Normally, only the family is authorised to consult this file. Vladimir Ivanovich Korotaev tells us this again. Even though it has been declassified and lost its “classified on grounds of national security” status, the military “Otto Günsche” file remains confidential. “Except if a member of his family formally used a request,” he insists, abruptly closing the brown cardboard dossier, which bears the stamp MVD SSSR (Ministry of the Interior, USSR). On the cover it says in big printed letters: “Personal File: Günsche Otto Hermann.” The same Otto Günsche who was Adolf Hitler’s personal aide-de-camp until his death. One of the few witnesses to the final act of the drama in the Führerbunker. Vladimir Korotaev is the deputy director of the “Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voennyi arkhiv,” the Russian State Military Archives. A state organisation holding almost 7.3 million documents concerning Soviet armed forces, then the Russian armed forces, as well as the military intelligence services. It also contains all the official documents of the Third Reich seized by Soviet forces at the end of the Second World War, including the personal files of the Nazi leaders, Goebbels’ private journal, and Himmler’s work diary. From our very first meeting, Vladimir has been more than courteous, almost kind. In his fifties, with “salt and pepper” hair and a short beard, he speaks quietly and says little. On the other hand, he does have a rare ability to listen. When I speak to him, his pale blue eyes don’t leave me for an instant. His face betrays no emotion, no reaction, like a wax mask.
Lana had contacted him some weeks previously, after our visit to the offices of the FSB. Before leaving the Lubyanka again we had requested some advice from Dmitri, our “case officer” in the Russian secret services. How should we approach the military archives? Did he have a name he could suggest to us? Perhaps a telephone number? “Work it out for yourselves” was all he would give us. “We have nothing to do with the military, this is the FSB. You’ve got the wrong institution.” Who says the Russians aren’t touchy? “Why do you want to waste your time in the military archives?” An old journalist’s reflex led me not to divulge all my information. Particularly to an eminent member of the FSB. Mightn’t he intervene to block our access to the military files? It was on the advice of the State Archives of the Russian Federation, GARF, that we were trying to get into the Red Army archives. “If you want more information on Günsche, that’s where you’ve got to go,” we were told by Dina Nokhotovich, the ancient archivist and keeper of Hitler’s skull. “You will want to consult the files of the Frenchmen taken prisoner by the Red Army in 1945.” Improvisation is a fragile art. Dmitri didn’t react to the answer I gave him. He said goodbye to us once more and walked us to the exit, to the pavement, to be precise. Well outside the building.
Military archives. The epithet “military” had added a hint of extra anguish for Lana and me. Was there a Russian institution as reluctant to talk to foreign journalists as the FSB? Yes, the army. How were we, Lana with her dual Russian and American citizenship, me as a Frenchman, going to get into those archives? Contrary to our expectations, it wasn’t as complicated as all that. The mother of a friend of Lana’s had once worked as a historian in the Russian State Military Archives. Admittedly she’s retired now, but she still has excellent contacts with the current directors. She was the one who passed Vladimir Korotaev’s name to Lana. From their first telephone conversation, Vladimir was won over. He imposed no conditions, he required no special authorisation from an official authority. He didn’t have to give an account of our request either to the Kremlin or to his superiors. “Just tell me what you’re looking for about the Third Reich,” he replied simply. “Hitler? Hitler again?” The deputy director’s voice changed immediately. Lana insisted. She altered her voice, making it both sweet and pleading. In the end he replied crisply: “One or two days. Give me time to find the right files.” Forty-eight hours later, Vladimir returned Lana’s call; he had found everything. The meeting could be arranged. The following week. At the end of the day, at 5:00 pm. In Moscow, the public services close their offices early. By 5:00 pm most Russian civil servants are long gone. A meeting so late in the day could not be a coincidence. Vladimir wanted to be sure that no one would see us in the archive offices. He would be alone.
It was already fifteen minutes past five and our taxi was hopelessly stuck on Patriarshy Bridge in the centre of the city. The driver had abandoned the very idea of getting anywhere and plugged a DVD player into his cigarette-lighter socket. He offered us a disheartening vision of local pop song videos full of young women who were delighted to writhe around in hot pants. Traffic jams make Moscow an impossible place to live, Lana reflects at length. The age of the empty Moscow boulevards has succumbed to the siren songs of liberalism. Old Soviet Ladas and Volgas have made way for cheap Asian cars and a flood of saloons and obese European four by fours.
How long would it take us to get to Vladimir’s office? “An hour…” the driver replies, tapping his GPS. “Perhaps a little less, a little more…” The melted snow so typical of the late Russian winters softly coats the windows, emphasising the depressing aspect of our situation. All of a sudden Lana gets out of the car and calls to me to wait for her. Given the state of the traffic, that shouldn’t be too difficult. Less than ten minutes later, when we have struggled barely fifty metres on, she reappears, her hair white with snowflakes, clutching a plastic bag. “This will help us apologise,” she says triumphantly, brandishing a bottle of Armenian cognac. ‘Everyone loves this in Russia,” she assures me.
“Really, really sorry, a thousand apologies,” I repeat in Russian the words that Lana is trying to teach me. I want to say them as correctly as possible to Vladimir when we finally get there. It’s past 6:00. The Russian military archives building, very socialist-Communist in style, is all concrete and opaque windows in a grim area on the edge of the city. It’s empty, or pretending to be empty. From outside, not a single light is shining in any of the ten or so floors. Only the ground floor is still illuminated.
The heavy front door closes behind us with an intimidating crash. Mouse-grey marble panels cover the entrance from floor to ceiling, creating the impression of an abandoned church nave. Perhaps not the best way of encouraging the circulation of heat. Our noisy entrance at least has the merit of making a head appear from the imposing wooden counter barring the way to the stairs. The head belongs to a woman in army uniform. She gets to her feet slowly as if the simple fact of moving requires a painful effort. Even her taciturn presence warms our hearts, proving as it does that the building hasn’t been abandoned since the fall of the Soviet Union. The very “vintage” furniture gives the opposite impression. Like that orange-brown Bakelite telephone or the Plexiglas clock with its hands in the form of swords. Objects from the Communist era that still accomplish their duties perfectly. The clock is on time and the telephone works, as our hostess demonstrates in front of our very eyes. “Two. Yes, there are two of them, Deputy Director. No, I can’t let them go up. You’ll have to come and get them. Yes. Yes. They’re waiting.” The conversation was a short one. The woman soldier delicately sets down the old telephone receiver and gestures to us to wait.
“We’re sorry, Vladimir, we’re so sorry. Really embarrassed.” Did he even understand that rumbling noise I made that was supposed to sound like Russian? The deputy director of the Russian State Military Archives keeps us waiting for about ten minutes. Then he turns up looking annoyed. In answer to our apologies he gives us a frowning half-smile, turns on his heels and sets off back towards the stairs from whence he came. Lana pushes me in the back to follow him. “It’s all fine,” she whispers to me, “he hasn’t put his coat on. That means he isn’t going to leave straight away.”
The Günsche file, impossible! Goebbels’ private journal, why not, but Günsche, absolutely not. Vladimir insists, it is out of the question to consult the personal file of the SS man Otto Günsche.
And yet there it is, in front of us. Vladimir has taken it from the shelves where it is stored and prepared it especially for this meeting. He has opened it up and shown us some ID photographs from the times, then nothing. Or almost. As if it were a happy coincidence, a fortuitous act of providence, the deputy director stands up and asks us if we would excuse him. “I’m going to get some other files from one of our stores. I’ll be away for about ten minutes. Wait for me here…” We watch him leave without a word. Then Lana smiles at me and says, “Go on!”
I turn the pages, my breath short, my hands clumsy. Otto Günsche is right in front of us. His life as an SS man, as Hitler’s personal bodyguard and as a prisoner of the Soviets. So many historical and previously unseen documents. Our investigation is taking a new turn. Günsche is the only member of Hitler’s inner circle who never agreed to write his biography. He was a quiet man who refused to give anything away in interviews. Apart from some answers that he gave to the American journalist James O’Donnell, until his death in 2003 at the age of eighty-six, Günsche avoided the media. His only statements were given to the Soviet secret services. But given reluctantly, and under constraint.
The first page of his personal file is merely his identification papers prepared by the directors of the Ministry of Interior Affairs on 4 June 1950, or five years after being captured in Berlin. This was a standard form for all prisoners in the Soviet Union. Apart from the handwritten words in bold red ink: “Special supervision.” Ref. 4146 Günsche Otto is not a prisoner like the others. Apart from the basic information such as his date of birth (1917), place of birth (Jena, Germany), height (193 centimetres), place of imprisonment (POW camp no. 476), the handwritten addition indicates that the prisoner requires additional guards. It is also specified that Günsche is in an appropriate state of health and that, in his prison, “he has no infectious illnesses.” The other pages are dog-eared and of different sizes, some barely any larger than the pages of a pocket diary. Most of them are written by hand, as if in great haste. Each time the signatory indicates his rank and function. A whole hierarchy of complex designations is revealed: there’s a “chief deputy for operational labour,” a “behaviour director,” a “special head of department”… Often, the notes only concern reports of aggressive behaviour on the part of the prisoner Günsche towards the Soviet Union. The reports continue for only a few lines, requesting appropriate sanctions. An enormous “approved” added diagonally by hand completes the set each time.
In most cases, Günsche is reported by people who share his daily life, German prisoners, former Nazis. The Soviet prison organisation encourages and satisfies the zeal of informers like a man by the name of Nokri. He addresses his letters to “Boss,” the head of his unit of prisoners, the 14th Brigade in camp no. 475. Special regime labour camp no. 476 was in the Oblast of Sverdlovsk, deep in the Urals, notorious for the harshness of its climate. The camp was one of the biggest in the Soviet Union.
Both the vocabulary and the writing of the informer lack confidence. Nokri is German and writes very bad Russian. “I received today from the camp guard the order to stack wood in the courtyard of the zone. […] Günsche Otto spoke in the room where the 74 men of the 14th Brigade live. He said: ‘I’m not going. The Russians know very well that I refuse.’ He said that as if he were our hero, a man above the Soviet authorities. […] Please, Boss, punish this person severely.”
The sentence is passed a few weeks later, after a rapid investigation. According to the document that we are holding in our hands, it is established that:
The condemned man Günsche, formerly Hitler’s aide-de-camp, expresses révanchiste anti-Soviet opinions and glorifies the old Hitler regime. He deliberately works badly on the works.
It has been decided that the condemned man Günsche should be locked up in a cell as a particularly dangerous element, in total isolation, for a duration of 6 months.
Signed: Investigator in chief of branch No. 5
Captain P. Olenov
Günsche’s file consists of about a hundred pages like this. One of them attracts Lana’s attention. It is carefully typed, with the word “secret” at the top right-hand side. A stamp in indigo ink with the coat of arms of the Soviet Union completes the official, even solemn appearance of the document. “It’s the verdict of his trial,” Lana explains. It comes from the military tribunal of the region of Ivanovo, 300 kilometres north-east of Moscow. It is dated 15 May 1950.
The legal investigation and the materials of the trial have identified the following elements:
The accused man GÜNSCHE, a convinced and partisan Nazi devoted in his politics, all the way through his service in the old German army, was an active partisan and participant in the enforcement of Hitler’s criminal projects as part of the preparations for war against the Soviet Union.
Before Hitler took power, in 1931 GÜNSCHE joined the fascist youth organisation “Hitler-Jugend,” and then in 1934, at the age of 17, he voluntarily joined the SS corps “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler,” as a member of which he was involved in reinforcing the fascist regime in Germany.
In 1936 GÜNSCHE was particularly distinguished in his service, and was transferred to Hitler’s personal bodyguard.
During the period of Germany’s war against the USSR, GÜNSCHE served in the German army within the division “Lebstandarte SS Adolf Hitler,” first as a platoon commander, and then as a company commander with the armoured division.
Finding himself in the temporarily occupied territory of the USSR within his division, he has committed atrocities against Soviet civilians and prisoners of war. The slogan of the SS division was: “We need Russian space without the Russians,” calling for the total destruction of the Russian population.
In carrying out this criminal command, the division shot 285 civilians in the region of Zhitomir, hanged 8 people, tortured 73 people to death and starved 25,196 Soviet prisoners of war to death.
From January 1943 until 30 April 1945, GÜNSCHE, as a convinced fascist, served as Hitler’s personal aide-de-camp, combining this function with that of Commander of the Reich Chancellery in March and April 1945.
As Hitler’s personal aide-de-camp, GÜNSCHE took part in all the meetings held by Hitler about aspects of the war waged against the USSR and peaceful and democratic people.
As Hitler’s personal aide-de-camp, GÜNSCHE carried out his different criminal orders and instructions.
[…]
On the basis of this evidence, the Military Tribunal found GÜNSCHE guilty of breaching Art. 1 of the Decree of 19/IV-1943 in accordance with Art. 319 and 320 of the Penal Code,
HAS SENTENCED:
GÜNSCHE Otto Hermann, based on Art. 1 of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 19/4-1943 and in accordance with Art. 2 of the Decree of 26/V-1947 “On the abolition of the death penalty,” to imprisonment in a Re-education through Labour of a duration of TWENTY-FIVE (25) years.
GÜNSCHE’s period of imprisonment begins on 6/IV-1950.
Otto Günsche was thirty-two years old at the time, and had been a prisoner of the Soviets for almost five years. The identifying photograph that accompanies the sentence shows a prematurely aged man, gaunt but still with a hard, almost threatening expression, like a gauntlet thrown at the Russian authorities. Was the SS officer showing that he wasn’t anyone’s fool? That his trial was only a masquerade and that his sentence left no doubt of it?
Isn’t a sentence of twenty-five years in a camp worse than execution? How could anyone survive a sentence like that in the gulag? In what physical and mental condition would they be when they came out? Günsche would be fifty-seven when he had served his sentence. This former intimate of Hitler’s could not accept the prospect of an existence as a jailbird. “The verdict may be appealed before the appeal jurisdictions of the Military Tribunal of the troops of the MVD of the district of Moscow,” he was informed in writing. He had seventy-two hours to do that. A few pages later we find the result of his appeal. On 21 October 1950, or five months after his trial, Günsche was summoned before the judges again.