winter of 1762 he was readyto give up and take

poison if he did not succeed in changinghis

fortunes in war. The unexpected deathof the
Russian tsarina, Elizabeth, put a stop to his
thoughts of suicide.’ There neverwas any such thing
as a totally hopeless situation in history, and we
could claim it as a victory if we succeeded ‘in
simply surviving’ with an independent existence. I
neverrepeated anywhere what I heardissue from Hitler’s
lips in the first weeks and months of 1945. Hitler
knew this, and in the nighttime hoursgave me a vision
of a past, present and futurewhichI, rooted in
realities of a quite different structure, misunderstood
in astonishment. In those weeks , in which
Martin Bormann wrote down what Hitler had explained to
him, it seemed to me at times that Hitler was
attempting to escape in these conversations from the
reality which had long overtaken him. Occasionally when
we were alone he spoke of our ‘future’ and
painted it in very different colours to how it
turned out, and only later did I discover what we
Germans oughtto have known earlier. Just as in the
last hoursof his life Hitler still saw the historical duty
of the German people to be biological anti-
semitism, even in the future, so convinced was he to
his last breath that ‘our futurelay only in the east’
and that it was so important for ‘our surplus
births’ to be channelled there.Even today I ask
myself now and again how I was able to believe
what Hitler said and taught. The Red Army was almost
at the gates of the Reich capital, yet I allowed
myself to be persuaded: ‘We will come out of it,
even if plucked of our feathers.’ We came out of it
all right, but not in the manner I was daring to
hope underthe spell of Hitler’s powers of persuasion
in April 1945. I was not an intellectual. Like most of
my comrades, I had read neither Mein Kampf nor
 any other National Socialist literature and I knew
Hitler’s world-view only from hearsay. What gave me
unshakablefaith and confidence came from other experiences.
One of these was that for years the Führer had found
a way to achieve what he had aimed for and
predicted despite all obstacles. Screened in his immediate
circle against all negative ideas whichmight be circulating
elsewhere, I was blind to the reality. Unlikely as it
may sound, I saw how Hitler held the levers of
powers in his hands, and I was often there as
he occupied himself with them,but where he was
steering us was something I could not see. What gave
me pause for thought occasionally was the fact
that Hitler did not lead and govern as the people
thought. To a great extent he gave ministers,
Reichsleiters, Gauleiters and governor-generals a free hand,
and not seldom they turned on each other tooth and nail.
I saw that kind of thing almost daily, but knowing
that the Führer, despite the so-called ‘Darwinism of
the Offices’ always
held the true reins of power in principle, kept my
doubts at bay. However, I did begin to listen
attentively when he began his monologues on
history and politics. Nudging me in this direction was
a remark by Hitler that before the war it would
not have been difficult to have won over General
Franco for war on the German side. Ribbentrop’s
occasional whispered confidences that unfortunately the
attempt to draw Franco into the war had not
succeeded,seemed to conflict with Hitler’s statement
that Franco had wanted nothing more than to join
with Hitler and Mussolini as victors. In the presence
of Bormann, Hitler declared that after mature
deliberation he had finallydecided against trying to
convince the Caudillo to make common cause. The
prospect of having to defend the Atlantic coast
 from Cadizto San Sebastian while a new civil war,
fanned by the British, raged inland, had -
together with other burdens - seemed to counsel
restraint. ‘Franco’, Hitler said, ‘deceived me. Had I
known the true state of affairs I would not have
used our aircraft to return to the Spanish
aristocracy and the Catholic Church their mediaeval rights.’ I
now began to listen to, and systematically study,
similar ‘confessions’ and explanations. Thus I only
mademyself familiar with the National Socialist world-
view fwhen the founder of the ideology was at the
edge of his grave, but atleast I heardit from the
‘prophet’ himself. For him, whom I watched read
very, very much over my ten years in his company, past and
futurerepresented themselves at the beginning of 1945
in the following manner: The great material battles of
the First World War had exhausted the political
power structures of Europe. This led to a
concentration of political power in blocs, in
whichthe growing might of the United States, the
Soviet Union and Japan could no longer be
ignored. Britain, whichtogether with the Third Reichcould
have been the dominant world power, lost this opportunity
as a result of Churchill’s policies. If at the latest by
the spring of 1941 GreatBritain had joined with
Hitler’s Germany, a strong bloc would have
emerged in Europe, underGerman leadership, in which
France and Italy would have been obliged to
abandon their interests in north Africaand the Near East
and renounce a world foreign policy. Britain, freed of
power struggles on the continent, would have been
able to devote itself to its empire, while the Reich,
forced to win living space by conquest but no
longer having to fear war on two fronts,
would have been able to destroy Bolshevismand ‘secure’
the indispensable territories in the east for the
German people. That this could not be realised was
Britain’s fault and the people of the island kingdom
which- in contrast to Germany - had not been
actually forced to fight by anyone, would vegetate
and finallystarve ‘on their damned