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Heinz Linge

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Heinz Linge
Linge in 1935
Born(1913-03-23)23 March 1913
Bremen,German Empire
Died9 March 1980(1980-03-09)(aged 66)
Hamburg,West Germany
AllegianceNazi Germany
Service/ branchSchutzstaffel
Years of service1933–45
RankSS–Sturmbannführer
Unit1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler;Führerbegleitkommando
Battles / warsWorld War II

Heinz Linge(23 March 1913 – 9 March 1980) was aGermanSSofficer who served as avaletfor the leader ofNazi Germany,Adolf Hitler,and became known for his close personal proximity to historical events. Linge was present in theFührerbunkeron 30 April 1945, whenHitler committed suicide.Linge's ten-year service to Hitler ended at that time. In the aftermath of theSecond World Warin Europe, Linge spent ten years inSovietcaptivity.

Early life and education

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Linge was born inBremen, Germany.He was employed as abricklayerprior to joining the SS in 1933. He served in theLeibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler(LSSAH), Hitler's bodyguard. In 1934, when he was part of No. 1 Guard to Hitler's residence on the Obersalzberg nearBerchtesgaden,Linge was selected to serve at theReich Chancellery.[1]By 1945, he had obtained the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer(major).[2][3]

Valet to Hitler

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On 24 January 1935, Linge was chosen to be a valet for Hitler. He was one of three valets at that time. In September 1939, Linge replacedKarl Wilhelm Krauseas chief valet for Hitler.[4]Linge worked as a valet in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, at Hitler's residence near Berchtesgaden, and atWolfsschanzeinRastenburg.He stated that his daily routine was to wake Hitler each day at 11:00 AM and provide morning newspapers and messages. Linge would then keep him stocked with writing materials and spectacles for his morning reading session in bed. Hitler would then dress himself to astopwatchwith Linge acting as a "referee". He would take a light breakfast of tea, biscuits and an apple and a vegetarian lunch at 2:30 PM. Dinner with only a few guests present was at 8.00pm.[5]As Hitler's valet, Linge was also a member of theFührerbegleitkommandowhich provided personal security protection for Hitler.[6]By 1944, he was also head of Hitler's personal service staff. Besides accompanying Hitler on all his travels, he was responsible for the accommodations; all the servants, mess orderlies, cooks, caterers and maids were "subordinate" to Linge.[4]

Berlin 1945

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Linge was one of many soldiers, servants, secretaries, and officers who moved into the Reich Chancellery andFührerbunkerinBerlinin 1945. There he continued as Hitler's chief valet and protocol officer and was one of those who closely witnessed the last days of Hitler's life during theBattle of Berlin.He was also Hitler's personal military orderly. Linge delivered messages to Hitler and escorted people in to meet with Hitler. In addition, after Hitler's personal physicianTheodor Morellleft Berlin on 23 April, Linge and Dr.Werner Haaseadministered to Hitler the prepared medicine which had been left behind.[7][8]

Two days before committing suicide on 30 April withEva Braun,Hitler confided his suicide plan to Linge. He asked Linge to have their bodies wrapped in blankets and taken up to the garden to be cremated.[9]Following his marriage to Eva Braun, Hitler spent the last night of his life lying awake and fully clothed on his bed.[10]

On 30 April, Hitler had a last midday meal with his secretaries. After the meal, Linge spoke briefly with Eva Braun. He described her as looking pale and of having had little sleep. She thanked him for his service.[11]Hitler then said farewell to each of his servants and subordinates. Thereafter, Hitler retired to his study at 3:15 p.m.[11]There, Linge privately asked Hitler his orders. Hitler said that he was going to shoot himself and Linge knew what he had to do. "You must never allow my corpse to fall into the hands of the Russians", Hitler told Linge, "they would make a spectacle in Moscow out of my body and put it in waxworks".[12]Further, he had given the order to break-out; Linge was to join one of the groups and try to get to the west. Linge asked for what they should now fight and Hitler replied, "For the coming man". Linge then saluted and left.[13]In a 1974 episode ofThe World at War,Linge and Hitler's secretary,Traudl Junge,describe Hitler's last minutes in the bunker. Linge explains that Hitler and his wife committed suicide in Hitler's private room in the bunker. He recalled how he went into Hitler's private study after hearing a sudden bang and found that Hitler and Braun were dead. Hitler had shot himself in the right temple. Braun had taken what Linge concluded must have been cyanide poison.[14]

After the suicides of Hitler and Braun, their corpses were reportedly carried up the stairs to ground level and through the bunker's emergency exit to the garden behind the Reich Chancellery, where they were doused withpetrol.[15]After the first attempts to ignite the petrol did not work, Linge went back inside the bunker and returned with a thick roll of papers.Martin Bormannlit the papers and threw the torch onto the bodies. As the two corpses caught fire, a small group, including Bormann, Linge,Otto Günsche,Joseph Goebbels,Erich Kempka,Peter Högl,Ewald Lindloff,andHans Reisser,raised their arms in salute as they stood just inside the bunker doorway.[15][16]

At around 16:15, Linge ordered SS-UntersturmführerHeinz Krüger and SS-OberscharführerWerner Schwiedel to roll up the rug in Hitler's study to burn it. The two men removed the blood-stained rug, carried it up the stairs and outside to the Chancellery garden. There the rug was placed on the ground and burned.[17]On and off during the afternoon, theSovietsshelled the area in and around the Reich Chancellery. SS guards brought over additional cans of petrol to further burn the corpses, which lasted from 16:00 to around 18:30.[18]Linge later wrote that he burned other personal effects of Hitler's while an SS bodyguard oversaw the burial of the burnt bodies in a shell crater.[19]

Linge was one of the last to leave theFührerbunkerin the early morning hours of 1 May 1945. He teamed up with Erich Kempka. Linge was later captured near See-Strasse. Several days later, after his identity was revealed, two Soviet officers escorted Linge by train to Moscow where he was thrown into the notoriousLubyanka Prison.[20]

Later life and death

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See also:Death of Adolf Hitler

Linge spent ten years in Soviet captivity and was released in 1955.[2]During the imprisonment, Linge and Günsche were kept in solitary confinement. Both men weretorturously interrogatedby the Soviet People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD;later superseded by theMinistry of Internal Affairs;MVD) about the circumstances of Hitler's death.[21]A dossier was edited by Soviet NKVD officers and presented toJoseph Stalinon 30 December 1949, published in 2005 asThe Hitler Book.[22]

Linge initially told the Soviets that he heard Hitler's suicide gunshot before explaining that he only said this to keep his account from appearing "frail" in light of "shadowy areas" of his memory.[23]He also claimed to have learned of the suicide from the smell of gunpowder, despite being separated by several doors and Hitler's rooms being wellventilated.[24]Linge told the Soviets that he and Bormann could tell that Hitler and Braun were dead by looking at them, but did not explain why they did not summon Hitler's doctors to confirm the deaths.[25]He stated in 1946 that he saw a coin-sized wound to Hitler's right temple with no exit wound or other apparent damage to the skull.[26]Linge may have been one of only two witnesses to survive the war to make observations of Hitler's head wound in the aftermath of his suicide, the other beingHitler YouthleaderArtur Axmann,who reported blood on both temples (but no clear entry wound).[27]Günsche reportedly told the Soviets that he only learned of Hitler's method of death from Linge,[28][29]but testified in 1956 that (like Linge) he saw an entry wound to the right temple, which convinced him that Hitler died by a suicide gunshot.[30]According to historianMark Felton(who does not explain how he accessed the Soviet material), Linge reportedly told a Soviet agent—undercover as a captured German—that only he and Bormann knew the circumstances of Hitler's death; Linge repeatedly said he would not 'crack' to the Soviets and suggested that (from his apparently limited viewpoint) Hitler's temple wound seemed like it could have been painted on.[31][32]

In 1956, Linge provided testimony in a West German court investigating Hitler's death.[33][34]In light oftheories that Hitler had survived,Linge asserted that the corpse was hidden in a "common grave", undiscovered somewhere about the Chancellery garden.[35]

In 1980, Linge died inHamburg,West Germany.Hismemoir,originally published in German in 1980 asBis zum Untergang(English: 'Until the Fall') was published in English in July 2009 asWith Hitler to the Endwith an introduction by historianRoger Moorhouse,author ofKilling Hitler.According to his memoir, "Linge was responsible for all aspects of Hitler's household". Despite the circumstances of the war, Linge's portrayal of the dictator has been described as "affectionate", although as a leader Hitler acted in an "unpredictable and demanding" manner.[36][37]

Film portrayals

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Linge is portrayed by actorThomas LimpinselinOliver Hirschbiegel's 2004 German filmDownfall.InHans-Jürgen Syberberg'sHitler: A Film from Germany(1977),[38]he is played byHellmut Lange.In the 1971 Eastern Bloc co-productionLiberation V: The Final Assault,he was portrayed by East German actor Otto Busse.[39]

See also

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References

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Citations

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  1. ^Linge 2009,p. 10.
  2. ^abJoachimsthaler 1999,p. 283.
  3. ^Eberle & Uhl 2005,p. xxix.
  4. ^abLinge 2009,p. 20.
  5. ^Linge 2009,pp. 55–58.
  6. ^Hoffmann 2000,p. 56.
  7. ^Joachimsthaler 1999,p. 98.
  8. ^O'Donnell 2001,pp. 37, 125, 317.
  9. ^Linge 2009,p. 192.
  10. ^Linge 2009,p. 197.
  11. ^abLinge 2009,p. 198.
  12. ^Krysia Diver (21 March 2005)."Lost file reveals Hitler's paranoia".The Guardian.Retrieved16 January2017.
  13. ^Linge 2009,p. 199.
  14. ^The World at War,ep. 21. "The Two Deaths of Adolf Hitler", 1974
  15. ^abLinge 2009,p. 200.
  16. ^Joachimsthaler 1999,pp. 197, 198.
  17. ^Joachimsthaler 1999,pp. 162, 175.
  18. ^Joachimsthaler 1999,pp. 210–211, 220.
  19. ^Linge 2009,p. 201.
  20. ^Linge 2009,pp. 209–212.
  21. ^Eberle & Uhl 2005,p. xxviii.
  22. ^Eberle & Uhl 2005,pp. x, xviii.
  23. ^Brisard & Parshina 2018,pp. 259–262.
  24. ^Brisard & Parshina 2018,pp. 260–261.
  25. ^Brisard & Parshina 2018,pp. 293–294.
  26. ^Brisard & Parshina 2018,pp. 231–232.
  27. ^"Axmann, Artur, interviewed on October 10, 1947. - Musmanno Collection -- Interrogations of Hitler Associates".Gumberg LibraryDigital Collections.Retrieved8 October2021– viaDuquesne University.
  28. ^Brisard & Parshina 2018,pp. 177–178, 217, 219, 259, 297–298.
  29. ^Joachimsthaler 1999,pp. 155–156, 158.
  30. ^Joachimsthaler 1999,pp. 155–156, 161, 164.
  31. ^Felton, Mark(2023). "The 'Hitler' Body".Find the Führer: The Secret Soviet Investigation.Episode 3. 21 minutes in.
  32. ^Brisard & Parshina 2018,p. 262.
  33. ^Joachimsthaler 1999,p. 154-155.
  34. ^O'Malley, J. P. (4 September 2018)."Putin grants authors partial access to secret Soviet archives on Hitler's death".The Times of Israel.Retrieved22 August2024.
  35. ^Felton, Mark; Linge, Heinz (2023). "The Forgotten Theory".Find the Führer: The Secret Soviet Investigation.Episode 6.The Russians have never found Hitler's body. I know that because—uh... he uh, they never—they questioned me repeatedly about it.
  36. ^"With Hitler to the End".SimonAndSchuster.Archived fromthe originalon 16 August 2022.Retrieved3 November2022.
  37. ^Linge 2009,pp. xi.
  38. ^"Hitler: A Film from Germany".Retrieved20 July2019– via imdb.
  39. ^Otto Busse filmographyArchived2012-05-30 at theWayback Machine.defa-sternstunden.de.

Bibliography

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Further reading

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Media related toHeinz Lingeat Wikimedia Commons

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