What is not enough to know
Hitler was preparing for universal repudiationAll of his life, Adolf Hitler had been obsessed with themusical works of German composer Richard Wagner. As a teenager living inAustria, Hitler was deeply inspired by Wagner's operas and their pagan,mythical tales of struggles against hated enemies. One time, back in 1905,after seeing Wagner's opera Rienzi, young Hitler professed he would somedayembark on a great mission, leading his people to freedom, similar to theopera's story.
Now, some 40 years later, after failing in his mission as
Führer of the German People and Reich, another of Wagner's operas hearkened,
and it was Hitler's favorite – Der Ring des Nibelungen. It concerns a magic
Ring granting its possessor the power to rule the world. In the last part of
this opera, entitled Götterdämmerung, or 'Twilight of the gods," the hero
Siegfried, betrayed by those around him, loses the Ring and winds up on a
funeral pyre while the fortress of Valhalla burns and the kingdom of the gods
is destroyed.
This essentially was the ending Hitler inflicted upon himself, his People and his Reich.
At first, those present tried to convince the Führer to
leave doomed Berlin for the relative safety of Berchtesgaden, the mountain area
along the German-Austrian border where he had his villa. From there he could continue
the fight, supported by troops positioned throughout the impenetrable Alpine
mountains of western Austria and southern Bavaria. Such a move might prolong
the war indefinitely and improve the odds of a favorable outcome for Germany,
one way or another.
But Hitler brushed aside this suggestion, knowing that any
journey outside the bunker brought great risk of capture. And above all, the
Führer did not want himself, alive or dead, to wind up prominently displayed by
his enemies, particularly the Russians. However, he did give his bunker
personnel permission to leave. Most of his staff therefore departed for
Berchtesgaden via a convoy of trucks and planes, still hoping the Führer would
follow. Only a handful of Hitler's personal staff remained with him, including
his top aide Martin Bormann, a few SS and military aides, two private
secretaries, and his longtime companion, Eva Braun.
Hitler's choice to remain in the Führerbunker to the very
end amounted to his final decision of the war. It was made known to the German
people via a special radio announcement in the hope that his presence in the
Nazi capital would inspire all remaining Wehrmacht, SS, Volkssturm and Hitler
Youth units in Berlin to hold out to the end as well.
Although the war was lost, Hitler nevertheless took pride in the knowledge that he had not allowed another repeat of November 1918, when the German Army had meekly asked the Allies for armistice terms to conclude the First World War. This was all Hitler had left. Just a few years earlier, the Führer had been regarded by most German's as their greatest-ever military leader. Now, all that remained of his military legacy was the fact he had refused to give up no matter what.
The Führer's stubborn pride insured that thousands of German
soldiers, Hitler Youths and civilians would needlessly lose their lives in the
streets of Berlin, where advance units of the Red Army were already probing.
Inside the bunker, Hitler told General Jodl, "I will fight as long as I
have a single soldier. When the last soldier deserts me. I will shoot
myself."
Finally, Hitler ended up dead or not, in the contempt of
Germans and foreigners. His leadership vanished and his traumas fueled by his
hatred not only of the Jews, but of the entire world, came to light accompanied
by the memory of a cowardly man who would like to forget.
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