The Last 100 Days: The Tumultuous and Controversial Story of the Final Days of World War II in Europe (Modern Library War) by John Toland

Author:John Toland [Toland, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780804180948
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2016-04-27T16:00:00+00:00

2.

The deteriorating situation in the east was also bringing about a deterioration in the personal relations between Hitler and his commander of that front. As Guderian and Major Freytag von Loringhoven drove up from Zossen to Berlin on the morning of March 28, the aide was sure the meeting would be a stormy one, since it was obvious that Guderian had reached the breaking point. What a crime, he thought, that one of Germany’s greatest field commanders was wasting his talents in a conference room, arguing futilely with the Führer.

“Today I will tell him all!” Guderian burst out. What upset him particularly was that 200,000 German soldiers were needlessly trapped hundreds of miles behind Russian lines in Kurland.

Their car was now crawling through the rubble-littered streets of Berlin, past row after row of gutted, smoldering buildings, past harried citizens scrounging for scraps of food. They parked near the partially destroyed Reich Chancellery and walked along several corridors. Finally they were escorted by a guard down a flight of stairs to a steel-reinforced door guarded by two SS men. This was the entrance to Hitler’s new home: the huge bunker way below the Reich Chancellery garden.

They went down more stairs to a narrow corridor, which was covered with a foot of water. This passage was actually a pantry and was referred to as Kannenbergallee after Hitler’s butler, Artur Kannenberg. They balanced their way across duck boards to a door, then down another short flight of stairs to the upper level of the bunker. Twelve small rooms opened on a central vestibule which also served as the general mess hall.

Guderian and his aide went through this passageway, then down a curving stairway and a final dozen steps to the lower level, the Führer bunker. Here were eighteen cubicles, separated by an entrance hall which was divided into a waiting room and the conference room. Beyond these, in a small vestibule, was the emergency exit to four steep flights of concrete steps leading up to the Chancellery garden. On the left of the conference room was a small map room, a rest room for the Führer’s bodyguard and the six-room suite of Hitler and Eva Braun. On the right were quarters for Drs. Theodor Morell and Ludwig Stumpfegger (he had replaced Dr. Karl Brandt as Hitler’s surgeon), and a first-aid station. The whole bunker was protected by a twelve-foot-thick reinforced ceiling, topped by thirty feet of concrete. This would be Hitler’s tomb or his bastion of victory.

The two officers were searched by more guards and admitted to the conference room, which was already filling up with important personages. The air was stuffy despite a ventilating system whose shrill, monotonous whine penetrated every room of the bunker.

A moment later Hitler shuffled in from his adjoining apartment, and the noon conference opened with a report by General Busse on his unsuccessful attempts to relieve Küstrin. When Busse tried to explain why the three counterattacks had failed, Hitler broke in sharply, “I am the commander! Responsibility

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