The Great Game

'As Hitler shook my hand and wished me luck, I saw a glint of envy in his eye,' says the 91-year-old former Wehrmacht aide-de-camp. A day later, on 30 April 1945, Hitler was dead and the terrified soldier was in a canoe on Havel River, dodging Soviet shelling, trying to reach the last German-held position in Berlin. Sixty years on, he believes a 'legion of guardian angels' spared him death at the hands of the Soviets, of fanatical Nazis and of 'primitive sentries' who tortured him in a British prisoner-of-war camp.

Today Baron Freytag von Loringhoven is the only survivor among the close advisers of the Führer - who he says was probably a drug addict. For many years a Germany steeped in guilt did not want to hear his story. Now it has taken a French publisher, Perrin, to release Dans le Bunker de Hitler - his unique account of the days leading up to the suicide of the Führer and his wife Eva Braun. The baron also helped the makers of the film Downfall, which charts Hitler's end and opens in British cinemas on Friday.

A nobleman from the Baltic states, Freytag von Loringhoven was viewed with suspicion by the Nazis 'who loathed education, real culture and tradition'. [sounds familiar - Jax] Unlike Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge, whose memoirs were published before her death two years ago, he claims he never fell under the Führer's spell and insists the distinction between the professional Wehrmacht and politicised Waffen-SS was real. 'After the war I had the unpleasant feeling of having served as a combustible, as heating wood, for the adventures of a charlatan,' he says. 'I had served a criminal regime while remaining loyal to my military convictions.'

It was only as a prisoner of war that he realised the Nazis had murdered Jews 'on an industrial scale', he says. ' We didn't even know the names of the concentration camps.'

In the bunker, Freytag von Loringhoven observed Hitler 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. [Ask Rummy about this -Jax]

'Hitler's only military experience had been as a corporal during the First World War. He knew only one thing - the ' fanatischer Widerstand ' (fanatical resistance), and I can still hear him say the words. Blitzkrieg was not devised by him but by military strategists whom he later sidelined. As soon as we suffered the first setbacks he became deaf to calls to switch to modern, mobile defence techniques. He saw them as defeatist since they sometimes required giving up territory.

'Hitler could be very aggressive but towards the end he was very controlled. He could be pleasant and even warm. He could be very charming - he was a real Austrian. People were impressed when he asked them questions about their lives. It was a way of controlling them. He played with people.'

Hitler swore by his doctor, Theodor Morell, a charlatan who gave him glucose injections and stimulants. 'Morell made a lot of money during the war, not least with a louse powder we were given on the eastern front which smelt awful and was useless.' The baron holds Morell in particular contempt: 'I shall never forget how he begged, on 22 and 23 April, when the women were allowed to leave. He sat there like a fat sack of potatoes and begged to fly out. And he did.'

For the last few months of the war Hitler lived in the fetid air of the bunker, concealed beneath eight metres of concrete, occasionally going outside to play with his dog.

'Hitler got up at around midday. The main event was the afternoon meeting on the military situation. It would be announced, " Meine Herren, der Führer kommt ", and everyone made the Nazi salute. Hitler entered the room, shook everyone's hand - it was a limp handshake - and sat down. He was the only one allowed to sit at the map table, which he adored because he was obsessed by detail, and occasionally made concessions to older officers, allowing them to sit on a stool.'

Freytag von Loringhoven, a tall, elegant man with thin bands of gold on the little finger of his left hand and a tweed jacket that looks tailor-made, albeit some time ago, served at Stalingrad. 'I had studied law but the profession was being taken over by the Nazis. My family had been ruined and I had no way of buying my independence. The Wehrmacht seemed an honourable career.'

Sitting in an armchair in his Munich study, speaking perfect English punctuated by German adjectives, he occasionally reaches into a pile of books to check facts. Maria, the housekeeper who cares for him and his third wife, Herta, 76, has brought coffee. Next to his china cup lie two bound notebooks, marked 'Wartime Log'. In them is an anecdote the baron especially wants Observer readers to hear: 'While I was a prisoner, I met a German counter-intelligence officer. He had been based in Holland and had infiltrated the Dutch resistance movement and learnt the code they used with London. One day he got the idea he wanted a new suit. He sent a message to British intelligence and they answered, 'OK, what are your measurements?" He sent them, and not long afterwards he received a parcel with three Savile Row suits!'

But the British did not treat the baron well after his capture on 13 May 1945. 'My British guards would not believe I was not a Nazi,' he says. 'For three days, from morning until evening, they forced me to clean my cell and scrape paint off tiles with my nails. They kicked me and poured water on me. At the end of the day they took my wet clothes and forced me to sleep naked on the wet floor.'

After the war, his wife left him, and he was destitute. A friend gave him work in a publishing firm. He married again and his son is now a diplomat at the German embassy in Moscow. In 1956 he returned to a military career and spent three years in Washington DC as a member of Nato's Standing Group. 'I was the only German officer in the planning group of the Atlantic Alliance, reporting to three superiors who were American, British and French. All had fought against Germany but my background did not prevent us from becoming firm friends.'

# posted by Jacob @ 3/27/2005 12:12:00 p.m.