12. The Red Army might have been at the door – but Hitler and his top Nazis were often more concerned with the ‘enemy within’
The Red Army wasn’t the only thing the occupants of the Fuhrerbunker worried about. Beneath the Reich Chancellery, paranoia was rife. The aristocratic Freytag von Loringhoven was a regular German Army solider who served in the Bunker for more than 100 days. While underground, he personally observed Hitler purposefully divide and rule among sycophants and soldiers. “He created parallel command structures that competed for resources and he appointed political officers to spy on military professionals. Right until the end, he kept all the cards in his hand,” the former aide-de-camp. Unsurprisingly, summary executions of supposed traitors were not uncommon.
Hitler even had his wife’s brother-in-law, an SS officer, shot for desertion. Goebbels, meanwhile wrote in his diary of “the delirium of treachery which surrounds the Fuhrer”. This was made even worse when the Bunker received a telegram from Hermann Goering. In it, the head of the Luftwaffe stated his intention to take over as Fuhrer given that Hitler was pinned underground. This was seen as the ultimate betrayal and unleashed what some described as being Hitler’s most explosive rant of all. Given such a lack of loyalty, Hitler concluded, he had no choice but to take his own life.