V Alexander - The Taster

I threw the pistol on the floor in front of him, wiped my hands on my dress and put the other pistol back on the table. I rushed to the door of Eva’s adjoining bedroom because I knew it wouldn’t be long before the others would investigate the gunshot. I sat on her bed until the blood began to dry on my dress. I heard rustlings in the sitting room, but no one came into her bedroom. After an hour or so, I peeked past the door. The bodies were gone. Someone had carried out Hitler’s orders to dispose of his and Eva’s remains.

As I walked back to my quarters, I passed the Goebbels children sitting on the staircase between the upper and lower bunkers. Helmut, who recognized me, shouted out, “Did you hear the shot?”

I shook my head.

“It was a bull’s-eye.” He clapped his hands together.

I collapsed against the wall, shaking uncontrollably at the enormity of what I had done. My knees gave way and I slid to the floor in a heap.

One of the older daughters rushed to my side. “Don’t,” she said, and clutched my hands. “We’ll be out of here soon. My mother and father said so.”

I sat trembling for several minutes before I managed to say good-bye to the children. I wondered if there was anything I could do, because I feared what lay in store for them.

Cook told me later what happened to Hitler and Eva.

They were carried out, as he had instructed, dumped into a shallow depression, their bodies doused with gasoline and set on fire. The men had little time to make sure the Führer and his bride were never discovered. The shelling continued even as the pallbearers tried to ignite the makeshift grave. Throughout the day and into the evening, a few of the Party faithful renewed their pledge to make sure the bodies were burned into nothingness. Eventually, the disintegrating corpses were covered with earth from the garden—their graves surrounded by rubble, garbage and the detritus of war.

Rumors circulated wildly about what was to come next. Communications had been cut days before, but we knew from firsthand reports the Russians were only a few hundred meters away engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat with the last defenders. Now that Hitler was dead, many of those who’d vowed to stay with him to the end were planning ways to escape. No one wanted to be captured by the Russians. I was told by Baur, Hitler’s pilot, to travel north or west to areas held by the British and the Americans. I didn’t know if this would be easier than Eva’s suggestion to travel south to Munich. However, Bormann and the Goebbels family were still in the bunker. None of us wanted to make a move as long as they controlled the last vestiges of the Reich’s power.

That night I slept fitfully. I’d ended Hitler’s life, something I had dreamed of, but never dared believe would come true. Deep within me, I mourned the loss of my soul. I felt my humanity had been sucked away, and I would be doomed to Hell for being a murderer. My victim’s face came into my head. I had pulled the trigger, the bullet had blasted a hole in his temple, his blood poured forth from the wound. Every time I closed my eyes his face appeared.

I also thought of the Goebbels children and their fate in the bunker.

The next morning, I knocked at Magda Goebbels’s apartment. She and the children slept near me. She opened her door a bit and peered out. Her face was white and cracked like a thin sheet of parchment. She nodded, but her eyes looked as lifeless and dull as a cold, gray sea. I started to speak, but she closed the door. I could not see it, but I heard the sound of a chair being hastily pitched against the knob. I left, quite certain I could not sway any decision she or her husband might make.

All of us waited patiently the afternoon of the first day of May for any word from Goebbels or Bormann. None was forthcoming. We sat in the bunker like stranded fish in a shrinking pond.

That evening, Cook asked me if I would help her deliver food to the Goebbels children. We each took two trays, four in total, and carried them to Magda’s apartment. I had told no one of her deadly threat, not even Cook. Again, Magda appeared at the door, and when she saw who was outside, she opened it only enough to let Cook hand her the trays.

I spoke hastily as the last one was delivered: “I know what you are doing.”

Magda’s eyes blazed for a moment and then softened. “My family is none of your concern.”

She attempted to close the door, but I held it open. “I know, but please reconsider.” She put the tray down and stepped outside the door.

“Keep your voice down,” she said, and tears swam into her eyes. “Now that the Führer is dead, life is not worth living.” She choked with sadness and regret. “Everything we stood for is in ruins; everything beautiful, noble and good has been destroyed. Our children deserve better than to live under barbarian rule.” She pointed to the door. “I could not ask for a better ending than to follow in the footsteps of the Führer. Neither could they.”

Cook now understood what was happening and she begged for the children’s lives.

“Nothing can change my mind,” Frau Goebbels said, “and if I have to use force to carry my plan out, I will. My husband and I have sealed our fates.” She stepped back inside and closed the door.

That was the last I saw of Magda Goebbels. About three hours later, Cook and I were walking in the lower bunker when we heard shots. Soon a few SS men and orderlies flew down the passageway coming from the emergency exit to the Chancellery garden. I asked what had happened, and one of them told me that Goebbels and his wife had committed suicide. Their bodies had also been set afire in the garden.

Cook and I passed the Goebbels apartment. The door was closed, but I opened it and peered inside. The children, all six of them, slept like angels in their beds. The girls, dressed in white, wore ribbons in their hair. I nudged one and her arm felt cold and stiff. I called out for Helmut and he did not answer. I went to the oldest girl, Helga. Her face was bruised and shards of glass lay across her lips as if she had been forced to eat a cyanide capsule. The other children looked as if they’d somehow ingested the poison. The deathly almond scent drifted in the air.

Cook gasped upon seeing the children and backed out of the room. I shook my head and regretted I could not save them. Another pillar of the Reich had fallen and, as was common throughout the Nazi reign, innocents had paid the price as well.

With Goebbels dead, we were instructed to gather in groups and evacuate the bunker. I was placed with Cook, the secretaries and others in the first group to leave. Wilhelm Mohnke, an SS Brigadeführer, was to lead us. We had nothing but the clothes we wore. I put on my coat because it was night and the air was chilly. I put the cyanide capsule in my pocket.

Mohnke issued his orders. The four groups were to head north to join a group of German soldiers. The plans called for all of us to gather at the Kaiserhof underground station, proceed to Friedrichstrasse and then travel to another station farther north.

We left the bunker around eleven. Passing through the tunnels and then to the basement of the Reich Chancellery, we finally found our way out by crawling through shattered windows.

Cook and I held on to each other as we ran across the rubble-strewn Wilhelmplatz. The shelling and street fighting still raged and flames flared into the sky. I nearly twisted my ankle on the large chunks of debris that lay in our path. We descended into darkness once again when we reached the train station.

“Stay close to me,” Cook said.

I found myself shivering in the tunnel, imagining all kinds of horrors, from rats to armed Red troops. I clung to Cook’s coat as we plodded along the center of the tracks. Those carrying torches cast a shaky light ahead. Members of our group pitched in and out of shadow. A few lagged behind. The rays from their torches bounced over us and then disappeared in the murky distance. Above, shells exploded, showering dirt and rocks from the tunnel’s arch upon our heads.