Escaping the Bunker

[Br. James]

Hi Mannheim,

Yes, my 1978 edition does mention the cellar window under the balcony. I checked my edition against the two quotes above from Ecam on April 15th...though he doesn't mention which edition of "The Bunker" he is reading from. His first quote from p.273 in the 1978 edition is exactly the way he quotes it from his copy, His second quote, from p. 274, is more elaborate in the 1978 edition; it reads as follows: "At eleven o'clock sharp, Mohnke gave the order to his lead group to line up and prepare for departure. It numbered twenty men, four women. Mohnke next ordered that the bricked-up cellar window be broken through with crowbars. Then he himself quickly clambered up and out, cocked pistol in hand. At this breakout moment, Mohnke was just under the special balcony of the Old Reich Chancellery, the one Albert Speer had built at Hitler's request in 1934. He had come up and out onto the sidewalk of the Wilhelmstraße, which was here cluttered with large chunks of fresh rubble. The general paused under the balcony, peered about like an Indian scout, then hand-signaled to Oberst Klingemeier to follow. The breakout into the unknown had begun."

Regarding the reference to a window "under the special balcony of the Old Reich Chancellery," I happened upon a photo of Hitler and another person -- perhaps Dönitz? -- standing on the new balcony which Speer had designed as an addition to the Seidler Office Building, in the first photo section of Speer's "Inside the Third Reich," published by The Macmillan Company, copyright 1970 (first printing in English). This photo was taken from slightly above the balcony level and it reveals a section of the sidewalk along the Seidler Building beneath the balcony, in which there appear to be either windows or vents cut into the sidewalk -- not into the building will itself -- below each window of the Wilhelmstrasse face of the building. Could one of these have formed the exit route which Mohnke and his team took? Very interesting!

Br. James

[Mannheim]

Curiouser and curiouser. My copy has slightly different wording to Ecams' but those quotations are on pages 301 and 304 in the chapter "The Breakout". Ecams' page numbers are in "Death of the Mythmaker" in my copy. I'll continue the hunt for the windows under the balcony. Any chance you could find and post your Hitler/Dönitz(?) photo?

[Br. James]

There have been several editions/reprints of "Inside the Third Reich" in English since the 1970 edition, so I imagine that others here have access to copies and could provide a copy of the photo I'm referring to. I assume that each edition carried the same photo selection that the First English Edition had. I'm sorry to say that I have neither the technology or the expertise to post photo copies.

Br. James

[Mannheim]

Not to worry. Thanks for your input anyway, Br. James. I am reasonably confident that there was no garage under the Ehrenhof and no windows under the balcony until I learn differently. Great thread!

[Br. James]

Thanks, Mannheim, though from revisiting the photo I just mentioned, it is clear to me that there was something beneath the sidewalk along the Wilhelmstrasse facade of the Seidler Office Building -- which was where the Speer Balcony was located. This "something" may have been a drainage tunnel for the sidewalk -- I'm certainly not sure what was there -- but there was certainly something which appears to be an opening of some sort beneath each of the first floor (ground floor) windows of that building. I still don't believe that there was a "garage" beneath the Ehrenhof, but there was something that required openings in the sidewalk beneath those windows along the Wilhelmstrasse.

Br. James

[Ecam]

Br.
Are you able to post the photo you refer to?

[Br. James]

No, I am not able to post that photo. Sincerest apologies...but I assume that every edition of "Inside the Third Reich" has the same set of photos, and a quick perusal of any copy should provide the photo I'm referring to.

And if you don't have a copy of any edition of "Inside the Third Reich," my advice to every serious student of TR history is to have a copy in your library! Albert Speer is 'the father of modern TR studies' and I sincerely believe that our hobby would not be what it is today without Speer's work. I believe that Speer played down his own responsibility for the holocaust and the slave labor industry in order to keep his neck out of the noose at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice in 1946, but there is much background information and personal testimony to be discovered between the covers of his first post-war book.

Br. James

[Mannheim]

Once again, my copy of "Inside the Third Reich" is different to Br. James'. Mine is a 1971 Sphere publication and doesn't have the balcony photo which is a real pity. I will check my local library to see if their (hopefully hardcover) copy has it. The photos in my edition are all numbered and amount to thirty-one photos.

[Hans44]

Sorry, i posted in the wrong topic. This is the picture you mean br james?

[Br. James]

Yes, Hans44, this is exactly the photo I mentioned! Thanks very much for posting it! And as you can see, there were clearly some sort of openings -- vents or windows or ?? -- along the sidewalk line of the Siedler Office Building.

Cheers,

Br. James

[Mannheim]

Excellent, Hans44. Now I know what Br. James was referring to. They are vents,IMO, commonly found in the footpath/sidewalk of buildings with basements. I would suggest they are not bricked-up windows - as I said before, why squeeze out of those openings if you could run from the Borsig Palais to the Kaiserhof U Bahn?

[Br. James]

Yes, that's the question, Mannheim! Checking back with the photos provided here by AlainDucasse on 13 April 2018 above, we see that at war's end, the sidewalk all along the Wilhelmstrasse was covered with debris from the shelling and bombing of the Reichschancellery during those last days, and the close-up of the Borsig Palace discloses that the first floor corner of Wilhelmstr. at Vossstr. was apparently hit by cannon fire, which probably caused great damage to the interior of the building at that point. And further, we see that all of the basement windows on that corner have their protective grillwork in the closed position, which seems to be unlikely after a group of people rushed to escape through one of those windows.

Just thinking out loud, friends! Cheers,

Br. James

[Ecam]

Hello Mannheim,

I've come to believe that your hunch is correct - the breakout groups did in fact leave the Reichskanzlei from a street level window of the Borsig Palais. On page 146 of the memoirs of Rochus Misch, he states: "Pushing rubble aside, I climbed out through the cellar window leading into Wilhelm-Strasse. I left the Borsig Palace on my stomach and moved into Wilhelm-Platz". Later he says: "Without cover, I ran the approximately twenty metres to the entrance of the Kaiserhof U-bahn station". The distance of twenty metres would fit perfectly with your picture of the Borsig Palace windows and the U-bahn station. I've attached my own picture below which is a screen grab of the 1948 film: "Germany, Year Zero". At approximately the 26 minute mark, the film shows a young lad entering the ruins of the Reischskanzlei and also includes some short sequences of him inside the building. I managed to find the complete and un-watermarked film. The on Youtube is unfortunately heavily watermarked.

[Mannheim]

Hi Ecam!
Thanks for the vote of support! Unfortuanately, I have discovered my copy of "Hitler's Last Witness" has gone missing and I am not happy. I can't remember who I lent it to. Anyway, the problem with the Misch quotation is, I think, that I seem to recall that he left the NRK on his own. If you could check that, it would be much appreciated.I don't think he was with any of the larger groups but am happy to be contradicted I do, however, still think that the cellar window must have been under the Borsig Palais as I have checked both my Ronald Pawly and Cowdery books on the NRK and neither has any photos showing cellar windows under the balcony. Interestingly, Pawley's book (page 176 from memory) quotes Kempka as saying the groups met in the coal-bunker of the NRK. He also claims the group was 500-700 people(!). The group with which he left - according to him - had to run to the furthest entry to the Kaiserhof tunnel becuase the nearer one had been hit by a shell. Cheers!

[Ecam]

Hallo Mannheim,

From Misch's memoirs:

"On the early morning of 2 May 1945 the Reich Chancellor of the German Reich released me from my duty...."

Misch then describes what he chose to wear for his breakout attempt, then says:

"By my watch it was four in the morning. I descended once more to the cellars and ran through the bomb-damaged Kannenberg-Allee already flooded to a depth of five centimetres". "....I headed for Schädle's service room in the cellars of the New Reich Chancellery in order to report myself off duty".

Misch then relates his conversation with Schädle, then says:

"Everybody else was long gone." "Schädle indicated that I should follow him, and for the last time I went through the cellar labyrinth of the Reich Chancellery. He talked me through the route I had to go: first through the U-bahn shafts towards Friedrich-Strasse station, then over the Weidendammer Bridge across the Spree River." "Finally we reached a cellar window of the Borsig Palace on the corner of Wilhelm-Strasse and Voss-Strasse." "I gave Schädle a questioning look. He understood what I wanted to know and shook his head: 'I cannot,' and pointed at his injured leg."

It would definitely appear that Misch left the Borsig Palace alone. He must have left just after four in the morning of May 2. All the other escapers had left in various groups between approximately 22:00 and 23:30 on May 1.

Misch goes on to say:

"Through almost total darkness I felt my way along the U-bahn lines to Stadtmitte station, after which the line went north to Friedrich-Strasse station. There I met Hitler's former valet Heinz Linge."

This group that Misch joined was later captured near the Stettinerhof station.

As to your comment about the size of the groups: I can't find anything definitive. I can only find one mention of Artur Axmann who is said to have left with a group of roughly 200 Hitler Youth.