'His authority was extraordinary. He was charming' - Hitler's nurse

[Bozita]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/secondworldwar/story/0,14058,1474601,00.html

'His authority was extraordinary. He was charming' - Hitler's nurse on his final hours

Survivor of bunker tells of admiration for Goebbels' wife and hatred for Eva Braun

Read a transcript of the interview with Erna Flegel

Luke Harding in Berlin
Monday May 2, 2005
The Guardian

She is the last witness. For 60 years, Erna Flegal said nothing about her starring role in the Third Reich. Her family knew that in the last, desperate weeks of the second world war she had lived in Berlin. But she never spoke of her job as Hitler's nurse and of her time in the Führer's Berlin bunker.

Now, as the 60th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe nears, Ms Flegel has spoken out for the first time about her experiences - of Hitler's final hours, of her friendship with the "brilliant" Magda Goebbels, and her jealous loathing for Eva Braun. Her testimony casts fresh light on the last days of the Nazi era and has never appeared in the countless books written about Hitler.

-snip-

Ms Flegel's existence only emerged after the transcript of an interview she gave to American interrogators in November 1945 was declassified four years ago by the CIA. The Guardian discovered her insider's account of Hitler's final hours in a Washington vault and published it.

But her fate remained a mystery. Two months ago a Berlin-based newspaper, the BZ, tracked down her relatives via the German Red Cross and war archives. To the paper's astonishment, her family revealed that Ms Flegel was still alive.

-snip-

more...

[PartyPooper]

1. Hitler's nurse and Junior's nurse should compare notes.

I'm sure we would all be amazed at the similarities of two of the most evil fascist "patients" who have ever plundered and scourged the earth.

May they rot in hell together.

[tom_paine]

2. Unquestuinably. I bet they take some of the same drugs.

Also, Hitler's and Chimperor's Food Tasters should also compare notes on the paranoia of megalomaniacs.

[Scairp]

3. For some reason, this stuff fascinates me

I always watch the History Channel shows about Hitler and WWII. I am going to read every word of this interview.

[leftchick]

4. I watched a documentary on a Jewish Woman athlete

on HBO this weekend. It showed how Hitler used the Olympics as a tool to forge ahead with his imperialistic scheme. It was amazing how he fooled the world in August 1936!

I don't need to watch these type of shows anymore because I am witnessing the same thing here in ameriKa 2005. :(

[booksenkatz]

5. Holy crap

The idea of a fuzzy, warm Hitler drinking cocoa with the kiddies at bedtime gives me the creeps. And the part about "those inside the bunker began to live 'outside reality'" had a familiar ring to it.

This is a fascinating article, thanks for sharing it!

[DrDebug]

6. They always are charming. That's what makes them dangerous

Stalin was known to charm people as well. And Goebbels took it to such a level that during the Nurnberg trials he was considered extremely dangerous, because nobody could resist him and there was no way they could handle him, because when he was around somebody then he immediately and instantly had control over that person. It was his US guard which he charmed so much - giving him his expensive gold watch and becoming his friend - that he went to his house and got his suicide pills and bring it to his cell. That was the immense power he had over people.

It maybe hard to believe, but many of these horrible people have been called irresistable. And that is the key why they could have become so powerful. They were not only pure evil, but it would have been really hard not to like them, so they had an immense power over people.

Since I'm using the Dalai Lama signature. It was the Dalai Lama who said that Mao was magnetic and incredibly charming as well and even the Dalai Lama was swept away by him in the beginning as well.

[Charon]

9. Chariming

I believe you are thing about Herman Goring. The Goebbles committed suicide in Berlin the day after Hitler killed himself. Goring committed suicide in Spandau Prison just shortly before his scheduled execution.

[DrDebug]

14. You are right. It was Göring

How it was possible:

(...)
One interesting character at Nuremberg was Gustav M. Gilbert, the psychologist at Spandau prison where the defendants were held. Gilbert's search for "the why of ingeniously organized, routinely administered mass murder carried out by presumably civilized people consumed him" (p. 207).

He concluded there were three pieces to the puzzle:
1) the German cultural "cult of unthinking obedience";
2) a nation bombarded for years, for generations, with propaganda that Slavs and Jews were less than human and responsible for their own misery, an anti-Semitism resonant in Fichte and Hegel;
and 3) a lack of basic human feelings, empathy and kinship on part of Nazi leaders like Hitler, Hoess, Göring, Eichmann, and Kaltenbrunner (cf. pp. 319- 320).

At one point Gilbert decides the difference between Germany and the U.S. was that the bigots and schizophrenics came to run Germany!
(...)
http://www.kdkragen.com/Nuremberg.htm

About the guard - who later came clean with the story:

Guard 'gave Goering suicide pill'
A former US guard says he unwittingly gave Nazi leader Hermann Goering the poison he used to commit suicide.

Goering killed himself only hours before he was scheduled to be hanged in 1946, following his conviction for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials.

Now Herbert Lee Stivers, who was a 19-year-old guard at the trials, says he agreed to carry "medicine" to the imprisoned Nazi air force chief.
(...)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4247069.stm

[no_hypocrisy]

7. "The 'brilliant' Magda Goebbels"?! She poisoned all her children while

they slept to prevent them from living in a world without Hitler. I'd say "evil" rather than "brilliant".

[Disturbed]

8. W is charming too.

The CIA kept this story secret for quite a few years. Why?

[Charon]

11. CIA

You would have to ask President's Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Clinton that question.

[acmavm]

13. Yeah, as charming as a turd in a punch bowl.

.

[bleedingheart]

10. the article also states that she tried to convince Magda to let

some of the children live and she thought it was madness to kill them.

As a mother I can't imagine even doing that....

[DivinBreuvage]

12. "Brilliant" is not an antonym for "Evil"

One can be both brilliant and evil, just as one can be stupid and evil, or brilliant and good or stupid and good. Mental capacity has no bearing on moral development.

[Samurai_Writer]

15. All sociopaths are charming...

Same with pathological liars. Among the other symptoms are:

Dissocial (Antisocial) Personality disorder, usually coming to attention because of a gross disparity between behaviour and the prevailing social norms, and characterized by at least 3 of the following:

callous unconcern for the feelings of others;

gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, rules and obligations;

incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, though having no difficulty in establishing them;

very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence;

incapacity to experience guilt and to profit from experience, particularly punishment;

marked proneness to blame others, or to offer plausible rationalizations, for the behaviour that has brought the patient into conflict with society.

-----------------------

Remind you of anyone? Perhaps a certain person living in a white house?

[robcon]

16. Reminds of neighbors when a mass murderer is caught.

The neighbors usually say what a nice, quiet person the mass murderer was.