Tuesday, April 29, 2014

THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF ADOLF HITLER (29 APRIL 1945)


It is necessary that I should die for my people; but my spirit will rise from the grave and the whole world will know that I was right.
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/1338481]

On this date, 29 April 1945, at the Führerbunker: Adolf Hitler marries his longtime partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker and designates Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor. Both Hitler and Braun commit suicide the following day. I will post the information about The Last Will and Testament of Adolf Hitler from Wikipedia and Wikisource.

 

Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun [PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2010/02/100218_eva_braun_et_sl.shtml]
The last will and testament of Adolf Hitler was prompted by Hitler receiving a telegram from Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring asking for confirmation of Göring's succession, combined with news of Heinrich Himmler's attempted negotiations of surrender with the western Allies and reports that Red Army troops were within a block or two of the Reich Chancellery. It was dictated by Hitler to his secretary Traudl Junge in his Berlin Führerbunker on 29 April 1945, the day he and Eva Braun married. They committed suicide the next day on 30 April, two days before the surrender of Berlin to the Soviets on 2 May, and just over a week before the end of World War II in Europe on 8 May. It consisted of two separate documents, a will and a political testament.

Will
The last will was a short document signed on 29 April at 04:00.
  • It acknowledged his marriage—but does not name Eva Braun—and that they choose death over disgrace of deposition or capitulation; and that their bodies were to be cremated.
  • His art collection is left to "a gallery in my home town of Linz on Donau".
  • Objects of "sentimental value or necessary for the maintenance of a modest simple life" went to his relatives and his "faithful co-workers" such as his housekeeper Mrs. [Anni] Winter.
  • Whatever else of value he possessed went to the National Socialist German Workers Party.
  • Martin Bormann was nominated as the will's executor.
The will was witnessed by Martin Bormann and Colonel Nicholaus von Below.

INTERNET SOURCE: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/My_Private_Will_and_Testament

My Private Will and Testament

by Adolf Hitler, translated by The United States Government Printing Office


This message was written by Adolf Hitler on 29 April 1945. Here taken from Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression, Volume VI, translation of Document 3569-PS, Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality
The Secretary of the Führer, Reichsleiter Martin Bormann
Führer Headquarters
29.4.45

Postal address Munich 33, Führerbau.

Dear Admiral of the Fleet,

As, owing to the non-arrival of all divisions, our position appears hopeless, the Führer last night dictated the enclosed political Testament.

Heil Hitler!
Your
[signature illegible, presumably Martin Bormann]


[Seal]
[ADOLF HITLER]

My Private Will and Testament

As I did not consider that I could take responsibility, during the years of struggle, of contracting a marriage, I have now decided, before the closing of my earthly career, to take as my wife that girl who, after many years of faithful friendship, entered, of her own free will, the practically besieged town in order to share her destiny with me. At her own desire she goes as my wife with me into death. It will compensate us for what we both lost through my work in the service of my people.

What I possess belongs — in so far as it has any value — to the Party. Should this no longer exist, to the State, should the State also be destroyed, no further decision of mine is necessary.

My pictures, in the collections which I have bought in the course of years, have never been collected for private purposes, but only for the extension of a gallery in my home town of Linz a.d. Donau.

It is my most sincere wish that this bequest may be duly executed.

I nominate as my Executor my most faithful Party comrade,

Martin Bormann.

He is given full legal authority to make all decisions. He is permitted to take out everything that has a sentimental value or is necessary for the maintenance of a modest simple life, for my brothers and sisters, also above all for the mother of my wife[1] and my faithful coworkers who are well known to him, principally my old Secretaries Frau Winter etc. Who have for many years aided me by their work.

I myself and my wife — in order to escape the disgrace of deposition or capitulation — choose death. It is our wish to be burnt immediately on the spot where I have carried out the greatest part of my daily work in the course of a twelve years' service to my people.

Given in Berlin, 29th. April 1945, 4:00 o'clock.

(Sd.) A. Hitler

As Witnesses:
(Sd.) Martin Bormann
(Sd.) Dr. Fuhr

As Witness:
(Sd.) Nicolaus von Below.

[Seal]
ADOLF HITLER

Testament

The last political testament was signed at the same time as Hitler's last will, 04:00 on 29 April 1945. The first part of the testament talked of his motivations in the three decades since volunteering in World War I, repeated his claim that neither he 'nor anyone else in Germany wanted the war in 1939,' stated his reasons for his intention to commit suicide, and praised and expressed his thanks to the German people for their support and achievements. Also included in the first testament are statements detailing his claim that he tried to avoid war with other nations and attributes responsibility for it to "international Jewry and its helpers". He would not 'foresake Berlin...even though the forces were too small to hold out'. Hitler expressed his intent to choose death rather than 'fall into the hands of enemies'... and the masses in need of 'a spectacle arranged by Jews.' He concluded with a call to continue the 'sacrifice' and 'struggle.' He expressed hope for a renaissance of the National-Socialist movement with the realization of a "true community of nations".

The second part of his testament lays out Hitler's intentions for the government of Germany and the Nazi Party after his death and details who was to succeed him. He expelled Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring from the party and sacked him from all of his state offices. He also canceled the 1941 decree naming Göring as his successor in the event of his death. To replace him, Hitler named Großadmiral Karl Dönitz as President of the Reich and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. Reichsführer-SS and Interior Minister Heinrich Himmler was also expelled from the party and sacked from all of his state offices for attempting to negotiate peace with the western Allies without Hitler's 'knowledge' and against permission. Hitler accused Göring and Himmler of betraying him and bringing "irreparable shame on the whole nation" by negotiating with the Allies.

Hitler appointed the following as the new Cabinet and as "leaders of the nation":
Witnessed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Martin Bormann, General Wilhelm Burgdorf, and General Hans Krebs.

On the afternoon of 30 April, about a day and a half after he signed his last will and testament, Hitler and Braun committed suicide. Within the next two days, Goebbels, Bormann, Burgdorf and Krebs also committed suicide.


Obersalzberg- Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun with dogs
INTERNET SOURCE: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/My_Political_Testament

My Political Testament
by Adolf Hitler, translated by The United States Government Printing Office


This is a testament given by Adolf Hitler on 29 April 1945. It is here taken from United States, Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, 8 volumes and 2 supplementary volumes (Government Printing Office, Washington, 1946-1948), VI, 259-263, Doc. No. 3569-PS.
More than thirty years have now passed since I in 1914 made my modest contribution as a volunteer in the first world war that was forced upon the Reich.

In these three decades I have been actuated solely by love and loyalty to my people in all my thoughts, acts and life. They gave me the strength to make the most difficult decisions which have ever confronted mortal man. I have spent my time, my working strength and my health in these three decades.

It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted the war in 1939. It was desired and instigated exclusively by those international statesmen who were either of Jewish descent or worked for Jewish interests. I have made too many offers for the control and limitation of armaments, which posterity will not for all time be able to disregard for the responsibility for the outbreak of this war to be laid on me. I have further never wished that after the first fatal world war a second against England, or even against America, should break out. Centuries will pass away, but out of the ruins of our towns and monuments the hatred against those finally responsible whom we have to thank for everything, international Jewry and its helpers, will grow.

Three days before the outbreak of the German-Polish war I again proposed to the British ambassador in Berlin a solution to the German-Polish problem — similar to that in the case of the Saar district, under international control. This offer also cannot be denied. It was only rejected because the leading circles in English politics wanted the war, partly on account of the business hoped for and partly under influence of propaganda organized by international Jewry.

I have also made it quite plain that, if the nations of Europe are again to be regarded as mere shares to be bought and sold by these international conspirators in money and finance, then that race, Jewry, which is the real criminal of this murderous struggle, will be saddled with the responsibility. I further left no one in doubt that this time not only would millions of children of Europe's Aryan peoples die of hunger, not only would millions of grown men suffer death, and not only hundreds of thousands of women and children be burnt and bombed to death in the towns, without the real criminal having to atone for this guilt, even if by more humane means.

After six years of war, which in spite of all setbacks will go down one day in history as the most glorious and valiant demonstration of a nation's life purpose, I cannot forsake the city which is the capital of this Empire. As the forces are too small to make any further stand against the enemy attack at this place, and our resistance is gradually being weakened by men who are as deluded as they are lacking in initiative, I should like, by remaining in this town, to share my fate with those, the millions of others, who have also taken upon themselves to do so. Moreover I do not wish to fall into the hands of an enemy who requires a new spectacle organized by the Jews for the amusement of their hysterical masses.

I have decided therefore to remain in Berlin and there of my own free will to choose death at the moment when I believe the position of the Führer and Chancellor itself can no longer be held.

I die with a happy heart, aware of the immeasurable deeds and achievements of our soldiers at the front, our women at home, the achievements of our farmers and workers and the work, unique in history, of our youth who bear my name.

That from the bottom of my heart I express my thanks to you all, is just as self-evident as my wish that you should, because of that, on no account give up the struggle but rather continue it against the enemies of the Fatherland, no matter where, true to the creed of a great Clausewitz. From the sacrifice of our soldiers and from my own unity with them unto death, will in any case spring up in the history of Germany, the seed of a radiant renaissance of the National-Socialist movement and thus of the realization of a true community of nations.

Many of the most courageous men and women have decided to unite their lives with mine until the very last I have begged and finally ordered them not to do this, but to take part in the further battle of the Nation. I beg the heads of the Armies, the Navy, and the Air Force to strengthen by all possible means the spirit of resistance of our soldiers in the National-Socialist sense, with special reference to the fact that also I myself, as founder and creator of this movement, have preferred death to cowardly abdication or even capitulation.

May it, at some future time, become part of the code of honor of the German officer — as is already the case in our Navy — that the surrender of a district or of a town is impossible, and that above all the leaders here must march ahead as shining examples, faithfully fulfilling their duty unto death.

Second Part of the Political Testament

Before my death I expel the former Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring from the party and deprive him of all rights which he may enjoy by virtue of the decree of June 29th, 1941; and also by virtue of my statement in the Reichstag on September 1st, 1939, I appoint in his place Grossadmiral Dönitz, President of the Reich and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.

Before my death I expel the former Reichsführer-SS and Minister of the Interior, Heinrich Himmler, from the party and from all offices of State. In his stead I appoint Gauleiter Karl Hanke as Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police, and Gauleiter Paul Giesler as Reich Minister of the Interior.

Göring and Himmler, quite apart from their disloyalty to my person, have done immeasurable harm to the country and the whole nation by secret negotiations with the enemy, which they conducted without my knowledge and against my wishes, and by illegally attempting to seize power in the State for themselves.

In order to give the German people a government composed of honorable men — a government which will fulfill its pledge to continue the war by every means —, I appoint the following members of the new Cabinet as leaders of the nation:

President of the Reich: DÖNITZ Chancellor of the Reich: DR. GOEBBELS Party Minister: BORMANN Foreign Minister: SEYSS-INQUART

[Here follow fifteen others.]

Although a number of these men, such as Martin Bormann, Dr. Goebbels, etc., together with their wives, have joined me of their own free will and did not wish to leave the capital of the Reich under any circumstances, but were willing to perish with me here, I must nevertheless ask them to obey my request, and in this case set the interests of the nation above their own feelings. By their work and loyalty as comrades they will be just as close to me after death, as I hope that my spirit will linger among them and always go with them. Let them be hard, but never unjust, above all let them never allow fear to influence their actions, and set the honour of the nation above everything in the world. Finally, let them be conscious of the fact that our task, that of continuing the building of a National Socialist State, represents the work of the coming centuries, which places every single person under an obligation always to serve the common interest and to subordinate his own advantage to this end. I demand of all Germans, all National-Socialists, men, women and all the men of the Armed Forces, that they be faithful and obedient unto death to the new government and its President.

Above all I charge the leaders of the nation and those under them to scrupulous observance of the laws of race and to merciless opposition to the universal poisoner of all peoples, international Jewry.

Given in Berlin, this 29th day of April 1945. 4:00 A.M.

ADOLF HITLER

  

It is necessary that I should die for my people; but my spirit will rise from the grave and the whole world will know that I was right.
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/1338481]

Authorship

In his book The Bunker, James O'Donnell, after comparing the wording of Hitler's last testament to the writings and statements of both Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, concluded that Goebbels was at least partly responsible for helping Hitler to write it. Junge stated that Hitler was reading from notes when he dictated the testament after midnight on 29 April.

The story of the documents

Three messengers were assigned to take the will and political testament out of the besieged Führerbunker to ensure their presence for posterity. The first messenger was deputy press attaché, Heinz Lorenz. He was arrested by the British while traveling under an alias as a journalist from Luxembourg. He revealed the existence of two more copies and messengers: Willy Johannmeyer, Hitler's army adjutant, and Bormann's adjutant SS-Standartenführer Wilhelm Zander. Zander was using the pseudonym "Friedrich Wilhelm Paustin". These two messengers were apprehended in the American zone of occupation. Thus, two copies of the papers ended up in American hands, one set in British hands. The texts of the documents were published widely in the American and British press by January 1946 but the British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, considered restricting access to these documents. He feared they might become cult objects among the Germans. Since they were public knowledge already, the Americans did not share these concerns but nonetheless agreed to refrain from further publication of them. Hitler's testament and his marriage certificate were presented to President Truman. One set was placed on public display at the National Archives in Washington for several years.

Death of the witnesses

All four witnesses to the political testament died shortly afterwards. Goebbels and his wife committed suicide. Burgdorf and Krebs committed suicide together on the night of 1/2 May in the bunker. Bormann's exact time and place of death remain uncertain; his remains were discovered near the site of the bunker in 1972 and identified by DNA analysis in 1998. Therefore, he most likely died the same night trying to escape from the Führerbunker complex.

Flensburg Government

In the Flensburg Government of Hitler's appointed successor as Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz, the depositions of Albert Speer and Franz Seldte were ignored (or the two ministers quickly reinstated). Neither former incumbent Alfred Rosenberg nor Hitler's appointee, Seyß-Inquart, held the post of Foreign Minister. The post was given to Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, who after Goebbels' suicide also became Leading Minister of the German Reich (Head of Cabinet, post equivalent to Chancellor).


July 1947 photo of the rear entrance to the Führerbunker in the garden of the Reich Chancellery. Hitler and Eva Braun were cremated in a shell hole in front of the emergency exit at left; the cone-shaped structure in the centre served as the exhaust, and as bomb shelter for the guards.


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