Chopper
Your point about the body found in the Chancellery garden is interesting and you are right, the uniform would have to have had the collar tabs still on in order to identify it as a Gruppenfuhrer's coat if Fegelein had had his shoulder boards torn off.
Also, SS General Hans Bauer said he saw several Gestapo men coming and going from the Reich Chancellery during these last days of the war.
Although it appears that Fegelein's shooter was an RSD man, the Gestapo may have taken joint responsibility for the execution. Misch did say that "Hitler consulted with both Gestapo chief Muller and RSD chief Rattenhuber to make sure Fegelein was dead."
Günsche and Fegelein Execution
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Mark Costa
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In the book "Das Buch Hitler" (p.351 Sw.Ed..) it has some comment about the execution of Fegelein.
At the same times as AH and EB was married the trial against Fegelein was held in the new Rechchans.´s bunker.
Chairman of the trial was SS-Brigfhr. Mohnke, bysitters was SS-Ostubaf Krause and SS-Stubaf Kaschula, and others (not mentioned by name).
After verdict in which Fegelin recieved the deathpenalty he was told that Hitler wanted to meet him, and during the walk to Hitler he was
shot in the back of an SD-member (no name given). This books sources is testimonies of the members of the Bunker who was held by the
Russians in other words: Rattenhuber, Mohnke, Günsche, Linge and others.
//Georg
At the same times as AH and EB was married the trial against Fegelein was held in the new Rechchans.´s bunker.
Chairman of the trial was SS-Brigfhr. Mohnke, bysitters was SS-Ostubaf Krause and SS-Stubaf Kaschula, and others (not mentioned by name).
After verdict in which Fegelin recieved the deathpenalty he was told that Hitler wanted to meet him, and during the walk to Hitler he was
shot in the back of an SD-member (no name given). This books sources is testimonies of the members of the Bunker who was held by the
Russians in other words: Rattenhuber, Mohnke, Günsche, Linge and others.
//Georg
Probably is that painting hanging on a wall either in Russia/Poland or Germany, and the people who has it doesn´t know what it really is.
Another version is that when he was captured, he was searched and the soldier who searched him, thought it was just crap and through it away.
With the most probably ending that it was destroyd either by fire/water or just that people walking over it, and when the house was rebuilt after the war, the last remains just vanished in the rubble.
/Georg
Another version is that when he was captured, he was searched and the soldier who searched him, thought it was just crap and through it away.
With the most probably ending that it was destroyd either by fire/water or just that people walking over it, and when the house was rebuilt after the war, the last remains just vanished in the rubble.
/Georg
Coming back to Chopper's observation that the body of an SS-Gruppenfuhrer was found in the garden of the Reich Chancellery, it is interesting to note that Walter Lueders, the man who claimed to have found the body, noted that the corpse had a wound in it's back.
This would be consistent with Rochus Misch's claim that Fegelein was SHOT IN THE BACK by an RSD man.
This would be consistent with Rochus Misch's claim that Fegelein was SHOT IN THE BACK by an RSD man.
Where do I find the source for this information WolfGuy? I'm interested in seeing it. The existance of insignia alone wouldn't be enough to be conclusive to whether the corpse is Fegelein's or Mueller's, though I highly suspect that this is what happened to Fegelein. The wound in the back seems to indicate Fegelein if we take the word of all parties mentioned. Seems [to me] that he ended up with Mueller's papers on him after he died.wolfguy wrote:it is interesting to note that Walter Lueders, the man who claimed to have found the body, noted that the corpse had a wound in it's back.
Chopper here you go- If you would like the full web address let me know.
This is National Archive information that I have cut and paste. This information can also be found in the book "The Search for Gestapo Muller" by Charles Whiting.
According to various witnesses interviewed by the West German police in 1961, the last time Mueller was seen alive was the evening of May 1, 1945, the day after Hitler's suicide. Several eyewitnesses placed Mueller at Hitler's Chancellery building that evening while recounting his refusal to leave with the breakout group that night. Hans Baur, Hitler's pilot and an old friend of Mueller's, recounts Mueller as saying, "We know the Russian methods exactly. I haven't the faintest intention of … being taken prisoner by the Russians." Another claimed that Mueller refused to leave with the rest of Hitler's entourage, and was overheard saying "the regime has fallen and…I fall also." He was last seen in the company of his radio specialist Christian A. Scholz. And while the bodies of others that remained that night were recovered and identified, no one in the final group witnessed the death of Mueller or Scholz.16
West German authorities pursued three major leads in an effort to confirm Mueller's death and burial in Berlin in 1945. First, there was the testimony of Fritz Leopold, a Berlin morgue official who had reported in December 1945 that Mueller's body was moved (along with many others) from the RSHA headquarters at Prinz Albrecht Strasse (2000 feet from the Chancellery) for reburial in a local municipal cemetery on Lilienthalstrasse (Berlin-Neukoelln) in the Western half of the city. Leopold was later deemed an unreliable source, but the burial was officially registered with the Berlin authorities and a headstone would be placed at Mueller's "grave" which read, "Our loving father Heinrich Mueller - Born 28 April 1900 - Died in Berlin May 1945." A second story came from Mueller's ex-subordinate Heinz Pannwitz, who had been captured by the Soviets and returned to West Germany in 1957, whereupon he told the German Secret Service [Bundesnachrichtendienst - BND] that his Soviet interrogators revealed to him that "your Chief [Mueller] is dead." The body, they said, had been found in a subway shaft a few blocks from the Chancellery with a bullet through the head and with its identity documents intact.17
The final story came from Walter Lueders, a former member of the German Volkssturm (civilian fighters) who maintained that he had headed a burial detail in the summer of 1945. Of the hundreds of bodies buried by the detail, only one, said Lueders, wore an SS-General's uniform, and it was found in the garden of the Reich Chancellery with a large wound in the back. Though the body had no medals or decorations, Lueders recalled with certainty that the identity papers were those of Gestapo Mueller. It was moved to the old Jewish Cemetery on Grosse Hamburgerstasse in the Soviet Sector, where it was placed in one of three mass graves. In fact, in 1955 the German Armed Forces Information Office (Wehrmachtsauskunftsstelle - WASt) inquired with district authorities in East Berlin and received confirmation that Gestapo Mueller was buried at the Grosse-Hamburgerstrasse cemetery in 1945. Since the grave was a mass grave, however, there was no actual plot.
The Fritz Leopold story was checked first, and in September 1963, the Mueller "grave" at the Lilienthalstrasse cemetery in West Berlin was exhumed. Investigation revealed that in fact, the grave contained the remains of three different people, none of whom were Mueller. The skull, moreover, belonged to a man ten years younger than Mueller would have been in 1945. The German authorities had no means by which to verify either Pannwitz's or Lueders' story. Pannwitz's information had come from Moscow, and there was no official liaison between Soviet intelligence and the West Germans on the Mueller case. Lueders's story could not be checked since Grosse Hamburgerstrasse was on the other side of the two-year old Berlin Wall. Adding to the confusion was the mystery of Mueller's effects. WASt, according to its own records, returned to Mueller's family in 1958 not only the Gestapo Chief's papers, some of which Lueders claimed to have found on the body, but also Mueller's decorations, which neither Leopold not Lueders claimed to have found. These items were never checked for authenticity.18
16) The witnesses, questioned in connection with a West German police investigation in 1961, are quoted in "The Hunt for 'Gestapo Mueller,'" pp. 16, 18.
[CIA/EUR] to Chief, EE and Chief SR, [A]-44835, 24 September 1959, Mueller file, vol. 1.
On the details above, see the lengthy German police reports of 1960 and 1961 submitted to U.S. Army Counter Intelligence and contained in Mueller's IRR file, NA RG 319, IRR File Mueller, XE 23 55 39. Fainter copies of these reports were made available by the Army to the CIA in 1970 and are included in the CIA Mueller File, vol. 2; See also "The Hunt for 'Gestapo Mueller,'" pp.19-26, 32-3, 34-37. On the effects, see "The Hunt for 'Gestapo Mueller'", p. 33.
This is National Archive information that I have cut and paste. This information can also be found in the book "The Search for Gestapo Muller" by Charles Whiting.
According to various witnesses interviewed by the West German police in 1961, the last time Mueller was seen alive was the evening of May 1, 1945, the day after Hitler's suicide. Several eyewitnesses placed Mueller at Hitler's Chancellery building that evening while recounting his refusal to leave with the breakout group that night. Hans Baur, Hitler's pilot and an old friend of Mueller's, recounts Mueller as saying, "We know the Russian methods exactly. I haven't the faintest intention of … being taken prisoner by the Russians." Another claimed that Mueller refused to leave with the rest of Hitler's entourage, and was overheard saying "the regime has fallen and…I fall also." He was last seen in the company of his radio specialist Christian A. Scholz. And while the bodies of others that remained that night were recovered and identified, no one in the final group witnessed the death of Mueller or Scholz.16
West German authorities pursued three major leads in an effort to confirm Mueller's death and burial in Berlin in 1945. First, there was the testimony of Fritz Leopold, a Berlin morgue official who had reported in December 1945 that Mueller's body was moved (along with many others) from the RSHA headquarters at Prinz Albrecht Strasse (2000 feet from the Chancellery) for reburial in a local municipal cemetery on Lilienthalstrasse (Berlin-Neukoelln) in the Western half of the city. Leopold was later deemed an unreliable source, but the burial was officially registered with the Berlin authorities and a headstone would be placed at Mueller's "grave" which read, "Our loving father Heinrich Mueller - Born 28 April 1900 - Died in Berlin May 1945." A second story came from Mueller's ex-subordinate Heinz Pannwitz, who had been captured by the Soviets and returned to West Germany in 1957, whereupon he told the German Secret Service [Bundesnachrichtendienst - BND] that his Soviet interrogators revealed to him that "your Chief [Mueller] is dead." The body, they said, had been found in a subway shaft a few blocks from the Chancellery with a bullet through the head and with its identity documents intact.17
The final story came from Walter Lueders, a former member of the German Volkssturm (civilian fighters) who maintained that he had headed a burial detail in the summer of 1945. Of the hundreds of bodies buried by the detail, only one, said Lueders, wore an SS-General's uniform, and it was found in the garden of the Reich Chancellery with a large wound in the back. Though the body had no medals or decorations, Lueders recalled with certainty that the identity papers were those of Gestapo Mueller. It was moved to the old Jewish Cemetery on Grosse Hamburgerstasse in the Soviet Sector, where it was placed in one of three mass graves. In fact, in 1955 the German Armed Forces Information Office (Wehrmachtsauskunftsstelle - WASt) inquired with district authorities in East Berlin and received confirmation that Gestapo Mueller was buried at the Grosse-Hamburgerstrasse cemetery in 1945. Since the grave was a mass grave, however, there was no actual plot.
The Fritz Leopold story was checked first, and in September 1963, the Mueller "grave" at the Lilienthalstrasse cemetery in West Berlin was exhumed. Investigation revealed that in fact, the grave contained the remains of three different people, none of whom were Mueller. The skull, moreover, belonged to a man ten years younger than Mueller would have been in 1945. The German authorities had no means by which to verify either Pannwitz's or Lueders' story. Pannwitz's information had come from Moscow, and there was no official liaison between Soviet intelligence and the West Germans on the Mueller case. Lueders's story could not be checked since Grosse Hamburgerstrasse was on the other side of the two-year old Berlin Wall. Adding to the confusion was the mystery of Mueller's effects. WASt, according to its own records, returned to Mueller's family in 1958 not only the Gestapo Chief's papers, some of which Lueders claimed to have found on the body, but also Mueller's decorations, which neither Leopold not Lueders claimed to have found. These items were never checked for authenticity.18
16) The witnesses, questioned in connection with a West German police investigation in 1961, are quoted in "The Hunt for 'Gestapo Mueller,'" pp. 16, 18.
[CIA/EUR] to Chief, EE and Chief SR, [A]-44835, 24 September 1959, Mueller file, vol. 1.
On the details above, see the lengthy German police reports of 1960 and 1961 submitted to U.S. Army Counter Intelligence and contained in Mueller's IRR file, NA RG 319, IRR File Mueller, XE 23 55 39. Fainter copies of these reports were made available by the Army to the CIA in 1970 and are included in the CIA Mueller File, vol. 2; See also "The Hunt for 'Gestapo Mueller,'" pp.19-26, 32-3, 34-37. On the effects, see "The Hunt for 'Gestapo Mueller'", p. 33.
Thanks for the info WolfGuy.
BTW, getting back to the original post in this thread.. I just now saw "hitler's end" on youtube. I found the commentary interesting at least.. but in my opinion it was poorly produced. Some of the photos and footage in the documentary don't match the events or time line of what they're talking about.
I think I may have caught another small detail though. If we are to consider what was said in this documentary, if Fegelein was trying to run away, a hallway seems a more likely location to try running than a cellar, no? Correct me if I'm wrong, please, as I recall Rochus Misch's story changing slightly over time. I vaguely recall that he has given several locations for the location where Fegelein was shot. If we combine the words of Larson, Loringhoven and Misch we get a truly interesting picture.. even though it doesn't totally match the accepted story.
I'm just trying to weed through the descrepencies. I don't mean any offense to anyone by not accepting the currently held version of events.
BTW, getting back to the original post in this thread.. I just now saw "hitler's end" on youtube. I found the commentary interesting at least.. but in my opinion it was poorly produced. Some of the photos and footage in the documentary don't match the events or time line of what they're talking about.
I think I may have caught another small detail though. If we are to consider what was said in this documentary, if Fegelein was trying to run away, a hallway seems a more likely location to try running than a cellar, no? Correct me if I'm wrong, please, as I recall Rochus Misch's story changing slightly over time. I vaguely recall that he has given several locations for the location where Fegelein was shot. If we combine the words of Larson, Loringhoven and Misch we get a truly interesting picture.. even though it doesn't totally match the accepted story.
I'm just trying to weed through the descrepencies. I don't mean any offense to anyone by not accepting the currently held version of events.
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Potsdamerplatz
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- Joined: 04 Nov 2005, 06:06
- Location: Scotland
Thanks wolfguy for the extremely interesting information you posted above about Heinrich Müller from Charles Whiting's book.
Re: Misch's story
I don't think it's unusual for someone to slightly change small details of their story over a course of time. It's probably done subconsciously.
The same occured when Otto Günsche and Heinz Linge were interviewed by their Russians interrogators about the death and viking funeral of Hitler. They were asked on many occasions what happened and they told basically the same story, albeit with several discrepancies each time.
If you ask one of your friends about his high school prom, and then ask again a few years later, he will perhaps tell a slightly different version of events, even adding, omitting or changing a few details from the earlier version.
Kind regards.
Re: Misch's story
I don't think it's unusual for someone to slightly change small details of their story over a course of time. It's probably done subconsciously.
The same occured when Otto Günsche and Heinz Linge were interviewed by their Russians interrogators about the death and viking funeral of Hitler. They were asked on many occasions what happened and they told basically the same story, albeit with several discrepancies each time.
If you ask one of your friends about his high school prom, and then ask again a few years later, he will perhaps tell a slightly different version of events, even adding, omitting or changing a few details from the earlier version.
Kind regards.
I completely agree.Potsdamerplatz wrote:Thanks wolfguy for the extremely interesting information you posted above about Heinrich Müller from Charles Whiting's book.
Re: Misch's story
I don't think it's unusual for someone to slightly change small details of their story over a course of time. It's probably done subconsciously.
Now what if we take Mohnke's Account, Larson's account, Loringhoven's account, and Misch's account, and use the pieces that agree with each other. We get a slightly different picture of what happened. It might or might not be accurate, but it's possible, no?
-Chopper
Chopper you are correct.
Rochus Misch has changed part of his story over time.
He originally said that the shooting took place in a cellar. (see Anton Joachimstahler's book "The Last Days of Hiter: The Legends, The Evidence, The Truth")
Now he says it was in a hallway.
In my opinion the descrepancy is acceptable and not very important.
I wouldn't expect him to remember the exact spot after six decades.
His story is the same in that he has always maintained the shooter was RSD.
If Fegelein's body was dumped in the Chancellery garden, the RSD men on guard duty at the bunker exit there must have witnessed it.
On the day of Hiter's suicide the two RSD men on guard duty next to the garden were SS-Unterscharfuhrer Hans Hofbeck and SS-Rottenfuhrer Harry Mengershausen. I wonder if these two were on duty at the garden on April 28 when Fegelein was shot?
I DO believe Rochus Misch that the RSD shot Fegelein but for the life of me (and no disrespect to Mr. Misch) I can't understand why he would admit to knowing the shooter and not wanting to say who he is rather than just denying he knows anything about the matter altogether. (As Chopper has stated)
At this point, I would be satifsfied if Misch would at least give us the name of the person who told him who the shooter was or the name of one of the other RSD men who led Fegelein to the execution other than the actual triggerman.
wolfguy
Rochus Misch has changed part of his story over time.
He originally said that the shooting took place in a cellar. (see Anton Joachimstahler's book "The Last Days of Hiter: The Legends, The Evidence, The Truth")
Now he says it was in a hallway.
In my opinion the descrepancy is acceptable and not very important.
I wouldn't expect him to remember the exact spot after six decades.
His story is the same in that he has always maintained the shooter was RSD.
If Fegelein's body was dumped in the Chancellery garden, the RSD men on guard duty at the bunker exit there must have witnessed it.
On the day of Hiter's suicide the two RSD men on guard duty next to the garden were SS-Unterscharfuhrer Hans Hofbeck and SS-Rottenfuhrer Harry Mengershausen. I wonder if these two were on duty at the garden on April 28 when Fegelein was shot?
I DO believe Rochus Misch that the RSD shot Fegelein but for the life of me (and no disrespect to Mr. Misch) I can't understand why he would admit to knowing the shooter and not wanting to say who he is rather than just denying he knows anything about the matter altogether. (As Chopper has stated)
At this point, I would be satifsfied if Misch would at least give us the name of the person who told him who the shooter was or the name of one of the other RSD men who led Fegelein to the execution other than the actual triggerman.
wolfguy
Hello Wolfguy,wolfguy wrote:
I DO believe Rochus Misch that the RSD shot Fegelein but for the life of me (and no disrespect to Mr. Misch) I can't understand why he would admit to knowing the shooter and not wanting to say who he is rather than just denying he knows anything about the matter altogether. wolfguy
I think it´s hard for us to udnerstand what Loyalty and the kind of comradeship soldiers have, and especially those in the SS, they have for more then 60 years been treated as Paria all over the world, and with other members problems with justice (questinable or not) Misch maybe thinks that he can admit that he knows who did it but won´t reviele his name. It´s as with Heinz Macher and Werner Grothmann, who was together with RFSS when they got captured by the British, they haven´t talked about it, as Macher said to me through a other SS-member there is some question he will not answer, he protected RFSS even if that the RFSS had been dead for more then 50 years. Why? Loyalty or what? I don´t know. There is a lot of questions about what happened in the Second world war, and many answer goes with the witnesses into their graves, as simple as it is.
Best regards,
Georg
The whole bunker looked like a maze or labrynth. There must have been a number of cellars in the bunkers.
Keep in mind that no one in the bunker claimed to hear any gunshot at the time of Fegelein's execution (that I know of anyway), so unless those cellars were soundproof (which is possible), the execution would not have taken place there. It would have been more convenient to shoot him at the surface and either outside or near outside
1) so that no one else in the bunker would witness it or hear it
and
2) so that it would be faster and easier to dump his body outside in the garden.
Another interesting footnote in James O' Donnel's book "The Bunker"
is that all the people from the bunker that he interviewed (including Mohnke, Gunsche, Linge, etc.) denied an old rumor that Fegelein was shot by a firing squad that was put together by lottery.
wolfguy
Keep in mind that no one in the bunker claimed to hear any gunshot at the time of Fegelein's execution (that I know of anyway), so unless those cellars were soundproof (which is possible), the execution would not have taken place there. It would have been more convenient to shoot him at the surface and either outside or near outside
1) so that no one else in the bunker would witness it or hear it
and
2) so that it would be faster and easier to dump his body outside in the garden.
Another interesting footnote in James O' Donnel's book "The Bunker"
is that all the people from the bunker that he interviewed (including Mohnke, Gunsche, Linge, etc.) denied an old rumor that Fegelein was shot by a firing squad that was put together by lottery.
wolfguy