16. After helping forcefully euthanize children within Hitler’s bunker, the Führer’s personal surgeon Ludwig Stumpfegger attempted to flee Berlin
Ludwig Stumpfegger (b. 1910) was a physician and SS-Obersturmbannführer, who served as Hitler’s personal surgeon from 1944-1945. Joining the SS in 1933, and the Nazi Party itself in 1935, Stumpfegger worked as an assistant doctor at Hohenlychen Sanatorium. In this capacity, Stumpfegger was closely involved with the Berlin Summer Olympics and Garmisch-Partenkirchen Winter Olympics of 1936. After the outbreak of the Second World War, Hohenlychen begun conducting medical experiments on female concentration camp inmates for the SS. Briefly relocated to the surgical department of the SS hospital in Berlin between September 1939 and April 1940, Stumpfegger continued his work at Hohenlychen until October 1944 when he was transferred at Hitler’s request to the “Wolfsschanze” (Wolf’s Lair) as the resident doctor.
Present in the Führerbunker in April 1945, Stumpfegger was responsible for providing cyanide for Hitler’s dog Blondi, as an effectiveness test for Eva Braun, as well as assisting Magda Goebbels murder her six children. Following Hitler’s permission for a “breakout” prior to his own suicide on April 30, Stumpfegger left the Führerbunker on May 1 as one of ten groups of senior Nazis attempting to flee Berlin. After crossing the Spree river Stumpfegger, Bormann, and Axmann split from their group, with Stumpfegger and Bormann committing suicide by cyanide near Lehrter train station. As in the case of Bormann, Stumpfegger’s death was only confirmed years later due to the excavation of his remains in 1972, subsequent forensic examination, and finally verified by genetic testing in 1999.