Hitler's Heroine: Hanna Reitsch (23 page)

Hanna retreated from the depressing atmosphere of the bunker to von Greim’s sick room, where he rested uncomfortably. His foot was painful and he needed proper attention in a hospital, but von Greim had thrown in his lot with Hitler and was not expecting to be alive for very much longer anyway. The Russians would storm the bunker eventually; he was not blind to that fact as the others were. He would commit suicide before then. The relationship between Hanna and von Greim has been subject to much debate. Eric Brown, one-time devotee of Hanna turned arch-critic, suggested their relationship was intimate. This is unlikely; von Greim was married, not exactly a disqualifier for being Hanna’s lover, but he was a man of staunch honour. More importantly, Hanna’s principles concerning sexual relations were decidedly puritanical. The closest she had come to losing her virginity was many years ago with a Spanish pilot, but she had baulked at the last moment – she could not relinquish her strong religious fears, or her sense of propriety. Hanna retained that strong sense of honour throughout her life, and committing adultery was simply not feasible for her. Contemporaries who witnessed her relationship with von Greim record that it was a close friendship; she looked up to him, as she had done so often to older men in her life. Her loyalty to him was born out of the care and respect he had shown her. Throughout her life Hanna had latched on to father figures, and von Greim was the last in a long line of men who had fulfilled a role in her life as protector and supporter.

On 29 April, a few minutes past midnight, Hitler appeared in von Greim’s room. His face was ‘ashen-white, like a dead man’s’, and he was clutching at a piece of paper containing the transcription of a wireless message and a map. ‘Now Himmler has betrayed me,’ he said, swaying slightly in the musty air. ‘You two must leave the bunker as quickly as you can. I have had news that the Russians are going to storm the Reich Chancellery tomorrow morning.’ He showed them the map: ‘If the enemy concentrations in the streets leading to the Reich Chancellery can be destroyed by air attack, we can gain at least twenty-four hours and enable General Wenk to reach us in time. Already at Potsdam they can hear his artillery fire.’

There was an Arado 96 waiting for them, Hitler explained. They had to escape and von Greim must organise the air attack. Both protested; from von Greim’s perspective the attack was hopeless. He was also very ill and in a great deal of pain. At that point he wasn’t sure what the future held for a German general, let alone a Nazi, and he had resolved himself to death. Hanna protested because she was afraid, because she wanted to remain with von Greim, because even in this dark hour she felt some shred of loyalty to Germany’s leader. Unlike later myths concerning her, these protests were neither demonstrative nor dramatic. She did not weep and cling to the Führer. In one autobiography she makes no mention at all that she refused to go.

The problem was that Hanna was not so stupid as to believe Hitler’s fantastic plans for the relief of Berlin. She had seen the situation outside – the wrecked roads, the ruined houses, the masses of Russian troops, guns and tanks. She had seen the large number of planes in the sky and in contrast the depletion of the Luftwaffe. Both she and von Greim realised the attempt would be futile. However, Hanna did want to leave the bunker. When the Ju 52 had managed to land in Berlin she had grasped at the hope of escape with both hands. She did not want to remain underground awaiting the Russians, but nor did she want to throw her life away on futile gestures of resistance.

In any case, after almost four days in the bunker, Hanna was leaving. A tearful Magda Goebbels clung to her as she prepared to go and sobbed that Hanna must do absolutely everything in her power to save those left behind in the bunker. She pressed a letter into Hanna’s hand and asked that it be delivered to her son from her first marriage. Goebbels also gave her a letter to this same stepson and she took one from Eva Braun to her sister. They were last goodbyes to loved ones outside and Magda was in a terrible state as she handed over hers. A tentative friendship had formed between Hanna and Magda; Hanna does not appear to have been aware of Magda’s intention to murder her children. Frau Goebbels struck Hanna as a sorry creature, the bunker was no place to end your days and certainly not for small children. But Frau Goebbels had thrown in her lot with her husband and refused to leave. She was ready when the time came to murder her children before taking her own life. ‘You know … life hasn’t really given me very much,’ she explained to Hans Baur:

I bore children to my husband; I went to all the big meetings because he wanted me to; and I did my best to devote my life to him and my children. It wasn’t always easy. My friends, who envied me, made me see a good deal. They would tell me about this or that woman I ought to keep my eye on. I knew quite well, of course, that my husband … didn’t take his obligation of marital fidelity very seriously … He often hurt me, but I have forgiven him. I know we shall never get out of this bunker alive … Every evening I put [
sic
] the injections for the children ready, and when the time comes the doctor will make them for me. The Russians are not more than a couple of hundred yards away now, and every night when I tuck my children in and say goodnight to them I never know whether it’s for the last time.

Hanna understood self-sacrifice, but the deaths of the children upset her, she couldn’t resolve herself entirely to the murder of such innocents, especially when she knew she had offered Frau Goebbels a chance to leave the bunker. Magda refused to leave, time and time again, condemning herself and her children. Hanna, who looked at the Goebbels offspring and thought of her own sister’s children, could hardly know that soon they too would fall under the self-destructive whim of their father. Goebbels himself was one of the few who had not abandoned Hitler and so earned some respect from Hanna. He was a small, plain man, who lit up a room with his conversation, which was always lively and amusing. For that reason alone Hitler liked his company. ‘You could tell Goebbels what was on your mind,’ Hitler’s valet Heinz Linge recalled years later. Wernher von Braun was less complimentary: ‘Goebbels had a diabolic intelligence and an appreciation of his own power. I remember his boasting once that “it is three days’ work for me to change this nation’s mind”.’

Goebbels was also the main rival of Göring, whom he viewed as ample target for his sarcastic slings and arrows. Göring’s betrayal only galvanised Hitler’s faith in Goebbels – had his propaganda chief not told him time after time that Göring was not fit for his command? Hitler’s fondness for Goebbels offset his acute dissatisfaction with his philandering ways. Goebbels had an eye for the ladies, and though far from handsome, his position, charm and sense of humour drew many attractive women, including film stars. One such blatant affair had almost ruined his marriage to Magda, but both she and Hitler had hung on to Goebbels, and the Führer had restored at least a semblance of harmony.

Hanna said goodbye to the dysfunctional Goebbels family and left the bunker with Hitler’s last words to her ringing in her ears. ‘God protect you!’ he had said to her briefly, his attention already wandering to more maps and more grandiose imaginary schemes. Von Greim, in a great deal of pain, hobbled out of the bunker assisted by Hanna and von Below. Berlin appeared to have devolved into Hell since their descent. The sky was thick with sulphurous clouds and smoke that stung the back of the throat. The horizon was stained a yellow-red by the flames of many huge fires and the din of shelling was unceasing. The psychological pounding on the senses was overwhelming; if Hitler had been forced to emerge from his burrow and seen this, could he still have believed in rescue?

The trio found an armoured car and made the journey through the ruins of Berlin, hoping to God they did not stumble upon any Russians. They were lucky: they pulled up at the plane unscathed and Hanna discovered that their escort was the same pilot who had flown them in only a few days before. He had braved the hellfire of Berlin once more for them. Who this pilot was we do not know; all that remains of him is Hanna’s impression of his great courage in the face of absurd odds. They flew out of Berlin for the final time and landed at Rechlin around 3 a.m. The air base was almost deserted, but there were enough left of the operations staff to aid von Greim in his thankless task of raising a fictional air assault on the Russians. While Hanna stomped on the runway, trying to work up some warmth in her body, deep underground her Führer was marrying Eva Braun.

Hanna became von Greim’s personal escort, first taking him to Plön to meet with Grand-Admiral Dönitz, soon to be the last leader of the Third Reich, then to Dobbin to Field Marshal Keitel. Hedge-hopping in a small plane to avoid attack or sometimes travelling by car, von Greim relied on Hanna to get him safely from one place to another. It was while they were at Lübeck that they heard the news that Hitler was dead. He killed himself on 30 April and was soon followed by his most loyal followers. Among those who chose to live and try to evade the Russians were Hans Baur and Hitler’s valet Heinz Linge. Baur made a desperate dash across Berlin, but was shot in the leg and ended up in the hands of the Russians and would vanish for the next decade.

Dönitz was now head of the German government. Von Greim was determined to get to his command in Bohemia, but his foot wound was causing complications and he landed instead in hospital for four days. Lying in his hospital bed he learned on 7 May that the German capitulation, arranged by Dönitz, would be signed two days later. The war was over. The Nazi regime was finished. Uncertain what to do, von Greim insisted on Hanna flying him to meet with General Field Marshal Kesselring. Kesselring was said to be at Zell-am-See, so Hanna flew von Greim over the Alps, trying to locate the elusive field marshal. The peaceful mountains were a stark contrast to the calamity happening around Berlin and for a brief moment Hanna could breathe. Then they landed and von Greim learned that Germany had surrendered unconditionally.

Von Greim was a desperately ill man. Running around on a badly damaged foot, with the stress and pressures of trying to fulfil the last orders of the Führer while avoiding capture, had inevitably taken a toll on him both physically and mentally. Von Greim was feverish and sometimes delusional. He ended up once more in hospital. There Hanna remained at his side and they talked for a long time of the last few years and of what the future held. Von Greim was a long-standing member of the Nazi Party and this now weighed heavily on his conscience. The Americans were close and they would take him prisoner and probably wish him to testify against Göring. Von Greim detested the idea, it went against all his ideas of loyalty and honour. Over and over again he talked to Hanna about suicide. They still had the vials Hitler had given them. Just supposing they took them? Von Greim might have been ready for death but Hanna was not. Her resilience and her natural optimism had once again resolved her to live a little while longer. Her reasoning was that if they both committed suicide it would arouse suspicions of them being lovers. If von Greim felt he must end everything he must do it alone so that no such rumours would besmirch his honour after death. Hanna might have briefly considered suicide, but her will to live was stronger. Dark days were soon to overtake her, but in all that time she never turned to her suicide capsule.

There was one last unexpected visitor. Eric Brown had spent the war testing British planes and the odd German craft recovered intact. He was in Germany during the capitulation and was given a list of important people the British wanted to speak with. Aside from names such as Wernher von Braun, on the list was Hanna Reitsch. Eric had heard rumours that she was in a nearby hospital when he stopped in Kitzbühl. This was the last place she had been with von Greim. Hanna was suffering from acute exhaustion after the tempestuous last few days. Eric tracked her down and found a defeated woman. He toyed with the idea of saving his one-time heroine for the British (she was in American-occupied territory), which would have involved kidnapping her. In the end he decided, reluctantly, to leave her where she was and inform the Americans of her presence. Hanna was destined to become a prisoner of war.

10

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There had been little to sustain the Germans in those last days of war. Hanna could not look towards a glorious future for her country or even an agreeable surrender. In that darkness what was there to keep her going? Hanna pegged her hopes on her family. They had fled to Salzburg and there, at least, she felt confident they would be safe. Her last meeting with them had been sad, she had been about to fly into Berlin, possibly to her death. Hanna knew she must get a message to her parents and sister as soon as possible so they would know she was alive and well. Hanna penned a letter on 10 May and gave it to a doctor who was paying a visit to Salzburg that day. A flicker of joy burned inside as she anticipated the reply from her mother. Emy Reitsch always knew what to say to cheer Hanna and she would get her daughter through these hard times. There would probably be no more flying, of course, not with the Allies on the doorstep. But she could return to her family, help Heidi with the children and work out what she was going to do with herself.

For a brief time there was new hope, and then the doctor returned. He visited von Greim before seeing Hanna. ‘It is bad news for Frau Hanna,’ he said. ‘Her family are all dead. Will you tell her this, Herr General?’ The doctor revealed the sad saga of the Reitsch tragedy. After Hanna left for the Führerbunker rumours began to spread among the civilian population that once the Allies took hold of the country all German refugees would be returned to their district of origin. The German people had given up on their Führer before he had even concocted his great ‘General Wenk’ plan. When Herr Reitsch heard the rumours of what the Allies would do with refugees he grew fearful. Silesia was in the hands of the Russians. If his family were returned there they would fall straight into Soviet hands. The Third Reich had been building a terror of the Russians for years, using it as propaganda to keep people fighting and sacrificing their husbands and sons. The image of the average Russian was a hairy, ferocious, cruel monster. The truth was not so different. The Germans suffered greatly in Russian hands, just as Russians had suffered greatly in German hands. The hostility between the two nations was great, the hatred even worse. Within the Russian zone of occupied Germany secret police operated day and night, stealing people from their homes to send to concentration or prison camps for the most mundane of reasons. Persecution was rife; food was restricted; starvation common.