The story of Hermann Fegelein, as recorded in most history books and documentaries, is a simple one. Fegelein, the SS liaison officer to Himmler at the Führer's headquarters, was an arrogant and corrupt careerist who abandoned his post in the Führerbunker out of fear of falling into Soviet hands or dying in the Battle of Berlin in April 1945. After being found drunk in the company of a mistress, he was arrested and brought back to the bunker, where he was shot on Hitler's orders in the garden of the Reich Chancellery, and his body was never found.
Almost none of that accepted story is correct. The truth was more complicated and more interesting.
Fegelein became a meme for those who drew their history from films. Hitler screams the name "Fegelein" in front of his subordinates again and again, demanding that the missing general be found and brought before him. So what was Fegelein planning, and why was he executed?
It was hard to feel sympathy for Fegelein. He was indeed an arrogant womanizer and a snob. He was also a favorite of SS chief Heinrich Himmler, which explains his rapid promotions and his chest full of medals. These factors made him an unpopular figure in some circles, but he remained a protected one. Himmler apparently saw something in Fegelein that others did not. Whatever it was, Himmler never disclosed it.
Hermann Fegelein was born in October 1906 in Ansbach, Bavaria, the son of a retired cavalry officer who ran a riding school. He was practically able to ride before he learned to walk. In the 1920s he became friends with Christian Weber, one of the founders of the Nazi Party. This connection came about because his father had established the Fegelein riding institute and lent horses to the mounted branch of the SA, the Brownshirts, and trained riders for that organization and later for the emerging SS.
After leaving the University of Munich, Fegelein joined the 17th Cavalry Regiment of the Reichswehr in 1925, and two years later he joined the Bavarian State Police as an officer cadet. He was dismissed from service in 1929 after being caught stealing exam answers from an instructor's office. This was an early example of Fegelein's psychopathic tendencies.
Under Christian Weber's patronage, he joined the Nazi Party in 1930, then entered the SS in April 1933 and worked at his father's riding school, where he took command of its SS branch. This happened despite the fact that he had received no military training as an officer. Fegelein later took over management of the school from his father. By November 1934 he held the rank of Hauptsturmführer, or captain, in the Allgemeine SS.
His name came to prominence in 1935, when he oversaw jumping courses and equestrian facilities for events at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Fegelein was very eager to secure a place on the German equestrian team but failed to do so, though he was still promoted to Sturmbannführer, or major. He won other international equestrian competitions and continued to receive rapid promotions.
In 1937, Himmler established the main SS riding school from Fegelein's school, and Fegelein was appointed its commander with the rank of Standartenführer, or colonel. He continued to win equestrian competitions and worked hard to qualify for the 1940 Tokyo Olympics, which were halted by the outbreak of war.
In 1939, cavalry still existed in many armies, mainly for reconnaissance work, and Fegelein was appointed commander of the SS Totenkopf cavalry regiment. Although Fegelein was not a trained officer, he succeeded in forming an effective unit of men and horses, which was employed to help exterminate Hitler's enemies. On December 7, 1939, Fegelein's unit executed 1,700 members of the Polish elite in the Kampinos Forest. That was only the beginning of his criminal career.
Fegelein's unit became known for corruption, and in 1940 Fegelein was investigated on charges of stealing money and other goods, including cars, in Poland and sending them to Germany. Himmler intervened and halted the military court proceedings against Fegelein. Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's powerful second-in-command, tried to investigate Fegelein several times, but each time Himmler intervened to protect him.
Fegelein's regiment was used to fight partisans in Poland, and his unit became known for shooting and robbing civilians. After being transferred to the West, Fegelein took part in the invasion of Belgium and France and received the Iron Cross Second Class on December 15, 1940.
In March 1941 his unit was renamed the 1st SS Cavalry Regiment. During the invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, Fegelein took part in wide-ranging operations, with his cavalry serving as reconnaissance troops, and he received the Iron Cross First Class for this.
Himmler tasked Fegelein with commanding a brigade made up of two SS cavalry regiments, sent to assist in criminal operations behind the lines in the Pripyat marshes. On September 18, 1941, Fegelein reported to Himmler that his units had killed 14,178 Jews, 1,001 partisans, and 699 Soviet soldiers, and had captured 830 others. Fegelein received the Infantry Assault Badge, but he was again investigated on charges of stealing confiscated property, and Himmler once more halted the proceedings.
After joining Army Group Center, Fegelein reported on November 18, 1941, that his brigade had killed 3,180 partisans and Soviet soldiers and captured 122 others. After that, Fegelein's brigade was deployed far from the advance toward Moscow, to help defend the rear areas of a German infantry division, suffering heavy losses in combat.
On February 1, 1942, Fegelein was promoted to Standartenführer in the Waffen-SS. On February 5, without orders, he led an attack on a large Red Army position northwest of Kutyino, encircling and destroying the enemy force, which earned him the Knight's Cross on March 2, 1942. He was returned to Germany to serve as inspector of cavalry and transport in the SS. He also received the Eastern Front Medal and the War Merit Cross Second Class.
Fegelein returned to service on December 1, 1942, after being promoted to Oberführer, and led a battle group bearing his name in the fighting at the Don River, where he was wounded twice and received the Wound Badge in Black. He also received the Oak Leaves added to his Knight's Cross.
On April 20, he was given command of the new 8th SS Cavalry Division, "Florian Geyer," which became known for its activities against partisans. During Operation Weichsel, his division killed 4,018 people and destroyed 125 villages, while deporting another 18,860. In the follow-up operation Seidlitz, Fegelein's unit destroyed another 96 villages, killed 5,016 people, and deported 9,166.
After being deployed in front-line combat, the Florian Geyer Division repelled five Soviet division-sized attacks and 85 battalion-sized attacks between August and September 1943, suffering heavy losses, which earned Fegelein the Close Combat Clasp. He was seriously wounded in September and received the German Cross in Gold, and was also appointed head of the SS cavalry and driver training office.
At the same time, he was appointed SS liaison officer for Himmler at the Führer's headquarters, and was promoted to Gruppenführer in the Waffen-SS on June 10, 1944. He was lightly wounded in the bomb attack on Hitler at the Wolf's Lair on July 20, 1944, and received the special Silver Wound Badge of July 20, as well as the Swords added to his Iron Cross for his period commanding the Florian Geyer cavalry division on the Eastern Front.
Fegelein married Gretl, Eva Braun's sister, on June 3, 1944. It has been suggested that Fegelein, known as a womanizer, arranged his relationship with Gretl to gain advantages for his career, while also working hard to cultivate a good relationship with Martin Bormann, Hitler's private secretary and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery.
From all this, it is clear that Fegelein was a complex figure. His disturbed social tendencies are evident in his constant clashes with SS legal authorities, and of course his psychopathic tendencies through the waves of killing he carried out behind the lines on the Eastern Front. He also knew how to advance his career through close relationships with particular leaders, Himmler most clearly among them.
Now to the events of April 1945 that led to his downfall, disgrace, and execution.
At dawn on April 25, 1945, with Soviet forces slowly encircling Berlin, Fegelein left the capital by car on an unofficial mission. He left in a staff Mercedes with his adjutant, an SS non-commissioned officer, part of an SS protection unit, and a conscripted SS driver. He was going to meet Himmler.
At that time Himmler had just moved his headquarters from Wustrow to Hohenlychen, as Wustrow was threatened by the advancing Red Army. Himmler had a private area at the Hohenlychen sanatorium that he used as a command post and treatment center for himself, as he suffered from various health problems, most notably stomach spasms probably caused by nervous tension.
On the night of April 24, Himmler arranged a meeting with Fegelein for the following morning, April 25. The reason for this meeting concerned Himmler sending Dr. Gebhardt, an SS general and his personal physician, to Berlin early on April 25. Gebhardt was sent to try one last time to persuade Hitler to leave the capital. Himmler also wanted to send his personal guard battalion, made up of several hundred heavily armed troops, to Berlin to help defend it, and of course to escort Hitler out of the capital if he chose to leave. It appears he wanted Fegelein to lead that unit and bring it back to the capital.
Events, however, overtook this decision. After the meeting at Hohenlychen with Himmler, who was conducting secret surrender negotiations with the Western Allies through the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte, as well as a meeting with a representative of the World Jewish Congress, all aimed at securing a role for himself in a post-Hitler Germany, Fegelein left Himmler's headquarters, undoubtedly fully aware of what his chief was doing behind Hitler's back. He attended other meetings before a final meeting at the SS headquarters in Fürstenberg.
There, Fegelein met Hans Jüttner, head of the SS Main Leadership Office, the operational headquarters of the entire SS organization. We do not know exactly what they discussed, but we know from Jüttner's testimony that Fegelein made some interesting comments about what was happening in the Führerbunker. In response to Jüttner's inquiries about what was happening in the bunker, Fegelein told him that Hitler and his staff were planning to end their lives. "This Walhalla nonsense is for the Bayreuth festival, not for me," Fegelein said, referring to the annual Wagner opera festival that the Führer loved so much. He added: "The place has become a madhouse."
Clearly Fegelein had no intention of dying in the bunker if he could avoid it. Yet while he was still receiving orders from Himmler, Fegelein found he could not return to Berlin by car, as the Soviets had cut the road on the morning of April 25, leaving him stranded.
At this point, Fegelein could have escaped his fate in several ways. Events beyond his control made him unable to return to Berlin to resume his duties as SS liaison officer in the bunker. If he was so determined to save his skin, as most history books tell us, could he not simply have joined Himmler at Hohenlychen and gone with his chief to his new headquarters at Schwerin, near Admiral Karl Dönitz, who had established a military headquarters in the north to control all forces in northern Germany, Denmark, Holland, and Norway? Or could Fegelein have used the opportunity to defect entirely, and using his authority as an SS general, head to a safe place, in Sweden or Switzerland for example.
But Fegelein did none of that. He informed Himmler of his situation, and Himmler immediately sent a Junkers Ju 52 transport aircraft to Rechlin air base to fly Fegelein to Berlin, specifically to Gatow.
At this point we must ask ourselves why Himmler did this. Officially, Himmler wanted Fegelein to take command of his personal guard battalion. I also suspect he wanted Fegelein to remain near Hitler for a few more days, to receive continuous reports about him while he continued his secret intrigues in the collapsing Reich, and most importantly, to have a good sense of the timing of Hitler's death.
Because of enemy air activity over Berlin, Fegelein's aircraft was delayed for long hours until it finally took off at nine in the evening. He arrived late on the night of April 25, but chose not to attend the midnight situation conference in the Führerbunker.
The next day, April 26, Fegelein missed two situation conferences, which was highly unusual. Then on April 27, Hitler summoned Fegelein, only to be told that he was nowhere to be found. Hitler became suspicious, noting that Fegelein had missed six situation conferences without any explanation. The Führer called the head of his personal guard unit, Rattenhuber, and demanded that he find Fegelein immediately.
Rattenhuber, a former policeman, had no clear idea where Fegelein was. Fegelein's apartment in Berlin had been destroyed by Allied bombing weeks earlier, and Fegelein was officially staying in accommodations at the Chancellery headquarters. However, Fegelein had provided one of his long-term mistresses with a rented apartment in his friend's name at 10-11 Bleibtreu Street, away from the upscale Kurfürstendamm in Charlottenburg, about four miles from the Führerbunker. He had told no one about this secret hideout except one close associate, Hitler's adjutant Otto Günsche, and only because he was extremely drunk when he told him. Fegelein gave Günsche the phone number of this apartment for emergencies only.
Günsche now informed Rattenhuber of this information. Rattenhuber ordered the bunker switchboard operator, SS Sergeant Rochus Misch, to find the address for the phone number, which he did immediately. Rattenhuber called the number, and to his great surprise, Fegelein answered.
Fegelein seemed surprised too to receive a call from the bunker, but quickly regained his composure. He told Rattenhuber that he had been drinking and was suffering from a severe hangover. He promised on his honor as an officer to appear at the bunker within two hours.
This exchange is very interesting, as if Fegelein assumed no one knew anything about his secret nest. Why did he answer the phone? Why did his mistress not answer? This suggests that the mistress was not at home, or that Fegelein was waiting for a phone call, but not from the bunker.
The historian James P. O'Donnell, the first Western intelligence officer to enter the Führerbunker after the fall of Berlin and author of a famous book on Hitler's death, concluded that Fegelein's behavior was linked to another mystery of the fall of Berlin. A Junkers 52 aircraft was seen by several well-known witnesses at the emergency airstrip in the Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate on April 28, 1945. One witness who saw this aircraft waiting in the shadows was the Nazi test pilot Hanna Reitsch, who made a famous flight bringing General Robert Ritter von Greim to central Berlin to meet Hitler. She noticed the Junkers 52 as she and Greim left the airstrip on April 28 aboard one of the last serviceable aircraft to leave Berlin. She also noticed that the pilot of the Ju 52 was standing next to his aircraft.
As I said, this mysterious aircraft was seen and recorded by several qualified witnesses, but its presence has never been satisfactorily explained by any historian. The prevailing assumption was that it was somehow connected to Hitler's own escape from Berlin, but that is fantasy for various reasons beyond the scope of this article.
O'Donnell believed that the Ju 52 in the Tiergarten on April 28 was the same one that had flown Fegelein to Gatow on April 25 before returning to Rechlin. He concluded that it had returned again under orders on April 28 to pick up Fegelein. Was this rescue flight ordered by Himmler to save his loyal follower from the Soviets and bring him to his headquarters in the north? Perhaps. Could Fegelein himself have ordered its return so he could escape the burning city? There are other possibilities as well.
It is also interesting that once Fegelein returned to Berlin on April 25, he effectively disappeared into his mistress's secret apartment. Why? Did he have something to do, some mission to carry out? Additional evidence for a possible reason will be presented shortly.
Back to the events of April 27, by 5:00 p.m., Fegelein had failed to appear at the Führerbunker as promised. General Rattenhuber was now forced to send the first of several detachments to Fegelein's mistress's apartment, not to arrest him as most history books recall, but to try to persuade him to return voluntarily to the Führerbunker.
The men sent to this apartment also encountered Fegelein's highly mysterious mistress, who has been largely excluded from accounts of this case. But she is the key to Fegelein's downfall and death, and as you will see, she provides a very sudden twist in the story of Hermann Fegelein.
The idea that Fegelein had not visited the Reich Chancellery since arriving in the city on April 25 contradicts the testimony of Hitler's chief driver, SS commander Erich Kempka, who ran the garage and vehicle complex of the Chancellery. Kempka, one of the few Führerbunker personnel who managed to escape Berlin during the breakout attempts from the Reich Chancellery on the night of May 1-2, 1945, told American investigators that at about 5:00 p.m. on April 27, at the time General Rattenhuber was growing concerned over Fegelein's refusal to honor his agreement to return to his post in the Führerbunker, Fegelein called Kempka in his office in the drivers' bunker beneath the gardens of the Reich Chancellery with a strange request. Fegelein asked Kempka to provide two cars with drivers at his disposal for what he called reconnaissance purposes.
According to Kempka, late in the afternoon, Fegelein appeared in the Reich Chancellery garage with his adjutant and the two took the cars. Fegelein was wearing his full military uniform when he left. Kempka was very surprised when the two cars returned to the Reich Chancellery shortly afterward, without Fegelein and his adjutant. The two drivers told Kempka that Fegelein had gotten out of the cars in the Kurfürstendamm area and continued on foot.
We know, of course, that his girlfriend's apartment was in the Kurfürstendamm area of Charlottenburg, and presumably he did not want his SS drivers to know its exact location. If we believe Kempka, this means Fegelein reached his girlfriend's apartment before Rattenhuber sent the first search parties from the Führerbunker.
I believe I have arrived at a reason for these vehicle movements. You certainly do not need two cars to transport two men on a trip from the Reich Chancellery to Charlottenburg. It does not seem logical unless we take Fegelein's words seriously, of course. He used the term reconnaissance. This is a military term meaning to scout the area. I believe Fegelein wanted to test whether a small convoy of unarmored vehicles could safely drive from the Reich Chancellery to his mistress's apartment. Why? Well, this suggests that Fegelein was planning to move items, or perhaps people, from the Reich Chancellery to the apartment. It seems to me that Fegelein, an experienced military officer, was making sure that his plan, whatever it was, was still feasible given the rapidly changing situation in central Berlin at that time.
There was also an interesting aspect to this conversation between Kempka and Fegelein. Fegelein also said that he wished to meet Kempka at ten in the evening at the Reich Chancellery to hand him a briefcase. This briefcase, according to Fegelein, contained extremely important documents concerning Himmler and himself, which must not under any circumstances fall into enemy hands. Fegelein was asking a personal favor of Kempka, whom he knew well. Kempka agreed to meet Fegelein at ten in the evening, but as we will see, events unfolded quite differently.
On April 27, 1945, Rattenhuber sent a detachment of four men in a Kübelwagen to go to Fegelein's girlfriend's apartment and speak to him. As you will recall, Rattenhuber had obtained the apartment's address after Hitler's adjutant gave him the phone number. This detachment was led by SS officer Helmut Frick of the FBK unit, one of Hitler's three protection units.
Here lies a problem with the accepted story of Fegelein's end. Frick did not hold the rank or authority to arrest Fegelein. Frick was a captain while Fegelein was a lieutenant general. Yet his orders were to persuade Fegelein to accompany him voluntarily to the Führerbunker.
Frick's detachment faced a dangerous journey across war-torn Berlin. It took them more than an hour to cover the four miles to Fegelein's girlfriend's apartment. One member of Frick's detachment was even wounded during the trip. On arrival, Frick knocked politely on the door. Fegelein opened the door, not wearing his uniform, unshaven, appearing very drunk, and accompanied by an unidentified young woman.
During the conversation that followed, Frick recalled that Fegelein even tried to persuade Frick to defect. After 30 minutes of trying to persuade Fegelein, Frick gave up and drove back to the Reich Chancellery. He reported to General Rattenhuber, but Hitler's personal secretary and party minister, the powerful and feared Martin Bormann, intervened. Bormann reprimanded Rattenhuber for sending such a junior officer on that mission.
Rattenhuber now ordered his deputy in the RSD, Lieutenant Colonel Hergl, to take five men and move this time in an armored half-track vehicle. Again, Hergl did not hold the rank or authority to arrest Fegelein, as is often stated in history books and programs. It was another attempt, though a more forceful one this time, to compel Fegelein to agree to return with them to the Führerbunker.
An hour later, Hergl's RSD detachment arrived at Fegelein's girlfriend's apartment. But for some reason, Hergl, also a former police officer, failed to have his men surround the building. Instead, Hergl's men simply broke down the apartment door and stormed in. They discovered Fegelein at that moment helping the unidentified woman pack a small leather case on a round table. Fegelein turned angrily toward Hergl, complaining about the way he and his men had entered the apartment. Though drunk, Fegelein offered Hergl and his men a drink, and the woman was last seen carrying a tray of dirty glasses into the kitchen.
Fegelein agreed to accompany Hergl to the Führerbunker. But when Hergl went into the kitchen to speak with the woman, the window was open and the woman had disappeared. She had clearly left via the fire escape. By that time, Fegelein had put on his SS uniform and shaved, and Hergl took the woman's case.
Again, this story does not make sense from the angle of Fegelein being drunk as witnesses reported. When Fegelein visited the Reich Chancellery garage earlier that day, Kempka noticed him in full uniform, and there was no mention of any drunkenness. When Frick visited the apartment shortly afterward, he described Fegelein as very drunk, unshaven, and not wearing his uniform. When Hergl visited him about two hours later, he noticed that Fegelein was wearing his uniform, had shaved, but was very drunk. Why would someone who is very drunk take the initiative to shave and put on his uniform? He would surely get drunker and fall asleep.
It seems to me that Fegelein was pretending to be very drunk to get rid of Frick, and tried to do the same with Hergl, but realized it would not work a second time. When he realized he had to accompany Hergl to the Reich Chancellery, I am sure Fegelein drank freely. After all, cognac was offered to the officers who visited him at the apartment. Perhaps Fegelein was drinking out of fear for his future or despair that his plan had now been exposed.
Hergl made a quick phone call with Rattenhuber from the apartment and briefed him on what was happening. However, events began to overtake Fegelein. His adjutant had returned to the Reich Chancellery and was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo. The adjutant recounted that Fegelein decided to return the two cars and continue on foot toward the apartment in the afternoon. As recounted, he accompanied Fegelein to the apartment, where he witnessed Fegelein take off his uniform and put on civilian clothes, and Fegelein urged his adjutant to do the same. However, the adjutant refused, believing his duty required returning to the Reich Chancellery in uniform. According to the adjutant, Fegelein's plan was to stay in place until, quote, "the Russians pass through and then slip through their lines to join Himmler."
The adjutant's testimony set off alarm bells in the Führerbunker. It seemed likely that Fegelein was planning to flee. Hergl received a heated reception in the Führerbunker from Bormann, Rattenhuber, Günsche, Dr. Goebbels, and the terrifying Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller. Many have wondered over the decades why Heinrich Müller was seen in the Führerbunker during the last days of German resistance. He was not a member of Hitler's inner circle. Yet it appears he had been summoned on Hitler's orders to investigate information leaks. There appeared to be a spy in the Führer's headquarters.
Bormann snatched the case from Hergl and emptied its contents onto a table in the bunker's map room. A laundry bag was found filled with precious jewelry, including diamonds, rubies, opals, and some gold ornaments, three gold watches, one of which belonged to Eva Braun and had been sent by her for repair. There was also more than 100,000 Reichsmarks and 3,000 Swiss francs in cash.
Was this the reason Fegelein had returned to Berlin on April 25 and had been absent from his post for more than two days? Was he collecting this movable wealth? But most dangerous of all were the two passports. Both bore the same photograph of the woman Hergl and Frick had seen in the apartment. Yet the names on each passport were different. Most damning of all, one of the passports was British.
It was clear to the Nazis gathered around the table that they were looking at an escape kit. Bormann became furious and shouted at Hergl that the woman was clearly an enemy agent and should have been arrested. Bormann declared that Fegelein was a traitor. He had been involved with a British agent. He was the source of the information leaks in the Führer's headquarters.
Bormann now ordered two detachments of men to return immediately to Fegelein's mistress's apartment, led by General Müller, and to arrest the woman if she had returned.
The identity of this curious, mysterious woman, and how Fegelein's SS colleagues dealt with him, would become the subject of the next part of the case.
Martin Bormann discovered Fegelein's mistress's escape kit, but she managed to evade arrest when Fegelein was brought back to the Chancellery headquarters. A British passport was found among the jewelry and money. Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller was sent to Fegelein's mistress's apartment to arrest the woman if she returned.
Meanwhile, Fegelein appeared before a military court presided over by SS brigade commander Wilhelm Mohnke, who commanded the defense sector for the city center. However, according to Mohnke, Hitler had bypassed this legal point by already demoting Fegelein to the rank of soldier. Mohnke said: "This procedure was, in my book, illegal." Nevertheless, Mohnke decided that Fegelein deserved to appear before senior officers. Mohnke presided over the court with Generals Burgdorf, Krebs, and Rattenhuber. The observers were Artur Axmann, commander of the Hitler Youth, and Lieutenant Colonel Hergl of the RSD.
But the trial never took place. The court was set up in a room adjacent to Mohnke's command post. A table was covered with a green cloth, behind which the president and other members of the panel sat. Before them were placed copies of the standard German army manual for military courts. Mohnke says: "We had barely sat down when the accused, Fegelein, began to behave in such a disgraceful manner that the trial could not continue." He continued: "He was in a state of extreme drunkenness, his eyes rolling. Fegelein began to object to the composition of the court, babbling that he was subject only to Himmler, not Hitler, and refused to appoint a defense lawyer." He refused to defend himself. He cried, moaned, vomited in the corner of the room, and trembled uncontrollably. At one point, he took out his penis and urinated on the floor. In fact, Fegelein tore off his own military rank insignia. It has long been said that these parts of his uniform were torn off by angry members of the military court to humiliate the former SS general. But in fact, he did it himself and threw them on the floor. He says: "He called us all a bunch of German scoundrels."
Knowing what we know about Fegelein's activities between April 25 and 27 and what witnesses said about his state of drunkenness or sobriety at different times, I believe this scene was nothing but an act. I believe this pretense and performance was deliberate to ensure that Fegelein was not tried at that time, and perhaps to avoid being sentenced to death. Fegelein was aware of how bad the military situation was by the evening of April 27, with the Soviets fighting fiercely to reach the center of Berlin. Perhaps he was trying to buy time in the hope that the charges against him would collapse as the Soviets approached the Reich Chancellery and people became occupied with more urgent matters; perhaps he was betting on the fact that, as Eva Braun's brother-in-law, the Führer might hesitate to allow his killing.
Whether my theory is correct or not, that performance certainly succeeded as far as the military court was concerned. Mohnke faced a dilemma. All the evidence indicated that Fegelein was absent without leave. In all armies, including the American and British armies, the punishment for such actions is clear and strict. Hitler was very angry at Fegelein's inability to endure what ordinary soldiers were enduring in the Battle of Berlin. But the manual made clear that one must be of sound mind and body to appear before the court, hear the evidence against him, and understand his own defense. Mohnke consulted with the other judges and then adjourned the session and dismissed the court. Fegelein was handed over to Rattenhuber. Mohnke said: "I never saw the man again."
When Müller of the Gestapo arrived at the apartment, the woman was nowhere to be found. On his way back to the Reich Chancellery, Müller went to the Church of the Holy Trinity, which had been destroyed in an air raid in 1943, where its crypt had been handed over to the Gestapo, and Fegelein was brought there and interrogated until the afternoon of Saturday, April 28.
The Gestapo was probably primarily interested in Fegelein's mistress, who had now become a suspected enemy agent. So who was this mysterious woman?
Several members of Hitler's staff met her. Günsche recalled that Fegelein's mistress was "more refined" than most of his other women. I can only remember that she was beautiful, tall, and elegant. Her hair was blonde with a reddish tint. She was approximately in her thirties. She spoke German with an accent, and was fluent in at least two or three other languages. I heard she had a husband, some foreign diplomat, who was conveniently out of town.
Rochus Misch, the bunker switchboard operator, met her under more formal circumstances. Misch believed she was Scottish and married to a Hungarian. General Mohnke also knew the woman was foreign, but he believed she was Danish. Conversely, Hitler's pilot, SS General Hans Baur, believed the woman was Irish. Fegelein introduced her to Hitler's inner circle during 1944. Baur said he was under the impression that she was Irish but married to a Hungarian diplomat serving in Berlin.
It appears Fegelein met her through Dr. Goebbels, as the woman did some translation work for Goebbels at Deutschlandfunk, a propaganda radio station that ran the "Germany Calling" program broadcast in English. Fegelein appears to have been introduced to the woman at the Goebbels villa in Schwanenwerder. Speculation suggests that this woman was a British agent who was supposed to seduce Goebbels, but later turned her attention to Fegelein, who was a better source of information about Hitler's inner circle. Unlike Goebbels, Fegelein was talkative and an alcoholic. Essentially, he was an ideal target for a honey trap agent.
Confirmation of this woman's existence and secret role came from Richard Crossman, a British Labour Party politician who during World War II was part of the shadowy Political Warfare Executive, where he headed the German section. The Political Warfare Executive was in fact the psychological warfare department of British intelligence during the war. In 1955, Crossman told author O'Donnell that the Political Warfare Executive had little to do with the woman, but that her code name was "Mata O'Hara," a joke playing on the name of the real World War I spy "Mata Hari" and the Irish surname "O'Hara."
After some research, I believe there is a possible candidate for the name "Mata O'Hara," a British woman who pretended to be Irish and impersonated an Irish extremist nationalist. She worked as a translator for Deutschlandfunk in Dr. Goebbels's department and was in Berlin when the Soviets attacked. Her name was Rosaleen James, but she often called herself Nora Omer or Rosaleen Omer. Both are suspiciously close to the mocking code name "Mata O'Hara." Is it a coincidence? Perhaps.
Rosaleen Omer also matches the physical description given by members of Hitler's inner circle who met Fegelein's mistress. She also spoke fluent German, though with an accent. Crossman said that when British troops reached Berlin in July 1945, no trace of this agent was found. He also added: "The long and short of it is that she was not English. She was Anglo-Irish and very loyal to Britain." Perhaps his comments were directed toward Rosaleen James. Who knows?
As for James, also known as Omer, she appeared in Paris in the first week of June 1945 and was interrogated by British intelligence, MI5. Although she was wanted for her treasonous work for the Germans, no charges were brought against James and the entire case was quietly dropped, unlike all the other British traitors who were investigated. Some of them were tried and even imprisoned or executed. All of this is strange, to say the least.
The theory that spread in the 1960s was that Mata O'Hara needed a way out of Berlin in the final days, just as Fegelein also wanted to avoid capture by the Soviets or death in the bunker. The two planned to leave together, with the money, jewelry, and passports part of her escape kit, and Fegelein still enjoying considerable authority as Himmler's man to move around. Perhaps the Junkers Ju 52 that was parked on the emergency runway in the Tiergarten and seen on April 28 had been sent by Himmler to extract his loyal follower. Or perhaps Fegelein ordered the pilot to return at a certain time and date to pick him up and his girlfriend. The distance from her apartment to the Tiergarten was about one mile.
No files relating to this woman's mission at the heart of Hitler's inner circle have been revealed. Although Rosaleen James is an interesting figure regarding her identity, nothing has been proven. We may never know her identity.
Hitler himself discussed Fegelein's fate. Who killed Fegelein and what happened to his body? Or did he survive the war? And can we deduce his possible escape plans and how Eva Braun might have played a role in them?
Hermann Fegelein found himself, after the hysterical episodes at his military trial that led to the proceedings being halted, handed over to SS commander Heinrich Müller, the terrifying head of the Gestapo, and taken to Müller's headquarters in the crypt of the Church of the Holy Trinity in central Berlin, not far from the Reich Chancellery.
Hitler had specifically asked Müller to find out who was leaking information from the Führer's headquarters. With Fegelein's arrest and the discovery of his mistress's escape kit, it seemed clear that Fegelein's girlfriend was in fact an enemy agent, possibly British. Fegelein must have known this, for when he was caught in his girlfriend's apartment in Charlottenburg, he was helping her pack a case. And when Martin Bormann examined the contents of that case in the Führerbunker, it contained not only movable wealth in the form of jewelry, gold watches, money, and precious stones, but also a set of road maps of Berlin and its suburbs and two passports. Both bore a photograph of Fegelein's mistress, but under different names, and one of the passports was British.
If you think that someone like Fegelein consorting with an Allied spy is far-fetched, in fact this was not the first time he had done so. Shortly after the German invasion of Poland in 1939, Fegelein's friend, a man named Albert Fasbender, heir to a chocolate maker's fortune, became romantically involved with a Polish woman named Jaroslawa Mirowska. Mirowska had previously been the mistress of a Jewish fur company owner in Warsaw named Opfelbaum. He had fled Warsaw before the Germans arrived, leaving his business in the hands of his non-Jewish mistress Mirowska.
It turned out that Fegelein, who was then commanding the SS cavalry brigade, had worked in 1940 with Fasbender and Mirowska to drain the company's assets until almost nothing remained, then sold the business shell and split the proceeds. He also developed a sexual relationship with Mirowska. Unfortunately for the conspirators, an SS judge tasked with investigating corruption among security officers in occupied Poland investigated their business dealings. However, Fegelein, close to Himmler, had previously introduced Mirowska to the SS chief, and he personally intervened in the SS corruption investigation. In fact, Himmler arranged for Mirowska to be declared an ethnic German based on her appearance. And when evidence emerged that Mirowska was also a Polish resistance agent, Himmler intervened on her behalf and obtained a decision to release her from the Gestapo in 1941.
Himmler had always protected Fegelein and promoted him despite his dubious nature and suspicious companions.
Back in Berlin in April 1945, there was additional evidence of Fegelein's treason: a briefcase later recovered by the Gestapo from Fegelein's room in the Reich Chancellery, containing sensitive documents concerning Fegelein and his chief Himmler, apparently describing initiatives toward the Western Allies. Fegelein said he would hand this briefcase to Hitler's chief driver, Erich Kempka, at ten in the evening on April 27, 1945, in the Führerbunker, asking him to hide it. However, Kempka did not get a chance to meet Fegelein, because when he was on his way to the Führerbunker before ten in the evening, Fegelein was being brought back to the bunker from his girlfriend's apartment.
There are different accounts of what ultimately happened to Fegelein. According to Hitler's adjutant, Major Otto Günsche, and Hitler's valet, Heinz Linge, based on their interrogations by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, Hitler had initially demoted Fegelein from general to soldier in the SS and ordered him to prove his loyalty by transferring to a front-line combat unit in the city center. It is not unreasonable, given what Fegelein was doing in the apartment, that both Major Günsche and Martin Bormann told Hitler that such a move would only lead to Fegelein escaping again.
If you recall, Wilhelm Mohnke, commander of the city center defense sector, was very displeased that Hitler had stripped Fegelein of his rank, believing it violated the rules, and requested that Fegelein be brought before a military court of his peers, which Hitler reluctantly approved. That military court, as we saw in an earlier part, became a farce.
By April 28, Fegelein was in Gestapo custody. Hitler appears to have hesitated about Fegelein's fate, which is understandable given that Fegelein was Eva Braun's brother-in-law. The event that most historians agree sealed Fegelein's fate was the news of Himmler's secret negotiations with the Western Allies behind Hitler's back, which the British deliberately revealed via the Reuters news agency, then repeated on BBC radio on the afternoon of April 28, 1945, hoping no doubt to sow further discord within the highest inner circle surrounding Hitler.
When Hitler was informed of Himmler's betrayal, he did nothing at first. However, Martin Bormann and propaganda minister Dr. Goebbels worked on influencing him. Eventually, after hours had passed, he flew into a rage, denouncing the Reichsführer-SS and ordering his arrest, orders that Bormann gleefully tried to carry out by radio to Admiral Dönitz's headquarters in northern Germany, where Himmler had established a final headquarters nearby. But Dönitz chose not to follow those orders, fearing Himmler's reaction and his large guard unit.
The vengeful Hitler was able to strike at Himmler's SS liaison officer at the Führer's headquarters, the coward branded with disgrace, Fegelein. According to one of Hitler's secretaries, Traudl Junge, Hitler calmed down after a while and issued the order for Fegelein to be shot. Junge stated that Eva Braun's eyes were red from crying as she begged Hitler to pardon her brother-in-law, if only for the sake of her sister Gretl, who had just given birth to Fegelein's daughter in Bavaria. Braun allegedly tried to justify Fegelein's behavior as a perfectly natural motive for a man wishing to be reunited with his beloved wife and child. This touching scene would have been more credible had Fegelein not been discovered trying to flee Berlin with his mistress.
Many people, including myself, believe that Fegelein's relationship with Gretl was not a real love affair. Rather, it was Fegelein's means, as an ambitious man, to increase his influence at the Führer's headquarters and bring himself closer to Hitler. Fegelein's movements and activities since his return to Berlin on April 25 appear to have had little, if anything, to do with his wife and child in southern Germany.
So Hitler withdrew to his room in the bunker for a lengthy discussion with Dr. Goebbels and Bormann on the subject of Fegelein. According to some witnesses, on leaving the meeting he ordered Fegelein brought before him, and according to the historian Sir Ian Kershaw, he "launched a terrible verbal attack on him." Another account suggests that Fegelein, who had regained consciousness, asked to meet Hitler, and was granted this in an attempt to defend himself. He actually believed he was the victim of a conspiracy. However, Hitler did not want to hear anything of the sort. In fact, Hitler appears to have begun to believe that Reichsführer-SS Himmler was conspiring to assassinate him. This fear was not unfounded, as I explained in previous videos about Himmler's secret negotiations with the Western Allies, which date back to 1943. British negotiators repeatedly demanded that Himmler move against Hitler before Churchill would agree to discuss ending the war. Most historians interpreted this as the British deliberately trying to encourage Himmler to carry out a coup against the Führer, kill him, and seize power himself. Hitler then ordered Fegelein to be disposed of immediately.
Although most historians agree that Hitler ordered Fegelein's execution on the afternoon of April 28, 1945, just two days before his own death, the actual circumstances of Fegelein's execution are highly obscure, and almost nothing is known about how his body was disposed of.
According to Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge, Fegelein was taken to the gardens above the bunker, under guard by an RSD officer believed to be Lieutenant Colonel Peter Högl, the second-in-command of Hitler's personal guard, along with an RSD non-commissioned officer. According to several witnesses, the SS non-commissioned officer shot Fegelein in the neck on Högl's orders. According to Secretary Junge, the execution took place near a statue of a little girl under some flowering trees in the garden of the Foreign Ministry, adjacent to the garden of the Reich Chancellery. Junge clearly did not witness the scene herself, but heard about it shortly afterward through bunker rumors.
Another account of Fegelein's execution suggests he was shot in one of the cellars of the Reich Chancellery, and a third account says he was executed in the crypt of the Church of the Holy Trinity, where the Gestapo had been interrogating him throughout April 28. I believe these last two accounts can be ruled out because carrying out an execution indoors was not advisable. Shooting a person to death in a closed underground room would have deafened the shooter, made a terrible mess on the floor and walls, and posed a risk to the shooter from possible ricochets. The killers would then have had to drag a bleeding body with difficulty up a staircase from the cellar and carry it outside for disposal. It was easier and more practical simply to take Fegelein to the garden area. As I mentioned, the Foreign Ministry garden was located directly next to the Führerbunker area and could be reached via another bunker exit at the rear of the ministry building.
Regardless of where Fegelein was killed or the exact manner of his death, he was dead by 11:00 p.m. on April 28, 1945, about an hour before Hitler married Eva Braun inside the bunker.
The identification of SS-Obersturmbannführer Peter Högl, second-in-command of the RSD, as the man who shot Fegelein is interesting. Högl himself did not survive the end of the war. The identity of the sergeant accompanying him is unknown. But it is interesting because Högl was one of the officers sent to fetch Fegelein from his apartment in Charlottenburg, and he was of course highly suspicious of his motives and behavior. However, SS Sergeant Rochus Misch, the bunker switchboard operator, told historians that he knew exactly who shot Fegelein, but refused to disclose his name. This suggests that the person who did it lived beyond the end of World War II, and may have been alive at the time Rochus Misch made these claims. If Högl was killed in May 1945, why would Misch try to cover up that fact? This also suggests that if two or three men took him there, the senior official, the officer, would have ordered the execution, while an SS non-commissioned officer carried out the dirty work.
As for what happened to Fegelein's body, there are various unfounded claims. One account says his body fell or was pushed into a shell crater in the garden and quickly covered with dirt. I find this completely implausible. The RSD men who had just killed Fegelein despised him for his cowardice and betrayal of Hitler. Do you think these men were in a mood that allowed them to bother burying a man like Fegelein, especially when the gardens of the Foreign Ministry and the Reich Chancellery were under intermittent Soviet artillery fire? No one would risk his life for that. Most likely, Fegelein's body, if he was shot in one of these gardens, was left where it fell, and was later found by German cleanup crews working under Red Army supervision, who buried the decomposing bodies from the Reich Chancellery area in nearby mass graves.
Fegelein appears to have walked to his death wearing a military uniform stripped of its insignia and medals, and undoubtedly his identification papers and military dog tag were also taken from him. His body may have been further damaged later by artillery fire, as it remained lying in the open for several days after he was shot. This is only an assumption on my part, supported by nothing but what was reported about the condition of other bodies found in the gardens of the Reich Chancellery after the battle.
In conclusion to this story, did Fegelein have an escape plan, and what was it? Well, I believe he had one, but of course it is very difficult to state this with certainty. He returned to Berlin after his final meeting with Himmler on April 25, 1945. He flew back to the then-besieged Berlin aboard an aircraft that the Reichsführer himself had ordered assigned to him. He went to his secret mistress's apartment, and the two spent the next day and a half gathering the materials needed for their joint escape. These arrangements also included Fegelein testing the route designated for a small convoy of unarmored vehicles between the Reich Chancellery garage and a location near the secret apartment.
We know that Fegelein called Eva Braun at least twice during that period, begging her to leave the city with him. Was this the purpose of testing the vehicles: to persuade Braun to leave Hitler and the bunker and go with Fegelein and his mistress to safety, and perhaps to Himmler's headquarters? Perhaps, but it may also have related to the documents, gold bars, and other materials that the Gestapo later found in Fegelein's quarters in the Reich Chancellery.
If you recall, Fegelein specifically requested two cars from the Chancellery garage rather than one or three. Was the first car intended for him, the driver, and perhaps his adjutant, who was not entirely convinced of the plan? And the second car with a driver to transport some luggage and a box from his quarters containing movable wealth and highly sensitive documents that neither he nor Himmler wanted anyone to see. The small convoy was supposed to set off from the Chancellery garage to the apartment, a distance of about four miles, to pick up Fegelein's mistress and her belongings, then head to the emergency airstrip in the Tiergarten, where Fegelein, his mistress, his adjutant, and the luggage would board a Junkers 52 that we know was waiting there for some purpose, perhaps to head northwest to safety at Himmler's headquarters. That way the documents would be safe, protecting Himmler from exposure, or so he thought, while he tried to curry favor with the Western Allies.
Fegelein's mistress may be the key to this entire story. She appears to have been an enemy agent, and Fegelein was the person leaking information from the Führer's headquarters, whether intentionally or unintentionally. I believe this woman was Fegelein's ticket to freedom in the postwar period. I cannot help but think that she was somehow connected to Himmler's secret negotiations with the British. Perhaps she was responsible for Fegelein, and in exchange for saving her from Berlin, a deal was arranged for Fegelein by her masters. At the time, British intelligence was misleading Himmler to achieve its own malicious ends. He had been in intermittent contact with the British since at least 1943. And we know, of course, that British intelligence was urging him to carry out a coup against Hitler.
We can construct scenarios to explain the role of Fegelein's mysterious mistress in all of this, but I strongly believe that he returned to Berlin on Himmler's instructions for two reasons. To collect the documents and movable wealth from his quarters in the Reich Chancellery, and to bring his mistress from her apartment. These plans failed because he attracted too much attention to himself from Hitler and the ever-suspicious Martin Bormann in the bunker.
I am open to any suggestions from viewers. The woman and the documents appear to be the key to this story, but of course I cannot prove my assumptions. It depends only on analysis of the available circumstantial evidence and my own intuition.
This series has shown that the death of Hermann Fegelein was more complex and more interesting than books and films have often portrayed. There remains a deep mystery surrounding it more than 80 years after Fegelein's execution.