Mark Document Made Easy

Mark document

[Music] on the afternoon of the 20th of april 1945 a secret operation was underway the ruined reich chancery in berlin above hitler's berlin bunker at 2 pm hitler had appeared from his bedroom in the bunker and dressed in his great coat his collar turned up against the chill air outside the fuhrer looking every one of his 56 years and many more besides slowly climbed the steps to the reich chancery garden above there he walked with his staff to review a collection of hitler youths who had distinguished themselves in the fighting against the red army on the eastern front the red army having reached the outskirts of berlin that very morning while a decrepit hitler shuffled listlessly along the line of teenagers and children two of his trusted soldiers servants were busy moving boxes the bunker's telephone exchange operator ss obershafira had gone up to the reich chancery for a smoke standing on the steps at the court of honor an outside area the back of the reich chancellery ruckus mish watched two ss men hauling heavy boxes into a waiting truck mish offered to help them getting a fair idea that each of the boxes was extremely heavy but not of its contents the man in charge of the moving operation was a highly decorated 20 year old ss halp shafira or senior sergeant named wilhelm ant aunt who was a member of the elite leib standarta ss adolf hitler the lssah had an unusually close relationship with the fuhrer and one of hitler's secretaries noted that aunt would spend hours on end talking to hitler inside his bunker study following battle wounds aunt had been declared medically unfit and had become a popular member of hitler's staff serving as one of his valleys he was assisted by another soldier servant ss hope shafira max wiebes mish recalled that each box weighed at least a hundred pounds and he helped lowered a total of 10 such metal boxes ant and vibes then disappeared back inside the reich chancery only to emerge minutes later as if dressed for battle each man wore a steel helmet and had a camouflaged smock over his uniform each also being armed with an mp40 machine pistol loaded up the truck drove out of the chancellory's court of honor and began its mission aunt was a key element in operation cerralio a desperate attempt to move important persons and documents out of berlin soon to be completely surrounded by soviet forces and relocate this material and this personnel to the second reich chancery at bectus garden in southern bavaria or the nearby nazi leaders village at the obersalzberg these preparations were being made to ensure that when hitler decided to leave berlin and fly south to direct the war from the bunkers beneath his private house the bear cough at the obersalzberg everything would be ready to receive him and his closest staff ss gruppenfuhrer hans bauer hitler's personal pilot had organized operation cerralio mustering the remaining aircraft of hitler's personal transport squadron some 10 planes in all rear admiral von put camera hitler's naval aid was given specific instructions to empty the safes at the berkoff that contained official correspondence and burned them he flew south aboard hitler's personal fokkerwolf fw 200 condor and among the passengers was hitler's doctor theodore morel who carried with him an army foot locker packed with hitler's medical records the condor flew from berlin guttau to neuebeberg near munich several other aircraft also departed safely for bavaria and a few also went north to where the german grand admiral karl dernitz had established his military headquarters in northern germany the question that often arises is whether hitler himself could have escaped by air from berlin at this time the answer is yes but he chose not to at this time as he still issued orders to his hollowed-out armies attempting to affect the relief of berlin this is not to say that plans had not been made to evacuate hitler and his closest staff should he have ordered it martin bormann had seen to these plans a large junkers ju-290 that had recently been added to the furoro squadron to replace hitler's condor waited on standby outside berlin until the 30th of april 1945. piloted by haltman heinz brown by the time of hitler's death on the 30th of april 1945 there was no way the 290 could have actually reached berlin as all of the airfields had fallen to the soviets however the passenger manifest for this aircraft dated the 21st of april 1945 has survived 23 passengers were to have flown south to bavaria on that day they were hitler and ava brown dr gibbles his wife and six children ss gruppenfuhrer heinrich mueller head of the gestapo ss gruppenfuhrer hermann feigerline hitler's ss liaison officer general bergdorf hitler's chief army adjutant walter huvel of the foreign office the deputy commander of the fuhrer squadron s.s oberstenbenfuhrer bets hitler's new doctor stumban furo stumpfeiger ss hobstein furor gross hitler's cook constanza manziali and four rsd bodyguards but in the event hitler refused to go on the 2nd of may 1945 captain brown now relieved of his task to evacuate hitler and his wife flew the ju-290 to kernig grants in czechoslovakia to await orders on the 8th of may 1945 the day germany surrendered brown loaded his aircraft with 70 german women and children and flew to munich and surrendered to the americans but of all the evacuation flights as part of operation cerralio the final one has generated the most interest and intrigue the small truck loaded with zinc-lined boxes escorted by the ss nco's aunt and vibes drove some 10 miles from the reich chancery and hitler's bunker to schoenvalde airfield to make a special rendezvous other trucks and cars had already arrived at schoenvauder and offloaded cargo and passengers at the airfield were three large junckers ju-352 positioned inside earthen revetments to try and protect them from allied bombs the airfield sirens had already sounded on the evening of the 20th of april when the allies launched a final air raid on berlin before such attacks would become too much of a risk to the soviet ground forces enveloping the city the juncker's crews had taken shelter until at 2 am on the 21st of april the all clear was sounded two of the 352s were then pulled by oxen to the take-off position there being insufficient fuel left to waste on tractors then the cargo and passengers began to arrive and to be loaded the ju-352 was a strange-looking beast a development of the famous junkers ju52 tri-motor transport known as the hercules in luftwaffe service only 50 were built designed to make maximum use of non-strategic materials unlike the ju-52 and its successor the ju-252 the 352 had wooden wings and an almost entirely wooden fuselage an upgrade of the 252 design the type had a large rear loading ramp for ease of access with a crew of three and a range of about a thousand miles it was considered an unsatisfactory and inferior design to its earlier incarnations on the 21st of april two of the 352s were prepared for a mission loaded up with crates and passengers they were to fly to einring near bacter's garden the pilots were not told the precise contents of the cargo that they carried but coming as it did from the reich chancellery the fura bunker and other nazi ministries it could be guessed at commanding the aircraft were two highly experienced frontline transport pilots maior or major friedrich gundelfinger and oberleignant schulzer both decided to adopt different ways to reach bavaria opting for flying a treetop height all the way to avoid roving soviet fighters relying on his aircraft's dark camouflaged upper surfaces to prevent detection from above oberlin schulzer took the opposite method flying at high altitude and using clouds as cover any aircraft movement from berlin at this time was extremely risky but the freight and the passengers had to be got out under the fuhrer's orders plane carried less freight but 30 passengers including people from the foreign office the propaganda ministry and the reich chancellery he took off successfully at 5 am gundulfinger's aircraft only carried nine people including the three crew members but was heavily loaded with wooden crates and the ten metal boxes from the reich chancellery such were the box's importance that aunt and fiebers accompanied them on the flight as an armed escort we don't know the identity of the remaining four passengers except that two were women one was later identified as elsa kruger martin bormann's secretary but kruger actually remained behind in the furo bunker to the end and later escaped to the british zone of occupation only her baggage made it to gunulfinger's plane so what was in the boxes we know that some of the regular freight belonged to hitler's dental surgeon dr hugo blaschka the freight included a portable dental treatment system files treatment equipment and dental x-rays this included x-rays and dental charts made on hitler and ava brown vital forensic evidence that would soon be required if the soviets were to positively identify the burn corpses of hitler and brown following their suicides on the 30th of april in the furo bunker dr blaschke himself left on a different cerralio flight to the orbis alzberg as for the zinc boxes which appear to have been fireproof and securely designed to hold important documents what did they contain it appears that all the shorthand notes of what were called hitler's table talks were inside since 1941 hitler had had all of his utterances faithfully recorded for posterity by shorthand clerks so a fascinating record of his utterances opinions and importantly his decisions had been preserved hitler evidently thought this material to be of great importance and had ordered his aid and adjutant ss obergruppenfuhrer julius schaub to ensure that this material as well as an unknown number of other important documents relating to the lead-up to war and decisions taken afterwards be flown out of berlin to safety in bavaria xiao was the only person other than hitler to have keys to the fuhrer's personal safes in the furo bunker and reich chancellery and faithfully served hitler for 25 years wait a minute i hear you say hitler's conversations were published in a book many years ago indeed they were copies of the transcripts coming from three different sources but there were other important documents in the boxes that went onto the plane that have never been seen so important that hitler was determined to preserve them alongside the transcripts hitler instructed shaob to burn all the papers and material not selected to be evacuated that was still in the fura bunker and he did this with his remaining staff in the reich chancellery garden on the 22nd of april shaop would then leave berlin and fly to munich to destroy all private papers at hitler's private apartment there then do the same at the berkoff and finally with orders to destroy hitler's personal pullman train carriage the fact that whatever was inside those ten zinc boxes was not consigned to a bonfire by schaub on hitler's orders indicates that they were to be saved as part of hitler's legacy so in the early morning hours of the 21st of april 1945 oberlo nan schultz's junkers 352 took off without problems for bavaria but gundulfinger's plane was delayed by engine trouble leaving just before 6am shultzer himself encountered problems as well the fuel supply to the port tank was cut and he was forced to put into prague still under german control to make repairs at 7 10 a.m schultz had took off again and arrived at einring at 8 30 am gunnelfinger did not follow him in in fact his aircraft appeared to have disappeared gurnelfinger's ju-352 was spotted by locals on fire skimming trees at guppersdorf village heading in the direction the village of bernersdorf both villagers in the forest close to the czech frontier south of dresden something had gone disastrously wrong gundulfinger's aircraft had probably been attacked but whether by a fighter flack or ground fire from soviet troops is not known his plane on fire the highly experienced pilot was attempting to make an emergency landing in a field close to the forest but running out of altitude the 352 clipped the tops of the trees and went nose first into the field overturned and exploded one crewman the top gunner until franz vestermeyer was thrown clear and survived and one badly injured ss man also survived dying two days after the crash everyone else aboard was killed on impact or burned horribly to death inside the wreck it's mostly wooden construction turning it into a raging torch it has been reported that among the first people on the scene were soviet and french prisoners of war doing manual labor in the forest and they recalled the screams of the trapped people inside villages from nearby bernesdorf were quickly at the scene as well and once the flames had died down they managed to drag some of the unrecognizable corpses out as well as looting whatever cargo they could find local police and it is also reported members of a luftwaffe flak detachment arrived on the scene and cordoned off the area and reported the crash to berlin hitler was informed soon afterwards and apparently went white with shock he expressed regret for the deaths of his favored staff and said of aunt i entrusted him with extremely valuable documents which show posterity the truth of my actions other aircraft evacuating berlin were also shot down a yonkers ju-52 from hitler's squadron that normally carried hitler's personal baggage had taken off from perking in bavaria to fly to schoenvalde in berlin it was flying low a treetop height but in the vicinity of uttabog was hit by ground fire and crashed attempting an emergency landing all aboard perishing returning to gunulfinger's aircraft what became of the fuhrer's 10 boxes this is the million-dollar question and would lead to a multi-million dollar fraud various investigations of the bernesdorf area have turned up quite a collection of artifacts in the homes of local residents many metal and glass parts of the plane that survived the fire ended up incorporated into buildings including plane windows that form part of a chicken coop a total of 4 711 vials porcelain shards molten silver and dental equipment were recovered showing that dr blaschka's dental equipment was aboard as reported plus lots of baggage belonging to passengers it was also reported that julius schaub's personal seal was discovered intact confirming that the documents that hitler stated were of great historic importance were aboard the aircraft several of the passengers were never identified including two women leading to the mix-up about boarman's secretary elsa kruger she actually survived the war marrying the british officer who interrogated her and living at wallacy in cheshire near liverpool she died in 2005. as mentioned the loss of the dental charts and x-rays of hitler and ava brown complicated greatly soviet efforts to positively identify the charred and unrecognizable corpses they discovered in a shell crater near the furo bunker's emergency exit in early may 1945 fueling suspicions that hitler somehow escaped returning to the ten metal boxes laden with files several explanations have been mooted by journalists and historians who investigated the bernesdorf crash villagers interviewed after the war reported salvaging crates they also reported that some carried important nazi seals they said that ss arrived some hours after the crash demanded the crates and took them away and they were never seen again other indications are that some of the crates and metal boxes were hidden by villagers who were searching for items of value likewise these containers have never been seen again another scenario has the crates being located in bernesdorf by the east german authorities in the late 1940s or early 1950s the stasi the east german secret police took them away but this theory is rather weak as after the fall of the berlin war and the dissolution of east germany in 1989 to 90 no boxes of secret hitler documents emerged from the east german archives however there was a co-theory that explained the document's disappearance they were smuggled out of east germany and sold piecemeal to collectors to raise money for the east german communist authorities this was the basis of the hitler diaries fraud when east german forger conrad kuyal began selling diary volumes supposedly written by adolf hitler kuyal said he had obtained them from a corrupt east german general who had got them from boxes retrieved at the bernesdorf crash site in 1983 the diaries completely fooled the famous german magazine stern which ended up paying 3.7 million dollars for them and which were authenticated by none other than the respectable british historian and world war ii intelligence officer hugh trevor roper who had actually investigated hitler's demise on the ground in germany after the war he had written what was considered by many to be the definitive story of hitler's death the hitler diaries fraud was eventually publicly exposed and several people ended up in jail but the affair of the hitler diaries has diverted attention from the search for the real boxes of documents that were on board the ju-352 that crashed on the 21st of april 1945. it remains a fact that to all intents and purposes this archive of extremely valuable material has disappeared into thin air perhaps some of these boxes remain concealed in the bernesdorf area hidden under barns or chicken coops perhaps the ss did take the boxes away and they destroyed them at war's end to prevent their capture perhaps an archivist removed this material from some storage facility when east germany collapsed perhaps they were sold off to collectors who have remained quite silent about their purchases ever since for example julius schaub who arrived at the berkoff hitler's mountain house on the 26th of april 1945 with orders to burn hitler's private correspondence found the orbeez outsburg to be a moonscape following a british air raid the berkoff was badly damaged according to witnesses instead of burning documents schaub helped himself to choice documents and after the war sold them on to collectors to help support himself the contents of the metal boxes have followed an assortment of hitler-related documents and personal letters that have simply disappeared many of these items ending up in veterans attics private collections and libraries all over the united states and europe we can speculate on this forever but of one thing we can be sure some or all of these well-made metal boxes survive the plane crash the hunt for them continues thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also visit my audiobook channel war stories with mark felton you can also help to support both of my channels at paypal and patreon details in the description box below