LAST DAYS OF HITLER AND BRAUN

Chronicle (Levin), 10 June 1946, Page 5

LAST DAYS OF HITLER AND BRAUN

STORY OF WEDDING AND SUICIDE PACT Reeeived Sunday, 8.20 p.m. LONDON, June 9. Allied agents have been ordered to bring from Berchtesgaden to the War Crimes Trihunal a striking dark-haired | German bcauty who consoled Hitler in his last days, says the Associated Press' Nuremberg correspondent. She was the 31-year-old Frau Gerda Christian, -wife of the Luftwaffe General Eckhart Christian, now prisoner of war. She was Hitler 's personal secretary from 1939 until the Reich collapsed ana she is being held' as a possihle witness. Intelligence oflicers revealed that Frau Christian was secretly arrested last year and interrogated for possible new clues as to Hitler's fate. She was recently released and went to live in a village near Berchtesgaden. She insisted Hitler v/as dead and before he shot hiniself, demanded that iiis body should be cremated. She fillea in the gaps in Hitler's last days for the American investigators. Frau Christian said she believed Eva Braun herself proposed Hitler's presuicide wedding. Hitler did not think of personal things at that time. Braun seemed happy about the marriage de:pite the circumstances. She said Bormann and Goebhels were the only witnesses of the marriage on April 28, 1945. Those four, plus herself ana another secretary, sat down to a gay wedding party -which went on all night despite the battle for Berlin above theiji. There was a stream of visitors during the night. Hitler did not mention failures or mistakes but recalled the good old times and earlier successes and vowed he would never become a Russian prisoner. Frau Christian said that the morning after the party she saw the first omen of Hitler's and Braun 's suicide pact — Hitler's dog Blondie was poisoned. Frau Christian, the following day, lunched with Hitler. Braun was not 'present. Hitler -appeared quiet but did not speak about his intentions. An hour later Hitler and Braun came from their private rooms. Everyhody felt this was the end. The couple shook 1 hands without a word and retired. "I : went to my own room and I was told ; at 4 p.m. that Hitler had shot himself, that Braun had taken poison and that , ihe bodies had been bttrned until nothing remained,'-' she concluded.