End game

THE HITLER BOOK: THE SECRET DOSSIER PREPARED FOR STALIN FROM THE INTERROGATIONS OF HITLER?S CLOSEST PERSONAL AIDES Edited by Henrik Eberle and Matthias Uhl, John Murray, ?8.15

?Now he?s done it, the bastard,? shouted Stalin over the phone when he got news of Hitler?s suicide. The Hitler-Stalin duel started with the launching of Unternehemen Barbarossa in June 1941. Besides feeling betrayed in matters of foreign policy, Stalin had a personal score to settle with Hitler. Stalin?s eldest son was captured by the Wehrmacht and later shot dead.

In late 1945, Stalin ordered investigation into Hitler?s death. The project called Operation Myth extensively interrogated Hitler?s personal assistant and valet, Heinz Linge, and his military adjutant, Otto Gunsche. The account of the two is detailed and reliable for the last days of Hitler because from late 1944 these two men were close to the Fuehrer and were privy to many secret policy decisions. When Fedor Parparov of NKVD prepared the report on the death of Hitler, the British Intelligence ordered Hugh Trevor-Roper to collect testimonies on the death of the German dictator. Interestingly, neither Parparov nor Trevor-Roper was aware of each other?s mission. Parparov?s report was discovered by Matthias Uhl in 2003 and published in 2005 as The Hitler Book.

This NKVD report highlights several dimensions of Europe?s history in a time of trouble. It shows the powerlessness of industrialists within the Third Reich. Party functionaries and generals dominated politics. The monograph also throws light on the ongoing debate regarding the Holocaust. Gunsche and Linge tell us that Hitler was aware of the development of mobile gas vans and gas chambers operating in Poland. Such evidence seriously weakens the position of historians like David Irving who claim that Hitler had no blueprint for eliminating Jews and that the Holocaust happened spontaneously under harsh wartime conditions.

In Trevor-Roper?s The Last Days of Hitler, Hitler appeared as the driving force behind his regime, but in The Hitler Book, he appeared to have little control over events. While Himmler started negotiations with the West, Generalfeldmarschall Keitel directed the Third and Twelfth armies against Zhukov?s tanks. Hitler spent his time taking Morell?s injections and staring at the map of Berlin.

The account shows not a bloodthirsty monster but a man shuddering in his hideout. The final act of the tragic drama started with the initiation of the Battle of Berlin by the Red Army. In the last week of April 1945, as the Soviet bombardment intensified, Hitler could not sleep. He merely looked up at the shaking roof of his bunker and enquired about the calibre of the Russian guns.

Amidst blood, dust and gore, Hitler decided to marry Eva Braun. On the day of the marriage, the bride wore a blue silk dress but the bridegroom wore a crumpled grey Wehrmacht jacket. After the marriage ceremony Hitler kissed his bride?s hand. Then Hitler discussed the best way to commit suicide. Some of the guests drinking cognac vomited and some fainted. While Hitler shot himself at his right temple, his pregnant wife took cyanide. Their bodies wrapped in blankets were taken to the garden outside the bunker and litres of benzene were poured over the corpses. Amidst howling wind and bursting Russian shells, for the last time Bormann, Krebs and Goebbels shouted Heil Hitler. This was the culmination of Der Untergang.