SUICIDE OF HITLER NEAR, CAPTURED SPOKESMAN SAYS
End of war few days off, Dittmar claims
Reports Goebbels also in Berlin
By Clinton B. Conger, United Press staff writer
MAGDEBURG, Germany – Adolf Hitler will kill himself or be killed in Berlin within a few hours or days and the war will end, Lt. Gen. Kurt Dittmar, German High Command spokesman, said in his final war commentary – in American custody.
Dittmar, who surrendered to the Ninth Army on the Elbe River Wednesday, told his captors that Hitler and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels were in Berlin and will die there.
Dittmar said:
The war will end in a few days. Hitler will either be killed or he will commit suicide. One of three generals – von Brauchitsch, Guderian, or von Rundstedt – will take control and will make peace immediately on almost any terms.
Talks of redoubts
The elegantly-uniformed general outlined the war situation for correspondents, just as he used to do for Radio Berlin listeners when the Nazi Army was overrunning Europe.
Asked about the Bavarian redoubt, he said, there’s talk about it and the map will now you that to pockets are being formed, one in the north including Norway and Denmark and one in the south in the Alps and Italy. But that is probably less by intention than by force of circumstance.
Al any rate, he thought, the war could not last after the fall of Berlin.
Fears reprisals
Dittmar first crossed the Elbe with a white flag of truce at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday with a major and two enlisted men, who rowed his boat. He tried to arrange for the evacuation of civilians and wounded soldiers in the path of the Russian advance, and when he was refused, he returned to the river bank.
Two and a half hours later, Dittmar returned to surrender accompanied by his 16-year-old son, Bernhardt.
“It occurred to me the highest command might learn I had been here and I was worried about reprisals,” he explained.