On the Value of Unchecked Scholarship:
Hitler-Myth Created by British Secret Service

By Gregory Douglas

The recording of history is based on a number of factors. Of these, the most important element is documentary in nature. Eyewitness accounts, inaccurate and self-serving though they usually are, must eventually move from an oral history to a written one. Although documents can reflect information that is inaccurate by deliberation or by lack of knowledge, the written word transcends in importance, verbal and anecdotal history.

The New Testament is an excellent example of oral history which was not written for a minimum of fifty years after the reported death of Christ and in that period, fifty years was a full lifetime. Even in more modern times, in a period when various writing aides abound, the written paper only reflects that which the writer puts onto it.

A note is made of an academic attempt to misreport an actual historical event ('The Browning Version" in which Dr. Christopher Browning made allegations about a Hitler speech that were completely and provably untrue), and it might be instructive to study other examples of historical writing which are equally inaccurate or misleading.

This first deals with the subject of Hitler's end in Berlin on April 30, 1945.

Immediately after the end of the war in Europe on May 9, 1945, a great search was conducted to locate Adolf Hitler in or near his last command post, the so-called Führerbunker located beneath the garden of his Berlin Reich's Chancellery. This is a subject which is certainly well known to historians of the period  The source for all of the writings which have followed was a book entitled The Last Days of Hitler by a young British intelligence agent, Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper. This report was hastily cobbled together by the scholarly writer in only six weeks time and while grossly inaccurate, is an example of polished historical writing rarely seen at the end of the 20th century.

The subject of Hitler's fate was covered in the first volume of this series, and nearly two years later the author discovered a very important document from the US National Archives that bears directly on the subject. As the first example of the immense care with which a conscientious historian must take with source material, this document will be covered first. A copy of the archival report is on microfilm, is difficult to read and needs to be transcribed for clarity

This report, compiled by the US Army some three months after the event, appears on the first reading to completely substantiate the version of Hitler's end as postulated by Trevor-Roper. His account contains exactly the same information set forth in the American report, was obviously taken directly from it, and the two would seem to be mutually supporting. However, further and more extensive investigation results in an entirely opposite conclusion.

The Trevor-Roper work from which all subsequent publications on the subject are taken, was ordered by British Brigadier Dick White, later head of MI5 and MI6, in September 1945, following the surrender of Germany on May 9, 1945. Trevor-Roper was a thirty-two year old Oxford scholar who had been recruited into British signals intelligence at the beginning of the war, and while a skilled writer, had no knowledge of German history and could neither read nor write the language. This failing later led him to his authentication of the crudely forged Hitler Diaries in 1983.

The official study was written over a six week period in 1945, and with official permission, was published by Trevor-Roper in 1947. Trevor-Roper was British and that country controlled the city of Bremen in 1945, but American intelligence had what was known as an Enclave Presence there which meant that US military intelligence units were permitted to operate in the British-occupied city

In the US interview, it is noted that one Hermann Karnau was in British custody and in his book, Trevor-Roper makes use of statements made by both Karnau and Mansfeld on pages 202-205 of his book.

The US interrogation of Mansfeld, alias Erich Skrzipczyk, is a part of the holdings of the US National Archives, but the records on the British-held Hermann Karnau are, like most such records in British hands, not available to researchers.

There is no question, whatsoever, that the July 30 interview with Mansfeld/Skrzipczyk did take place, but there is a very serious question of who this individual really was. The US record indicates that their subject was a SS NCO, a Hauptscharführer, and a member of the Reichssicherheitsdienst (RSD) from June of 1944. Karnau was also listed as a member of the RSD and a member of the Sicherheitsdienst which would indicate a membership in the SS itself.

All of the records of the SS and Police are in the custody of the Berlin Document Center. These records consist of the personnel files of all SS and Police members as well as alphabetical lists of names of such individuals. Further, records are extant of all the members of the elite RSD as of January 1, 1945. None of the persons named are on it. A copy of this list may be found in the US National Archives.[1]

Neither Messers Hufbeck, Karnau, Mengerhausen, Mansfeld nor Lanzer are to be found on the rolls of either the SS, the Police, or most importantly, the RSD.

This information was not available to either British or US intelligence when the Trevor-Roper report was compiled, so neither party, nor Trevor-Roper who used their reports, would be aware that the quoted Karnau and Mansfeld were not SS personnel and certainly not in the SS bodyguard unit at the Chancellery bunker.

The second very serious error deals with dates. Mansfeld states repeatedly that the events of the burning of Hitler's body occurred on the 27 of April, 1945. In point of fact he states that the happenings might have taken place on the 26th, but certainly on the 27th.

The supposed suicide of Hitler and his wife, by all other accounts, took place on April 29, 1945. In his book, Trevor-Roper comments that

"... Karnau and Mansfeld agree on facts, but differ on dates and times. Both mistake the date." He goes on to state that Karnau's facts are "hopelessly erratic" and makes the qualification that, "If Mansfeld is reliable throughout..."[2]

A letter from the Director of the Berlin Document Center, concerning the lack of documentation on the membership of Mansfeld and Karnau in the SS or Police, indicates that an extensive search was made of their files and nothing on the purported RSD personnel could be found.[3]

The question of Mansfeld's position having been dealt with, the next point to consider the nature of his alleged evidence. Mansfeld claims to have been stationed in the "emergency escape" inside a concrete tower adjacent to the underground bunker on April 27, 1945. He refers to activity occurring at the "emergency exit" from the bunker in which various SS men were seen carrying out two bodies. One of the bodies was recognizable because of the boots, on one occasion, or because of the black trousers on another. Except for his visits to the front during the war, Hitler wore long black pants and low shoes, not boots.

Mansfeld also states that he left the emergency exit tower and crossed the ground to the bunker exit, and was somehow standing on the stairway leading down into the bunker although he had been warned off by Otto Günsche, Hitler's SS ADC. Although this makes dramatic reading, it is badly flawed. A commentary on the bunker itself might be in order here.

The bunker was designed initially as an air raid shelter. It was not built under the Chancellery, but under the garden. There was an exit to the garden area consisting of four flights of concrete steps, protected at ground level, by a square, reinforced concrete building. To the right of this exit, facing it, was a round tower, also of reinforced concrete with a conical roof and three observation ports protected with heavy steel shutters. The entrance into this tower, which was used primarily for protection of the actual exit, and secondarily for use as a ventilation outlet, was from inside the bunker itself. There was no exit from this tower to the garden area unless one chose to squeeze himself through an observation port and drop down some distance to the ground.

If Mansfeld had indeed been inside the tower, which is not likely, he could not have left it to wander about in the garden and watch the mortuary parade. He would have had to go down the steps inside the tower, cross a corridor inside the bunker and climb up the steps leading to the garden proper.

Mansfeld also states that he went through the corridor "passing Hitler's rooms" and noticed that the doors were open and that he could see no one inside. The only corridor which led past Hitler's quarters was one used for visitors and one would have had to see past three steel doors and around two corners to look into Hitler's rooms. Again, at the time the book was written, an accurate plan of the Bunker was not generally available so such errata passed into history unchallenged.

A complete and accurate plan of the bunker exists in the papers of Wehrmacht General of Engineers, Jacob, and the only exit into the Chancellery garden is the emergency one visible in all the post-war photographs. Numerous pictures that include the tower Mansfeld claims to have occupied indicate clearly that there was no ground-level exit.

Here we have the edifying spectacle of a man who was totally unauthorized to be inside the bunker complex, handing guns to people, crawling out of embrasures, running up and down many flights of steps and possessing the ability to see through steel doors and concrete walls. And all of this three full days before the event itself, and in the company of others who also seem not to have existed.

Given the eagerness with which people postulate plots and conspiracies, it regrettably appears that the Mansfeld and Karnau stories are not part of a complicated Allied intelligence plot, but more likely the desire of a prisoner of war to please his captors and probably secure better treatment and possible fame.

In view of his use of this unverified and obviously fictitious material, it is ironical to note that Trevor-Roper comments acidly on "...the value of unchecked human testimony on which, however, much of written history is based."[4]

A number of serious factual errors contained in the Trevor-Roper book have been brought to the attention of that gentlemen, but he like others who are confronted by their extraordinarily careless approach to facts, has declined any answer.

© Gregory Douglas, 1996
First published in English in "Gestapo Chief. The 1948 Interrogation of Heinrich Müller",
vol. 3, Bender Publishing, San Jose, CA, 1998, pp. 214-220