to the Führer in person. Acknowledge, so that in this grave hour
I may act in harmony with the Führer’s wishes.”
Meanwhile he radioed to Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel,
chief of the high command, to fly to the Obersalzberg if by :
.. they were no longer getting direct orders from Hitler. “A
government must be in existence,” reasoned Göring, “if the
Reich is not to fall apart.” A further radiogram notified Rib-
bentrop, the foreign minister, that he, Göring, was about to suc-
ceed Hitler “in all his offices,” and that if Ribbentrop had not
received orders to the contrary by midnight, either from Hitler
or from Göring himself, he was to fly down to Göring without
delay.
These were the suspicious signals that Hitler’s radio room had
monitored in Berlin. But Hitler had recovered from the suicidal
depression that had seized him the day before. With hollow eyes
he shambled around the cement corridors clutching a soggy,
tattered map of Berlin, waiting for the relief attack promised by
SS troops from the north.
Bad enough for Göring that his most serpentine enemies
Bormann, Speer, and Ribbentrop all chanced to be in Hitler’s
bunker on this afternoon of April as his string of radiograms
was intercepted. It was Bormann who carried them in to Hitler’s
study and pressed the flimsy naval signal forms into Hitler’s
palsied hands. “High treason!” shouted Bormann.
Treachery! Hitler had seen it as the cause of every defeat
since the attempt on his life nine months before. Now his own
chosen successor was a traitor too. He turned to Bormann, his
face expressionless. “Arrest the Reichsmarschall!” he com-
manded.
Porcine eyes twinkling with anticipation, Bormann hurried
to the radio room and seized more sheets of paper. To navy