With Hitler to the End: The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler's Valet

by Heinz Linge

Soon after the execution Hitler called me into his study. After I had entered and reported myself in military fashion he said without any preamble: ‘I would like to release you to your family.’ I now did something I had never done before by interrupting him to declare: ‘Mein Führer, I have been with you in good times, and I am staying with you also in the bad.’ Hitler looked at me calmly and said only: ‘I did not expect anything else from you.’ Then, standing at his writing desk, he went on: ‘I have another personal job for you. What I must do now is what I have ordered every commander at every redoubt to do: hold out to the death. This order is also binding on myself, since I feel that I am here as the commandant of Berlin. You should hold in readiness woollen blankets in my bedroom and enough petrol for two cremations. I am going to shoot myself here together with Eva Braun. You will wrap our bodies in woollen blankets, carry them up to the garden, and there burn them.’ I stood paralysed. ‘Jawohl, mein Führer,’ I stuttered, trembling. I could find nothing else to say.