Baron von Loringhoven, Aide to Hitler, Dies at 93

Rasp

Senior Editor
From the New York Times:

Baron von Loringhoven, Aide to Hitler, Dies at 93

Baron Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven, who as a young German Army officer was one of the last to flee Hitler’s Berlin bunker as Soviet troops closed in, died on Feb. 27 in Munich. He was 93.

Wolf Jobst Siedler Jr., the German publisher of Baron von Loringhoven’s memoirs, confirmed the death, which had apparently been reported only in British newspapers.

In spring 1945, Baron von Loringhoven was a major and an aide to the chief of the German general staff, who was also in the bunker beneath the chancellery, the seat of government. His job was to gather military data, then compose maps and reports, which he presented to Hitler in daily briefings.

After World War II he spent two and a half years as a British prisoner of war and later worked in the publishing industry, then became an officer in the new West German Army, rising to lieutenant general. He held several high positions in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The only living veteran of the last days in the bunker is believed to be Rochus Misch, Hitler’s bodyguard. Hitler’s secretary, Traudl Junge, died in 2002, and Erna Flegel, a nurse in the bunker, died last year.

On April 29, 1945, Baron von Loringhoven left the bunker with permission from Hitler, who the next day aimed a Walther pistol at the roof of his mouth and squeezed the trigger.

“As Hitler wished me luck, I saw a glint of envy in his eye,"� he said in an interview with The Observer in 2005.

In his later years, Baron von Loringhoven advised authors and filmmakers and gave many interviews. He and the French journalist FranÃԚ­ÃƒÆ’”�šÃ”š§ois d’AlanÃԚ­ÃƒÆ’”�šÃ”š§on wrote “In the Bunker With Hitler: The Last Witness Speaks,"� which was published last year.

The baron painted a picture of an eerie subterranean limbo where lights flickered with each bomb blast. He told of Magda Goebbels, the wife of the Nazi propaganda chief, Joseph, leading their six children into the bunker. The couple killed the children, then killed themselves.

He told of Hitler’s startling marriage to Eva Braun on April 29, 1945, and of his order to shoot his new brother-in-law. He told of Martin Bormann, a top Nazi, skulking in the shadows “like a spider in its web."� He told of Hitler engrossed in moving flags on a map when the troops they represented no longer existed.

He described Hitler as playing with his dog, on which he would test poison. He said Hitler was restrained in his rages, but “ice cold in his expressions."�

Baron von Loringhoven was an aristocrat descended from Teutonic knights. His ancestors migrated from the Rhineland to territory on the northeastern Baltic in the 15th century. He was born at their ancestral home on what is now the Estonian island of Saaremaa on Feb. 6, 1914. The family moved to Germany.

As a young man he wanted to be a lawyer, but Hitler’s government required Nazi party membership to enter professions. He joined the army, where that was not required. His cousin, Capt. Wessel Freiherr Freytag von Loringhoven, who later provided explosives for army officers’ unsuccessful attempt on Hitler’s life in July 1944, helped him get an officer’s commission.

The baron was an assistant to a general during the invasion of Poland in 1939 and was on the staff of another general during the invasion of Russia in 1941. He then won medals for commanding tanks, but reassignment as a courier allowed him to escape the carnage of Stalingrad.

After the failed assassination plot, Baron von Loringhoven became adjutant to the new army chief of staff. Hitler and his top advisers moved into the bunker on Jan. 16, 1945.

As everyone in the bunker discussed suicide, Baron von Loringhoven and two other junior officers escaped by persuading Hitler to let them find a general with whom communication had been lost. Hitler suggested a route to follow. One companion was killed, and the baron saved the other from suicide by forcing him to vomit poison.

The baron was arrested by the Americans and ended up in a British prison, where guards refused to believe he was not a Nazi. He said they kicked him, made him scrape paint with his fingernails, poured water on him and made him sleep naked.

He was never charged with war crimes, and vehemently insisted that there was a clear line between the Nazi party and military professionals. He claimed not to know about the massacres of Jews and others until after the war.

Several reviewers of his book nonetheless noted that he strongly criticized the army for military incompetence. Alison Rowat in The Glasgow Herald wondered if that meant he had hoped that the Germans would win.

“No wonder Loringhoven’s interrogators were confused,"� she wrote.

Baron Loringhoven is survived by his son, now Baron Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven, a senior German diplomat.

In an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 1995, the older baron said, “I am really one of the very last people to talk about these things."�
 
Back
Top