Fegelein: Hero or Fiend?

[Nautilus]

That's one of the rocks people stumble upon and break their toe when dealing with minor characters: it's far easier to believe rumors, legends and half-truths, if they fit one's personal biases.

Gretl Braun was supposed to have eloped with Fritz Darges and become pregnant, while the Führer is supposed to have blackmailed Darges into marrying her and sent him to the Eastern Front when he refused. Or she is supposed to have dallied with Fegelein and become pregnant, and therefore our hero gets married in a shotgun-wedding.

None of which fits the precise timeline of events or the basic logic. Just what makes a Waffen-SS officer to endanger his career by refusing to become the Führer's brother-in-law? And just how many Waffen-SS officers are supposed to refuse a direct order from the Führer's mouth, in the worst part of the war? People had been court-martialed and shot for much less.

Facts are:

- Gretl Braun did not give birth until May 5, 1945, which basic human biology tells she got impregnated somewhere around August 1944. When Darges was already hundreds of miles away, at his unit, 5th SS Panzer Regiment of the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking;
- Whatever Darges did happened at the Wolfsschanze in July 1944, where no civilian had access and neither Gretl, nor Eva have ever been;
- Fegelein's posting at the Führer's HQ by Himmler had begun in January 1944 and it's hardly possible to have met either Eva or Gretl before. He was asked by Hitler to marry and he did, no questions asked.
The memories of the secretaries, Linge and other people tell he never had any intention to be faithful, but he couldn't risk to enrage Hitler either, so he had to behave himself, at least for some time.

[phillip burke]

Hello all, according James o Donnell , in his book,The Berlin Bunker , Feglein was shot because he was "das Leck", the leak. Nothing heroic in giving it all up in pillow talk, plus trying to do a runner with said enemy agent.Will read the chapter again and post more tomorrow.

[phillip burke]

Hello all, here we go ,Das Leck,from The Berlin Bunker by James P.O Donnell. '' But in that last fortnight , when Hitler mentioned 'das Leck' he knew what he was talking about,a steady flow of information out of the Bunker.For example , he told me of an order a couple months back- i believe it was a rather routine promotion list-that he had for some reason pulled back and not sent to the OKW or the OKH. Yet within forty-eight hours,he complained, the news of these 'promotions' was on the British radio.Hitler could thus no longer blame OKW or OKH. It utterly exasperated him. Hitler on this matter was not just imagining things. I,too, am convinced there was such a penetraion,but i never heard the explanation.This is Speer talking, later, in this interview done shortly after the war, ''But as you have noted,Mueller was in the Bunker until the very end. He was not normally a member of the Hitlet inner circle.He was there because he had one very specific job to do''. Hans Baur ,who J.P.O Donnell says goes out of his way to contradict Speer says ,quoting Hitler ''My God, even my own HQ has been penetrated'' 'Again Baur,quoting Hitler , used the word 'das Leck'. This information was finding its way onto Soldatensender Calais, a secret radio station supposedly run by an SS opposition group but in fact operated by the British. Beginning in 1943, the shortwave broadcasts were beamed from England.So clever was the dissimulation,so German were the voices,so attractive the programmes , that only the most sophisticated of listeners recognized this new art of black propaganda in the British bag of tricks. A man called 'Der Chef'pretending to be a loyal but disgruntled SS man,began to expose the goings on at FHq. Adolf Hitler was never criicized directly-that would have scared off Nazi listeners -but everyone around him was. Rather good ,sharp jokes directed at American,Russian and British soldiers convinced most Continental listeners that they were really listening to a German programme. Does anyone have any of this material avaliable in English, would be good to hear some of these 'sharp jokes'. The promotion list was one for 6SS Panzer Army and might be the one linked to the infamous, armband order, cerain SS divisions were ordered to give up their cufftitles because Hitler thought they had not fought well enough for him.So how was this info finding its way to the Allies, well Fegelein was having an affair with a Irish girl who was married to a Hungarian diplomat.Pillow talk will always get you into trouble. Now personaaly i think a deligent researcher could find out who this young lady is, but i get the feeling her identity is being protected, maybe she carried on her spy work in the cold war. Would make sense regarding her identity and the fact nothing much is still not known about her,but the info we have would certainly make it quite easy to find her.

[DavidFrankenberg]

1) Darges could not be the father of Barbara
2) Hitler shot Fegelein because Fegelein was the righ-hand man of Himmler. Himmler was negociating with the Allies.
Hitler had to kill Fegelein. Hitler's aim was to push the Allies to negociate with Himmler.
-Himmler "hey look im the good guy, im against Hitler"
-Hitler "yes talk with him, he's a good guy, my enemy, i am the bad guy".
But "The enemy of your enemy is your friend" 's logic didnt work.

[von thoma]

Not a saint, he was involved in many war crimes in Russia with his cavalry division. He breaks the mold of a clean officer, even as a highly decorated soldier, too far of a true hero.