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According to Schellenberg, the state of Hitler's health had become a _ surrendered to Canadian troops. After being interrogated by subject of discussion between Himmler, Bormann and himself in British intelligence officer Captain K. W. E. Leslie, Karnau related early April after Schellenberg had established that Hitler was his version of the events he had witnessed to an audience of suffering from Parkinson's disease. Schellenberg believed that reporters which included Walter Kerr from Reuters and Daniel De Himmler had slowly and only very reluctantly awakened to the Luce of the Associated Press. Leslie told the reporters: "I am sure necessity of having to do away with Hitler, whose increasingly that Karnau's report about Hitler's death is authentic. I have erratic behaviour was endangering the war effort. Schellenberg told —_ interrogated many German prisoners of war and I would call this Bernadotte that he believed that Hitler had been given a lethal man a reliable witness.""* injection, probably on 27 April. He told Bernadotte that he had Unfortunately, Karnau's statement clashed with Kempka's in two determined the date on the basis of certain "calculations", implying important respects. First, Karnau claimed to have been certain that that he had possessed pieces of information which, while he did not one of the bodies was that of Hitler. He told the reporters that he share them directly with Bernadotte, enabled him to deduce the had been able to recognise Hitler "by his brown uniform and his most probable date. It was almost certainly the publication of face"” and, in particular, by his distinctive moustache.” Second, Bernadotte's book, whose content was being summarised in the US Karnau claimed that the cremation had taken place at 6.30 pm on 1 and Canadian press as early as 16 June, which forced the Western May. Karnau's account of the events of 1 May is sufficiently Allies to go public, prematurely as we shall see, with stories of detailed that it cannot be said that he was mistaken about either the captives claiming to have been actual eyewitnesses to the events date or the time at which the cremation occurred. Karnau had seen which Schellenberg did not pretend to have seen himself.'® Adolf Hitler alive and sitting in his favourite wicker chair when he Evidence of the Western Allies’ haste to respond to the claim that — went for breakfast on the morning of 1 May. During that morning, Hitler had been murdered is their failure to reconcile the he recalled, four men arrived carrying gasoline cans "for the air- discrepancies between the two alleged eyewitnesses' accounts conditioning system". Karnau said that as he knew the bunker's air before presenting them to the press. While Kempka's statement conditioning system used Diesel oil, he denied them entrance. He confirmed that a cremation had taken place at around 3.00 pm on only allowed them in after Linge intervened. Karnau, who last 30 April, Karnau's statement referred to a cremation on 1 May. saw Hitler alive at around 4.00 pm, believed that Hitler was In Berchtesgaden on 20 June 1945, subsequently poisoned by one of his Erich Kempka made a statement for Evidence of the Western Allies’ personal physicians, Dr Ludwig American interrogator George R. Stumpfegger, and cremated at around Allen, the counterintelligence agent haste to respond to the claim 6.30 pm that same day. of the 101st Airborne Division.'* In A It should not be concluded that it, Kempka gave the Americans their that Hitler had been murdered Karnau was wrong about a cremation first eyewitness account of any of the 1s their failure to reconcile having taken place on 1 May. On7 events connected with the death of . . May, Dr Helmut Kunz, who had the Fuehrer. He declared that on 30 the discrepancies between worked in the Reich Chancellery April—although he felt unable to say the two alleged eyewitnesses’ dental surgery from 23 April 1945 that this was the date "with complete t y ti onwards, was interrogated by the sureness"—at precisely 2.30 pm, SS- accounts berore presen ing Soviets. The evidence he gave on this Sturmbannfuehrer Guensche called them to the press. occasion cannot be lightly dismissed him at the Reich Chancellery garage, asking him to bring five cans of because it was the first account ever given by a bunker survivor—meaning petrol over to the bunker. There Guensche told him that the that it is the least influenced by accounts given by others. It is also Fuehrer was dead and that he had been ordered to burn his corpse the most reliable, in the sense that the events it discusses had taken "so that he would not be exhibited at a Russian freak-show". place only a week before. Kempka said he then helped carry the corpses. While Linge and Dr Kunz explicitly affirmed seeing Eva Hitler alive on at least an orderly whom he did not remember were carrying the corpse of | two occasions on the evening of 30 April. Dr Kunz told his Adolf Hitler, he carried the corpse of Eva Hitler. Kempka simply Russian interrogators that he had seen Eva playing with the assumed that the corpse he had seen Linge carrying was Hitler's, Goebbels children on that evening and that a little later, between for he noticed "the long black trousers and the black shoes which 10.00 and 11.00 pm, he, Professor Werner Haase and two of the Fuehrer usually wore with his field-gray uniform jacket". The Hitler's secretaries had joined her for coffee. On the latter occasion, corpses were taken from the bunker to a spot in the Chancellery Eva told Dr Kunz that Hitler was not yet dead but he "would die garden, "about 4 to 5 m distant from the bunker exit". At this when he received confirmation that [his] will had reached the location, both bodies were cremated: "...SS-Sturmbannfuehrer _ person it had been sent to".” It is very hard to imagine that Dr Guensche poured the complete contents of the five cans over the Kunz could have been confused about the date, that in such two corpses and ignited the fuel. Reichsleiter Martin Bormann, circumstances he could have mistaken Eva Hitler for someone else Reichsminister Dr Goebbels, SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Guensche, SS- or that Eva did not actually know whether Hitler was yet dead or Sturmbannfuehrer Linge, the orderly and I stood in the bunker not. Moreover, since Hitler's will never reached its intended entrance, looked towards the fire and all saluted with raised recipient(s), it is entirely plausible that Hitler would not have hands." decided to die until the last possible moment, which is consistent The evidence of the fifth eyewitness, Hermann Karnau, is with a time of 6.30 pm on 1 May. interesting because he is the only eyewitness to the alleged The odd thing is the response that Karnau's story evoked from cremation of Adolf and Eva Hitler who fell into the hands of the Kempka. On 4 July, Kempka made a second statement” in which British whose story has ever reached the public. Like Kempka, he insisted that Karnau couldn't have seen Hitler's moustache Karnau escaped from Berlin, but by mid-May he had made his way because "[t]he upper part of Hitler's body was fully covered by a to his British-occupied hometown, Wilhelmshaven, where he blanket". Karnau must therefore have seen "other cremations", the haste to respond to the claim that Hitler had been murdered the discrepancies between the two alleged eyewitnesses’ accounts before presenting NEXUS = 41 Evidence of the Western Allies’ is their failure to reconcile them to the press. OCTOBER — NOVEMBER 2007 www.nexusmagazine.com