Free Hitler's Last Day: Minute by Minute: The hidden story of an SS family in wartime Germany by Emma Craigie, Jonathan Mayo Page B

washes quickly, keen to find out what is going on as there is no time to be wasted if the Allies are to beat the Yugoslavs to Trieste. Cox’s boss General Freyberg urged his officers, ‘Press on at full speed, press on. Give them no rest!’
    The Allies are being helped by Italian partisans in the north of Italy who are attempting to stop the retreating Germans destroying vital factories, railway lines and bridges. The partisans are a mixture of former Italian army units and bands of militia formed after the Germans occupied Italy following the armistice of 1943, when Italy left the Axis powers
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    Propaganda broadcasts from Rome have given the partisans instructions on how they can help the Allied advancing armies, including guidance on pronouncing the word ‘mine’ to let their soldiers know where the Germans had laid minefields
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About 6.00am
    After a night of travelling under fire, Reitsch and von Greim arrive at Plön Castle which has, for the last week, functioned as the headquarters of all German military forces in the north of Germany, under the command of Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz.
    Robert Ritter von Greim is exhausted from the overnight journey but Hanna Reitsch is still exhilarated by the excitement of all their near misses and she gives Admiral Dönitz a passionate account of their mission and ferociously denounces Himmler. She passes on Hitler’s order for Himmler’s arrest. Dönitz explains that Himmler has the protection of a substantial SS escort battalion and can’t easily be arrested.
    Reitsch and von Greim will stay in Plön for a couple of days and Reitsch manages to have a brief interview with Himmler. She later claimed that she took the opportunity to convey her disgust at what she considered to be his treachery of the Führer but, given the presence of his SS guard, she was in no position to carry out the heroic arrest she dreamed of
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6.15am/7.15am UK time
    The BBC Home Service is broadcasting a 15-minute programme called
The Daily Dozen – Exercises for Men and Women
based on a fitness programme for young recruits in the First World War.
‘Have you taken leave of your senses, gentlemen, laughing so disrespectfully at the sovereign leader of your country?’
About 6.30am
    A young officer, Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven, wakes his colleague Gerhard Boldt. The two men share a room in the upper bunker, where they sleep and work. Their job is to compile twice-daily reports on the military situation for the Führer’s military conferences. Their room contains bunk beds, two desks and two telephones as well as a large map. Part of the room is divided off with a curtain, behind which their boss, General Krebs, sleeps. Von Loringhoven is bursting with news but he doesn’t want Krebs to catch him gossiping, so as Boldt sits down to work, von Loringhoven looks up casually and whispers, ‘Our Führer got married last night.’
    Boldt looks so astonished that von Loringhoven can’t suppresshis amusement and the two of them collapse with laughter, stopped only by the voice of their boss, through the curtain: ‘Have you taken leave of your senses, gentlemen, laughing so disrespectfully at the sovereign leader of your country?’
    The two men fall silent and von Loringhoven waits until he hears Krebs get up and leave before telling Boldt all he has heard about the events of the night.
    At Stalag VII-A at Moosburg outside Munich, British officer Major Elliott Viney is shaving. In the distance he can hear the sound of gunfire.
    Viney has been a prisoner since May 1940 when he was captured after the attempt by the Bucks Battalion under his command to defend the town of Hazebrouck during the retreat to Dunkirk. (Later in 1945 Major Viney will be awarded the DSO for his leadership and bravery at Hazebrouck.)
    Viney has only been in Moosburg for a fortnight. On 14th April he and other Allied officers were moved south from the POW camp at Eichstätt, just two days before it was liberated by the Americans. On the