Chicago Daily Tribune (April 27, 1945)
Goering, No. 2 Nazi, quits
Air chief reported seriously ill of heart trouble
Thursday, April 26, 1945
LONDON, England (AP) – The German Hamburg radio announced tonight that Reich Marshal Goering had resigned as head of the dying Nazi Air Force because of an “acute” heart illness, while a high-ranking German general staff member captured by the Americans predicted that Hitler would die with his troops in encircled Berlin.
The captured German general – unidentified in a U.S. 9th Army front dispatch but termed “internationally known and one of the best-informed members of the German general staff” – predicted the war would end within a few days and said that Goering probably had already been executed.
Calls redoubt a myth
The general said the Nazi national redoubt in Bavaria, Austria, and Italy, where an extended holdout has been predicted, is mostly a myth and is already incapable of a long defense.
The Hamburg station said that the portly No. 2 Nazi, Goering, 52, had been succeeded by Gen. Ritter von Greim, 53, who was made a field marshal.
“Reich Marshal Goering, who has been suffering from heart trouble for some time and whose condition has become acute, has asked the Fuehrer to be relieved of his command as chief of the Luftwaffe at a time when his strength is needed,” it said. The Fuehrer has granted his request.
Manhunt on for Hitler
This announcement came amid the developing manhunt for Hitler, who soon must decide whether to fall as a martyr in Berlin or seek refuge in Bavaria or some other German-held pocket.
Although many Allied quarters believe Hitler is already in the Alpine fortress, the captured German general staff member said he was in Berlin as did all German broadcasts. One of these broadcasts said Propaganda Minister Goebbels was also in the capital and that he and Hitler were “endeavoring to outdo each other in feats of personal bravery.”
Report Hitler double prepared
Another possibility was raised by a Free German Press Service report in Stockholm that Hitler had sent a long-prepared double, August Bartholdy, a former grocer in Plauen, to be filmed dying on the last Berlin barricades while the Fuehrer himself disappears underground. Still another possibility is that Hitler may commit suicide.
A Swiss dispatch said French refugees from Germany reported that Hitler and Gestapo Chief Himmler were at Salzburg, near the Fuehrer’s hideout at Berchtesgaden.
Official quarters here cautioned against accepting rumors relating to Hitler or any other top-flight Nazis. They maintain that these Nazis would like nothing better than to be presumed dead.
“What could be easier,” asked the London Star, “than for the Germans to produce an unrecognizable body and say that it was Hitler’s while Hitler himself was making his getaway by plane or submarine?”