Hitler: The Last Ten Days

Hitler: The Last Ten Days – An Eyewitness Account by Gerhard Boldt is just what the title says, an eyewitness account of the last ten days of Adolf Hitler’s life. We see these last ten days through the eyes of Gerhard Boldt, a cavalry officer and Senior-Lieutenant with the 58th infantry division on the East front during World War II. Boldt starts by showing us what a briefing in the Reich Chancellery with Hitler was like. He listens as many generals walk up to Hitler terrified, and tell their leader what is going on in the war. Hitler seems to be deteriorating. He appears to be exhausted and weak, and he is getting crazier by the minute. He had his mind set on what he was going to do, and no one could change his mind. No one had any good ideas except for him, he thought.
After a long briefing, Boldt flashes back to the beginning of the war; he lets the reader see his life. He explains the hoops he jumps through and the injuries he acquired while trying to get to the top. By the end of his war-life story, he is sent to the Fuehrer’s staff at Army High Command. On Hitler’s staff is where he observes him from a closer view.
As the book goes on, Boldt is called to briefing sessions daily. He sees that Hitler is getting worse by the second. He was brooding, as anyone would expect, and on drugs. Here is one of the greatest leaders in the world, with only a soft grip on reality and he is leading a world into war. In July of 1944, an attempt was made to assassinate Hitler. This, of course, made Hitler furious. It only made him angrier at the world. Because of this attempted assassination, he arrested 5,000 people and 200 more were executed. At one point, Hitler ordered the Berlin subways to be flooded to hold the Russians back for a few more hours, even though he knew that many of his people had taken shelter in those subways. Later, as his country was falling to pieces, Hitler and his new wife, Eva Braun, sat there drinking in celebration to their new marriage and to the new world of hate and prejudice he had created among his people. On the 30th of April, 1945, the day after these two married, Eva and Hitler said their last goodbyes to the staff and headed into the study. Later that day, witnesses heard a gunshot from the study. Both were dead. Hitler had a gunshot wound in the head, and was dripping blood all over the couch. Braun, however, didn’t seem to have any wounds. She is believed to have poisoned herself.
It is interesting to see the Second World War from the eyes of a Nazi. The war seems so different in the eyes of an American soldier, or in the text of an American History book, than from the eyes of a German Nazi. Some people often look at Nazis as if they were horrible people—though most were—but the fact of the matter is, those soldiers were people, too. They had a passion for their country. They were told and taught different things, but in essence, they were still soldiers. It was also interesting to see that many people disagreed with their Fuehrer, but were too afraid to speak up because they knew what he could do to them and the people they loved.