Hitler's Death by Luke Daly-Groves

Author:Luke Daly-Groves
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

III: The Mass Suicide

It is convenient for conspiracy theorists to focus on the fate of the Nazis from the Führerbunker who – not unusually, given the circumstances – disappeared, or whose bodies were never found at the end of the war.158 In doing so, they ignore the fact that many other top Nazis who were close to Hitler and present during his last days, such as Joseph Goebbels, chose to commit suicide. Many, including Goebbels, did this because they were inspired and encouraged by the knowledge that their Führer had also done so. As mentioned earlier in this book, it is inconceivable that Magda Goebbels would have killed her children with the reluctant consent of her husband had either of them believed Hitler would outlive them.

When discussing Hitler’s death, it is again important to emphasise the need to maintain a sense of context. Suicide was not an unusual form of death for Hitler and Eva to have chosen, and due to the circumstances, it was one that many other Nazis chose to take as well. For example, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, chose to bite down on a cyanide capsule whilst undergoing a medical examination in British captivity.159 He had been ‘arrested at a check point on a bridge near Bremervorde’, wearing an eyepatch and carrying forged papers under the name Heinrich Hitzinger.160 Himmler had hoped to have a meeting with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery to help determine Germany’s future.161 The moment a British doctor’s fingers poked at his mouth he must have realised that he would be treated as an undignified war criminal, not a statesman. His unrealistic objective had failed to come to anything. Revealingly, he gave a ‘shake of his head’ before biting down on his cyanide capsule.162 In taking his own life in this way, he preserved a slight semblance of control and authority by denying the Allies the chance to determine the time and method of his death. But despite photographic evidence and the existence of a death mask, even this suicide has been the subject of lengthy conspiracy theories (discussed further in the following section).

Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, of Luftwaffe fame, also cheated the hangman by committing suicide at Nuremberg in 1946.163 Interestingly, a British Intelligence Division report from Germany at the time tellingly stated that ‘the news of his suicide gave rise to many rumours. Some said he had escaped, others that he was being taken to England to be used in the next war, others that he had really been dead for some considerable time.’164 Obviously, Göring’s dead body was identified and photographed beyond certainty, so modern conspiracy theorists have wisely not elaborated on these rumours. Again, what is important about this is the context. Rumours about the deaths of important Nazis, often motivated by the various factors discussed earlier in this book, as well as suicide itself, were not unusual in occupied Germany. As one report from 1946 preserved by the CIA states, ‘various reports and rumours … circulated after the German collapse on the subject of the final fate of the top Nazis in Berlin’.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.