Hermann Fegelein, Hilter and his death

[Walt's Daughter]

This was from someone's question and the librarian below answered it. I thought it would be something interesting to post on our forum:

 

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>Does any body have any idea which one of these is actually the right version?

>

>1. Goring's Story: Hermann Fegelein, Eva Braun's brother-in-law, is caught

>trying to sneak away from the Reich Chancellery by the SS on

>and is ordered to be executed two days after Hilter's marriage to Eva

>Braun on May 1. (Which is somewhat impossible since the marriage was

>on the early morning of April 29 and Hitler was dead by 4pm on April

>30. And no orders of Hitler's were carried out after his death)

>

>2. Adolf Hitler's secretary, Gertraud (Traudl) Junge Story: Hitler had

>noticed that one of his top SS officers, Hermann Fegelein, was missing

>from the situation room. Hitler sent some of his own Gestapo bodyguards to

>look for him. They found him in an apartment he kept for extra-marital

>trysts, apparently drunk, with a mistress. His bags, containing money,

>jewels and false passports, were packed and ready for departure. Fegelein

>was dragged back to the chancellery and interrogated by the chief of the

>Gestapo. All badges of rank, including his Knight's Cross, were torn from

>his uniform. He was then executed in the garden. This happened on April 28.

>

>3. General Koller Story: Fegelein put on civvies and tried to slip out of

>the Chancellery on April 25. He was caught while doing so by the SS guard

>and the Führer had him shot immediately.

 

Actually, to some degree, all three versions are correct.

 

The version accepted by CIA upon debriefing General Reinhard Gehlen (who

later worked for CIA as their (our) senior Soviet spycatcher and spy

recruiter in the USSR) was the following:

 

Fegelein was already known to the SS as a potential flight risk due to

Himmler's betrayal days earlier. (Himmler falsely claimed leadership of the

Reich in his failed attempt to negotiate a peace deal with Eisenhower.)

As a result of Himmler’s betrayal the loyal SS in the bunker investigated

all of Himmler's confidants and liaison's, in which Fegelein was top on the

list. A resulting investigation, torture of Fegelien’s mistress and other

info led the bunker SS to suspect Fegelein as a potential flight risk. They

searched his batchelor pad and found much of the evidence you list in

Option #3. Fegelein was then given rope to hang himself. He was permitted

to repent if he chose to simply by being loyal to his Fuhrer, to the end...

or flee like the cowardly rabbit he was. Fegelein chose to flee.

 

His movements were unmonitored. He had free mobility inside the bunker.

However, the SS guards at the bunker entrance were ordered by the Fuhrer to

execute anyone who attempted to exit without his personal verbal. Several

cooks and a variety of other underlings had attempted to flee over the

previous days and hours. They were summarily executed at the nearest wall

but no word of those executions were made known to anyone in the bunker but

Hitler and Goebbels.

 

Because Fegelein mistakenly believed the previous fleers had successfully

escaped, he tried also using an enlisted man’s uniform as disguise. He was

immediately taken to the nearest wall and shot.

 

When hearing, disappointedly, that the creep who had secretely photographed

him nude before, during and after having sex with his sister, Eva, the

Fuhrer ordered that no mention of Fegelein’s death be told to the other

bunker rats until after his marriage, which he erroneously calculated to be

days later than it actually occured... the Russian advance was faster than

Hitler had anticipated because many of the "ghost" formations he thought

existed to defend Berlin existed only on paper and not in reality.

 

According to Gehlen, Fegelein was not wearing "civvies" as outer clothing.

He was wearing a cooks uniform over civilians clothes. Apparently, Fegelein

had planned to use the enlisted uniform to effect his escape from the

bunker, then once outside shed the uniform in hope of passing through

Allied lines as a civilian.

 

The Fuhrer did not have Fegelien shot. That is, the Fuhrer was not

specifically notified of Fegelein's escape attempt. Fegelein was shot under

the Fuhrer's standing orders to shoot anyone leaving the bunker w/o his

personal, verbal permission. (Many visitors came and went with the with the

Fuhrer's verbal approval to the guards.)

 

Best,

Brooke Rowe

Associate Librarian

The American War Library

13105320634.com