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Hitler: The Last Ten Days, An Eyewitness Account
English, German (translation)
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1948
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October 6, 2018
Erich Kästner once said, referring to the years 1933 to 1945 in Germany, that the Nazi-movement should have been fought before 1928, that the “rolling snowball” should have been crushed before it became an avalanche that no one could stop.
But even the most powerful avalanche will eventually cease, hits rock bottom, and dies. The snowball started forming in the backrooms of some Munich joint in 1920 when the Nazi-party was founded, and the ensuing avalanche stopped in April 1945 in the bunkers deep below the Reich Chancellery in Berlin when the “Führer” committed suicide. The end of an inglorious reign that claimed millions and millions of victims during its 12 years (of planned 1000) of existence.
The author Gerhard Boldt was there, in that bunker, and witnessed most of what happened during those last days first hand. Boldt served under General Reinhard Gehlen (who founded the anti-communist “Gehlen Organisation” after the war for the US and subsequently became the first president of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the Intelligence Service of West Germany) before he became stationed at the Führer-bunker in February 1945 and attended daily briefings with Hitler, Goebbels, Bormann, Göring and others. On April 29 Boldt and his friend Bernd von Freytag-Loringhoven obtained permission to leave the bunker in order to meet with General Wenck and his 12th army who faced US troops in the West and were thus able to survive (Boldt died in 1981).
In 1947 Boldt published the first version of his memoirs. The present version dates from 1973 and has been corrected and extended compared to the original one. The title “The last ten days in the Reich Chancellery” is a little misleading. Boldt’s narrative starts with his first attendance of the daily “Führerlage” (Nazi jargon for the briefings with the commander-in-chief, i.e. Hitler) in early February 1945. The actual last ten days are only covered in the second half of the book. There’s been some criticism of Boldt for not getting all the details right. That may be so, but, frankly, this doesn’t bother me much. The military details during the Battle of Berlin did not interest me, to be honest. I skipped the passages in which it is reported which districts of Berlin the Red Army has conquered and which streets are still held by German soldiers, the so-called “Volkssturm” and the Hitler Youth. This may be different for Berliners who know more of their city than I do.
I was most captivated by the description of the situation in the bunker itself, which is presented quite vividly. However, I would have wished and hoped for more of this. Hitler’s outbursts of rage, his absurd orders (from a military point of view), his interaction with those who remained in the bunker, his physical and mental condition. All of this is reported, but not enough. I first read the book when I was a teenager and I recall that I was much more impressed back then. The very last day, on which Hitler committed suicide, is missing from Boldt’s own memoir (he escaped the bunker the day before and who would blame him). However, there is a short chapter at the end which depicts the events.
What I’ve always wondered is why Hitler stayed in that bunker. In the last days of the war, even towards the end of April, he had plenty of opportunity to escape from Berlin and disappear somewhere. But all efforts to persuade him to do that failed. One possibility would be that he actually still believed in a final victory, although I think that this is not very likely. At one point he even admitted that the war was lost and reportedly cried. Another possibility is that he had actually, in a clinical sense, lost his mind. His body showed classic symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, and this may well be accompanied by dementia with Lewy bodies (as I learned from Wikipedia). Or perhaps he realized that his days were over and rather than spend his last years in hiding he opted for some kind of theatrical exit, like in one of his beloved Wagner operas. Heroic death as some kind of cultic element and part of the staging, or whatever.
Unfortunately, the book also doesn’t make it quite clear what Hitler’s closest associates and subordinates thought exactly. It was probably a strange mixture of worship, fear and obedience to the leader and the ideology that made them stay. Anyway, in this bunker there was an interesting group dynamic going on in a unique constellation. Just imagine the bizarre scene when, on April 20th, Hitler’s birthday is celebrated with cakes and good wishes (and later at night plenty of booze) while above their heads the artillery grenades of the Russians smash in the outer shell of the bunker and the ventilation blows in concrete dust and the smell of sulfur.
Boldt’s book and other eyewitness accounts served as a source for at least two films, both of which I haven’t seen yet: The Last Ten Days (1973) starring Alec Guinness as Hitler and Der Untergang / Downfall (2004) starring Bruno Ganz. There is also a 45 minute documentary (in German) with original footage and interviews with some survivors on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5I0H...
Finally; here is my (incomplete and subjectively chosen) list of personae morituri in caverna:
Adolf Hitler – Chancellor of the Reich, Commander-in-Chief of all armies, the Führer – Suicide (✝ April 30, age 56) by gunshot; body doused with gasoline and subsequently burned.
Eva Hitler née Braun – Mistress and wife (for 40 hours) of Adolf Hitler – Suicide (✝ April 30, age 33) by cyanide poisoning; body doused with gasoline and subsequently burned.
Joseph Goebbels – Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Gauleiter of Berlin, Chancellor of the Reich (for two days) – Suicide (✝ May 1, age 46) by cyanide poisoning and possibly shooting.
Magda Goebbles – Wife of Joseph Goebbels and glowing admirer of Hitler – Suicide (✝ May 1, age 44) by cyanide poisoning along with her husband after fatally poisoning their six children.
Hans Krebs – Wehrmacht general and chief of staff – Suicide (✝ May 2, age 43) by gunshot to the head together with colleague Burgdorf.
Wilhelm Burgdorf – Wehrmacht general and chief of the army personnel office – Suicide (✝ May 2, age 50) by gunshot to the head together with colleague Krebs.
Franz Schädle – Commander of Hitler’s personal bodyguard – Suicide (✝ May 2, age 38) by gunshot.
Hermann Fegelein – Commander of the Waffen-SS, SS-Groupleader, brother-in-law to Eva Braun – Executed (✝ April 28, age 38), shot for desertion.
dishonorable mentions:
Martin Bormann – Chief of the Nazi Party Chancellery, Secretary of the Führer, Party Minister (for three days) – possibly shot outside of the bunker (✝ date unknown, age 44), tried in absentia and sentenced to death in 1946, remains discovered and conclusively identified in 1998.
Hermann Göring – President of the Reichstag, Minister of Aviation and other titles, left the bunker on April 20 – Suicide (✝ Oct 15, 1946, age 53) by cyanide poisoning after sentenced to death at the Nuermberg trials.
Heinrich Himmler – Reichsführer-SS, Chief of German Police, Minister of the Interior and others, left the bunker on April 20 – Suicide (✝ May 23, age 44) by cyanide poisoning after being caught on his fleeing from Germany.
MAY THEY ALL BURN IN HELL!!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
But even the most powerful avalanche will eventually cease, hits rock bottom, and dies. The snowball started forming in the backrooms of some Munich joint in 1920 when the Nazi-party was founded, and the ensuing avalanche stopped in April 1945 in the bunkers deep below the Reich Chancellery in Berlin when the “Führer” committed suicide. The end of an inglorious reign that claimed millions and millions of victims during its 12 years (of planned 1000) of existence.
The author Gerhard Boldt was there, in that bunker, and witnessed most of what happened during those last days first hand. Boldt served under General Reinhard Gehlen (who founded the anti-communist “Gehlen Organisation” after the war for the US and subsequently became the first president of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the Intelligence Service of West Germany) before he became stationed at the Führer-bunker in February 1945 and attended daily briefings with Hitler, Goebbels, Bormann, Göring and others. On April 29 Boldt and his friend Bernd von Freytag-Loringhoven obtained permission to leave the bunker in order to meet with General Wenck and his 12th army who faced US troops in the West and were thus able to survive (Boldt died in 1981).
In 1947 Boldt published the first version of his memoirs. The present version dates from 1973 and has been corrected and extended compared to the original one. The title “The last ten days in the Reich Chancellery” is a little misleading. Boldt’s narrative starts with his first attendance of the daily “Führerlage” (Nazi jargon for the briefings with the commander-in-chief, i.e. Hitler) in early February 1945. The actual last ten days are only covered in the second half of the book. There’s been some criticism of Boldt for not getting all the details right. That may be so, but, frankly, this doesn’t bother me much. The military details during the Battle of Berlin did not interest me, to be honest. I skipped the passages in which it is reported which districts of Berlin the Red Army has conquered and which streets are still held by German soldiers, the so-called “Volkssturm” and the Hitler Youth. This may be different for Berliners who know more of their city than I do.
I was most captivated by the description of the situation in the bunker itself, which is presented quite vividly. However, I would have wished and hoped for more of this. Hitler’s outbursts of rage, his absurd orders (from a military point of view), his interaction with those who remained in the bunker, his physical and mental condition. All of this is reported, but not enough. I first read the book when I was a teenager and I recall that I was much more impressed back then. The very last day, on which Hitler committed suicide, is missing from Boldt’s own memoir (he escaped the bunker the day before and who would blame him). However, there is a short chapter at the end which depicts the events.
What I’ve always wondered is why Hitler stayed in that bunker. In the last days of the war, even towards the end of April, he had plenty of opportunity to escape from Berlin and disappear somewhere. But all efforts to persuade him to do that failed. One possibility would be that he actually still believed in a final victory, although I think that this is not very likely. At one point he even admitted that the war was lost and reportedly cried. Another possibility is that he had actually, in a clinical sense, lost his mind. His body showed classic symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, and this may well be accompanied by dementia with Lewy bodies (as I learned from Wikipedia). Or perhaps he realized that his days were over and rather than spend his last years in hiding he opted for some kind of theatrical exit, like in one of his beloved Wagner operas. Heroic death as some kind of cultic element and part of the staging, or whatever.
Unfortunately, the book also doesn’t make it quite clear what Hitler’s closest associates and subordinates thought exactly. It was probably a strange mixture of worship, fear and obedience to the leader and the ideology that made them stay. Anyway, in this bunker there was an interesting group dynamic going on in a unique constellation. Just imagine the bizarre scene when, on April 20th, Hitler’s birthday is celebrated with cakes and good wishes (and later at night plenty of booze) while above their heads the artillery grenades of the Russians smash in the outer shell of the bunker and the ventilation blows in concrete dust and the smell of sulfur.
Boldt’s book and other eyewitness accounts served as a source for at least two films, both of which I haven’t seen yet: The Last Ten Days (1973) starring Alec Guinness as Hitler and Der Untergang / Downfall (2004) starring Bruno Ganz. There is also a 45 minute documentary (in German) with original footage and interviews with some survivors on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5I0H...
Finally; here is my (incomplete and subjectively chosen) list of personae morituri in caverna:
Adolf Hitler – Chancellor of the Reich, Commander-in-Chief of all armies, the Führer – Suicide (✝ April 30, age 56) by gunshot; body doused with gasoline and subsequently burned.
Eva Hitler née Braun – Mistress and wife (for 40 hours) of Adolf Hitler – Suicide (✝ April 30, age 33) by cyanide poisoning; body doused with gasoline and subsequently burned.
Joseph Goebbels – Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Gauleiter of Berlin, Chancellor of the Reich (for two days) – Suicide (✝ May 1, age 46) by cyanide poisoning and possibly shooting.
Magda Goebbles – Wife of Joseph Goebbels and glowing admirer of Hitler – Suicide (✝ May 1, age 44) by cyanide poisoning along with her husband after fatally poisoning their six children.
Hans Krebs – Wehrmacht general and chief of staff – Suicide (✝ May 2, age 43) by gunshot to the head together with colleague Burgdorf.
Wilhelm Burgdorf – Wehrmacht general and chief of the army personnel office – Suicide (✝ May 2, age 50) by gunshot to the head together with colleague Krebs.
Franz Schädle – Commander of Hitler’s personal bodyguard – Suicide (✝ May 2, age 38) by gunshot.
Hermann Fegelein – Commander of the Waffen-SS, SS-Groupleader, brother-in-law to Eva Braun – Executed (✝ April 28, age 38), shot for desertion.
dishonorable mentions:
Martin Bormann – Chief of the Nazi Party Chancellery, Secretary of the Führer, Party Minister (for three days) – possibly shot outside of the bunker (✝ date unknown, age 44), tried in absentia and sentenced to death in 1946, remains discovered and conclusively identified in 1998.
Hermann Göring – President of the Reichstag, Minister of Aviation and other titles, left the bunker on April 20 – Suicide (✝ Oct 15, 1946, age 53) by cyanide poisoning after sentenced to death at the Nuermberg trials.
Heinrich Himmler – Reichsführer-SS, Chief of German Police, Minister of the Interior and others, left the bunker on April 20 – Suicide (✝ May 23, age 44) by cyanide poisoning after being caught on his fleeing from Germany.
MAY THEY ALL BURN IN HELL!!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
September 19, 2020
Отличные мемуары офицера генштаба Германии, живо описывающие всю его биографию вплоть до окончания войны (да, название у книги плохое!). Особое внимание уделено последним дням войны. Подробнейше, местами по часам описана ситуация на различных участках фронта: какие воинские единицы, в каком составе и состоянии находились на тех или иных участках, каким был характер боёв. Книга была дважды экранизирована.
Кое-за что автора можно пнуть. В конце он пишет, что две недели в одиночку пешком шёл по Германии до родного Любека, и мне кажется, этому стоило уделить больше одного предложения текста.
После книги не к месту приводится большой фрагмент мемуаров начальника генштаба Вильгельма Кейтеля о том же периоде -- второй половине апреля и первой половине мая. Стиль Кейтеля куда более сухой и сжатый, материал тоже интересный, но мало что добавляющий к тексту Больдта, на мой профанский взгляд.
Кое-за что автора можно пнуть. В конце он пишет, что две недели в одиночку пешком шёл по Германии до родного Любека, и мне кажется, этому стоило уделить больше одного предложения текста.
После книги не к месту приводится большой фрагмент мемуаров начальника генштаба Вильгельма Кейтеля о том же периоде -- второй половине апреля и первой половине мая. Стиль Кейтеля куда более сухой и сжатый, материал тоже интересный, но мало что добавляющий к тексту Больдта, на мой профанский взгляд.
September 30, 2024
Quyển này khá ngắn, mình đọc hai tiếng là hết. Nhưng thực ra văn bản mang tính lịch sử thì cũng không cần dài làm gì, chỉ cần đảm bảo được hai yếu tố là tính khách quan và tính trung thực. Hitler những ngày cuối đời được khắc họa như một lão già nhu nhược, ám ảnh với những vinh quang trong quá khứ và có một cái tôi ngút trời. Ông hầu như gạt bỏ hết những đề xuất từ những vị tướng tài, cách chức họ và giữ bên mình toàn những kẻ xu nịnh, cuồng tín để rồi nhận những thất bại không thể tránh khỏi. Cái kết buồn cho kẻ độc tài.
January 25, 2024
Erg interessant oogverslag wat met vlagen bijzonder pijnlijk leest. Het geeft een goed inkijkje in de laatste dagen en de structuur rondom de besluiten. Het 'testament,' achterin het boek van Hitler waarin hij aangeeft dat antisemitisme altijd zal blijven bestaan en zegevieren is helaas bijzonder waar. Het lezen van dat gedeelte gaf me een bijzonder ongemakkelijk gevoel. Dat zelfs na alles dit nog bestaat. Het zou niet zo moeten zijn.
June 15, 2018
một lịch sử ít ng biết đến..
November 23, 2025
All very nuts & boltsish (and the title is indeed a bit of a cheat). It does however manage to convincingly portray an ordinary soldier caught up in the midst of an inferno.
May 1, 2014
Lo leí, pero en español de Editorial Caralt (ISBN 9788421757451)
March 14, 2019
This book is really interesting as it describes the insights of the last ten days of Hitler. The book was really descriptive on Hitler's emotions and the war's psychological effects on Hitler.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews