Hans-Erich Voss

Hans-Erich Voss (or Voß ) (1897 - 1969) German Rear-admiral of the Second world war was a .

He is one of the last people to have seen Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels in life.

Biography

Born with Angemünde in the Brandebourg it (October 30th, 1897, it enters the navy in 1915 and finishes its studies with the naval Académie in 1917. It is useful then in the Deutsche Marine during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. Captain since 1939, he becomes the commander of the cruiser Prinz Eugen in October 1942. A little later it meets Joseph Goebbels, Minister for the Propagande of Reich, come to visit the ship in company of several journalists. Goebbels starting from March 1st, 1943 promotes Voss at the post of liaison officer of the navy to the District-general of Hitler with the rank of rear-admiral.

Voss is present at the time of the Complot of July 20th, 1944 against Adolf Hitler. It is present in the conference room at the HQ of Rastenbourg (the Wolfsschanze ) in the capacity as representative of the Navy during the explosion of the bomb deposited by Stauffenberg. Wounded, it recovers quickly and receives later decoration commemorative of the attack, the Verwundetenabzeichen .

As a liaison officer, it follows Hitler, Goebbels and several other leaders Nazis with the Führerbunker whereas the Bataille of Berlin makes rage at the beginning 1945. In the last months of the war, he becomes the confidant of Goebbels and his wife, Magda. He is with the current of their intention to commit suicide and to once kill their six children Hitler would be him even given death.

The April 30th Voss is among the officers to which Hitler announces that he prefers to commit suicide rather than to try to escape from Berlin, then encircled by the Red Army . Johann Rattenhuber, one of the guards of Hitler, testified later that:

In the living room of Hitler, with 10:00, were gathered the generals Burgdorf and Krebs, the admiral Voss, the personal pilot of Hitler, Baur, the Standartenführer Beetz, Obersturmbannführer Hegel, its right-hand man the Sturmbannführer Linge, Günsche and myself. It saw us and " says to us; I chose to leave this life. Thank you for your good and faithful services. Try to flee of Berlin with the troops. I will remain ici." It told us good-bye by tightening us the hand to each one.

Questioned by Soviet officers the May 6th, Voss declared:

When Goebbels learned that Hitler had committed suicide, it became very depressed and sad and known as " It is damage which such a man is not any more among us. But one can nothing make. For us, all is lost now and the only exit to be taken is that which Hitler already chose. I will follow his exemple."

Voss sees Goebbels for the last time on May 1st:

Before the beginning of the exit in mass of the bunker, approximately ten generals and officers, me included, naps gone down in the shelter from Goebbels to tell him good-bye. When it was my turn, I proposed to him to follow us. But he answered me: " The captain should not give up his ship running. I thought of it and I chose to remain here. I do not have nowhere where to go because I will not succeed in fleeing with small the enfants."

Voss then joined the group directed by the S Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke, which left the bunker to try to leave Berlin. The majority of the members of this troop were captured by the Soviets the very same day. It was the case of Voss, which was brought back to the bunker by the Soviets to be questioned like identifying the partially calcined corpses of Joseph and Magda Goebbels and their six children, poisoned by their mother. The Soviet report/ratio reports:

The Voss vice-admiral, questioned on the way in which it had identified Goebbels, his wife and their children, explained that it had recognized the remainders of old the Reichsminister Goebbels thanks to the following indices: the shape of its head, the line of its mouth, the metal support which it carried to the right leg, its gilded badge of the Nazi party, and the vestiges flarings of sound uniforme.

Voss remained a long time Prisoner of war Soviets. In August 1951, it is put in charge by the authorities of the USSR to have to have had a station of importance in the machine of war of Hitler and to have taken part in a war of agressip, in spite of the laws and international treaties . The martial court of the military District of Moscow condemns it to 25 years of prison in February 1952. It finally is slackened and given to the authorities of the East Germany by a decree of the Praesidium of Supreme Soviet of December 1954.

He dies on November 18th, 1969 with Berchtesgaden in Bavaria.