Hitler's Death -- Some parting secrets from Soviet Archives

"Hitler's Death: Russia's Last Great Secret from the files of the KGB"
by V.K. Vinogradov, J.F. Pogonyi and N.V. Teptzov.
Chaucer Press, London, England July 2005.

This is the most recent work to come out regarding the endlessly interesting and elusive story of the last days of Adolf Hitler and his regime in the Berlin bunker in 1945. Already chronicled in many books, these are the events captured so dramatically in the recent film "Untergang" (2004) (Released in English as: `Downfall' 2005). However, where that movie is a dramatized recreation, albeit some of the most accurate kind of recreation, this book deals with the very nuts and bolts of history: primary source documents. True, there have been many books published on this saga (n the writer's opinion the best, most accurate and comprehensive being "The Last Days of Hitler: The Legends - The Evidence - The Truth" by Anton Joachimsthaler)this book is still important. In many ways, it is more a reference volume, than a narrative, of the last days and Berlin and the shadowy and contradictory details surrounding the suicides of Hitler and Goebbels. However, something sets this one apart, and makes it a must for any who have followed the twists and turns of the mystery and various accounts over the years. This is the fact that the primary source documentation is in Russian, including facsimiles and reproductions of the original Soviet investigation and collected documents pertaining to the last gasp of the so-called `Reich Chancellery group'.

It is far from being the first time that Soviet reports and accounts were published, but heretofore, those have been `doled out' and presented in paraphrases, amalgams, and intermittent selected quotes. In this book however, even familiar segments or photos appear in startling fuller and detailed context. For those familiar with the case, this book purports and indeed appears to be, the larger bulk if not nearly all, of the never before published Soviet folios on the subject, the so-called "Operation Myth" files. To appreciate the value of the book, a brief digression into some of the popular works on the subject and is in order.

It is well known among aficionados in the field that tantalizing segments and descriptions of the Soviet side of the investigation into Hitler's death were first released in the mid-1960's, but contradicted the then most accepted Western interpretation --- Trevor Roper's "Last Days of Hitler" -- by saying that Hitler, Eva Braun Hitler, Goebbels and his family, and General Krebs all suicided by poisoning, and not by gunshot. This and other discrepancies led to some general discounting, but there was always something fairly persuasive in the photos and documents published in the Russian book. At the very least, it appeared to quoting parts of a genuine Soviet report, if omitting certain facts and sections for political purposes.

This state of affairs remained basically unchanged till the mid-1990's when after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 previously hidden records and photographs began to come to light. Particularly important in this regard was the 1995 "Death of Hitler" by Ada Petrova and Peter Watson. This claimed, and did, to reveal large sections of never before published information from the declassified archives of the former KGB, and among other bombshells, revealed that there had been two investigations, not one. It was the details of the first, in May 1945, that formed the corpus of Bezymenski's 1968 book which had so puzzled western historians. It turned out there was a second, larger follow-up investigation, carried out thru the spring of 1946, termed by the Soviets "Operation Myth". Its findings in places contradicted the earlier one, and in other places confirmed it. Both collections ended up filed under `Operation Myth' folios in the Soviet archives.

When Petrova and Watson's book came out in 1995, with all of its provocatively incomplete quotations and referencing of the source material, it was speculated whether the day would ever come that the lion's share of it would be published. That is what makes this new book so important --- for it appears that day has come. "Hitler's Death" contains not only some of the same information of the Petrova/Watson work, confirming its own veracity retroactively, but does indeed publish fresh material and documentation instantly recognizable as such. Historians of the Berlin bunker will immediately note and prize the interrogation reports of German officials and figures from the drama, especially those who died in captivity, and whose story never made it to the west. These include General Weidling, last defender of Berlin, and Professor Werner Haase, who was known to have witnessed or been aware of key details in the final act.

Laid out in a stark but useful reference style of quoted documents and occasional photographs from the inquiry, as well as portrait `mug shots' of nearly all of the witnesses question, the book puts the bulk of the Soviet point of view out there, without obvious emendation or revision. The primary sources are there to read and examine and to draw one's own conclusions from. To one such as the author very familiar with course of this mystery, this is strong plus, not a drawback. For example, though the photographs (with a key exception on page 65) associated with the discovery of the remains of Dr. Goebbels and his wife, and the remains identified as those of the Hitlers have often been published before, they have previously lacked clear context. The context now dates them and makes clear they belong to the early-May and mid-May 1945 period and are authentic images from the time frame before the Allied arrival in Berlin at the start of July which has been the source of most of the documentation of the ruins of the Reichs Chancellery and the Fuhrerbunker.

The presentation of the original sources and their form has been noted. What is nearly of equal interest is the extensive Preface of the book. For it too, delivers a narrative from Soviet sources and pulls together the mystery and fragmented chronology of the investigation much clearer than has been done before. It reveals where there had been darkness, and where the light was dim, it casts a brighter illumination. For example, we learn the surprising fact that General Krebs, last Chief of Staff of the Wehrmacht, apparently committed suicide in the courtyard of the ruined Propaganda Ministry next door where his body was found, and not in the Reich Chancellery. It also gives the correct names of Soviet personalities that had previously published under cognomens --- for instance, we learn about the famous Elena Ryzhevskya involved in the first published account from the Soviet side, and figuring in Bezymensky's book as well, that her real name is E.M. Kagan. A host of similar such details and anecdotes add to the value of the book.

I hope to review this book in fuller context of prior ones on Hitler's bunker and the end in Berlin at a later date, but wished to call attention to this work as soon as possible. Its not the kind of read the casual laymen might expect, but to any interested in the fall of Hitler it will not disappoint. Its title and form could easily fool weary scholars into thinking they were dealing with yet another `re-tread' of the same sources, but that is not so. In fact, when combined with the greater narrative for 1946/47 in the 1995 Petrova/Watson book, the volume nicely rounds out the picture from the Soviet side.

- Anthony