This story began in KTB #110 and is quite an eye-opener. But this is only the tip of the top of the iceberg! The first part of this incredible story is the very long letter sent to us some years ago by DON ANGEL ALCAZAR de VELASCO (158-+-1985) Chief of the Spanish Spy ring working for the Hitler Government during World War II.

We learned in May 1995 that DON ANGEL took this same story, all 200 pages of it, to the French Secret Service in Paris for some kind of safe-keeping. I assure you - this is quite a story!

After we have read this long letter sent to us by DON ANGEL, we will then publish what formerly (and CURRENT) SECRET files our SHARKHUNTERS ETAPPANDIENST agents have dug up. In certain situations - we mean that literally!

Remember the two things we ask you to keep in mind while reading this incredible story by DON ANGEL.

1) DON ANGEL was an ardent NAZI throughout the War and up to the time of his death. This is apparent from time to time in the text of this letter, so don't let this bother you.

2) There are many twists and turns in this letter and some HARD facts in the files that we will publish after this letter - DO NOT FORM AN OPINION until you've read all the amazing facts you'll see on our INTELLIGENCE PAGE.

Now - turn the page, and walk into history!

Had they seized their opportunities, the Allies might well have captured the man who was destined to continue preaching our NAZI creed long after the war was over- Martin Bormann himself! But these considerations hardly worried us as we waited there in the besieged bunker in April 1945. On the 15th of that month, the bunker received one of its most interesting visitors.

Eva Braun was as different from the popular image of a dictator's mistress as one could imagine. She came from a simple middle-class family . . . and she was a simple, middle-class person. This woman, pretty rather than beautiful, had in her twelve years courtship spent little more than a few weeks alone with Hitler since their first meetings in a photographer's studio in 1933.

And now, with the Führer alternately raving at the break-up of his empire and directing impossible orders at the badly mauled armies, she found it no less difficult to have him to herself. It is difficult to say what she did with herself in the Führerbunker. She came in with no luggage but carrying a fur coat, and disappeared beyond the door to Hitler's personal quarters. I saw her only once more.

On April 16, Wagner ordered Oberbiel and myself to remove all the office records from their files. Box by box, was carried them into an adjoining room where they were burned in a boiler. Even then, those reports which arrived during the following few days were destroyed as soon as they had been read by Hitler. On the 21st, we were finally ordered to evacuate the bunker.

An hour before we were told, I had gone upstairs to the upper level of the bunker and I saw Martin Bormann arrive. His face was stern, his uniform had been torn and spattered with mud - which gave support to a rumor in the bunker that he had been personally directing rear guard action of our troops in Berlin. He entered the bunker in a hurry, ignoring the greetings of those Party officials standing, waiting for him in the entrance corridor. I followed him downstairs and, as I stopped to enter my own office, I saw him brush aside the SS guard outside the door to Hitler's quarters, and stride in.

From the look of unsmiling resolve on his face, I got the impression that he had arrived at some important decision. But even this did nothing to sweeten the air of defeat which hung like a shroud around the bunker. A state of mind which was summed up in a phrase which I heard more and more often:

"ALL IS LOST EXCEPT HONOR."

Bormann was closeted with the Führer when Wagner joined Oberbiel and myself in our office and announced: "Today will be our last day in the bunker, gentlemen."

He sat on his deck and handed 'round cigarettes. Then, in a steady voice, more composed than he'd been for many weeks, he went on: "Our work here is finished. There is nothing left for us to do."

"Nothing?" I queried.

"No. At least, not here. I have been told that we are leaving for another part of the Reich. I imagine we shall continue our work there." Wagner replied. Then he strode out of the office and left us to our own thoughts. Mine turned around the problem of how we would ever get out of Berlin alive. I was technically a neutral citizen - - but I had a strong suspicion that Russian shells did not respect neutrality and that if I were captured by Soviet troops, I would be shot anyway. But, however great the odds against living in that battleground upstairs, I was perfectly willing to take them; anything rather than die in this hole in the ground.

I must have been in my office for some two hours after Wagner's announcement when I heard the sounds of unusual activity in the central corridor of the bunker. I went out and looked. I was in time to see Martin Bormann leaving Hitler's quarters in company with General Zimmermann and half a dozen other men, most of them out of uniform. Bormann seemed much more relaxed than he had on entering, and I even saw him smile weakly at some remark of Zimmermann's.

From the other end of the corridor, a group of officers had entered and now stood in groups along both sides of the corridor. One group stood within a yard of me and it was in front of these officers that Zimmermann stopped and spoke. He told them: "The war is not lost. Although the situation is both heavy and dangerous, I am convinced that the faith and courage of the Wehrmacht will enable us to make a last stand which will, I am sure, oblige the Allies to await negotiations."

Despite the Patriotic assurances of this SS General, the officers near me received his words with little enthusiasm. I could see from their faces they quite plainly did not believe a word he said. But Bormann seemed in a hurry to get away and took the General by the arm to lead him toward the stairs and the exit from the bunker.

Another two hours passed - though to me, anxious to leave, it seemed like two years - before anything more happened.

There was another commotion in the corridor outside & once more I went to investigate. This time I counted about thirty officers and officials standing in small groups along the corridor. Now and again, they glanced towards the door leading to Hitler's quarters, outside which the SS guard still stood, impassively, to attention.

Somewhere, an unseen radio crackled an announcement. I caught only these words: "The Führer ..." before someone switched it off. I sensed that something big was about to happen.

Moments later, the door of the Führer's quarters opened and Eva Braun appeared. A fur coat was folded over her arm and in her right hand, she was holding a black vanity case. Behind her came two young girls in civilian clothes, and an elderly woman followed by three uniformed SS officers carrying cases.

Eva Braun had changed terribly in the few days since I had seen her. She seemed to be sleep-walking. Her hair was tangled and uncombed, and the rings beneath her eyes were dark and startling as if she had not slept for days. Here eyes lifeless, as if all life had been drained from her. She walked slowly along the corridor, turning to murmur a vague 'Goodbye" to some of the men who now lined the corridor and were looking at her incredulously. Her feet appeared to drag and scuff along the floor, as if walking was an effort. After nerve-wracking minutes, she reached the foot of the stairs where a young Colonel stepped forward and took her arm. She gave him a quick, weak smile and, leaning heavily on him, disappeared from sight.

The last of my courage seemed to go with her and at that moment, I felt the greatest coward in the world. To me, this tragic figure was a living symbol of our defeat.

Hardly had she disappeared when the door of the conference room opened again and Hitler himself appeared in the doorway. A group of Generals - Keitel and Jodl among them, and GrossAdmiral Dönitz followed close behind him. The Führer shuffled down the corridor, his left leg dragging slightly, shaking hands with everyone of us assembled there.

HARRY'S NOTE - At this point in DON ANGEL's letter, I thought we had caught him in a lie. We did not think that Admiral Dönitz could be in Berlin at that late stage of the War. I telephoned immediately to PETER-ERICH CREMER (114-+-1985). He was head of the personal guard of Dönitz at Flensburg. and so should have personal knowledge.

I did not give him any specific date - I only asked if Admiral Dönitz was in Berlin anytime in March or April of 1945. He said very quickly that it was not possible for Dönitz to be in Berlin in those months because he was in Flensburg, Commanding the Navy and Berlin was under constant siege and nearly encircled by the Red Army. At this point, I believed that DON ANGEL was lying. I put his letter into a file and went on about my work.

Two days later, 'ALI' CREMER called me back from his home in Germany. He said that he had looked at his personal note book of the War years and he told me that GrossAdmiral Dönitz WAS in the Führerbunker over 21st April. I had not given him this date in my earlier question - only "March or April" and he told the this precise date as claimed by DON ANGEL.

I realized that the letter from DON ANGEL was not a lie, and I pulled it again from its dusty file.

Hitler's complete degeneration was there in every movement he made. He was like a puppet without strings, an empty shell of a man whose power alone prevented his complete collapse. Step by step he moved nearer - pausing in front of each of my companions for a handshake and a mumbled word. My eyes were glued on him; fascinated. I who had thrilled to his stirring oratory and responded to his call to war could hardly believe that this hobbling creature had come so close to ruling the world.

Yet when he came to me and I held his limp, thin hand in mine, I felt a great force - like an electric shock in my arm. It was as if all his distress and sickness were being passed into me. His eyes were down cast and when he spoke, his voice was so low I could hardly catch his words. I craned forward lest he had some vital message of hope and encouragement. But all he said was: "Where goes this man without a motive?"

To this day, I don't know what he meant but considering the situation then, he could hardly have muttered more apt words. He turned away from me. He stumbled, and Keitel and Admiral Dönitz leapt forward and took him under the armpits to stop him falling. But with a tremendous effort, Hitler shrugged them away and continued down the corridor without assistance. Throughout this funereal walk, he waved his right hand aimlessly. It was as if he was trying to say: "My dear friends, excuse me."

I, and I imagine everyone else, had been expecting some kind of excuse or explanation. Some word to tell us what was to happen now. But there was nothing.

Bormann had promised that the Führer would find some way of pulling through, but now it was plain to us all that neither Hitler - a finished and broken old man, on the evidence of my own eyes - not Bormann nor anyone else believed this promise any longer. Indeed Bormann, who for so long had diligently worked in Hitler's shadow night and day, was conspicuous by his absence. It was believed by some of the bunker staff that Bormann in collusion with Dönitz was attempting to negotiate with the Russians. Wagner himself told me this, adding:

"It is probably the only way of getting free of this cemetery in which we are now living." He did not seem to question the rights or wrongs of it. Survival was all that mattered. But I, who later heard Bormann condemn the Communists and all they stood for, could not accept that this fervent NAZI could betray us so easily to the enemy.

As he told me himself eight months after the War ended, "I was not concerned that day with making excuses for Adolf Hitler. I was only concerned with saving his life."

And he told me then: "Our Führer can still unify Germany and make it free from spiritual and geographical division."

Considering the date this comment was made and the situation facing those in the Führerbunker - doesn't it seem that this is a strange comment?

More Don Angel Alcazar de Velasco

Part 1: Berlin 1945 and Hitler's Bunker (#110)
Part 2: From Spain 1944 to Berlin 1945 (#111)
Part 3: Meeting Hitler (#112)
Part 4: Meeting Bormann (#113)
Part 5: Final Days of April 1945 (#114)
Part 6: Hitler Alive? Leaving Berlin (#115)
Part 7: Hitler Arrives at Bavarian Redoubt (#116)
Part 8: Escape to Switzerland and Spain (#117)
Part 9: Martin Bormann Arrives in Spain (#118)
Part 10: Martin Bormann in Spain 1946 (#119)
Part 11: Martin Bormann Leaves Spain (#120)
Part 12: Martin Bormann and Hitler (#121)
Part 13: U-Boat Trip to Argentina (#122)
Part 14: South America and Hitler, 1952 (#123)
Part 15: Martin Bormann, 1957 (#124)
Part 16: Home to Madrid (#125)