Hitler a "Living Corpse" in Final Days, General's Testimony Shows

Russia's FSB intelligence service has released the wartime testimony of General Helmuth Weidling, the last commander of Berlin's defenses, describing Adolf Hitler's final days shortly before the fall of the Nazi capital. The document dates from a Soviet interrogation conducted on 6 May 1945, days after Hitler's suicide, according to the RIA news agency.

Weidling described Hitler as looking like a "living corpse", physically exhausted, shaking, yet still explaining his plan for the defense of Berlin in a low voice.

According to the general, the situation in the city was deteriorating rapidly, defenses were collapsing and German troops were suffering from a lack of ammunition and support.

Weidling also described the moment he learned of Hitler's death on 30 April 1945. In the bunker of the Reich Chancellery, Joseph Goebbels, Martin Bormann and General Hans Krebs informed him that Hitler had committed suicide and that his body had subsequently been cremated.

(mja)