-Birkenau—also carried the term “extermination camp” because most prisoners were murdered immediately upon arrival. Auschwitz-Birkenau served the dual purpose of forced labor and extermination.