The Death of Hitler by Jean-Christophe Brisard & Shaun Whiteside

Author:Jean-Christophe Brisard & Shaun Whiteside
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2018-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

* Heinz Linge, With Hitler to the End, op. cit., p. 210.

* Lev Bezymenski, The Death of Adolf Hitler: Unknown Documents from Soviet Archives, New York, Harcourt, Brace & World, 1969, p. 45.

† Elena Rzhevskaya, Carnets, op. cit., p. 273.

* Ibid., p. 276.

† Ibid. p. 277.

* Elena Rzhevskaya, Carnets, op. cit., p. 339.

† Lev Bezymenski, The Death of Adolf Hitler, op. cit., p. 57.

* Ibid., p. 67.

MOSCOW, MARCH 2017

Normally, only the family is authorised to consult this file. Vladimir Ivanovich Korotaev tells us this again. Even though it has been declassified and lost its “classified on grounds of national security” status, the military “Otto Günsche” file remains confidential. “Except if a member of his family formally used a request,” he insists, abruptly closing the brown cardboard dossier, which bears the stamp MVD SSSR (Ministry of the Interior, USSR). On the cover it says in big printed letters: “Personal File: Günsche Otto Hermann.” The same Otto Günsche who was Adolf Hitler’s personal aide-de-camp until his death. One of the few witnesses to the final act of the drama in the Führerbunker. Vladimir Korotaev is the deputy director of the “Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voennyi arkhiv,” the Russian State Military Archives. A state organisation holding almost 7.3 million documents concerning Soviet armed forces, then the Russian armed forces, as well as the military intelligence services. It also contains all the official documents of the Third Reich seized by Soviet forces at the end of the Second World War, including the personal files of the Nazi leaders, Goebbels’ private journal, and Himmler’s work diary. From our very first meeting, Vladimir has been more than courteous, almost kind. In his fifties, with “salt and pepper” hair and a short beard, he speaks quietly and says little. On the other hand, he does have a rare ability to listen. When I speak to him, his pale blue eyes don’t leave me for an instant. His face betrays no emotion, no reaction, like a wax mask.

Lana had contacted him some weeks previously, after our visit to the offices of the FSB. Before leaving the Lubyanka again we had requested some advice from Dmitri, our “case officer” in the Russian secret services. How should we approach the military archives? Did he have a name he could suggest to us? Perhaps a telephone number? “Work it out for yourselves” was all he would give us. “We have nothing to do with the military, this is the FSB. You’ve got the wrong institution.” Who says the Russians aren’t touchy? “Why do you want to waste your time in the military archives?” An old journalist’s reflex led me not to divulge all my information. Particularly to an eminent member of the FSB. Mightn’t he intervene to block our access to the military files? It was on the advice of the State Archives of the Russian Federation, GARF, that we were trying to get into the Red Army archives. “If you want more information on Günsche, that’s where you’ve got to go,” we were told by Dina Nokhotovich, the ancient archivist and keeper of Hitler’s skull.

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