Nexus - 1502 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

intolerable disturbers of international peace."* (My italics) "When I was released by the Americans I read historian Trevor- Indeed, the very title of the editorial, "To Destroy Hitler, Roper's book, 'The Last Days of Hitler’. Throughout the book like a Whether Man or Myth", implies that it was considered as red line, runs an eyewitness report by Hanna Reitsch about the final important to destroy Hitler "the myth" as Hitler "the man". days in the bunker. I never said it. I never wrote it. I never signed By mid-1945, the public was being asked to choose between a it. It was something they invented. Hitler died with total dignity."” proliferating number of escape stories and the suicide theory. This report, dated 8 October 1945, was written by Reitsch's Given that the escape stories were outlandish if not often patently interrogator, Captain Robert E. Work (Air Division, ridiculous, the public was given the impression that only the Headquarters, United States Forces in Austria, Air Interrogation suicide theory had any evidence to support it and deserved to be Unit), and published for the first time in, of all places, Public taken seriously. Opinion Quarterly in 1946-47.” The British response to the burgeoning Hitler escape stories was The second case was that of nurse Erna Flegel. On 23 not long in coming. In September 1945, Brigadier Dick White, November 1945, several American intelligence agents took Flegel commander of the Intelligence Bureau in the British Zone of out for a six-course dinner, the result of which was a five-page Occupation, commissioned Major Hugh Trevor-Roper, a young statement in English which is presented as a summary of the Oxford-trained historian who, since 1943, had supervised the work —_ information she allegedly imparted during her "interrogation". of the Secret Intelligence Service's Radio Intelligence Section However, Flegel neither wrote the statement herself nor signed (RIS), to investigate, at least ostensibly, the circumstances of it! In fact, no one can be said to vouch for this document Hitler's alleged death. This was the opening because, despite its having been declassified, phase of the British establishment's the names of the persons responsible for it, fabrication of a narrative of the last days of including the name of the agency for which the Third Reich that made short work of they worked, remain blacked out. Hitler "the myth". If this approach was typical, then Trevor- Given that his only previous publication Roper's chief sources were summaries of was a biography of a 17th-century English information that had already been predigested neither tead nor spoke German, Trevor. | MIS Was the opening | ores involving what distortions and Roper was a curious choice for such a task. phase of the British attempts at ironing out inconsistencies we he authenticated the spurious "Hitler establishment's Were few bunker survivors in British hands Diaries", even though the task of fabrication of and that Trevor-Roper had no access to determining the authenticity of a single a narrative of the bunker survivors in Soviet hands, his task document would have been much simpler than that of establishing the truth about Hitler's demise. During the last three months of 1945, according to the official story, Trevor- Roper and a team of intelligence agents travelled through Germany, tracking down and interrogating bunker survivors. However, this procedure did not bear a great deal of fruit, probably because most survivors were interned in Soviet prisons and concentration camps. In addition to uncovering the alleged diary of Hitler's valet Heinz Linge, Trevor-Roper achieved only one coup: Strikingly, Trevor-Roper made his scoring interviews with Gerda Christian, "conclusions" public less than two who had been one of Hitler's secretaries, and Else Krueger, who months after he'd begun investigating the case. At a press had been Bormann's secretary. conference on | November 1945, Trevor-Roper (who remained Surprisingly, Trevor-Roper seems not to have interviewed any anonymous at this stage and was referred to in print merely as "a witnesses who had fallen into American hands, which means the young British intelligence officer") presented reporters with a better part of those to be found outside Soviet prisons. It appears statement that consisted of little more than a narrative of the last that instead of allowing him to meet with them, American week or so of Hitler's life. It described how Hitler had committed intelligence operatives interviewed them and passed copies of their suicide, probably by shooting himself in the mouth.” Although reports to him. In one particularly flagrant case, the Americans Trevor-Roper told the reporters that so far he had spoken to about furnished Trevor-Roper with partly fabricated testimony; in another, 20 witnesses, the statement did not name even one of them. they supplied information that had been obtained in such unusual Nonetheless, reporters probably left the conference under the conditions that it, too, must be considered suspect. erroneous impression that the version of Hitler's last days that he The first case was that of the famous German aviatrix Hanna had provided was backed up by the testimony of multiple Reitsch. In an interview with Ron Laytner that she authorised for witnesses. Yet he had not found a single new eyewitness to the publication only after her death, Reitsch stated explicitly that at critical events—Hitler's suicide and cremation; all he had done was least part of the account attributed to her in The Last Days of take Kempka’s testimony as gospel truth and discount Karnau's. Hitler had been fabricated: The final section of the Trevor-Roper statement rejected basically appears to have been that of creating a coherent narrative out of information that he was being spoonfed and that he had no means of assessing himself. There is no reason to believe that any of the evidence that reached Trevor-Roper id so with the active consent of the witnesses. My impression is that in 1945, captured Nazis were little more than the puppets of their Allied captors; they could be made to say anything their captors wanted them to say, and if they objected there was nothing they could do about it anyway. last days of the Third Reich that made short work of Hitler "the myth". This was the opening phase of the British fabrication of last days of the Third Reich that _ 38 = NEXUS establishment's a narrative of the made short work of Hitler "the myth". www.nexusmagazine.com FEBRUARY — MARCH 2008