Death swooped from the clear blue sky in the shape of a British fighter patrol. In seconds, the air was full of exploding cannon shells. Our driver braked and swerved into a hedgerow as the leading car of the convoy vanished in an eruption of flame.

I threw myself from the car and fought my way into the hedge. I was dimly conscious of the screams of the wounded above the roar of the aircraft engines, and saw a burst of fire from one of the planes above, cut a swath of death less than a yard in front of me. I didn’t see what happened to the others - I hugged the ground with my belly. my head buried in my hands. In that kind of situation you don’t worry about the others. The world ends with the person by your side; the rest cease to exist.

It was all over in a minute; yet in that minute twenty three people had died and at least a dozen others lay badly wounded along the roadside. Ten of the cars were destroyed completely. Some of the less badly wounded, we took in the remaining cars but the rest we left behind, wrapped in blankets and greatcoats, hoping that our own ambulance service or the Allied Red Cross would discover and take care of them.

For a time, we didn’t feel like talking and once again I was thankful just to be alive. But soon my mind began to sort out the tremendous events I had witnessed in the past few days. Suddenly the SS Colonel, his name I believe was Lachner, broke into my thoughts and caught the attention of us all.

“The Führer wanted nothing more than to be left to die with his people.” he shrilled. “But Bormann wanted him out alive.”

I felt Wagner stiffen and Oberbeil peering intently at the Colonel. It was obvious he knew a lot more than we did about Hitler’s fate.

“Bormann had left orders that the Führer was to be drugged, by force if necessary & taken out of Berlin. That’s what happened.”

Lachner, who had held a responsible position close to Bormann in the Party Chancellery, told us the full story of what had happened.

When Bormann appeared at the bunker the last time, Hitler was still determined to stay and if necessary, prepared to die defending the capital with the phantom legions which by then, existed only in his mind. But Bormann had already assumed command and gave orders that both Hitler and Eva Braun were to be evacuated from the bunker. They were both forcibly drugged with, it turned out, fatal results for Eva Braun.

As Lachner spoke, I recalled Hitler’s ashen grey face and his stutter which had been even more pronounced than usual. I had assumed his appearance had been due to the strong emotion he must have felt on leaving Berlin - but now it seemed more likely due to the side effects of the drugs he had been given.

The knowledge that Bormann had countermanded the Führer’s last wish left us stunned. It seemed incredible that Martin Bormann, the man who had been Hitler’s faithful lieutenant for twenty years could perform such a ‘volte face’. I had to wait almost a year to hear from Bormann himself, the true reason for this seeming piece of treachery.

Our flight across Germany lasted almost twenty hours. I still have a vague picture of the shattered towns and the blank faced people we passed on the long drive south. As the hours dragged past, Lachner grew more and more voluble, chattering endlessly on and on about the backstage intrigue at Hitler’s court. Lachner was insistent that many of Hitler’s worst blunders were due to the misguided advice he was given by a covey of astrologers whom he regularly consulted.

Some years after the war, I myself discovered how the British Secret Service had managed to bribe the so-called prophets and gave them certain information to pass on to the Führer in the form of predictions. An English Secret Service agent told me that without their advice, Hitler would never have attacked Russia. If this were true, and I had no reason then or now to doubt it, then this can be considered as probably the biggest single triumph in the long history of espionage.

As dusk on the evening of April 22nd, our depleted convoy arrived at its destination - Rottach am Egern; Germany’s natural redoubt in the Bavarian mountains. It was here the NAZIs planned to make their last stand against the advancing Allies. And as we approached the heavily guarded mountain fortress, I recalled the words of General SS Zimmermann, that here we might yet win an honorable peace.

Long queues of vehicles waited to pass through the checkpoints along the road. At each point, we were thoroughly scrutinized by SS guards, and stage by stage, we penetrated deeper and higher into the redoubt; each car directed to its different section according to the number hastily painted on the sides. We were told to follow a narrow rutten track which wound us up the steep incline from the foot of one of the mountains. The driver finally pulled up outside the entrance to a tunnel, guarded by more SS men with sub-machine guns.

This photo of the tunnel was shot from the inside out by S.E.I.G. Agent Be 448 - but it was not taken during the war years; it was taken in the summer of 1995!

Without a word, a young lieutenant led us through a steel doored entrance into a miniature bunker - smaller but similar in layout to the Führerbunker in Berlin.

For the first time in two days, our small intelligence unit was alone again; Lachner having left us at the main barrier of Rottach am Eggern to rejoin his colleagues in another section. We had been allocated a tiny office near the bunker entrance, the new headquarters for NAZI Germany’s espionage work.

Wagner exploded when he saw our miserable quarters. Apart from a heavy wooden table and four hard backed chairs, the room was completely bare. We were equipped neither with radio nor transmitter or files, code books and the necessary paraphernalia for our job yet we were expected to cope, we discovered, with the escape plans of some of NAZI Germany’s leading figures.

HARRY’s NOTE - When some of the leaders said they would fight to the last man, perhaps they meant they would fight to the last Sergeant while they got out safely. Did they have a very elaborate safety net in place for the escape of themselves and their own families? Read on; see what you think.

Fortunately, one of Wagner’s angry outbursts brought quick results & twenty four hours after our arrival, a powerful radio transmitter and receiver was set up in a corner of our office.

In the week that followed we received and transmitted orders for the escape from Germany of dozens of top officials in the NAZI Party. Who most of them are, I shall never know. to me they were just code names on a piece of paper. But it was obvious that this mass escape had been planned a long time before.

Escape Routes

Our two main escape routes out of Germany led through the Swiss border towns of Feldkirch and Kempten. Of these, the latter was far the safest route as our agent there was a member of the local Communist Party - a NAZI who had been planted there during the War among our bitterest enemies. It was one of the few pieces of foresight shown by the German Intelligence Service - probably one of the most inefficient organizations of its kind in the world.

I had been in Rottach am Eggern for just a week when Wagner called me into his private office. He had been almost without sleep for a week and he looked like a man about to acknowledge final defeat. But he forced a smile as he told me: “My dear Gomez; I have good news for you. You have been ordered back to Madrid. There you are to contact members of your old organization and prepare to receive a very special visitor.”

“Who is he?” I asked.

“That I cannot tell you. What I can tell you is that if the NAZI Party is to survive, then it is essential that this person gets safely out of the Reich and out of Europe. The job has been assigned to you. You will receive instructions in due course. They will be signed by the code name ZAPATO.”

I returned to my own quarters with mixed emotions. Glad to be getting back to Spain but intensely curious as to who it was Wagner considered so vital to the NAZI cause.

On the 29th of April, 1945 I left the redoubt - the last fragments of the NAZI Empire which had spanned Europe only a year before. That morning, I said goodbye to Colonel Wagner and Willy Oberbeil. My last vision of them was of two tired and dispirited men, their once arrogant black uniforms now stained and creased. They answered my salute with a weary mumbled ‘HEIL!’. I turned and left the bunker. Outside an SS guard was waiting with a OKW car, topped up with fuel and a pass to enable me to get out of the main gate.

I drove past the checkpoint, still heavily manned, and took the road to Munich where I had been given the address of a garage to refuel.

I was still a long way from the advancing American Front but the evidence of war was all around me. the road to Munich was littered with abandoned vehicles, a few intact but most of them partially or totally destroyed. Hastily arranged diversions set up by the Wehrmacht Police enabled me to avoid the worst sections and I was able to make good speed apart from a thirty minute holdup to allow a military convoy through. I met few civilians on the roads and the little traffic I encountered was all military.

SS Intelligence had supplied me with false papers, identifying me as a Spanish chef in the Hotel Deutsche Kaiser in Munich. My papers were barely glanced at by the guards at the checkpoints I passed. It was hard to recognize in the blank faces of these guards, the proud army which had once goose-stepped its triumphant way across Europe with such arrogant ease. And had it not been for the rigid discipline of their officers, I felt sure that many of these men would have swollen the stream of deserters who were daily giving themselves up to the advancing Americans.

But soon I had my own troubles. I had been assured that I would have no trouble getting fuel in Munich. none of the filling stations along the road had been open but it had not worried me. However, when I went to the address I had been given and the garage owner refused to serve me with gasoline, I became concerned. I told him no one at this time could run a car unless he were on government business. But he refused to be persuaded.

.....an SS detachment had turned into the street and were marching towards me....

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)

Note:

After we have run this long letter from DON ANGEL, we will then publish what formerly (and CURRENT) SECRET files our SHARKHUNTERS S.E.I.G. Agents have dug up; and in certain situations, we mean this quite literally!

Please remember that we ask you to keep these facts 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 obvious from time to time in the text of this letter, so don’t let it bother you.
2) Spies and agents usually tend to embellish their feats and DON ANGEL was no different, so we must ‘add a grain of salt’ to some of these revelations.
3) There are twists & turns in this long letter; some HARD facts in our files we’ll print after this letter. DO NOT FORM AN OPINION until you have read all the amazing facts you’ll see here on our INTELLIGENCE PAGE.