In the Bunker with Hitler: The last witness speaks

by Bernd Freytagvon Loringhoven (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2007

  $12.25

  The last survivor of Hitler's bunker speaks for the first time

  The last survivor of the end days of Hitler's bunker tells his story publicly for the first time. Von Loringhoven was aide-de-camp to Hitler's last two chiefs of staff, Guderian and Krebs, and the link between the armies at the fronts and Hitler in his Berlin bunker. For the last nine months of the Third Reich he was present at the daily military briefings between Hitler and Marshals Keital and Goring, General Jodl and Admiral Donitz, along with Goebbels, Bormann, Ribbentrop, Himmler and Fegelein.

  Von Lorninghoven was witness to the ever-growing gap between the reality of reports outside the bunker and Hitler's misunderstanding of the calamity that was encircling the regime. As the Third Reich spiralled downwards, he watched and recorded Hitler's catastrophic strategic mistakes and the paralysis in which he held his generals. Hitler's reason was twisted by his need for vengeance after the assissination attempt; he was searching for an impossible theatrical victory from an empire in total ruin.

  The final week of the regime saw Loringhoven living wholly in the bunker, watching the deteriorating relations among the inmates, military and civilian, as the atmosphere poisoned to an inevitable end. When radio-telephone communications finally broke down on 29 April he escaped the bunker - amazingly with Hitler's blessing - crossed the Russian lines and was picked up and taken prisoner by the Americans. He was released in January 1948.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2006

  $8.23

  Published in France in March as Dans Le Bunker De Hitler , this is the story of a young German officer who not only survived Stalingrad and another year on the Russian Front, but also made it out of Hitler's bunker to surrender to the British. He was ADC to the Hitler's last two commanders-in-chief, and the link between Hitler's Berlin bunker and the army's headquarters. He briefed Hitler on the deteriorating military situation, and the same time trying to help his friends arrested in the wake of the assassination attempt on Hitler in July 1944. He spent the last weeks of the war underground with Hitler after Berlin was surrounded, but escaped with two other officers to avoid falling into Russian hands.