Hermann Fegelein, the SS general who became Adolf Hitler’s brother-in-law through marriage to Eva Braun’s sister, was dragged into the bombed-out garden of the Reich Chancellery on the evening of April 28, 1945, and shot dead on Hitler’s personal order after being convicted of desertion and treason in the final hours of the Third Reich.
The execution, carried out as Soviet artillery shells rained down on central Berlin, remains one of the most dramatic and least fully documented episodes of the Führerbunker’s final days. Fegelein, once a rising star of the Nazi equestrian elite and a man described by Armaments Minister Albert Speer as one of the most disgusting figures in Hitler’s inner circle, died not as a battlefield hero but as a disgraced fugitive, reportedly still drunk when he faced the guns.
Born in Bavaria on October 30, 1906, Fegelein built his early career on horses and opportunism in equal measure. He studied at university, joined a cavalry regiment, and later served in the Bavarian state police, a post he left after being caught stealing in Munich. By 1930 he had joined the Nazi Party and the SA, transferring to the SS on April 10, 1933, where his father’s decision to let the SS use the family’s horse-riding institute for training gave him a valuable foothold.
He worked at the equestrian training center and helped prepare facilities and events for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, dreaming of representing Germany as a rider. When war came, his role changed utterly. He took command of the SS Totenkopf Reiterstandarte, the Death’s Head cavalry regiment, a unit that would become synonymous with mass atrocity in Poland and the Soviet Union.
Fegelein’s cavalrymen were split into smaller groups to assist police and SS operations, and Heinrich Himmler personally ordered the battalion expanded. The unit took part in the extermination of Poland’s elite, including intellectuals and clergy, and was responsible for mass shootings, among them the killing of some 1,700 people in a forest. As the war continued, the regiment suffered chronic shortages of weapons and food, and Fegelein himself was again accused of theft.
According to accounts of the case, he was found in possession of a six-cylinder Mercedes, another Mercedes two-seater, fifty pounds of coffee, fourteen packets of cocoa, a chest of tea, two chests of chocolate, and quantities of clothing, furs, and other goods allegedly destined for Germany. Himmler quashed the accusation, but Fegelein was also accused of murder motivated by greed, and Reinhard Heydrich at times sought to investigate him, including over an alleged relationship with a Polish woman. Himmler forced Heydrich to look elsewhere.
Fegelein’s unit continued its killings, murdering 250 Poles in a single village, even as he described the behavior of his troops as clean and decent despite reports that his men robbed and killed civilians without orders. His regiment joined Operation Barbarossa and was assigned to round up and exterminate Jews, partisans, and other civilians. In August 1941 alone, Fegelein’s unit killed almost 14,000 Jews along with another 3,500 men, a recurring pattern of mass shootings and executions that would claim tens of thousands more lives.
Wounded by a Red Army sniper, Fegelein returned to the battlefield before being wounded again on October 20, 1943. After that, Himmler, who appeared to get along well with him, sent him to serve as the SS liaison officer to Adolf Hitler, one of the most prized positions in Nazi Germany. Traudl Junge, Hitler’s secretary, described him as very popular with women, a frank and honest-seeming man who was clever but ruthless, and who made enemies of anyone who was not a friend.
His obsession with power carried him into the Führer’s innermost family circle. Eva Braun, Hitler’s short-lived wife, and Fegelein were allegedly close and danced together often at parties, fueling speculation about their relationship. It was Eva Braun who engineered the politically motivated marriage between Fegelein and her sister Gretel, a union widely believed to have been pursued by Fegelein to advance his career.
Hitler, Himmler, and Martin Bormann witnessed the ceremony, and the reception was held at the Berghof and the Eagle’s Nest on June 3, 1944.
Through that marriage Fegelein became, in effect, a potential brother-in-law to the Führer of Germany. Yet he was never universally liked. Hitler allegedly kept him at arm’s length and sometimes harbored suspicions about him.
On January 20, 1944, Fegelein was present at the Wolf’s Lair when Claus von Stauffenberg attempted to assassinate Hitler. The bomb killed four men and injured Hitler; Fegelein suffered a wound to his left thigh.
Asked to investigate the assassination, Fegelein was described as personally indignant that anyone would want to blow up such a splendid fellow as himself, regarding an attempt on his own life as more criminal than any plot to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 Hitler. After the plotters were discovered and executed, he displayed photographs of the hanged men around the inner circle.
By early 1945, Germany’s defeat was unmistakable. Hitler retreated into the Führerbunker in Berlin to see out the war and ultimately take his own life. By the end of April, Soviet artillery was pounding the city, and by April 21 Red Army tanks had reached its outskirts before Berlin was cut off days later.
Fegelein did not intend to remain in the bunker. Hitler’s chauffeur received a request from him for two vehicles for reconnaissance and for the chauffeur to take charge of a briefcase containing important documents belonging to Himmler and Fegelein. The instructions were clear: if the enemy entered the bunker, the documents were to be destroyed or hidden and must never fall into enemy hands.
The chauffeur agreed, and Fegelein left the Reich Chancellery with two vehicles.
The cars returned thirty minutes later without him. Fegelein had abandoned them in the Kurfürstendamm district. When it was discovered that he had deserted his post, Hitler was furious and ordered him located and arrested.
Fegelein had decided he did not want to join the suicide pact inside the bunker.
He was found in his Berlin apartment wearing civilian clothes and preparing to flee to Sweden or Switzerland. On his person were cash, jewelry, and documents containing evidence of Himmler’s attempted peace negotiations with the Western Allies. Most accounts state he was blind drunk when arrested.
That evening Hitler learned that Himmler had tried to broker peace with the Allies. Outraged, and believing Fegelein was involved in the plot, Hitler ordered him interrogated. He was stripped of all ranks and court-martialed.
During interrogation, Fegelein was allegedly so drunk that he declared he was responsible only to Himmler, crying and vomiting throughout, unable to stand, and even urinating on the floor. He was then ordered executed. Eva Braun allegedly asked Hitler to spare Fegelein, since his wife, her sister, was heavily pregnant.
Hitler was said to be as calm as before, while Eva Braun’s eyes were red with weeping because her brother-in-law had been condemned to death. She tried to explain to Hitler that it was only human nature for Fegelein to think of his wife and child and try to help them build a new life. Hitler deemed it treachery and desertion.
On the evening of April 28, 1945, Fegelein was dragged out of the Führerbunker, where his interrogation had taken place. He was still said to be drunk. The execution followed the news of Himmler’s betrayal.
He was hauled into the garden of the Reich Chancellery, which had been damaged by the Soviet artillery bombardment of Berlin, and lined up to face death in the military fashion customary for courts-martial: death by shooting.
The film Downfall depicts the execution in the bombed-out garden, with Fegelein shouting “Heil Hitler” before being cut down by a single machine gunner. Given the state of the war in Berlin, assembling a hastily arranged firing squad would have been difficult, so it is assumed the execution was carried out by one solitary member of the bunker staff. Hitler’s secretary claimed he was shot like a dog in the garden of the Chancellery.
The identity of the executioner is not known, and the last surviving member of the Führerbunker is believed to have taken that secret to the grave.
Hermann Fegelein was a man driven by his own determination to become as powerful as possible. He was described as disgusting and despicable, and the record is clear that he was a war criminal who ordered and participated in the thousands of executions carried out by his cavalry unit. He remained close to the inner circle once he had established himself, but when the war was lost he simply wished to flee and escape his impending fate.
His conduct in his final days revealed him for what he was: a disgraced member of the inner circle, shot in a ruined garden as the regime he had served collapsed around him.