On May 1, 1945, as Soviet artillery reduced Berlin to rubble, General Hans Krebs, Hitler’s chief of staff, walked out of the ruins into enemy territory. He carried Hitler’s last testament and a plea for surrender drafted by Joseph Goebbels, the newly self-proclaimed chancellor of the Reich. The mission was desperate, and it would fail within hours. Krebs was a career soldier whose path to the Führerbunker had been long and deliberate.
Born in 1898 in Helmstedt, Germany, he volunteered for the Imperial German Army in 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War. Despite his youth and modest origins in a military hierarchy that favored aristocrats, his aptitude and intellect drew notice from his superiors. He possessed a remarkable gift for languages, mastering Russian, French, and English, a skill that would shape his career in international military affairs. After the war, Krebs remained in the reduced German army allowed by the Treaty of Versailles.
In the late 1920s, he was assigned to the Defense Ministry, where he came into contact with Red Army officers during the secret military cooperation Germany and the Soviet Union conducted in violation of the treaty. These encounters shaped his worldview. He was initially interested in the Red Army’s organizational structure but developed a strong aversion to communism, a sentiment that increasingly aligned him with the Nazi party’s ideology. In 1933, Krebs was appointed military attaché at the German embassy in Moscow.
His Russian language skills and detailed reporting on Soviet military developments made him a recognized expert on Eastern affairs. As Europe moved toward war, that expertise made him a trusted adviser on the Eastern Front. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Krebs served in the field. By 1942, he was chief of staff of the Ninth Army, positioned at the heart of some of the war’s most brutal fighting.
The following year, as chief of staff of Army Group Center, he coordinated major offensives including Operation Citadel, the attempt to eliminate the Kursk salient. The operation failed, and German forces suffered heavy losses. Despite the setbacks, Krebs rose to general of infantry by 1944. His promotions came as the tide turned against the Reich.
The Soviet offensive Operation Bagration shattered Army Group Center, forcing a massive retreat that tested Krebs’s abilities to the limit as he worked to salvage the remnants of the once-formidable force. In September 1944, he was transferred to the Western Front as chief of staff of Army Group B, where he coordinated defenses against the Allies and oversaw the desperate counteroffensive known as the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler’s last major gamble in the West. On April 1, 1945, Krebs was appointed Chief of the Army General Staff. It was a meaningless promotion.
The Reich was collapsing, and Berlin was about to be encircled. As Soviet forces closed in, Krebs descended into the underground complex of the Führerbunker. The air was thick with smoke and desperation, and the distant thud of artillery shook the concrete walls. He was tasked with coordinating Berlin’s defense, an impossible challenge as units dissolved and communications failed.
He continued to issue orders and maintain what remained of military discipline, but his efforts grew increasingly futile. On April 28, Krebs made his final telephone call from the bunker, informing Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel that if relief did not arrive within 48 hours, all would be lost. That same day, he participated in a military tribunal to court-martial Hermann Fegelein, Hitler’s brother-in-law, who had attempted to flee. The absurdity of the scene was inescapable: Fegelein was found too drunk to stand trial, a reflection of the dissolution overtaking the Nazi leadership.
On April 29, Krebs stood with General Wilhelm Burgdorf, Joseph Goebbels, and Martin Bormann as Hitler dictated his last will and testament. That evening, Krebs contacted General Alfred Jodl for updates. The news was grim. The Twelfth Army could not continue its attack on Berlin, and the bulk of the Ninth Army was surrounded.
On April 30, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun ended their lives in the bunker. The gunshot from Hitler’s private quarters marked the final collapse of the regime. The bunker’s remaining occupants were left to decide their own fate. Shortly before 4:00 a.
m. on May 1, Krebs crossed into Soviet lines carrying Goebbels’s letter outlining acceptable surrender terms. He was brought before General Vasily Chuikov, commander of the Soviet Eighth Guards Army. Krebs informed Chuikov of Hitler’s death.
Chuikov’s face remained impassive; he claimed to already know. Krebs then presented Goebbels’s proposed terms. Chuikov refused them. The Soviets, in agreement with the Allies, demanded unconditional surrender.
Krebs lacked the authority from Goebbels to accept such terms, and the meeting ended without resolution. Traudl Junge, Hitler’s secretary, later described Krebs as looking worn out and exhausted when he returned to the bunker. Surrender remained stalled as long as Goebbels was alive. At approximately 8:30 p.
m. on May 1, Goebbels removed that obstacle by taking his own life, along with his wife and their children. With the chancellor dead, Krebs was consumed by the same end. On May 2, General Helmuth Weidling, commander of the Berlin defense area, contacted Chuikov to negotiate surrender.
Alone in the dim corridors of the Führerbunker, Krebs made his final decision. In the early hours of May 2, he took his own life, mirroring the fate of the regime he had served to the end. Within hours, Berlin surrendered.
The war in Europe would end days later, and the Third Reich ceased to exist.