I cannot now remember when I first read Hugh Trevor-Roper's The Last Days of Hitler (1947). My memory is confused by the fact that I knew the author in old age and was to become his biographer; Trevor-Roper himself told me about the extraordinary circumstances in which he had come to write the book. In September 1945 he had been awaiting discharge from the army so that he could resume his pre-war role as an Oxford don, when he was asked to undertake an urgent investigation into the fate of the Führer.
This was then a mystery. In January, as the Allied armies invaded Germany, Hitler had retreated to an underground bunker below the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, to escape Allied bombing; his last months would be spent in these eighteen small and windowless rooms. Towards the end, as the Russians moved ever closer, he would emerge only for a short stroll in the garden with his beloved Alsatian dog, until shelling made even this too dangerous. His subordinates had pleaded with him to leave Berlin while this was still possible, but he had chosen to stay. One of his final acts was to marry his devoted companion, Eva Braun. On May 1 his successor, Grand Admiral Dönitz, had announced in a solemn broadcast to the German people that the Führer had died fighting at the head of his troops. But Dönitz was far away in Schleswig-Holstein, and knew no more of what had happened to Hitler than he had been told in curt telegrams from the bunker.
In the months following the German surrender in May, rumors spread that Hitler was still alive. He had escaped from besieged Berlin and was living on a mist-enshrouded island in the Baltic; in a Rhineland rock fortress; in a Spanish monastery; on a South American ranch; he had been spotted living rough among the bandits of Albania. A Swiss journalist made a deposition to testify that, to her certain knowledge, Hitler was living with Eva Braun on an estate in Bavaria. The Soviet news agency Tass reported that Hitler had been spotted in Dublin, disguised in women's clothing (perhaps his mustache had betrayed his identity). If anyone was in a position to know what had happened to him, it was the Russians, who had taken Berlin. But Stalin said that Hitler had escaped; and in the Soviet Union, what Stalin said outweighed evidence to the contrary.
The myth of Hitler remained potent. He had captured the imagination of the German people; so long as the possibility existed that he might still be alive, the stability and security of the occupied zones could not be guaranteed. This man had been responsible for the most destructive war in the history of the world, causing the deaths of tens of millions; the slightest chance that Hitler might return, as Napoleon had done, was too terrible to contemplate. The ghost haunting Europe had to be laid to rest. The uncertainty about Hitler's fate was poisoning the fragile relations between the victorious Allies. The Russians were now accusing the British of secretly harboring him.
Trevor-Roper was entrusted with the hunt for Hitler. During the war he had shown himself to be an exceptionally able and determined intelligence officer. Now, though still only 31, he was given the authority of a major-general to undertake his inquiry, pursuing the evidence wherever it led. It was an extraordinary experience for a young historian, to be licensed to explore the ruins of a collapsed empire while the embers were still smoking. He would spend much of the next few weeks driving by jeep along empty German roads to interrogate potential witnesses. Sometimes he was driven by a young soldier, though often he was completely alone. At an early stage in his investigation he flew to Berlin to examine the bunker, now derelict and half-flooded, carelessly guarded by Russian soldiers.
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