Last Man to Die by Michael Dobbs
‘Captain, you are well, I trust?’
‘You’ve heard? About the break-out?’
‘Yes, of course. I shall be leaving with the Fuehrer tonight.’ There was little enthusiasm in her words. ‘It’s my duty,’ she added. She clearly felt the need to explain.
‘I have been instructed to leave also.’
‘I know. I suggested to the Fuehrer it might be a good idea …’
‘I don’t want to go.’
‘What? Why on earth not?’ she exclaimed.
‘I came back to Germany to fight for what I believe in. I think I can do that best by remaining here in Berlin.’
‘But you are the Fuehrer’s mascot, his symbol …’
‘How much better a symbol will I be if I stay behind to help lead the resistance, to fight to the last. That’s the sort of symbol that will keep the white flags from flying!’
‘Peter, do you really want to die that much?’ In her surprise and confusion she had dropped the discreet formality.
‘No. I don’t want to die. But this way I can die without regrets. Remember?’
‘How could I forget?’
Their words were guarded, anxious of eavesdroppers. Greim was drawing closer to him, clearly curious.
‘I have a favour to ask.’
‘Anything.’
‘I want the Fuehrer to release me from his order, and allow me to remain in Berlin. And I want the opportunity to bid farewell to him personally. It would mean everything to me.’
‘He doesn’t see many people on their own any more. He says they only ask to see him alone if they have terrible news or want to tell him the war is lost …’
‘Help me! There is so little time left. I would ask Goebbels but he is too busy for such matters, and I know of no one else to ask. Could you, this afternoon, take me to see him? It would mean everything.’ Greim was edging nearer, in a moment he would be beside Hencke and able to hear every word.
‘It’s very difficult …’
‘Please, Eva. Remember. It’s an honour I’m willing to die for.’
The voice on the other end of the phone trembled with emotion. ‘You are a very exceptional man, Captain Hencke. I’m so very glad I met you.’
Hencke was becoming desperate. He turned his back on Greim, as if trying to shield the receiver from the noise of the officer who was shouting on the next phone. ‘The Fuehrer, Eva. Can you arrange it?’
There was a long silence. Greim, making no pretence as to his intentions, came round and sat on the desk beside him, cocking his ear to catch every word.
‘Tea. In my room in the Bunker. Four o’clock sharp. Don’t be late.’ With that the phone went dead.
Hencke threw an evil look at Greim, but the sergeant’s attention seemed to have been distracted. At the next phone the officer had abruptly ceased shouting and was staring with incredulity at the receiver. A moment before he had been talking to his mistress in the suburb of Wannsee, scarcely ten miles from the Reich Chancellery. Now all he could hear coming out of the phone was a guttural male voice gabbling in what sounded very much like Russian.
Greim followed Hencke like an unpleasant smell as they walked down the tunnels and towards the Bunker. The checkpoints were all in place; whatever other chaos was going on the FBK still seemed certain of its duty. Hencke was anxious that the security checks might delay him, make him late, but at last he entered through the final steel door and was in the corridor of the Vorbunker. She was there, too, smiling. He offered a formal nod of respect and she took his arm, leading him towards the stairs that led down to the Fuehrerbunker.
As they started to descend the wrought iron staircase there came the clatter of Greim descending after them. Eva turned to him.
‘Sergeant, where on earth do you think you’re going?’
Greim looked uncomfortable. ‘I have instructions, Fräulein. From Reichsminister Goebbels himself. I am to accompany the captain everywhere and ensure his safety.’
She laughed gaily. ‘I assure you that he will be perfectly safe taking tea in the Fuehrerbunker with me. Or do you suspect me of wishing to attack him?’ Her tone was light but mocking.
Greim began to stammer with embarrassment. ‘No, Fräulein, but my orders …’
Her gaiety had gone, in its place only taut impatience. ‘Sergeant, your orders do not require you to be either ridiculous or impertinent. I promise you the captain will come to no harm.’
Greim writhed, a picture of misery. ‘But I shall have to report to the Reichsminister …’
‘And if you continue your insolence I shall be reporting to the Fuehrer!’
She was staring angrily at him, defying him to continue down the stairs. Greim felt himself caught between the hot breath of a firing squad and the frozen gales of Siberia. He had to choose between Goebbels and Eva Braun, and knew whatever he decided he couldn’t win. He looked once more into her indignant eyes. Shit! She was here and Goebbels wasn’t. It was bound to be all right if he stood guard at the top of the stairs. As the slut said, what the hell could happen down in the Fuehrerbunker? Greim turned on his heel and disappeared.
Bormann threw himself down the corridor as if the hounds of hell were at his heels, his face beetroot red and spittle-covered from the exertion and his growing sense of panic. The telephone call had got through just as he was completing his packing in the Chancellery. The line from Karlsbad was as terrible as ever and held out for less than three minutes, but three minutes had been enough, and – string up the entire milk-sucking Signal Corps from piano wires! – when he in turn tried Goebbels in his Bunker office but a few hundred yards away, he found the land line chewed to pieces by a Russian shell and out of action. So he’d been forced to run. He was very unfit. The sweat poured down his face and he thought he was going to bring up a bellyful of salami and sauerkraut. Since the telephone call there had been a terrible pounding in his temples and for a moment he wondered whether he was having a heart attack; it seemed a considerably brighter prospect than anything Goebbels was likely to do to him when he heard. He forced his tired legs onwards.
The sight of a wild-eyed Deputy Fuehrer charging down the tunnels towards the checkpoints unnerved some of the FBK guards – perhaps the Russians were already here … or Bormann had cracked, he was always the one most likely to … perhaps they should shoot him. But such was the bull-like charge that he was past them before they had a chance to think. He hauled himself through the bulkhead door which led to the Vorbunker, took a huge lungful of air and bellowed.
‘G-o-e-b-b-e-l-s?’
A bewildered adjutant paused from his packing, the sight of such animalistic fury rendering him utterly incapable of response.
‘Where’s Goebbels, you bastard?’ Bormann screamed. He lunged towards the adjutant who had begun to tremble. He was about to lay his huge paws on the wretch when the soldier waved towards one of the doors leading off the corridor.
‘But … but he’s recording his radio broadcast. He mustn’t be disturbed.’
With a wild sweep of his hand Bormann threw him aside and crashed through the door.
Eva Braun’s suite led directly off the Fuehrer’s sitting-room, and was furnished in similarly frugal style. Only a coat of pale yellow paint on the walls differentiated it from the other dingy cubby holes of the Fuehrerbunker. Hencke sat in an armchair while she busied herself on the small sofa pouring tea, moving to one side the vase of fresh flowers on the table. It was a scene almost identical to that of the Fuehrer’s own tea party for him. Except there was no orderly. And the nearest guard was in the corridor, out of sight and out of earshot.
‘Thank you for your help, Eva.’
‘It wasn’t easy. I haven’t had a chance to explain things to the Fuehrer; I’ve simply invited him to tea, our last time in the Bunker. He’ll be along any minute. I hope he won’t be angry with me …’
From within his black officer’s tunic Hencke took a one-armed toy bear. It looked sad and exhausted, as if it had had enough. He plac
‘My lucky charm. It’s been with me all the way …’
‘Peter, how sweet. You with a teddy bear! You really are the strangest man.’
She picked up the battered toy to examine it, glowing with pleasure like a girl sharing presents with her schoolfriends, trying to stroke fresh life back into its tattered fabric. For a moment she scarcely noticed that Hencke had risen from his seat and was by the small bureau near the door, where she had left her handbag. When she looked up again she saw he was opening the bag and reaching inside.
‘Peter …?’ The smile had gone as she saw him take out the Walther. ‘Peter, what is it …?’
It took him less than two full strides to cross the room. He was leaning over her. He didn’t want to, from deep down within him he absolutely didn’t want to, this was no aunt-image, but he knew she would leave him with no choice. Her mouth was open and she was about to scream when his hands went round her neck and he began to squeeze, choking off the cry of warning. Her right hand came up, clenched in a fist, striking him fiercely in the testicles and he winced with pain, but kept squeezing. She tried to kick but her feet were obstructed by the seat. Her face was rapidly changing colour and after another futile attack on his groin her hands were up trying to tear his fingers away from her neck. The harder she fought, the tighter he squeezed. Her body was shaking, seeming as light in his hands as a pillow, and her strength was ebbing fast. Her tongue was out, her jaw was slack, her lips pursed in a silent scream of fury, and her large green eyes stared up at him accusing, beseeching, uncomprehending. While they stared, he dared not let go.
It seemed for ever before he realized she was dead, that the eyes, still full of accusation, retained no life.
His own eyes brimmed with tears. ‘No regrets, Eva. No regrets,’ he whispered. With great tenderness he leaned down and kissed her on the forehead.
It was as he stood up that he heard someone enter the room behind him. He turned round to find himself looking straight down the barrel of a gun.
‘Bormann, you oaf. Can’t you see I’m recording a broadcast?’
‘Fuck the recording. It’s Hencke we’ve got to worry about.’
‘Oh my God. What is it?’
‘It’s not Hencke, it’s not him!’
‘Make sense, man!’
‘I’ve just had Karlsbad on the phone. They’ve found out more about Hencke. The reason we haven’t been able to find any recent records for him’ – Bormann swayed with breathless fatigue – ‘is that he’s dead. He died seven years ago.’
‘How? Where?’
‘Hencke was a schoolteacher all right, at the time we seized the Sudetenland, but some bloody idiot Freikorper threw a grenade through a window during the troubles. It exploded in the middle of his classroom, killing Hencke and half a class of schoolchildren.’
‘This cannot be serious,’ whispered Goebbels.
‘There’s more. Seems he never married and was living with another man, a Czech. Probably a pillow-biter, some of the locals reckon.’
‘Then if Hencke is dead, who the hell is this one …?’
As one they sprang for the door.
Hencke stared into the glassy expression of Adolf Hitler. The gun in the Fuehrer’s hand trembled as he gazed open-mouthed from Hencke to the body of Eva Braun and back again. His wits seemed dull, his reactions slow and his attention unable to focus, to settle on either, moving backwards and forth as if by searching hard enough he would discover his eyes had deceived him. He shook his head, to clear his senses, to refute all that he saw. Eventually, agonizingly, as he stood looking at his lover’s lifeless body, as the truth pierced through to his befuddled brain, his watery eyes began to dissolve.
Hencke watched transfixed as the tears began pouring down Adolf Hitler’s cheeks.
‘Where’s Hencke?’ Goebbels and Bormann shouted in unison as they burst into the corridor.
This time the adjutant was completely incapable of speech and it was not until Greim, disturbed by the commotion, put his head around the bulkhead door from his position at the top of the stairs that they got their reply.
‘Hencke? He’s … down with Fräulein Braun,’ Greim whimpered. ‘They went to have tea …’ He trailed off in terror as he saw the look on Goebbels’ face.
‘You shit-eating scum!’ Goebbels pushed past him. ‘You’re dead!’
The Reichsminister was hobbling, dragging his braced leg behind him, yet Bormann was in panic as to what they might find and gladly let the other lead the way. As they stumbled in their haste down the corridor, Goebbels trod on the head of a china doll with which his young daughter had been playing. It shattered into useless, unrecognizable fragments.
They clattered down the metal stairs, Goebbels forced to take them one at a time and slowing Bormann and the FBK guards who had joined the pursuit. They rushed into the lower corridor of the Fuehrerbunker, Goebbels shouting ahead to the guard stationed outside the entrance to Hitler’s rooms.
‘Where’s the Fuehrer?’
The guard pointed through the door and Goebbels lunged frantically past. Inside the Fuehrer’s sitting-room they hesitated, unsure which door to try. A single shot rang out. It came from behind the door leading to Eva Braun’s suite.
Goebbels already knew what he would find as he burst into the room. Hencke was standing over the body of Eva Braun, a gun by his side. Directly in front of them, slumped on the floor, his face pointing to the ceiling, lay the body of Adolf Hitler. There was a gun in his hand and a bullet wound in his temple. He lay as dead and as useless as the shattered doll.
There are moments when time stands still. It did so now for Goebbels as he took in the scene before him. The Fuehrer, a single bullet wound in the temple. Eva Braun, open-eyed, distorted lips, the agonies of death etched across her face. A small porcelain vase of flowers tipped over on the table, the water dripping mournfully on to the floor. A scene to be remembered for all time. Suddenly a pistol was thrust over his shoulder and Bormann was firing. The first bullet struck Hencke full in the chest and spun him round, but like a man possessed Bormann continued to fire repeatedly into Hencke’s body until it was slumped against the wall, covered in angry, raging wounds, and Bormann had run out of ammunition. Yet still he pulled at the trigger and the hammer clicked against empty chambers until Goebbels forcibly restrained him.
In the icy silence that followed, nobody moved. Then one of Hencke’s eyes twitched open, a flicker of flame shone from somewhere within, and through lips twisted with pain and effort he whispered: ‘Nelipuje.’ A thin, triumphal smile brushed briefly across his face, and he fell back, dead.
‘What did he say, what did he say?’ Bormann was quivering with shock.
‘It was Czech,’ Goebbels responded quietly. ‘It means “No Regrets”.’
There was another long period of silence before they were distracted by the gathering of curious guards beyond the outer door.
‘Keep them out. They have no business here.’ Goebbels was calm. He seemed very much in command, almost serene. At last he turned to face Bormann. ‘It’s over. The end.’
Bormann shook his head, unwilling to accept. ‘But surely we can fight on. There’s still the Alps.’
‘Without the Fuehrer? Impossible. Tomorrow we are dead.’
‘No, no. We can still escape from Berlin.’ There was fear in Bormann’s florid face.
‘Hopeless!’ Goebbels snapped. He pointed at the corpse of Hitler. ‘The head and the heart of Germany are here in this room. The war is over, Bormann. All we have left is the idea.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘The cause, it must live on. And for that we need martyrs and a noble myth, not some shabby little scene played out in an underground sewer, the Fuehrer dead beside the body of his mistress and some snivelling Czech laughing in our faces. Is that what you want future generations to remember, for God’s sake?’ Goebbels had grown animated as he struggled for one final t
‘But what can we do?’
‘I tell you what you do. You find a notary and get him to marry these two.’ He waved at the corpses of Hitler and Eva Braun.
‘But they’re dead …’
‘Do you want the world to know that Hitler died with a whore? You get the notary, and once he’s married them, get rid of him. We can’t have anyone going round telling tales.’
Bormann blanched.
‘Then you dispose of the bodies. Burn them. We can’t have them falling into the clutches of the Russians.’ He stood amidst the carnage, struggling to summon up the energy and adrenalin for his task, but it became all too much and somewhere inside him a switch was thrown. Shoulders sagged, the long face wilted and he closed his eyes for a moment, seeking composure. When he spoke again, his voice had taken on an uncharacteristic mellowness. ‘You do that. And I will announce to the world that the Fuehrer has committed suicide, his new wife by his side, fighting to the last to defend the Reich capital of Berlin. An heroic death which will inspire great histories to be written. Only you and I will know, Bormann.’
‘What of him, the Czech?’
‘Place him in a side room for the moment, out of the way of prying eyes.’ Goebbels paused to consider the man in whom he had placed so much faith and who had betrayed him with such devastating effect. He shrugged, the energy for hate gone. ‘Then give him a proper burial. He died a soldier’s death after all, whoever he was.’
‘The last man to die, maybe?’
Goebbels sniffed in contempt as the other man’s fear filled his nostrils. But what did it matter any more …‘You get out of Berlin, Bormann. If you can.’
‘You, too?’
Goebbels kicked a one-armed toy bear lying on the floor. ‘No, I don’t think I’ll bother …’