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Saving Corporal Hitler

Over a million books have been written about World War II and thousands about the life and death of Adolph Hitler, yet even after all the eyewitness testimony, all the poring over documents, all the post facto interviewing of survivors, as late as the year 2001—a full fifty-six years after the Fuehrer's death--comes to light the most spectacular discovery ever—namely, that during those last days in the bunker there was a hitherto undisclosed visitor, and that the visitor was an AMERICAN! Yes, an American! And the reason for the American’s visit was so astonishing as to test the limits of credibility. Yet it is true. Completely substantiated. Now, for the first time, it can be told—the true story of Hitler’s last days.

At 3:30 p.m. on April 30, 1945, Eva Braun swallowed a cyanide capsule and shortly thereafter Adolph Hitler, for twelve years Fuehrer of the German People, simultaneously swallowed cyanide and shot himself in the temple (some say mouth) with a 7.65 mm Walther PPK semi-automatic sidearm. The day before, April 29, just after midnight, he had married longtime mistress Eva, and two hours later had written his Last Will and Testament; the latter revealed a total lack of remorse for the death and destruction he had rained down not only on Germany but on all of Europe and many other parts of the world, and especially on the Jews. In fact, in his Will Hitler commanded his successors to carry on the fight, and concluded the document with this statement:

Above all, I enjoin the government and the people to uphold the race laws to the limit and to resist mercilessly the poisoner of all nations, international Jewry.

It was between these two events—the writing of the Will and the suicide—that the last of the most extraordinary and hitherto unknown encounters took place between Hitler and the mysterious American. Historians had (they thought) meticulously reconstructed the final days in the bunker, including the many comings and goings from a Berlin that was being reduced to rubble by Soviet artillery. For example, Minister of Production Albert Speer left the bunker for the final time on April 24, the same day the Soviets cut off the last road out of the city. Himmler’s man Hermann Fegelein slipped out of the bunker on April 25, and Ritter von Grime and ace pilot Hanna Reitsche flew in on April 26, landing on a city street because the Soviets had captured Templehof airport the day before. Von Grime and Reitsche pleaded with the Fuehrer to escape with them—to fly to the Bavarian Alps, where he could continue to lead the Nazi fight from the so-called Redoubt. But Hitler had made up his mind to die in Berlin. Finally yielding, von Greim and Reitsche flew out on midnight of April 28. Meanwhile, Fegelein’s absence had been noticed, and he was chased down and brought back to the bunker. After Hitler received word that Reichminister Himmler had been secretly and traitorously negotiating with Sweden’s Count Bernadotte, he had Fegelein shot.

How did historians learn of these comings and goings, these actions and reactions? Primarily by interviewing survivors. Notable among these were SS Adjutant Otto Guensche, Hitler’s personal pilot Hans Baur, and Heinz Linge, Hitler’s valet in the bunker. Baur and Linge ended up in Soviet prison and were interviewed there; released ten years later, they were extensively regrilled by Western authorities and historians. They furnished much useful information about the final days. They corroborated that Hitler “aged twenty years in the bunker” (Linge), that he grew unkempt, “with food stains on his military jackets” (Baur), that he often had to “grab his left arm to keep it from shaking,” (Baur) that he “flew into rages over the smallest trifles” (Baur), that often “his eyes were glassy and he stared at nothing,” (Linge) and that he mumbled that Eva and his Alsatian dog Blondi “are the only ones truly loyal to me,” (Linge), and that more than once he angrily asserted that “Germany has proved itself unworthy of me.” (Baur) Linge and Baur identified who was in the bunker at specific times and who came and went, and when. However, one such identification, which the interlocutors thought so preposterous that they struck it from the final records, was “a mysterious American who first came into the bunker on April 25, then returned on April 28, and again on the last day of the Fuehrer’s life, April 30.” (Linge) Baur was less precise, but stated that “a tall stranger, a foreigner, showed up in the bunker more than once in the final week.”

Stricken from the final transcripts, it is a matter of luck that this testimony survived at all. It did so only because some clerk mistakenly filed rather than discarded the initial version of the transcripts; though long forgotten, fortunately they were not lost to history. Copies are now in my possession.

But how and why did I even come to seek out these documents?

Coincidence plays no small role in human affairs. To this I can readily attest, for my story now travels some three thousand miles and fifty-five years to my summer home in Nags Head, North Carolina, where one of my friends and neighbors was the famous evangelist Billy G. Sadly (but appropriately), Billy passed away on Christmas day of the year 2000. I happened to be at my bungalow for a brief visit on the day his middle daughter Cindy started sorting through and organizing Billy’s voluminous correspondence and other papers. It was a bright cold day, and the roaring fireplace put out a welcome heat. I commiserated with Cindy as she worked, until she interrupted me with a “What in the world is this?” She had uncovered a small metal box, locked, on which was taped in bold capital letters:

TO BE OPENED ONLY AFTER MY DEATH

As Cindy had no idea where to find the key, I volunteered to pick the lock with my Swiss knife. We were both exceedingly curious about the contents. Apart from those of Billy himself, our eyes would apparently be the first to see whatever secret he had been concealing from the world. I could not refrain from speculating: did the box contain the admission of some terrible sin? Perhaps an unacknowledged child born out of wedlock? Bigamy? Worse: a murder committed in his wild teenage years? A shameful affiliation, perhaps with the Ku Klux Klan? Maybe he’d even taken part in a lynching. Cindy must have been suffering from similar imaginings, for as I worked the lock I could see that her hands were shaking, and after the box clicked open they continued shaking as she extracted several brittle, yellowed papers. I read the top sheet, a sort of cover letter, over her shoulder.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

During my lifetime I have kept the contents of this box out of the public eye lest they stir up a storm of controversy and bring me into conflict with the authorities and with men of the cloth, most especially those of the Jewish faith. Those who disbelieve what I have to say will call me a damnable liar and seek to discredit me any way they can, while those who believe me will attack me for what I have done and consider me as vile as the subject of my ministrations. Only the very few, who walk in the steps of the Nazarene himself, will truly understand me, though naturally I do not solicit their approval but only that of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

“What in the world?” Cindy muttered again, turning over the cover letter to expose the page beneath. Like the first page it was clumsily typed, with numerous strikeouts and corrections, and crackled as she lifted it. She pivoted a few degrees to catch more light from the roaring fire.


APRIL 25, 1945

I managed to get past the guards pretty easily, claiming that I was replacing Dr. Morell, and bringing the Fuehrer his medications. They inspected my black bag and let me pass. Stepping down into the lower level of the bunker was much like entering a miasmic swamp—no, it was more like a urinal, a public urinal. That was the smell. And as close and stuffy as I imagine a U-boat to be. Cables snaked along the floors, and there was water underfoot, and there were too many people for the limited space. In some rooms they were packed like a gospel choir. The word that came to mind was sick. It was a very sick environment. And even down there I could hear the rumble and boom of the Russian guns as they blasted away at the city. I thought to myself, Surely it won’t be long now. The Russkies are at the very gates of Berlin and there’s little between them and the bunker but a few poorly-armed children and dotards. I asked a sharp-eyed woman where I might find the Fuehrer, but she glared at me and said nothing, and I could feel her hostility even after I passed. I was a stranger. Not to be trusted. Then in the cramped hallway I recognized short, slick-haired, rat-faced Dr. Goebbles, and I asked him the location of the Fuehrer.

“Wo sind sie?” he challenged.

“Ich bin Doktor Binswanger. Ich habe etwas medizin fur der Fuehrer gebracht.”

After insisting on a peek into my black bag, he motioned me to follow him. We entered a small waiting room occupied by three other people.

“Hier wartet,” said the Minister of Propaganda. He knocked on an inner door and shortly disappeared through it. The others in the room eyed me curiously and suspiciously, and I returned the favor. The air was stale and smelly, fetid. How could people stand to live in such a place? But of course most of them had no choice. After awhile the inner door opened and Dr. Goebbles beckoned to me.

“Zehn minuten,” he said, passing me by.

Hitler was alone in the room, sitting on a small couch. He looked like a man of eighty. Where was the erect, vigorous leader of the newsreels and the propaganda films? His jacket was unpressed and his skin pasty, and his famous hypnotic eyes glassy.

I gave the stiffarm salute. “Heil Hitler!”

He said sharply, “I sent Morell to Bavaria. I did not request another doctor.”

This was a dangerous moment. Mine was a stupendous gamble, and I was well aware that in the next five minutes I might be shot. Nevertheless I was calm, placing my fate in the hands of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom I said a silent prayer. “I don’t know anything about Dr. Morell. I am not a medical doctor, but a doctor of faith.”

He stared at me, not comprehending. His gaze was far from pleasant. Again he said he had banished Morell from the bunker days before.

“I am not a medical doctor,” I said. “I am a doctor of a different kind.”

His face tightened into a mean, hateful look.

“Are you mad? I’ll call the guards. Or…” he leaned to his right and, opening a sidetable drawer, withdrew a small semi-automatic pistol.

This was the moment of truth.

“Hear me out,” I said. “I mean to help you, my Fuehrer. Listen to me for five minutes. If you don’t like what I have to say, go ahead and shoot me. At the very least you must be curious. You must be asking yourself why I would risk my life like this. And you have time on your hands. What do you have to lose by hearing me out?”

He continued staring at me while pointing the pistol directly at my heart. By now his eyes were glittering, and I told myself that if I could hold that glitter all would be well. Lowering the pistol to his lap, he said, “I order you to speak.”

“Ja, mein Fuehrer.”

I attempted to get on his right side by telling him what he wanted to hear: that he had believed in his Axis partners Italy and Japan and they had let him down, that he had believed in the German people and they had let him down, that he had believed in the German soldiers and they had let him down, that he had believed in his Nazi cohorts and they had let him down—in short, everybody he counted on had let him down. Though he continued to fix me with a baleful stare, he blinked once, twice--in agreement? I said that great men invariably suffer from such inconstancy, because mankind is like that. Mankind will let you down. Mankind can not be trusted. Never. And why? Because men are only men, fallible, imperfect, and transient. Mere mortals. Perishable products. “Are you with me so far, my Fuehrer?”

He said nothing, staring. The pistol lay in his lap. The only thing that betrayed him was the glitter of the eyes, over which he had no control.

“So, my Fuehrer, you cannot place your trust in mankind. People will let you down because they haven’t enough greatness in them. They haven’t enough vision. And while the great man can impart his vision, weak minds cannot fully assimilate it, or adhere to it when times are tough, or see it through to victory. That goes for confederates, too: slavish followers may feed the great man’s ego and pump up his pride, but in the end they cannot support the weight of his greatness, and invariably collapse into squabbles and petty conceits and lust for personal power. In the heat of the final battle their loyalty dissolves like a dream. They haven’t the iron will of the leader and lack his ultimate courage. In the end, they are cowards.”

“And traitors!” he screamed, face twisted suddenly and flushed. “Traitors! Traitors! Traitors! I should have them shot! I should strangle them with balingwire! I should hang them on meathooks! They are not worthy to be fed to my Blondi! Blondi would sicken on the flesh of such traitors!”

While raving his face warped into a truly demonic aspect, and he repeatedly smashed his clenched right fist against his thigh. But it was a squall, a tempest, and passed quickly. In a moment he stopped speaking and resumed his dark, relentless stare.

I seized upon the outburst. “Exactly! Traitors all! Traitors! Not a man worthy of your trust. Not one. None! All will desert you in the end. Even if they stay and die, they have deserted you by failing to accomplish their missions, by allowing, despite your brilliant leadership, the collapse of the Third Reich. Not a single man to be trusted. Not one. You cannot place your trust in any mere human being.” Here I paused for effect, watching the Fuehrer’s eyes. So far he appeared to be in complete agreement, but now I must dance on hot coals. In a low, modulated voice I said, “My Fuehrer, there is One, and only One, who is worthy of a man’s trust. Only One. One. Do you know who that is, my Fuehrer? Can you say His name?”

Hitler balefully stared, but his eyes retained their glitter. He did not answer.

“There is only One I could be speaking of, my Fuehrer: our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He alone is worthy of our trust. He alone offers us salvation. He alone promises us eternity. No matter how much we have sinned, no matter what vile things we have done, and we have all done detestable things, my Fuehrer, every last one of us—no matter how much we have sinned, our Lord and Savior Jesus will gladly save us—rejoice in saving us!—if we but accept Him into our hearts. That’s all He asks. Nothing more. That we accept Him into our hearts. That’s all. So little to ask of a man, after a lifetime of sin. Incredible! But it is so. That is all He asks of us. Just that. Nothing more. And my Fuehrer—it is not too late! Not too late! In the last second, with the very last breath, in the last tenth of a second, the last hundredth, with the last dying gasp, the rattle of death itself—not too late! Not too late! Even if you open up your heart to Jesus as death clutches your throat, you are saved. Saved! For all eternity! Even the vilest sinner! Saved! Saved! I swear it! Saved!

Though high on Christ and not wanting to abandon my exalted state, I noticed that Hitler’s face was flushing again. Was he fired up by my words, or growing angry? His left arm twitched. His right hand gripped the pistol. I hate to confess this, but at that moment I lost my courage. Before he could commence raving, if that’s what he intended to do, I said, “I beg you to consider what I’ve said, my Fuehrer. In three days I shall return and tell you more about this miracle of salvation. Remember: as your confederates desert you, there is but One you can trust. Only One!”

I left quickly, fearing the cry “Guards!” or worse—a gunshot.


“Incredible!” I was jittery with excitement. “Unbelievable!”

“More like impossible,” countered Cindy. “Obviously a hoax. I don’t believe it for a minute!”

“Why not?” Now my hands were shaking. “You know Billy was in the OSS. You know he was in Germany during the war. You know he sneaked into Berlin at the very end.”

“I know nothing of the sort!”

“Well I do. That’s all Billy and I talked about. You don’t think we discussed religion, do you? With me a practicing existentialist?”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know myself. But what Billy and I had in common was a burning interest in World War II. He was there, in Berlin, at the end. He told me that. On some secret mission. And you know he learned fluent German from his parents.”

“That’s ridiculous! Why would the United States government send a religious man to Berlin to bring the most evil man in history to Jesus? Impossible!”

“Billy must have done it on his own. On impulse. That wasn’t his mission; he was in Berlin to rescue somebody. Maybe the rescue aborted, and since he was there….”

“Implausible!”

“Why? You know Billy. He’d try to convert a jeep if given half a chance. A halftrack. A tank. Let’s read the next page!”


APRIL 28, 1945

This time, learning from one of the secretaries that the Fuehrer was alone in his sitting room, I barged right in, ignoring the yells behind me. I closed the door and saluted. The Fuehrer was just as before, in the center of the sofa, and wearing, it appeared, the same soiled brown jacket. In three days he had aged another five years; he was obviously a broken man, his body shriveled and bent, his left arm shaking. Broken save for the eyes. The eyes appeared fanatically fixed, as though he were attempting to force into them every remaining ounce of will.

“You!” he said, in a cracky voice. “You dare come here again? This time I will shoot you dead!”

And he reached across to the sofaside table and withdrew the pistol, aiming it at my heart. “It will give me pleasure to pull the trigger.”

“But you won’t do it.”

“No? Why not?”

“Because you suffered as a little boy. And Jesus loves the little boy that suffered. And Jesus doesn’t want that little boy to continue suffering through all eternity.”

Why I took this line I have no idea. It was spontaneous. The pistol made me nervous, and I said the first thing that came to my mind.

“How dare you speak of my childhood! My childhood is irrelevant!”

“On the contrary, my Fuehrer, the child is father to the man. Your childhood is completely relevant. Such a remote and brutal father in Alois Hitler…Jesus wants to end the suffering of the little boy Adolph. Jesus wants that little boy to walk into eternity joyfully, with a spring in his step.”

Did the hard eyes soften? Just for an instant? I couldn’t be sure.

“Eternity is a void,” he said angrily, twitching the pistol. “Death annihilates the human personality. After death there is nothing. Blackness. Emptiness.”

“How do you know that? Have you been there?”

“A German warrior does not fear death. A German warrior goes to death with his head held high, his pride intact. He strides into the void with an iron smile.”

I shook my head vigorously.

“He may think he is walking into a mere void, but if he has not accepted Jesus into his heart he will be surprised and terrified to find himself walking into hellfire, into an eternity of writhing torment in which he will be forever dying of thirst with no water to drink, starving with no scrap of food to eat, suffering excruciating pain with no analgesic to ease the agony. Compared to the endless, unremitting torment of hell, the mere void would be a stroll in the park.” Here I paused for effect, watching the Fuehrer’s eyes. Then I said, “There is yet time, my Fuehrer. Jesus waits. Jesus prays that you will come to him, take him into your heart. If not for yourself, do it for little Adolph who suffered, for once allow the little boy to be a little boy and not the victim of a brutal father, for once let the little boy know love and kindness and joy. You can do it, my Fuehrer. Just open your heart to Jesus!”

His eyes were glittering, a good sign though not the best: far better would have been softening eyes. The pistol now lay in his lap; his right hand clamped his left to control the shaking. “You speak rot and nonsense,” he said venomously. “You tell fairy tales. Obviously you are demented. You should have been gassed.”

I ignored these comments. I assumed that his failure to shoot me or call the guards meant that I was holding his interest, for whatever reason. Perhaps I had touched the child in him, but then again maybe I was merely alleviating his bunker boredom. I said, “What do you have to lose, my Fuehrer?”

His answer was a fierce, glittery glare.

I said, “You are an intelligent man. Think about it: what do you have to lose? Let us say that you accept Jesus into your heart. Then let us assume that you are right and I am wrong. You will walk into the void, and that’s it. In that case you will have neither gained nor lost by taking Jesus into your heart. But let us assume that I am right and you are wrong. Then, if you have accepted Jesus you will walk into an everlasting life of unimaginable joy and beauty, a place a thousand times more joyous and beautiful than your beloved Eagle’s Nest. But if you fail to accept Jesus into your heart, and I am right about the afterlife, you will suffer everlasting torment, so excruciating that you cannot even conceive it, so incredibly painful that to avoid it you would beg to be roasted over an open fire, or have the skin slowly stripped from your entire body, or have acid injected into your veins, or have nails pounded into your eyes, or have a hose blast water down your throat until your stomach bursts. Inconceivable torment! So what do you have to lose, my Fuehrer? What do you have to lose?”

As I described the tortures his face began to twist; by the time I concluded it had grotesquely contorted. After my final word he suddenly he screamed “Liar! Get out of my sight! Out of my sight! Out! Out!

Hastily I headed for the door, calling over my shoulder, “Think about it, my Fuehrer! What do you have to lose?


“This is truly incredible!” I cried.

“It certainly is.”

“Fantastic!”

“It certainly is.”

Cindy was adamant in her skepticism. She frowned and bit her lip, glaring at the page in her hand. Did she really disbelieve what she was reading? Or did she believe it, and feel deeply shamed? Or believe it, but fear family scandal?

I really didn’t care. I was almost beside myself with excitement. “The last page! Let’s have a look!”


APRIL 30, 1945

I almost failed to make it back to the bunker. The Soviet shelling was intense, deadly shrapnel screamed through the air. It was very dangerous to be out in the open. And I knew that one of these hours the bombardment would suddenly cease, and Soviet soldiers would storm the bunker, firing their submachine guns. But so intense was my desire that I worked my way through the rubble from doorway to doorway, and then up through the battered Reichschancellery, and finally dashed for the bunker itself. My focus then switched from the danger outside to the danger within: I knew there was a good chance that this time Hitler would shoot me on sight. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to abandon my mission. There were fewer people in the bunker; evidently some had cleared out to save their skins. Still, the place was close, stuffy, and smelled of urine and sweat. I strode right through the Fuehrer’s anteroom and into his study. I found him up and slowly pacing, a decrepit old man, sallow, stooped, wearing an expression less angry than solemn, even saturnine. He seemed so small.

“You!” He stopped to regard me. I felt that he was attempting to work up anger, but couldn’t bring it off. “I thought I’d seen the last of you.”

“A man who brings good tidings doesn’t give up so easily.”

“You’re too late.” He resumed his slow pacing, actually more of a shuffle. “The German nation has failed me. They are not worthy of me. At three-thirty I intend to end it.”

He said this bitterly, but I sensed behind his words a deep regret, a profound sorrow.

“A tragedy,” I said. “But there is still time, my Fuehrer. There is still time to turn defeat into victory.”

“The war is over. We have lost. Germany has failed. Now the slavs, the vermin, will overrun and consume the Fatherland.”

“I wasn’t speaking of victory or defeat in the war, my Fuehrer. I meant the victory that is the world to come. When you leave this world, you can step into paradise. You need only accept Jesus Christ into your heart. As I said before, what do you have to lose?”

He stopped, stared at me. There was no glitter in those famously hypnotic eyes; they looked almost dead. He was a broken man, so broken that he seemed to have lost every spark of the inner rage that had kept him going these many years. His left arm trembled within the loose sleeve of his food-stained jacket; when he resumed pacing, his gait was shuffling, unsteady.

“What do you have to lose?” I repeated. “I’m offering you an insurance policy--absolutely free! No strings attached! You have everything to gain and not one thing to lose. But you must act quickly, my Fuehrer—time is short. The Russians are within shouting distance.”

He stopped again and stared at me. His mind seemed to wander. Was he listening to me, or to the artillery?

“Do it for little Adolph,” I said. “Do it for the sweet innocent little boy, that he might at last find love and joy. Save little Adolph! Save him!”

The Fuehrer’s dull eyes lost focus, vacillated. Sensing weakness, I raised my voice in authority: “My Fuehrer, clasp your hands together, like this.” And boldly I molded his hands into a prayerful shape. When I first touched him he flinched, but then he yielded and stood there like a little boy, staring at me, lips parted, with only partial comprehension. “Little Adolph, I want you to repeat after me: ‘I give my heart to Jesus, and accept Him as my Lord and Savior.’”

He continued staring at me, hands clasped.

“Say it, little Adolph. If you say those words you will at last find warmth, love and happiness, and you will never lose them—not ever. Say the words, Adolph! Say: ‘I give my heart to Jesus, and accept Him as my Lord and Savior.’”

Adolph mumbled something.

“Louder, Adolph!”

He spoke louder. Was he actually repeating my words? He was! He was! He was saying the words! He was accepting Jesus into his heart! His voice was slow and faltering, but he was actually repeating my words! “I give..my heart..to Jesus,” he muttered. “I accept…Him…as my…Lord and…Savior.”

Overjoyed, I couldn’t help jumping up and down like the country preacher I am. “Saved! Saved! Saved at last!”

And then for the first time ever I saw Adolph smile. He actually smiled! And not only that, he started to shuffle, and it took me a minute to realize that he was dancing a little jig. A jig of pure joy. Dancing! All at once he seemed twenty years younger. Oh what a miracle! A miracle! The Lord works in wonderful ways, yes He does. There’s nothing He can’t do if He sets his spirit to it. Nothing! Adolph dancing! Smiling and dancing! I almost expected him to break into song, to belt out an aria!

But time was short. Too soon, still smiling, he said, “Now you must leave me, friend. And thank you. My heart is calm. I am at peace.”

Never in my life have I experienced such incredible joy! Hitler, SAVED!


I stared at Cindy. I was stunned. I felt as though someone had clubbed me on the back with a crowbar. Because improbable as it sounded, I knew the account was true. Every word of it. Baur had mentioned the visits of a stranger, a foreigner. And Linge had told of the tall American and his three forays into the bunker—on exactly those three days in April!

“Cindy, what a find! A bombshell! This will set the world on fire!”

For a moment she gazed thoughtfully at the precious papers in her hands, crinkling them a bit with her fingers. Then, saying, “I think not,” she stepped quickly to the roaring fire and tossed them in.


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