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Authors: Rochus Misch
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responsible for guarding the second exit â the emergency way out.
As I unrolled my sleeping mat for the first time in my new workplace deep underground, it occurred to me that we were now finally buried alive. I had my telephone lines, however. Now in the truest sense of the word I was going to âbe on the phone all dayâ â it was my only contact with life outside the bunker. I was surrounded by cold, damp, glaring-white artificial light. To know that Hitler had to live and suffer under the same conditions was of little comfort. Or should I say gave me no comfort? Now it was no longer the time to think of others, not even the Führer. One had oneâs own problems to attend to.
Whenever possible I would go up to my old service room to sleep; only when there was nothing else for it did I lay out the mat in the bunker. Usually, I would be too dog-tired to notice whether my âbedâ was really comfortable or not.
In a cellar room, directly under the entrance for vehicles, a dining hall had been set up. The kitchen staff had a big field kitchen in which they cooked tasty dishes for all the Reich Chancellery staff and the military hospital. Hot food was available all day â one could fetch it at any time. Only occasionally did I join the female secretaries to eat at the long wooden table in the corridor of the ante-bunker. Every day I could have eaten there the meals prepared in the small corner-kitchen of Frau Manziarly, Frau von Exnerâs successor, but that kind of diet-food was not really my thing.
I had no scheduled meal time. When I wanted my lunch break I would call my deputy Retzbach at the New Reich Chancellery switchboard, who would then come down. He did not like to be my No. 2. No wonder. There was a gloomy, depressed mood everywhere to be sure, but in the deep bunker it was worse. One could see the same thoughts in the eyes of everybody who had to come down to this â this funeral vault.
In it, I lodged. Because of where my workplace was situated, I could see whoever entered or left the Führerbunker â all the comings and goings. From now on, everybody who wanted to see Hitler had to come past my telephone switchboard. Beyond the situation conferences there were only short audiences. None lasted more than twenty minutes. Everybody wanted to get out of the bunker as quickly as possible. Even Mohnke, my former company commander, who had driven me to the Reich Chancellery on my first day there five years ago, could not find the time to exchange a few words with me after seeing Hitler. Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun, valet Heinz Linge, Professor Theodor Morell, maintenance technician Joahnnes Hentschel and I â we were the inhabitants of the Führerbunker.
20 April 1945
It was Hitlerâs last birthday, his fifty-sixth. To congratulate him, Reich Youth leader Arthur Axmann had some young, highly decorated SS soldiers and about twenty Hitler Youth parade in the garden of the Reich Chancellery. I heard about it, but saw nothing of it. I never went up the whole day. I sat at my switchboard and just could not get away from telephone calls bringing birthday wishes. Hentschelâs diesel engine and my head throbbed in competition. The ventilation system ran incessantly.
After a reception at the New Reich Chancellery in which, among others, Goebbels, Göring, Himmler, the Bormann brothers, Speer, Ribbentrop and some generals such as Wilhelm Burgdorf and Hans Krebs took part, Hitler came down to the bunker and held a situation conference in the map room. There was no trace of any festive spirit â the birthday was finished with.
The only word to describe the military situation was âcatastrophicâ. Days before, the 300,000 men of Army Group B had surrendered in the Ruhr Pocket. Their commander, Field Marshal Walter Model, shot himself shortly afterwards. The British and Americans were at the Elbe, while the Soviets were close to the gates of the
As I unrolled my sleeping mat for the first time in my new workplace deep underground, it occurred to me that we were now finally buried alive. I had my telephone lines, however. Now in the truest sense of the word I was going to âbe on the phone all dayâ â it was my only contact with life outside the bunker. I was surrounded by cold, damp, glaring-white artificial light. To know that Hitler had to live and suffer under the same conditions was of little comfort. Or should I say gave me no comfort? Now it was no longer the time to think of others, not even the Führer. One had oneâs own problems to attend to.
Whenever possible I would go up to my old service room to sleep; only when there was nothing else for it did I lay out the mat in the bunker. Usually, I would be too dog-tired to notice whether my âbedâ was really comfortable or not.
In a cellar room, directly under the entrance for vehicles, a dining hall had been set up. The kitchen staff had a big field kitchen in which they cooked tasty dishes for all the Reich Chancellery staff and the military hospital. Hot food was available all day â one could fetch it at any time. Only occasionally did I join the female secretaries to eat at the long wooden table in the corridor of the ante-bunker. Every day I could have eaten there the meals prepared in the small corner-kitchen of Frau Manziarly, Frau von Exnerâs successor, but that kind of diet-food was not really my thing.
I had no scheduled meal time. When I wanted my lunch break I would call my deputy Retzbach at the New Reich Chancellery switchboard, who would then come down. He did not like to be my No. 2. No wonder. There was a gloomy, depressed mood everywhere to be sure, but in the deep bunker it was worse. One could see the same thoughts in the eyes of everybody who had to come down to this â this funeral vault.
In it, I lodged. Because of where my workplace was situated, I could see whoever entered or left the Führerbunker â all the comings and goings. From now on, everybody who wanted to see Hitler had to come past my telephone switchboard. Beyond the situation conferences there were only short audiences. None lasted more than twenty minutes. Everybody wanted to get out of the bunker as quickly as possible. Even Mohnke, my former company commander, who had driven me to the Reich Chancellery on my first day there five years ago, could not find the time to exchange a few words with me after seeing Hitler. Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun, valet Heinz Linge, Professor Theodor Morell, maintenance technician Joahnnes Hentschel and I â we were the inhabitants of the Führerbunker.
20 April 1945
It was Hitlerâs last birthday, his fifty-sixth. To congratulate him, Reich Youth leader Arthur Axmann had some young, highly decorated SS soldiers and about twenty Hitler Youth parade in the garden of the Reich Chancellery. I heard about it, but saw nothing of it. I never went up the whole day. I sat at my switchboard and just could not get away from telephone calls bringing birthday wishes. Hentschelâs diesel engine and my head throbbed in competition. The ventilation system ran incessantly.
After a reception at the New Reich Chancellery in which, among others, Goebbels, Göring, Himmler, the Bormann brothers, Speer, Ribbentrop and some generals such as Wilhelm Burgdorf and Hans Krebs took part, Hitler came down to the bunker and held a situation conference in the map room. There was no trace of any festive spirit â the birthday was finished with.
The only word to describe the military situation was âcatastrophicâ. Days before, the 300,000 men of Army Group B had surrendered in the Ruhr Pocket. Their commander, Field Marshal Walter Model, shot himself shortly afterwards. The British and Americans were at the Elbe, while the Soviets were close to the gates of the
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