How they tried to steal victory from us
At dawn on May 1, 1945, at the command post of the commander of the 8th Guards Army, Colonel General V. I. Chuikov, the chief of the General Staff of the German ground forces, General of Infantry Hans Krebs, arrived. The German general handed Chuikov a document of his powers, signed by Bormann, and Hitler's "Political Testament". At the same time, Krebs handed Chuikov a letter to Stalin from the new German Reich Chancellor, Goebbels. It said:
The most significant details of the subsequent negotiations and the events that followed that day have been repeatedly described in memoirs and history books. They have been portrayed in at least a dozen domestic and foreign films. It seems that the account of these final hours of the Battle of Berlin is exhaustive. However, a careful study of them casts doubt on whether we know everything about how the agony of the Third Reich actually took place.
Why did these negotiations not lead to the surrender of Germany on May 1? For what reason, a few hours after the arrival of Krebs with a letter from Goebbels, the author of the letter, his wife, their children, and also his messenger to Chuikov lost their lives? Where did Bormann disappear without a trace, who authorized Goebbels to "establish contact with the leader of the Soviet people"? To try to find answers to these questions, one should point to a number of events that took place before May 1, 1945.
In search of a separate peace
Directing Krebs to Chuikov, Goebbels could recall his previous attempts to start negotiations with the USSR for peace. Already the defeat of the German troops at the Kursk Bulge and the surrender of Italy made him think about the inevitability of Germany's defeat. While at Hitler's headquarters in Rastenberg, Goebbels wrote in his diary on September 10, 1943, the essence of his reasoning about a separate world: “We are faced with the problem of which side we should turn first - to the Russians, or to the Anglo-Americans. admit that it will be difficult to wage war against both at the same time. " In a conversation with Hitler, Goebbels asked the Fuehrer, "is it not worth doing something in relation to Stalin." According to Goebbels, Hitler "replied that nothing needs to be done yet. The Fuehrer said that it would be easier to come to an agreement with the British than with the Soviets. At present, the Fuehrer believes, the British can come to their senses more easily."
On March 22, 1945, Goebbels again invited Hitler to "talk with a representative of the Soviet Union" and was again refused.
By this time, the Reich Foreign Ministry headed by I. von Ribbentrop had already tried more than once to start separate negotiations with the Western powers. For this purpose, the State Secretary of the Reich ministry Weizsacker was sent to the Vatican, the adviser to the Reich ministry von Schmiden was sent to Switzerland, and in March 1945 Ribbentrop's employee Hesse in Stockholm was sent to Stockholm. All these missions ended in failure, which caused Goebbels' gloating, who did not put Ribbentrop and his ministry into a penny.
At the same time, Goebbels ridiculed reports that appeared in the Western press that the initiative for peace negotiations came from Heinrich Himmler. On March 17, Goebbels wrote:
Only more than a month later, Goebbels realized his mistake. Then it turned out that Himmler had long been conducting such negotiations through the chief of foreign intelligence of the SS Schellenburg, who established contact with the representative of the International Red Cross, Count Bernadotte in Sweden. At the same time, through General Wolf, Himmler negotiated in Switzerland with the head of the US Bureau of Strategic Services (later the CIA) Allen Dulles and representatives of British intelligence. In the Hitlerite leadership, supporters of a separate peace with the Western powers were also Hermann Goering and Albert Speer.
Whose flag will be hoisted over the Reichstag?
However, Goebbels admitted in his diary: the moment for a separate peace had been missed. At this time, the question arose on the agenda: who will take Berlin? The balance of power in Europe and the world largely depended on this. Western allies, especially Great Britain, made persistent attempts to prevent the strengthening of the USSR's position.
On April 1, British Prime Minister W. Churchill wrote to US President F. D. Roosevelt:"
The British prime minister was not only thinking about considerations of prestige. During those days, Field Marshal Montgomery, commander of the British armed forces in Europe, received a secret directive from Churchill: "Carefully collect German weapons and lay them down so that they can be easily distributed to German soldiers with whom we would have to cooperate if the Soviet offensive continued." Apparently, Churchill was ready to send the Allied armies together with the German fascist troops to strike at his own Red Army and drive it out of central Europe.
Back on March 29, Goebbels wrote in his diary:. At the same time, Goebbels recognized:.
Their secret negotiations with leaders from the German leadership, including Himmler, also contributed to the implementation of the plans of the Allies. These negotiations became the subject of correspondence between Stalin and Roosevelt, to which the Soviet leader, not without reason, accused the allies of treachery.
These accusations of Stalin were directed to Roosevelt, although in his message of April 3, the Soviet leader wrote: It was obvious that Stalin himself considered it useless to read morality to Churchill, who was especially active in order to weaken the position of the USSR. At the same time, the harsh words addressed to the US President had a definite purpose: Stalin made it clear that by violating allied obligations in Europe, the United States endangered the fulfillment of the allied obligations undertaken by the USSR in Yalta to participate in hostilities against Japan. After all, Roosevelt had been striving for this from the USSR since the end of 1941.
Stalin achieved his goal. The United States broke off negotiations with representatives of the German military command. In his message received in the Kremlin on April 13, Roosevelt thanked Stalin for. Roosevelt expressed the hope that in the future. He expressed confidence that.
However, on the same day, news of the death of Roosevelt came to Moscow and Stalin sent "deep condolences" to the new US President Truman, evaluating the deceased as "the greatest politician on a global scale."
In addition to diplomatic measures, the Soviet leadership took military efforts to thwart attempts to steal Victory from our people. On the day when W. Churchill sent a message to F. Roosevelt, on April 1, the commanders of the fronts G. K, Zhukov and I. S. Konev were summoned to I. V. Stalin. According to the memoirs of I. S. Konev, General of the Army Shtemenko read aloud the telegram, the essence of which was briefly as follows: the Anglo-American command is preparing an operation to seize Berlin, setting the task of capturing it before the Soviet Army … The telegram ended with the fact that, according to all sources After Shtemenko had read the telegram to the end, Stalin turned to Zhukov and me: Konev wrote:.
Meanwhile, German resistance on the Western Front had practically ceased. On April 16, the day of the start of the Berlin operation, Zhukov told Stalin that, judging by the testimony of the prisoner of war, the German troops were given the task of resolutely not giving in to the Russians and fighting to the last man, even if Anglo-American troops came to their rear. Having learned about this message, Stalin, turning to Antonov and Shtemenko, said: "We need to answer Comrade Zhukov that he may not know everything about Hitler's negotiations with the allies." The telegram said:.
Chopping the cobwebs that were woven by Hitler's spiders
The offensive on Berlin by the forces of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts, launched on April 16, led to the fact that on April 21 Soviet troops were in the suburbs of the German capital.
At this time, the Nazi leaders made efforts to direct all their forces to the fight against the Red Army. On April 22, Hitler accepted General Jodl's proposal to transfer the newly formed 12th Army of General Wenck and the 9th Army of General Busse from the Western Front to the Eastern. These armies were to move to the southern suburbs of Berlin and, having united there, strike at the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front.
Konev recalled:.
Aware of the inevitability of collapse, Hitler's comrades-in-arms were in a hurry to agree with the allies on surrender. On April 23, Hitler's bunker received a telegram from Goering, who was in Obersalzberg. Goering wrote to his Fuehrer that since he had decided to stay in Berlin, he, Goering, was ready to assume "the general leadership of the Reich." By this time, Goering decided to fly to Eisenhower to capitulate to the Anglo-American forces. Having received Goering's message, Hitler was furious and immediately ordered to remove Goering from all his posts. Soon Goering was taken into custody, and Bormann prepared a message about Goering's resignation from the post of head of the Luftwaffe due to an exacerbation of heart disease.
In his memoirs, the Minister of Armaments of Germany, Albert Speer, spoke about the conversation with Himmler, which took place near Hamburg after the arrest of Goering. According to Speer, Himmler did not attach any importance to what happened. He said:
Himmler was confident in the strength of his position and his indispensability. He said:
On April 21, Himmler secretly from Hitler negotiated with Norbert Mazur, director of the Swedish department of the World Jewish Congress, trying to establish contact with Eisenhower through him in order to capitulate on the Western Front. In exchange, Himmler agreed to release the imprisoned Jews from a number of concentration camps. Thus, an agreement was reached on the release of thousands of Jewish women from Ravensbrück under the pretext of their Polish origin.
On April 23, Himmler met in Lubeck with Count Bernadotte at the Swedish consulate. According to Schellenberg's recollections, Himmler told the Count:"
Schellenberg recalled:. At the same time, Himmler wrote a letter to the Swedish Foreign Minister, Christian Gunther, with a request to convey Himmler's declaration of an end to the war to the leadership of the Anglo-American troops and the governments of the United States and Great Britain.
In his memoirs, B. L. Montgomery wrote that on April 27 he learned from the British War Office about Himmler's proposal. Field Marshal wrote: “Although Montgomery claimed that he“did not pay much attention to this message,”he further remarked: Thus, Himmler's willingness to surrender in the west was quite in line with Montgomery's plans.
However, the defeat by the Red Army of the main forces of the German troops in the Battle of Berlin, the encirclement of Berlin, the exit of Soviet troops to the Elbe testified to the failure of a number of leaders of the Western powers, and, above all, Churchill, to weaken the significance of Soviet successes. On April 25, Soviet soldiers met with American soldiers in the Strela area on the Elbe River and in the Torgau area on the Elbe River. These meetings turned into a vivid demonstration of the solidarity of the peoples of the anti-Hitler coalition. This event was marked by the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and salute in Moscow. Stalin, Churchill and the new President of the United States, Truman, timed their radio addresses to coincide with this anticipated event. These speeches, broadcast on April 27, 1945, demonstrated to the whole world the unity of the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition. In these conditions, the leading figures of Western countries, primarily the United States, decided not to aggravate relations with the Soviet Union, seeking to ensure the participation of the Red Army in the war against Japan.
In his book of military memoirs, The Crusade in Europe, General Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote that with the end of hostilities in Europe, “the time has come to take on the second task. Allied forces around the world were being recruited for the operation against the Eastern ally of the Axis powers. Russia is officially all was still at peace with the Japanese. " Eisenhower emphasized that the United States received the "information" with hope, according to which "Generalissimo Stalin told Roosevelt in Yalta that within three months from the date of the signing of the surrender, the Red Army would enter the war with Japan." Therefore, the Americans not only tried not to aggravate relations with the USSR, but also tried to accelerate the surrender of Germany, so that the three-month period before the entry of the Soviet Union into the war with Japan began to expire faster. This position of the American government ultimately influenced British policy, although Churchill's secret directive to Montgomery regarding German soldiers and their weapons was not canceled.
On April 25, the day of the meeting of Soviet and American troops on the Elbe, British Foreign Secretary A. Eden and US Secretary of State E. Stettinius informed W. Churchill and H. Truman about Himmler's proposals. The British Prime Minister and the US President saw them as an attempt to sow discord between the allies. They stated that surrender is possible only to all three allies at the same time.
Two days later, on April 27, at an unofficial meeting of the British delegation that arrived in San Francisco to participate in the founding conference of the United Nations, Anthony Eden casually remarked:.
The skilfully organized "information leak" was immediately picked up by the media. Jack Winocaur, director of the British Information Service in Washington, who attended the meeting, relayed the news to Paul Rankin of Reuters, but asked not to identify the source. In the early morning of April 28, the news appeared in London newspapers.
At 9 pm on April 28, Hitler learned from a BBC radio broadcast about Himmler's negotiations with Count Bernadotte. According to the famous pilot of the Third Reich Hannah Reich, who has just arrived in Berlin, Hitler. Reich, who had a tendency to utter long and emotional monologues, subsequently colorfully described this attack of the Fuhrer's rage. Hitler in a rage shouted about the low betrayal of the man whom he trusted the most. He announced the stripping of Himmler of all his titles. Reich then repeated more than once Hitler's order given to her and to Ritter von Greim, who had just been appointed commander-in-chief of the German Air Force instead of Goering: to fly out of Berlin immediately in order to.
This was not easy to accomplish: von Greim was wounded in the leg and walked on crutches. Therefore, although he was boarded a light aircraft, Hannah Reich led him. Taking off in the street at the Brandenburg Gate under the fire of Soviet anti-aircraft artillery, Reich managed to escape from besieged Berlin and sent the plane to Plön, where Dönitz's headquarters was located.
At this time, as the authors of the biography of Himmler, Roger Manwell and Heinrich Frenkel, wrote, "in the Plön Dönitz … and Himmler … shared power."According to the testimony of Schwerin von Krozig, who then took over as foreign minister in the last German government, the two eventually agreed that
Dönitz did not receive clear instructions from Berlin about the arrest of Himmler, but only a vague order from Bormann:. R. Manvell and G. Frenkel emphasize:. One thing is clear: Hitler's order was not carried out.
In Berlin, Himmler's representative in the bunker, Hermann Fegelein, was elected the scapegoat. He tried to hide, was found in civilian clothes in his apartment in the Berlin quarter, which was about to be occupied by Soviet troops, and was taken to a bunker. The fact that Fegelein was married to Eva Braun's sister did not save him. On April 28, he was shot in the garden of the Reich Chancellery.
On the evening of April 28, Hitler summoned all the inhabitants of the bunker in which he had lived his last days and invited them all to commit suicide. On the night of April 28-29, Hitler registered his marriage with Eva Braun. At the wedding ceremony, everyone was silent, with the exception of Goebbels, who tried to entertain the newlyweds and guests.
At 4 o'clock in the morning on April 29, Hitler certified his personal and political wills. In it, Hitler announced his decision "to remain in Berlin and to accept death voluntarily at the moment when I am sure that the residence of the Fuhrer and Chancellor can no longer be retained."
Hitler appointed Grand Admiral Dönitz as Reich President of Germany, Minister of War and Commander-in-Chief of the Navy. J. Goebbels was appointed Chancellor of Germany, and M. Bormann was appointed Minister for Relations with the Party. The commander-in-chief of the ground forces was the commander of Army Group Center, Field Marshal Schörner. Hitler demanded "from all Germans, all National Socialists, men and women and all soldiers of the armed forces, that they remain faithful to their duty and obey the new government and its president until their death."
He also announced that ". He expelled Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler from the party, removed them from all government posts. In one place of his will, Hitler, without naming Goering and Himmler by their last names, mentioned that undermined the" resistance "to the enemy.
Hitler's "political testament" was certified by four witnesses: Joseph Goebbels, Martin Bormann, General Wilhelm Burgdorf, and General Hans Krebs. Three copies of this will were sent on April 29 to Dönitz and Schörner with three couriers who were supposed to overcome the positions of the Soviet troops.
On April 30, at 14:25, the troops of the 3rd Shock Army of the 1st Belorussian Front took the main part of the Reichstag building. At 14.30 Hitler gave Weidling freedom of action and allowed an attempt to break through from Berlin. An hour later, Zhukov was informed that the scouts Sergeant M. A. Egorov and Sergeant M. V. Kantaria had hoisted the Red Banner over the Reichstag. Twenty minutes after this event, Hitler shot himself.
And yet, as Konev wrote,.
War correspondent P. Troyanovsky wrote how on the night of May 1 "a German car with a large white flag on the radiator suddenly appeared in the area of Colonel Smolin's unit. Our soldiers stopped firing. A German officer got out of the car and said one word: The officer said that the newly appointed chief of the General Staff, General Krebs, was ready to report to the Soviet command to agree on the surrender of the Berlin garrison. The Soviet command agreed to accept Krebs …"
Two military attachés.
It is obvious that even before his suicide, Hitler no longer counted on military success, but hoped to survive with the help of diplomatic maneuvers. Perhaps this was the reason for the resignation from the post of chief of staff of the German ground forces of a prominent military leader, practitioner and theorist of tank warfare Heinz Guderian. On March 28, General of Infantry Hans Krebs was appointed in his place. Although Goebbels did not say anything about Krebs' military talents, he was satisfied with this choice, calling him which.
Krebs spoke Russian brilliantly and was personally acquainted with Soviet military leaders during his work as an assistant military attaché in Moscow until June 1941. Berlin was well aware of a remarkable episode in the activities of G. Krebs. Acting as military attaché, G. Krebs attended the seeing off of Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka after the signing of the Soviet-Japanese treaty of neutrality. In an effort to emphasize the USSR's loyalty to its obligations under this treaty, JV Stalin and VM Molotov personally arrived at the station and warmly greeted Matsuoka. At the same time, the Soviet leaders tried to demonstrate their readiness to abide by the 1939 treaties signed between the USSR and Germany.
In a government telegram to Berlin, German Ambassador Schulenburg wrote on April 13, 1941 that during the farewell ceremony, JV Stalin "asked loudly about me and, finding me, came up, hugged me by the shoulders and said:" We must remain friends, and you must now do everything for this! "Then Stalin turned to the acting military attaché Colonel Krebs and, having made sure that he was German, said to him:" We will remain friends with you in any case. "Commenting on these words of Stalin, Schullenburg wrote: "Stalin, undoubtedly, greeted Colonel Krebs and me in this way deliberately and thus deliberately attracted the general attention of the large public who were present at the same time."
It is possible that not Krebs's service in various headquarters of armies and army groups from 1941 to 1945, but his experience as a military diplomat in the USSR, was primarily in demand by the leadership of the Third Reich in the spring of 1945.
At the same time, Goebbels began to study the biographies of those who commanded the Red Army, which had already entered the land of Germany. On March 16, 1945, Goebbels wrote:.
It is possible that Goebbels' interest in Soviet marshals and generals was caused not only by the desire to put his own military leaders to shame. Judging by the content of his diary, Goebbels at that time was interested primarily in matters that were of practical importance for Germany. It is possible that he wanted to know better about those with whom he wanted to enter into negotiations.
The biography of Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov fully corresponded to those general ideas about Soviet military leaders that Goebbels took from his acquaintance with their biographies. Born into a peasant family in the village of Serebryanye Prudy, Venevsky district, Tula province (now the Moscow region), the future Marshal of the Soviet Union began his working life as a mechanic in Petrograd.
Having started his military service in December 1917 in the training mine corps in Kronstadt, V. I. Chuikov then joined the ranks of the Red Army. He ended the Civil War with four wounds and as commander of a rifle regiment. Since May 1942 V. I. Chuikov has been an active participant in the Great Patriotic War. Under his command, the famous 62nd (then 8th Guards) Army fought in Stalingrad. Then the troops of the "Chuikovsky" army liberated the Right-Bank Ukraine, Belarus, participated in the brilliant Vistula-Oder operation.
It is possible that Goebbels drew attention not only to the combat experience of V. I. Chuikov, but also to his education, which allowed him to work in the diplomatic sphere. After completing his studies at the MV Frunze Military Academy, as well as academic courses on mechanization and motorization at this academy, VI Chuikov graduated from the oriental faculty of the same academy. After participating in the 1939 Liberation Campaign and the Soviet-Finnish War, V. I. Chuikov became a military attaché in China in 1940 and remained there until the beginning of 1942, that is, during the period of our active assistance to this country in its struggle against Japanese aggression. So Chuikov gained diplomatic experience in the complex and delicate affairs of the Far East.
Probably sending the former military attaché in Moscow, General Hans Krebs, to the command post to Chuikov, Goebbels knew that the Soviet colonel-general was well trained to conduct international negotiations.
May 1, 1945 at the command post of V. I. Chuikov
Having learned from V. I. Chuikov about the arrival of H. Krebs, G. K. Zhukov ordered General of the Army V. D. Sokolovsky to arrive "at the command post of V. I. Chuikov for negotiations with the German general." At the same time, Zhukov contacted Stalin by telephone. Reacting to the message about Hitler's suicide, Stalin said: "Got it, you scoundrel. It is a pity that it was not possible to take him alive." At the same time, Stalin ordered: "Tell Sokolovsky. No negotiations, except for unconditional surrender, should be conducted either with Krebs or with other Hitlerites. If there is nothing extraordinary, do not call until morning, I want to rest a little. Today we have the May Day parade."
Zhukov further wrote about Sokolovsky's call "at about 5 o'clock in the morning." According to the general of the army, Krebs cited his lack of authority to negotiate surrender. He also reported: "Krebs is seeking an armistice, ostensibly in order to assemble the Dönitz government in Berlin. I think we should send them to the devil's grandmother if they do not immediately agree to unconditional surrender."
According to Zhukov, he supported Sokolovsky, adding: "Tell him that if Goebbels and Bormann do not agree to unconditional surrender by 10 o'clock, we will strike a blow of such force that will forever discourage them from resisting." Then Zhukov wrote:. From Zhukov's memoirs, one can conclude that Krebs's visit was short, and Stalin generally forbade any negotiations.
Meanwhile, the most complete description of the negotiations with Krebs is available on 30 pages of the book of Marshal of the Soviet Union V. I. Chuikov "The End of the Third Reich". Chuikov noted that writer Vsevolod Vishnevsky, poets Konstantin Simonov and Yevgeny Dolmatovsky, composers Tikhon Khrennikov and Matvey Blanter also witnessed the negotiations. The negotiations were stenographed. On the German side, in addition to Krebs, Colonel of the General Staff von Dufwing, who performed the duties of the general's adjutant in the negotiations, as well as an interpreter, took part in the negotiations.
From the story of V. I. Chuikov, supported by stenographic notes, a somewhat different impression is formed about the negotiations at his command post than from the memoirs of G. K. Zhukov. First, Chuikov reported that the negotiations had lasted for almost 10 hours. Secondly, Chuikov spoke about the establishment of a telephone connection between the German Reich Chancellery and the command post of the 8th Guards Army. Thirdly, during the negotiations with Krebs, Chuikov and Sokolovsky were called more than once by some higher officials. And they could be G. K. Zhukov or I. V. Stalin. Consequently, Stalin, first declaring, according to Zhukov, the inadmissibility of any negotiations, then allowed their continuation and actually participated in them.
The stumbling block in the negotiations was the unwillingness of the new leaders of the Reich to surrender without Dönitz's consent. There were well-known reasons for this. Roles in the triuvmirate formed by Hitler were not clearly defined. The appeal to Stalin was written by Reich Chancellor Goebbels, but he indicated that he was acting on behalf of Bormann. Krebs' credentials were also signed by Bormann. Dönitz was appointed Reich President, that is, to a post that was abolished after the death of the last President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on August 2, 1934. Commenting on Hitler's latest appointments in his memoirs, former German Minister of Armaments Albert Speer called them "the most absurd in his career. statesman … He could not clearly define, as it happened in the last years of his life, who has the highest power: the chancellor or his cabinet, or the president. According to the letter of the will, Dönitz could not remove the chancellor or any of the ministers, even if it turned out that they were not fit for the job. So the most important part of the powers of any president was taken from him from the very beginning."
In addition, the Grand Admiral, who was in Plön, received scant information about what was happening in the bunker of the Reich Chancellery in recent days. Only three hours after the suicide of Adolf Hitler and his wife on April 30 at 18.35 Bormann sent a radiogram to Dönitz: "Instead of the former Reichsmarshal Goering, the Fuehrer has appointed you as his successor. Written instructions have been sent to you. Take immediate action in this situation."
The Grand Admiral did not receive any messages about Hitler's departure from life and believed that the highest power in Germany still belonged to the Fuehrer. For this reason, he sent a reply to Berlin expressing his loyalty to Hitler. Dönitz wrote:.
The concealment of information about Hitler's suicide was due to the fact that Goebbels and Bormann feared Himmler, who was in Plön, where Dönitz was also. It is obvious that, hiding the death of Hitler, his heirs believed that as long as Himmler considered the Fuehrer alive, the SS chief would not dare to seize power. They were in no hurry to publish Hitler's "Political Testament", according to which Himmler was expelled from the party and deprived of all power. Most likely, they feared that premature publicity would only hasten Himmler's actions. The head of the all-powerful SS organization could declare Hitler's "Political Testament" transmitted by the radiogram to be false, they were traitors, and even Hitler's murderers. Goebbels and Bormann hardly doubted that Himmler could put Dönitz under his control or even declare himself head of the Third Reich.
The position of Goebbels, Bormann and others was extremely precarious.
The real power of Hitler's heirs extended only to a few Berlin quarters. Lev Bezymensky gave accurate data on the territory controlled by the Goebbels government:. The German government itself, which was headed by Goebbels, was only an appearance of such. Of the 17 government members appointed by Hitler, there were only three in Berlin: Goebbels, Bormann and the new propaganda minister, Werner Naumann. This explained the persistent desire of Hitler's heirs to gather Dönitz and all members of the government in Berlin, about which Krebs constantly spoke. This also explained their fears that Himmler might seize the initiative in the leadership of Germany.
To substantiate the legality of their position, Goebbels and Bormann had only Hitler's "Political Testament". Referring to him, Goebbels, Bormann and their supporters emphasized that only they were competent to negotiate surrender. Therefore, the first people outside the bunker to find out the content of Hitler's political will were Soviet military leaders and Stalin. The statements that Goebbels and Bormann preferred to negotiate with the USSR were explained simply: those surrounded by Soviet troops had no choice but to surrender to them. Paradoxically, Goebbels, Bormann and Krebs tried to take advantage of the general surrender in order to demonstrate their right to speak on behalf of the whole of Germany, that is, to confirm the legitimacy of their government by surrender.
Krebs told Chuikov and Sokolovsky:"
Krebs, Goebbels and others, not without reason, believed that the Soviet government was ready to accept surrender from the government, which was trapped in Berlin, and thereby end the war in a matter of hours. Otherwise, hostilities could drag on. At the same time, the Soviet military leaders invariably stressed that all negotiations for a general surrender should take place with the participation of all allies.
At the same time, the seizure of power by Himmler, who had already entered into secret separate negotiations with agents of the Western powers, was unprofitable for the Soviet Union. Therefore, VD Sokolovsky, who arrived at the command post, referring to GK Zhukov, suggested that G. Krebs publicly "declare G. Himmler a traitor in order to interfere with his plans." Perceptibly animated, Krebs replied:. Krebs asked permission to send Colonel von Dufwing to Goebbels.
Chuikov called the chief of staff and ordered to secure the colonel's transfer and at the same time to link our battalion in the front line with the German battalion in order to establish a telephone connection between Goebbels and the Soviet army command post.
While crossing the line of fire, the group, which included von Dufwing, a German translator and Soviet signalmen, was subjected to shelling from the German side, although the colonel was holding a white flag. Despite the fact that the commander of the Soviet communications company was mortally wounded, contact with the Reich Chancellery was established. However, on the German side, the connection did not work for a long time. Yet after von Dufwing's return, Krebs was able to talk to Goebbels on the phone.
After lengthy negotiations, Krebs read the Soviet terms of surrender to Goebbels by telephone:
Goebbels demanded the return of Krebs to discuss all these conditions with him.
In parting, Krebs was told: Krebs was also told that after the surrender of Berlin, Soviet troops will give the Germans an airplane or a car, as well as radio communications to establish contact with Dönitz.
Krebs:
Answer:.
Krebs:.
According to Chuikov, after parting, Krebs returned twice.
Chuikov explained Krebs's behavior as follows:.
In the second half of May 1 in the bunker of the Reich Chancellery: existing versions.
After Krebs crossed the line of fire, Soviet military leaders were waiting for an answer from the Reich Chancellery. However, the Germans were silent. Their silence dragged on.
G. K. Zhukov recalled:.
However, there is no documentary evidence that the leaders of the new government actually rejected the Soviet terms of surrender. The specified envoy did not present any documents proving that he was acting on behalf of Goebbels or Bormann. There are no documents left about the meeting of the Goebbels government, at which it was decided to reject the Soviet conditions.
On the evening of May 1, a significant part of the inhabitants of the bunker attempted to break out of the Soviet encirclement. William Shearer estimated that between 500 and 600 of the bunker dwellers, many of whom were SS men, eventually managed to break through. They then ended up in the Allied occupation zones. Some of them later claimed that Generals Krebs and Burgdorf, as well as the Goebbels couple, did not join the breakout group, but committed suicide. Magda Goebbels was reported to have killed her children with the help of a doctor before committing suicide. Bormann, according to the former inhabitants of the bunker. joined the breakout participants, but died on the way.
However, no one has been able to provide convincing evidence of how Krebs and Burgdorf committed suicide. Their bodies have not been found.
Contradictory evidence and the death of Bormann on the way from the bunker. As Lev Bezymensky convincingly proved in his book "In the Footsteps of Martin Bormann", the statements of Hitler's personal chauffeur Erich Kempka in his book "I Burned Hitler" refuted his testimony at the Nuremberg trials about Bormann's death from the explosion of a tank by a Soviet shell. The leader of the "Hitler Youth" Artur Axmann, to whom W. Shearer referred, assured that Bormann had taken poison during his escape. However, his body was never found. Martin Bormann, whose search was carried out for a significant part of the twentieth century, disappeared without a trace.
Much has been said about the suicide of Goebbels, his wife, as well as the murder of their children, whose corpses were found. In his book, H. R. Trevor-Roper, cited the testimony of Goebbels' adjutant, SS Hauptsturmführer Günther Schwagermann. He claimed that on the evening of May 1, Goebbels summoned him and said:
According to Trevor-Roper, Schwagerman promised to do so. After that, the adjutant sent Goebbels' chauffeur and SS man for gasoline..
